Reflections of a Repentant Strip Club Bouncer

Hello, my name is John, and I’m a recovering strip club bouncer (Hi, John).

I am here today to get some things off my chest. To tell you why my conscience has been bothering me for some time. To tell you how I deviated from a value-driven upbringing into a dark age of seedy scheming as a door guy at a number of topless clubs over a five-year span. Unlike most of the unfortunate women who are drawn or forced into the sex industry due to a lack of viable earning options, I had a number of opportunities to work honestly elsewhere. I wasn’t seduced by ‘the game’ because of what friends and customers assumed to be the obvious perks of working with naked, mostly beautiful women; I was enchanted by the green paper than doubles as morality’s kryptonite.

What’s that? You didn’t think bouncers made much money? Think again. In the strip club money is everywhere, and dancers aren’t the only ones exposing themselves to get it.

The most gratifying experiences invariably occur as a result of hard work and sacrifice: Four years of determined studying results in graduation and a degree; commitment and compromise and extensive planning results in a wedding day; long hours in the kitchen baking, blending and basting result in Thanksgiving dinner. There is virtually nothing worth pride that is not owed to some kind of prolonged challenge necessitating its realization. Though the lap dance results in gratification - the male customer satisfies a primitive need to exert control or fill an emotional void while the dancer benefits financially- the sacrifice of time is not progressive. Indeed, the additive effect of each lap dance is regressive in an emotional sense, and in many cases a financial one. Though women in the sex industry might make more money per hour than a woman with an office or restaurant job, the strip club atmosphere is rife with drugs and drinking. In my experience, it was not uncommon to see a dancer end her shift and spend up to six more hours in the club drinking, smoking, and frequently running to her car or bathroom and returning with a sudden violent cough or case of the sniffles. The strip club lifestyle is a powerful, insidious cocoon of temptation that preys on vulnerability through impulse and illusion. Though her flesh and opportunity are the only requisites for a woman to make money- and sometimes very good money- the ironic twist is that in life’s bigger picture, even if she is strong enough to avoid drugs and alcohol, the sacrifices of dignity and physical and emotional health are much more significant and far less rewarding than those required by conventional professional and academic advancement.

The rituals of the strip club are obviously less visceral and risky than those of prostitution, but the underlying premise is the same- trading sex for money- and while it is an easy and convenient arrangement for the male customer and pimp, for the female performer, it is a tragic existence of subjugation, danger, and indignation. This fundamental reality is the foundation of my regret. Though I worked hard each night bussing tables and moving chairs, and taking out the trash and stocking glassware, I made most of my money via two basic methods: 1) accommodating a customer’s lust by selling a dream, and 2) enhancing a dancer’s income by setting her up with customers possessing fat wallets or no discipline or both. Though I was not self-employed, in a technical interpretation of the word I was a pimp due to my role as match-maker and protector, two services for which I was compensated by one or both of the parties involved. As I reflect on my time as a bouncer, I am amazed at how effectively everyone involved lied to each other and themselves in order to pretend that happiness and genuine gratification could come from such an arrangement.

The ‘easy’ theme is prevalent in the strip club:

• It’s easier to deal with life’s problems by taking drugs and drinking to escape rather than meeting them head-on and seeking healthy, productive solutions. The strip club makes most of its money on alcohol sales, and drugs permeate the landscape. The lifestyle is fast and full of false happiness.
• It’s easier for men to pay women for dances and sex than to bridge the emotional and physical rift that has grown between them and their girlfriends or wives. Many customers are married, and if they spend enough in the VIP sections, some dancers go beyond simply dancing to realize a big payday. The line between stripping and outright prostitution would get blurry on weekend nights at the club.
• It’s easier for bouncers to run around the floor facilitating faux-mating rituals and making more money than 25% of the dancers in the club than it is to check IDs at Joe’s pub and make $8-$10/hour. Though there were scrapes from time to time, the bouncers where I worked, including myself, were not very large or intimidating. We preemptively stopped fights before they happened by shaking hands, arranging dances, and behaving like indentured sycophants who made sure not to trip any testosterone triggers.

