Today, blue jeans are queer. Or at least that's the message of the Queer Straight Alliance (QSA), which is reinstating an old Tufts tradition called Blue Jeans Day.
The event is, at its core, meant to promote discussion on campus about homophobia and stereotypes of homosexuality. Anyone who wears blue jeans today will be considered queer or in support of queer rights, according to organizers.
"It is a day that we claim that anyone that wears blue jeans ... is gay," freshman Allister Chang, who is coordinating Blue Jeans Day at Tufts, said. "The hope is that this event will help provoke [students] to think about how many gay people experience a similar feeling when they must give up something that's comfortable or something they do everyday for fear of society's reprimanding."
The initiative is designed to be somewhat of a surprise to many heterosexuals, but at the same time encourage those who knew about the event ahead of time to make an active choice.
"It's meant to be a surprise on the majority of the heterosexual population so that people will unknowingly wear blue jeans and perhaps become the object of homophobia," QSA co-coordinator Ryan Heman, a sophomore, said. "The question is: Are people going to consciously not wear blue jeans [today] and, therefore, practice homophobia?"
Blue Jeans Day began at Tufts in 1976 but ended several years ago due to public outcry among the Tufts community. "When Blue Jeans Day started it was a whole lot more controversial," Heman said. "That is why we stopped running it in the late '90s."
The QSA is bringing back Blue Jeans Day to confront a sense of apathy, according to Heman.
"Recently, it has become clear there is a sense of indifference or ambivalence in the queer community at Tufts," he said.
Today, the event takes place at numerous schools, such as Cornell University, Princeton University, Yale University, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Michigan.
At Tufts, organizers hope the event will stir activism among the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender (LGBT) community, as well as within the greater community.
"We want people to start thinking about sexuality and how it plays in everyday life," Heman said. "We want people who do identify as queer to come out and claim their identity on Blue Jeans Day, whether it's through the subtle way of just wearing blue jeans or through the more overt way of maybe wearing a rainbow shirt in addition to the jeans."
Students who want to discuss or challenge the idea of Blue Jeans Day are encouraged to attend a QSA meeting on March 24, Chang said, although he expressed concern over whether the meeting would prove effective at inducing dialogue.
"I think the point is that if people are going to challenge Blue Jeans Day, they are not going to want to come and talk about it [at the meeting]," Chang said.
