As Day of Silence turns 30, LGBTQ+ students are stuck in 1996

Showcased in the University of Virginia’s main hallway of the student center is a Queer History display depicting the photos from the first few years of the Day of Silence. A lot has changed since then, but not enough.

Started 30 years ago in 1996 in response to the harassment and bullying of LGBTQ+ students, two college students at the University of Virginia launched what would become the Day of Silence. The day has since turned into a global day of action. Landing annually on the second Friday of April, this year, April 10, 2026, marks a milestone that is both a cause for reflection and a measure of how much work remains.

From K-12 schools barring LGBTQ+ student expression, supportive curriculum, and providing community through clubs, we have moved back in time to 1996 and regressed some of the progress we have made in the past few decades. From the recent Chiles v. Salazar decision, which struck down protections against so-called “conversion therapy,” to Mahmoud v. Taylor, which upheld parents’ ability to opt their children out of LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum, students are finding it increasingly difficult to exercise their First Amendment right to free expression and to be authentically themselves.

The 30th anniversary of the Day of Silence arrives at a dangerous moment. The current administration has made explicit its hostility toward LGBTQ+ people in schools through rescinding Title IX, among prior executive orders, by restricting how schools recognize students' gender identities, threatening to withhold funding from schools that support transitioning students, and barring transgender youth from using restrooms and participating in sports aligned with their gender identities. Policies targeting what this administration calls "gender ideology," justifying stripping documented protective content from schools already failing to keep LGBTQ+ students safe. By doing so, they are removing LGBTQ+ young people from classrooms and from history itself. These are not abstract policy debates. These are decisions about whose lives this government will protect.

The impact is documented.

Related: Under new name, supportive schools group will help young LGBTQ+ people Glisten

Glisten's 13th National School Climate Survey, released this month, found that more than 70 percent of LGBTQ+ students experienced harassment or assault during the 2023–2024 school year. Following the 2024 elections, students reported increased hostility not only from peers but from adults in positions of authority, echoing a familiar dynamic from the 1990s when policies and rhetoric signaled that discrimination was acceptable.

For transgender students, the data is even more stark. Only 18 percent reported having supportive school policies, and many avoided bathrooms or locker rooms altogether. Without protections, students were more likely to miss school and feel unsafe, mirroring earlier decades when LGBTQ+ students were forced to limit their visibility just to participate in school life.

“I constantly had to watch how I presented myself and how much of my identity I could share. Safety for me isn't just no bullying. It's being able to exist without shrinking myself,” one of our students stated in a focus group.

These challenges are compounded for LGBTQ+ students of color, nearly half of whom reported race-based harassment. The impact is clear: two in three LGBTQ+ students do not look forward to going to school. That’s not incidental; it reflects a school climate shaped by adult decisions. As in the 1990s, when institutional silence and restriction exacerbated harm, today’s policies risk reinforcing the very conditions that research shows affirming environments can prevent.

For many LGBTQ+ students, support from peers can make all the difference in navigating unsafe or unwelcoming school environments.Glisten

Many of us know this feeling from a different but similar time. Gay and lesbian adults who grew up before there was language for what we were, before a teacher intervened or a club existed or a policy said we belonged, carry that absence in our bodies. The political movement now targeting trans and nonbinary kids is the same one that targeted you in 1996. It has not changed its aims; it has changed its current target within the same community. The kids in these survey findings are navigating a version of what so many LGBTQ+ adults survived 30 years ago, in schools where we never fully belonged, and survival alone is not the standard we should be accepting for children.

Starting as a peaceful student protest 30 years ago, the Day of Silence has remained student-driven. On April 10, they will do it again, through silence, through social media posts describing their lived experiences, through events that break that silence and name what is happening in schools across this country. Showing up is how students say: we are here, and we are not disappearing. You will hear our voices.

Related: LGBTQ+ youth are building their own support systems — because schools won’t

LGBTQ+ students are not asking for special treatment. They are asking for the documented conditions that keep young people in school, out of crisis, and alive; conditions that start with belonging.

On April 10, students will mark that failure through silence. The question is whether Congress, school boards, and state legislators will respond with anything more.

Join us April 10 and interact on social media with assets here or by tagging @glistencommunity and/or using #DayofSilence. Your voice is important to us, even though others may try to silence you.

Melanie Willingham-Jaggers is the CEO of Glisten, a nonprofit dedicated to creating safe and respectful learning environments for youth of all sexual orientations, gender identities, gender expressions, race, and abilities. Learn more at glisten.org.

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