Today is Wear It Purple Day, a day that aims to promote supportive, safe, empowering and inclusive environments for rainbow young people.

Wear It Purple:

• advocates for and empowers LGBTIQA+ young people
• celebrates and promotes the value of diversity and inclusion in all community settings
• raises awareness about sexuality, sex and gender identity
• challenges harmful social cultures
• champions LGBTIQA+ role-models

In Yarra, we’re lucky to have such a diverse and thriving LGBTIQA+ community that calls our city home. Around 10% of Yarra's community identifies as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer (LGBTIQ+) which is almost double the Victorian average of 5.7%.

Yarra also has a rich history supporting and advocating for LGBTIQA+ communities. You can learn more about Yarra’s queer history through the Queer-ways heritage walk, or from the mural on Little Smith Street.

Yarra City Council is committed to supporting our LGBTIQA+ community to ensure everyone is welcome, engaged and included. This work is outlined in the strategic objectives of our Council Plan 2021-25 as well as our LGBTIQ+ Strategy 2021-2024.

To celebrate our LGBTIQ+ community, we’ve put together a video of Yarra residents and queer advocates to tell us why they love living here.

Thank you to the following people for being involved:

• Cr Edward Crossland (he/him)
• Pharrell Shaymar (he/him)
• Tony Fretton (he/him)
• Spencer Street (he/him)
• Rose (they/them/zee)
• Julie Jones (she/her)
• Renee Thompson (she/her)
• Salem Fluke (he/him)
• Jamie Gardiner (he/him)
• BJ  (he/him)
• Christina Hotka (they/them)
• Cerulean (she/they)
• Ruby (they/them)
• Olivia Allen (she/her)

You can find out more about Yarra’s work in the LGBTIQA+ space by downloading our strategy.