Social hierarchies form through the competitive pursuit and accumulation of money, and while the strip club is no different than the rest of the world in this regard, the process is more frenzied and overt since there is a limited time frame (a given shift during hours of operation) for each person to secure his or her piece of the pie. Dancers seek big spenders, servers seek tables with big head counts, and bouncers seek to arrange popular dancers with big spenders and good servers with big tables. Though the bouncers pooled money at the end of the night, the green fruit of our pockets reflected each man’s skill at selling fantasy and his level of camaraderie with the girls; it determined a pecking order based on salesmanship and hustling.

My purpose in revealing the inner workings of a strip club is not to justify or rationalize my involvement in the industry, but I want you to understand how good people- people you might call your friends or brothers or sisters- can be drawn to it because of the vast amount of money it offers, and how cold, calculating structure and desensitization can result from being immersed within it. It was incredibly easy making money off of the backs of women, as so many others do, and for this I will forever be ashamed. I think of myself as a good person, and despite my time as a strip club bouncer, I have healthy respect and deferential admiration for women. I am certain, however, that many of the women in my life who I profess to admire would be severely disappointed to hear of my involvement in the sex industry.

This missive is merely the first small flower of a burgeoning realization. I was wrong for being a pimp; for profiting from the ever-present male demand for sexual gratification. I was wrong for letting money overpower the values and good judgment that had previously been my behavioral barometers. I was wrong for being a liar; for telling myself that the ends justified the means. I was wrong for being weak and for choosing the easy path.

To women everywhere, I was wrong, and I am truly sorry.

Kids Are NOT For Sale in Chicago

In alliance with Shared Hope International, we invite you to join us in combating the sexual exploitation of children right here in Chicago by raising awareness about this increasingly prevalent problem through social media. The immediate action item of the organization's Social Media Action Kit can help us spread the word about deterring the purchase of sexual acts from minors by leveraging our social networks to communicate this important message. Concurrently, Shared Hope International--with its local partners--will host rallies, trainings, and events throughout the week of June 19th through the 26th for the community to participate in. Help us spread the word and use social media for REAL change!

Kids Are NOT For Sale in Chicago
Social Media Action Kit

This June, Shared Hope International needs your help to spread an important message in Chicago – Kids are NOT for Sale! By using our Social Media Action Kit, you can make a difference without ever leaving your desk.

Take Action in Chicago!

Throughout the month of June, we need freedom fighters on the internet spreading the word that kids are not for sale in Chicago! By effectively using social media networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and blogs, we can encourage all Chicagoans to take a stand against domestic minor sex trafficking!

We have devised three options for awareness via status updates and tweets that you can use to ring the bell in your community:
a.) Statistics on child sex trafficking in Chicago – It’s happening here!
b.) Links to awareness videos, blogs and news that inform Chicagoans on recent and developing news stories.
c.) Promoting Kids Are NOT For Sale Events in Chicago during the last weeks of June.

Additionally, we have a selection of profile badges to use during your campaigning to help inform friends and fans of your cause. Simply upload these in place of your normal Facebook, Myspace, Twitter or blog profile photo for the duration of our campaign.

Feel free to update your status as many times as you like – your voice is SO IMPORTANT to ending the sale of children on Chicago’s streets.


[Copy and paste the following statements as your daily status update.]


SATURDAY- Chicago’s children are being sold on the streets of Chicago EVERY day for commercial sex. Who will be there to stop buyers and traffickers from stealing their innocence? Rescue kids in your area by raising the alarm that KIDS ARE NOT FOR SALE!

SUNDAY- FACT: Most prostituted women and children in Chicago service an average of 10 men per night.

MONDAY- In a study of women involved in Chicago’s sex trade, 62% percent reported that they started before the age of 18. KIDS are NOT for Sale in Chicago!!
TUESDAY - FACT: As many as 25,000 women and children are prostituted in metropolitan Chicago EVERY YEAR. Wake up Chicago – Kids are NOT for Sale!

