LGBTAitP Part 23: Et tu, ~Bianca?

[Asta Kask]

There's a difference between there being "no concrete data on benefits" and "no benefits at all", since there may or may not be real studies (sloppy googling isn't working, I have a headache) and it's pretty hard to tease people's feelings out in surveys. For all we know, it does help. It helps people who do it and it raises awareness. No, that's not all we can do, but it's not all we do do. No, it's not the most helpfulest thing in the world, but sometimes, a little is all we have to give, and there's no reason not to, even if it only makes a little difference, only to you and your friends and your school. That's okay. It calls attention, like speaking does, and it's something that stands out a bit, more than a poster at a school, I'd say. We should not do things that are harmful. I doubt this harms anything, so why not?

There's something called opportunity cost. I don't know how much money the promotion of the Day of Silence cost, and it probably isn't much, but could the money, could the time, could the enthusiasm be used better. That's something anyone who has limited resources has to consider.

Now, we don't know that it helps. For all we know it hurts - we have no less data supporting that. Does it raise consciousness? We don't know. Do people remember this the week after? We don't know.

It's been 16 years - an evaluation would be nice, otherwise we don't know whether we should be doing this or something else.