Crowdfunding Campaign To Save Melbourne’s LBGTQI Formal Smashes $15K Goal

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Published

February 15, 2016

A crowdfunding campaign to counter a vile campaign by a homophobic group trying to prevent an LGBTQI-friendly formal going ahead has smashed its target of $15,000 overnight.

The formal – called the Same Sex Gender Diverse Formal, and taking place in Melbourne on April 9 – is an initiative from the Safe Schools Coalition Victoria and the Minus18 Foundation, with the idea to give young LGBTQI people who may feel uncomfortable / straight-up not be allowed to be themselves at their own school formal.

As the event page says, it’s “A night to wear what you want, come with who you want, and just be yourself!”

Yet for reasons beyond our comprehension, the Stop Safe Schools Coalition took umbrage with a formal telling kids it’s okay to not be straight and cisgendered, and launched a campaign to get their (paltry) followers to buy up all the tickets. In their own words, they were preventing young people from attending because “the more tickets sold to us, the more youth we protect.”

Within hours of the campaign launching, the Minus18 Foundation set up a fundraising page to counter it, asking for donations of $40 to allow a young LGBTQI person to attend for free.

And, around 9am-ish this morning, they hit their $15k target. YES THE WORLD IS NOT A TOTALLY TERRIBLE PLACE.

They updated their fundraising page this morning, announcing that they’re not going anywhere just because a few homophobic bullies on the internet are telling them to:

“We’ve had more than 375 tickets sponsored! THANK YOU! We will now increase the size of the venue, and are accepting further sponsorship of tickets.

“A conservative group have organised for their members to ‘buy up’ tickets to block young people from attending. We won’t give up that easily! We’ve upped our target as a result – we want to make sure no young person misses out. Donated tickets are given to young people who connect with us in person or via phone, and can’t be blocked by organised protests. Please help us to make sure that the Formal isn’t an empty venue this year.”

Here’s a fun fact to brighten ya’ morning: when we started this post, the funds raised was sitting at $16,000. Right now, it’s over $19,000. Goddamnit Australia, you’re making us feel things today. Bring it in.