WEDNESDAY - 21 is the average age of men purchasing sex in Chicago – we need to say NO and END DEMAND!

THURSDAY - 90% of prostituted women and children in Chicago report being physically and sexually abused at the hands of traffickers and customers. Kids are NOT for Sale!

FRIDAY – In a recent study, Chicago men named Craigslist as the website most frequently used to solicit sexual services. REAL MEN DON’T BUY SEX.

SATURDAY - 70% of women involved in the sex industry in Chicago said they had been recruited by a pimp. The other 30% ended up with a pimp by the time they were interviewed. Learn more @ www.sharedhope.org

ADDITIONAL TWEETS/STATUSES:
• In a study of federal, state and local law enforcement officials based in the Chicago metropolitan area, none of the officers personally encountered any international trafficking cases, only domestic cases of commercial sexual exploitation of children.
• Men are soliciting sex with women and minors EVERY DAY in Chicago! Visit http://www.chicagopolice.org/ps/ to see the faces of some who were caught.
• 90: the percentage of Chicago’s sex trade that occurs through “legal” establishments such as escort services, strip clubs and massage parlors. This includes commercial sex with minors and foreign victims. Help END DEMAND!!
• A survey of men who purchased commercial sex revealed that 87% believed women freely choose to enter prostitution; 62% believed the majority of women in prostitution are fully informed about the nature of the sex trade before entry.
• Research shows that 100% of prostitutes in Chicago have experienced some type of violence while in the sex trade. This includes being raped, kicked, threatened with a weapon, punched and slapped.

Links to Information on Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking
1. The National Report on Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking is PROOF that at least 100,000 American children are being prostituted every year in cities and towns across the U.S. Read more @ www.sharedhope.org
2. If there was no buyer to feed the demand for commercial sex with minors, there would be no market, and there would be no victim. We need to END DEMAND!
3. Spread the word about child sex trafficking in America through this short four minute video. Kids are NOT for Sale in America!
4. American children are being sold into commercial sex – watch this short video and post this onto as many statuses as possible – Kids are NOT For Sale! http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=31723758&id=14502300#!/video/video.php?v=398378178888


For more information, please visit: http://www.sharedhope.org/what/chicago.asp

A Census-Taker's Reflection on Peddling Porn

Lara Janson, a former Comcast employee and now Census-taker, contributes an insightful blog post on the Huffington Post on her reflection of the porn industry and its inconspicuous entry into the homes of our communities.

"When I took a job peddling Comcast door-to-door in Latino areas of Chicago, I did not realize that the question of pornography would be a routine part of my job. And even when I began asking each of my customers if they did want Playboy, I did not make an immediate mental connection between my principal career combating human trafficking and my involvement with Comcast. Well, I did make one connection when I made the decision to start selling Comcast services: I thought the job would keep my Spanish fresh, thus better preparing me to communicate with potential Latina victims I might encounter in my anti-human trafficking work. Little did I know that the vocabulary I would use to ask customers about "pay-per-view" channels would parallel only too closely the terminology I have used in strip clubs when conducting outreach to Latina sex trafficking victims."

Read more here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lara-janson/the-price-of-peddling-por_b_569242.html

Private Lies: Two Plays About Prostitution and Johns

Please Join Us For the Premiere of:

Private Lies: Two Plays About Prostitution and Johns
The Strings Attached by Caleb Probst
The Johns by James Frizzell


Two new one-act plays, written by two Chicago playwrights, examine one problem-prostitution-from a new angle. Caleb Probst's THE STRINGS ATTACHED and James Frizzell's THE JOHNS explore the underlying causes of the demand for prostitution through their portrayals of four men who buy sex.

Raw with emotion, these plays delve into a psychological terrain that still remains largely ignored. The audience is taken to new heights as the dark secrets of those individuals driving the demand for the sex trade are unearthed to reveal their true motivations, encompassing both the horror and banality of exploitation, lust, and power.

The production is presented by End Demand Illinois, a coalition of 20 organizations working to end sexual exploitation by directly addressing the culture, institutions and individuals that perpetrate, profit from or tacitly support sexually exploitative acts against people.

