It’s Kiss a Ginger Day, and gay redheads are celebrating all over social media
is National Love Your Red Hair Day, as we’ve previously covered, but January 12 is Kiss a Ginger Day.Comedian and activist Derek Forgie launched Kiss a Ginger Day on Facebook in 2009 as a response to anti-redhead discrimination and bullying. “When you feel like you’ve been ridiculed about something you have no choice over, you feel guilty about something that you really didn’t do wrong, which is a weird thing to do to people,” he said in a YouTube video about the holiday.Sign up for the Queerty newsletter to get your fix of heartthrobs with a side of the hottest queer news and culture.Forgie got the idea for the holiday after hearing that young redheads were getting beat up on a so-called Kick a Ginger Day. “It was the first time I actually got a tiny, little taste of what oppression feels like.
And I’m like, wow, this really sucks,” he said. “People who are of different races or who are gay, they get this all the time.
It was tiny, little, little sample. And that’s when I pushed back and formed the karmic response, which was Kiss a Ginger Day.”A decade after founding the holiday, Forgie said the response had been “overwhelmingly positive,” per The Standard.This year’s ‘Red Hot’ calendar was shot at the iconic LGBTQ+ vacation spot.“It’s a pushback against some of the bullying we have seen and some of the marginalization we have seen, and I think some people really resonate with something that’s positive.”In celebration of Kiss a Ginger Day, we’ve found tons of social media pics tagged with #gayginger, #redheadgay, or some permutation thereof. Here are just some of those proud redheads — at least, the pics safe-for-work enough to show!A post shared by Mike DelVlahos (@mikedelmoro)A post shared by Ricky Allson (@rickyallson)A post shared by Jimmy (@jimmyboy1023)A post shared(@the_gingerfoxx)A post shared by Leander (@leander_official)A post shared by Stevie Trixx (@thestevietrixx)A post shared by Jesse Tyler Ferguson (@jessetyler)A post shared by @gingersn_pA post.