When: May 27th through June 13
Thursday through Saturdays at7 PM
Sundays at 3 PM

Where: Viaduct Theater
3111 North Western Avenue
Chicago, Illinois 60618

Cost: $12
Reservations: 773.296.6024


There will be talk-backs with prostitution survivors, experts in the field, and the play's artists following the Thursday and Sunday performances.

For Those Seeking to Take Back the Night in Chicago

© Kaethe Morris Hoffer 2010
Kaethe Morris is the Legal Director of the Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation

(*This is a speech given at the University of Chicago’s “Take Back the Night” Rally April 29, 2010.)

Your presence here is love made visible. By standing here you demonstrate concern for those who have been, or are going to be, sexually assaulted. The steps you walk, the words you say, the time you give to talk about, and to oppose, sexual assault, are acts of compassion for victims, and acts of defiance against a culture that continues to deny, to silence, and simultaneously to encourage, the sexual use and abuse of girls and women (and sometimes boys and men) for the pleasure and benefit of people—mostly men—who insist on using their talents to engineer situations in which they can, and do, engage in acts of sexual violation while she (or sometimes he) lies there, or leans there, or is propped up, sometimes inert, sometimes passed out or passing in and out of consciousness, sometimes crying, sometimes resisting, sometimes saying no once, sometimes saying no repeatedly, sometimes whispering opposition quietly, sometimes screaming loudly.

The crux of the problem, as everyone here surely already understands, is threefold: First, there are people, mostly men, who engage in acts of sexual intimacy that are not wanted, that are not asked for, acts for which they do not have consent; Second, and while always insisting that even one raped child or adult is too many, there are way too many men who do this, and way too many girls and women (and boys and men) who are on the receiving end of bodily invasions that leave them feeling forever marked as someone to whom sexual violence can be done with impunity; Third, and crucially, the systems that exist in our communities, which are supposed to deter, to prevent, and to punish acts of sexual violation are so ineffective, so untrustworthy, so backwards, so hostile to seeing and opposing rape as it actually happens, that the overwhelming majority of victims of rape never even report being raped.

In 2010, thanks to girls and women (and some boys and men) who came before us and fought for laws and social change, who endured derision and disrespect, name-calling and physical violence, massive amounts of research has been done and continues to be done on sexual assault, and the criminal law of every state in this country says that it is unlawful for one person—even if married to their victim—to obtain sex from another without consent. But in 2010, thanks to denial, or laziness, or misogyny, or the simple enduring power of tradition and the status quo, the criminal law is being divested of its power to deter or punish sexual assault by a society which continues to treat women—perhaps not intentionally, but certainly in effect—as second-class citizens. Our complaints of rape are now worthy of being recorded by researchers, and sometimes by police, but to the extent that women who are raped in ways that are typical of rape seek to have their rapists investigated or punished, mostly what they discover is a system that is unwilling or unable to stand with them in exposing and punishing their perpetrator.

In Cook County, Illinois, where I practice law, where I listen to and stand with survivors of sexual assault, I hear time and time again that prosecutors in Chicago—the women and men whose job it is to enforce the criminal laws of this state—will not charge a man who is known to his victim with sexual assault unless they have “corroborative evidence” like contemporaneous third-party witness testimony, serious bodily injury, or offender confession. To be clear—what I see, and hear, and was specifically told by a Cook County sex crimes prosecutor, is that it is the policy of the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office to refuse to authorize felony sexual assault charges against a man unless the rape was witnessed by someone else, or it was so violent as to leave her with visible bodily injuries, or he was so stupid as to admit that he did not have her consent to do what he did. Now, to be clear, I should also say that the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office officially denies that this is their policy. In fact, they claim that they are willing to prosecute rape even when the “only” evidence they have of it is the testimony of the victim herself. But while scientific research has made many realities of rape incontrovertible, I have yet to see any evidence that local prosecutors are willing to prosecute rape as it mostly occurs.

In the same way that science has established that human behavior has an impact on the global climate (and in the same way that there continue to be people who lie about the problem) there are many things that have now been established as true regarding rape. The first thing that we know is that rape is not rare. In fact, the research suggests that any time you are with more than five women, you are likely sharing space with a women who has been, or will be, subjected to forcible sex. Other things that we know about rape are these: it is mostly committed by boys and men who are known to their victims; it mostly leaves its victims harmed and wounded but lacking serious or visible ‘bodily’ injury; it mostly happens in private; it mostly is committed by men who insist—and perhaps genuinely believe—that they did nothing wrong; it mostly occurs within, and not across, socio-economic, racial, and ethnic lines. Fundamentally, any person who is reasonably well educated about rape will recognize that the bulk of what passes as conventional wisdom about rape is wrong, it is frequently racist and classist, and it fundamentally impairs the ability of most well-meaning people to believe women in the aftermath of rape victims—because girls and women who have been raped usually report experiences that contradict everything our culture still wants us to believe about sexual assault.

And of course, girls and women who experience rape are frequently the first people to doubt themselves. They learn the hard way that rapists don’t look like homeless men, they look like the hottie from math class. They learn the hard way that it is romantic dates, and not dark alleys, that make them vulnerable to rape. They learn the hard way that it is classmates bearing six-packs, and not strangers bearing guns, who target them for rape. They learn the hard way that their response to forced sex is to freeze or cry, rather than fight or attack. While science does reveal that some women falsely claim to have been raped—just as (and no more frequently than) some people make false claims about being mugged, or file fraudulent insurance claims, or engage in other acts of deception, the truth about lies in the context of rape is that the most common lie about rape is that it didn’t occur. Mostly, when women lie about being raped, it is the lie they begin telling themselves while the rape is going on. It is “this isn’t happening” “this can’t be happening” “I’m not being raped” “I can’t have been raped” “he wouldn’t rape me” “he can’t be raping me” “he didn’t rape me….did he?”

And while rape teaches its victims the hard way the truth about rape, too many people who have not been raped continue to cling to outdated myths about rape—just like people who deny global warming—because the realities of rape are far more disturbing than the falsehoods they have grown up with.
So those of you who are here, who either know about rape because you have survived it, or because you have opened your eyes and your ears and your hearts and your minds to everything about it that is knowable, have in front of you the following task: You must insist that the realities of rape are acknowledged—even though the reality is much more unpleasant that the fiction. You must insist that rape as it happens is prosecuted—even though rape as it happens is much harder to prosecute than rape as it is imagined. You must resist, with every skill that you have, all of the lies about rape that continue to be promulgated and nurtured and supported in our culture.

Because you are here, I know that you have already resisted most of what our culture wants us to believe about rape. Because you are here you have already rejected the lie that rape is rare. You have probably rejected the lie that it is being dealt with properly or well by the criminal justice system. And I hope you have rejected one of the worst lies of all—the lie that rape is inevitable, that it is a problem that can not be eradicated.

Because while research confirms what women tell us about the men who do rape, research and women also reveal this: MOST men never commit rape. Think about it. The overwhelming majority of men never, that means not once, have sex with someone who is not a willing partner. And here is another thing that we know: most men who do engage in rape—while they frequently rape many more than one woman in their life—actually spend most of their time not raping. Like most men, they go to school, they go to work, they eat dinner, they work out, they even interact with women—all while not raping. They even, frequently, have sex that is the result of mutual desire and consent. In other words, they demonstrate a clear ability to refrain from engaging in rape.

So if most men can refrain from engaging in rape for all of their lives, and if men who do like to rape are capable of refraining from rape for most of the hours of their day, and most of the days of their week, then rape can be refrained from. And if it can be refrained from, it doesn’t have to happen. It is not inevitable. Currently, rape happens because there are men who like to rape, and they rape when they think they can get away with it. And everything our culture continues to pretend about rape helps them get away with it. And most of the systems that are in place to stop them or punish them aren’t doing what they can or they should to respond to them. So as you continue to work to reveal the truth and destroy the lies about rape that nurture its existence in our culture, keep this truth at the center—rape is not inevitable. We can take back the night. We can take back the day. We can, and together, we will.

The Effects of China's One-Child Family Policy on the Commercial Sex Trade by Jamie Lynn Johnson

What happens in a culture where males are so heavily valued over females that many families choose to abort or even commit infanticide in order to have a son and assure their family name will be carried on, their family property will stay in the family, and they will have someone to care for them in their old age? To answer this question, all one has to do is take a look overseas at China. The gender imbalance that China is currently facing due to the One-Child Family policy offers unique insight into the cultural and social ramifications of gender inequality.

In an effort to maintain economic stability, the Chinese government enacted the One-Child Family policy, limiting urban couples to one child per family and rural couples to two children per family (but, only if the first child is a girl or one of the parents is the only child from their family). After 25 years of enforcing such a policy—within a culture where males are heavily preferred over females—the results are staggering and have various ramifications. According to a Washington Times article, Chinese boys now outnumber Chinese girls by the millions. Research conducted in 2009 by the BMJ (formerly known as the British Medical Journal) revealed that in the year 2005, there were 32 million extra Chinese men under the age of 20, and that 1.1 million extra males were born in just that year. Recently, the government-backed Chinese Academy of Social Services (CASS) predicted that 24 million Chinese men might not be able to find brides in 2020. However, previous estimates put that number in the 30 million to 50 million range (Wetzstein, 2010). The impact of the lopsided sex imbalance is starting to spill beyond China's borders. The New England Journal of Medicine reports that many other Asian countries with declining fertility rates and a traditional preference for males are also seeing sex-ratio imbalances: Taiwan, 1.19; Singapore, 1.18; South Korea, 1.12; and parts of northern India, 1.20—largely because of sex-selective abortion (Hesketh, 2005).

The Chinese government has acknowledged the potentially disastrous social consequences of this sex imbalance. In addition to increased mental health problems and socially disruptive behaviors among men, the shortage of women has resulted in kidnapping and trafficking of women for marriage and increased numbers of commercial sex workers (Hesketh, 2005).This phenomenon of "missing girls" has turned China into "a giant magnet" for human traffickers, who lure or kidnap women and sell them—even multiple times—into forced marriages or the commercial sex trade, stated Ambassador Mark Lagon, who oversaw human rights issues at the State Department during the administration of President George W. Bush. Lagon asserts, "The impact is obvious. It's creating a 'Wild West' sex industry in China," (Wetzstein, 2010).

Horrified by the egregious practices of kidnapping, human trafficking, and sexual slavery that have become “solutions” to the growing problem of gender imbalance, HBO filmed a documentary which brings viewers face-to-face with the crisis brought on by the controversial one child policy. “China’s Stolen Children” tells the story of two parents
who hire a martial arts expert working to recover kidnapped children in an effort to search for their son. We also see a young couple who are forced to sell their daughter because they are too young to marry and obtain a birth permit. The narrator, Ben Kinsley, states, “The Chinese government doesn’t want the outside world to know about the crisis facing China’s children, so this film had to be made entirely undercover. The film crew posed as tourists, moved hotels every three days, and changed SIM cards after every phone call.”

The One-Child Family policy was passed as a way to protect China from economic collapse, but there are clearly unintended consequences affecting the lives of millions of its people. The propagation of human trafficking and sexual exploitation its influence by people, ideas, and governmental policy. It is important that when approaching the fight to end human trafficking that all such influences are considered.


References:

The Effect of China's One-Child Family Policy after 25 Years
Therese Hesketh, Ph.D., Li Lu, M.D., and Zhu Wei Xing, M.P.H.
The New England Journal of Medicine
Volume 353:1171-1176 September 15, 2005

With 1-child policy, China 'missing' girls
'Gendercide' fueling sex trade the Washington Times January 27, 2010 By
Cheryl Wetzstein

National Day of Silence by Amanda Richter

On April 16, 2010, thousands of students from around the nation will be participating in the National Day of Silence, including myself. For twelve hours, I will be completely silent to honor those whose voices have been silenced due to their sexual orientation. The Day of Silence also signifies the need to address the issues of bullying and harassment of GLBTQ students across the country.

I have listed a brief history of the Day of Silence below that I got off the Day of Silence website. For more information, please go to www.dayofsilence.org

1996 - The Day of Silence is born. Students organized the first Day of Silence, its original name, at the University of Virginia. With over 150 students participating, those involved felt it was a great success. The Day of Silence received extensive local press coverage and a positive response from the UVA community members, motivating Maria Pulzetti to take the Day of Silence nationally.

1997 - From one, to one hundred, National Day of Silence takes off with a web page and much dedication, Pulzetti and then 19-year-old Jessie Gilliam, developed the project to be used in schools across the country. It was renamed the National Day of Silence, and that year nearly 100 colleges and universities participated. Some schools in Australia heard about the project and modeled a similar day for Australian schools.

1998 - The Day keeps growing, the Project begins Pulzetti and Gilliam realized they could not expand the National Day of Silence alone, so they organized a team of regional coordinators who could assist schools better by working with and understanding local networks. Expanding from a one-day vow of silence to include additional actions and educational events, the Day of Silence was officially inaugurated. That year, for the first time in a recognized number, students in high schools joined the organizing efforts, helping double the number of participating schools to over 200.

1999-2001 - More people, more time, a message of unity sets in through the sponsorship of Advocates for Youth, Gilliam worked part-time over the summer of 1999 to maintain and expand the Day of Silence. A first in the project's history, a team of volunteers met for a weekend in Boston to discuss strategy and develop future plans towards assisting schools. The Day of Silence continued to support high schools, colleges and universities around the country with volunteers led by then 18-year-old Chloe Palenchar, as the National Project Coordinator. Over 300 high schools participated that year.

2001 - GLSEN developed a proposal to become the official organizational sponsor of the Day of Silence and provide new funding, staff and volunteers. GLSEN developed a first-ever Leadership Team of high school students to support local high school organizers around the country and a partnership with the United States Student Association, to ensure colleges and universities receive equal support.

2002 - Making noise, making history In what has become the largest single student-led action towards creating safer schools, the April 10th Day of Silence was organized by students in more than 1,900 schools across the country, with estimated participation of more than 100,000 students. Representative Eliot Engel introduces the first ever resolution on the Day of Silence in Congress, which received support of 29 co-signers; additionally, Governor Gray Davis of California issued an official proclamation making April 10, 2002 the National Day of Silence. Local Day of Silence® organizing efforts appear in over fifty media stories across the country, including USA Today, MSNBC, CNN, Voice of America and a live broadcast on NPR. Breaking the Silence rallies are organized with tremendous success in Albany, NY, Kalamazoo, MI, Missoula, MT, Ft. Lauderdale & Sarasota, FL, Eugene, OR, Boulder, CO and Washington DC, among other places.

2008 - The 2008 Day of Silence on April 25 was held in memory of Lawrence King, a 15-year-old eighth-grade student in Oxnard, California, was shot and killed by a 14-year-old classmate because of his sexual orientation and gender expression. Hundreds of thousands of students at more than 8,000 schools participated. Their efforts were supported by hundreds of community-based "Breaking the Silence" events at the end of the day. Together, concerned students created a powerful call to action in order to prevent future tragedies.

There are simple steps that all schools can take to make schools safer for all students, to end the endemic name-calling and harassment that LGBT students and their allies face every day. We need to act now so that Lawrence King and the countless others who endure anti-LGBT name-calling, bullying and harassment will not be forgotten, and so that we can create an enduring legacy of safer schools for all in their names.

Students handed out "Speaking Cards" which said:
"Please understand my reasons for not speaking today. I am participating in the Day of Silence, a national youth movement bringing attention to the silence faced by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and their allies in schools. My deliberate silence echoes that silence, which is caused by name-calling, bullying and harassment. I believe that ending the silence is the first step toward fighting these injustices. Think about the voices you are not hearing today. What are you going to do to end the silence?"