Newmarket Mayor John Taylor is wearing one. So are the owners of Newmarket's Red Thread Brewery. And so is Canadian Olympian Mark Tewksbury.
In just two months since Newmarket resident Megan Glanfield launched her company to sell t-shirts that promote inclusion and raise awareness, it has taken off.
The Revolution Now! t-shirts are sold on the company's website, with a portion of their sale going back to the community for which the shirts raise awareness.
As a science teacher with the York Region District School Board and single parent, Glanfield said she was conscious of the many special awareness, or 'shirt days' celebrated in schools and nationally, but thought more could be done than just raise awareness for a single day.
"We are capable of more than that," she said.
She decided to form a company that didn't just create shirts to raise awareness for a single day, but shirts that create social change and that are designed by and benefit the very community whose message is featured on them.
"The intention in doing it was to craft a message that made people think, to craft a message that was created by members of the community that's being featured and to be able to donate a lot of money back to that community to provide tangible services to people in that community."
Choosing a purple shirt to honour Spirit Day — a day of support for 2SLGBTQ+ youth and to speak out against bullying — as the company's first project was an easy decision for Glanfield because it's a day she relates to personally.
"I felt comfortable starting with that because I'm gay, so it felt genuine for me to start there."
Glanfield said she remembers a time just a few years ago when she wasn't permitted to say "as a member of the gay community" when making a statement over the loudspeaker at her school on Spirit Day.
"I was told that I couldn't do that, that it would be inappropriate for a teacher to be out on the announcements. That was hard to hear in this day and age. It wouldn't have been surprising 25 years ago, but three years ago that was surprising."
The school changed its thinking shortly after but the experience stayed with Glanfield.
"That experience brought me to understand that a t-shirt can be a vehicle that brings about changes in both thinking and policy. In founding this movement, it is my hope that many organizations and people will come to also have transformative inclusion experiences," she said in a blog post.
When choosing an artist from the 2SLGBTQ+community to design the shirt, she turned to Forrest Woods, an 18-year-old transgender artist whose family she knows.
The shirt depicts a caterpillar transitioning into a butterfly and includes the phrase 'We change what we must.'
Woods, a Huron Heights Secondary School student in Newmarket, based the phrase on one used for a school art project and is his response to why he and other transgender people feel the need to transition, said Glanfield.
"Megan remembered the piece that I had made and said that she loved the motto and thought it could be something for everyone," Woods said in a statement.
"The moth as a symbol of my transition became a butterfly and the different stages of metamorphosis, from a caterpillar to a butterfly became the design. In order to become a butterfly, a caterpillar has to go through a brutal process of breaking itself down and building itself back up to its final and full state of being. 2SLGBTQ+ people often have to go through a stage of metamorphosis like this — a breaking down of ideas and sometimes relationships that can hold people back from being their truest selves. It can be painful and difficult, but on the other side of it there is freedom to be who they truly are, which is beautiful. "
Eight dollars from the sale of every $40 purple shirt goes to The 519, a Toronto-based charity that provides support and accommodation to the 2SLGBTQ+ community throughout the GTA.
"I grew up in a different time. I grew up before the marriage law changed. I grew up before it was commonplace for gay and lesbian people to have children. I grew up in a time when it was difficult to be accepted in our church communities. A lot of those things have changed, The 519 has been there through all of it," said Glanfield.
Staff at Alexander Muir Public School, her daughter's school, have purchased shirts and that, said Glanfield, means a lot to her.
"For my daughter and her friends, what it shows is that you can make a difference for people in a way that really influences their life. For me, it means a lot personally because I think it means she's growing up in a world where her family and her friends will be accepted for who they are."
Glanfield is amazed at how supportive the business community has been. Many local companies, she said, have either purchased shirts for their entire company or supported the project online.
"All these guys jumped on board right away which meant so much....I grew up in a time where big tough guys who do construction and own beer companies wouldn't be supporting queer youth, so to see them do that and do it so open-heartedly and invest both their money and their social capital to help us, it means everything. That speaks a lot, I think, to where Newmarket is at now. The people in Newmarket are amazing. This has really been a project that has made my heart feel so good to see how the town has come together."
A grey shirt featuring the company's logo was designed by Black artist Rob Wright.
Money raised from the sale of the grey shirts goes to Urban Promise Toronto, an after-school care program for youth in Toronto Community Housing.
The company's most recent initiative is a winter beanie with Wright's logo design. Money from the sale of the beanies will go toward setting up an academic scholarship presented to a Black graduating student from York Region by the York Region District School Board’s Alliance of Educators for Black Students.
"We're hoping to have at minimum a $1,000 academic scholarship available to a York Region student by February," said Glanfield.
The shirts are made of organic cotton and supplied by an Ontario-based company. It was important to her, Glanfield said, that the shirts be environmentally friendly. Her goal, she added, isn't to make a profit but to sell sustainable products that give back to the community.
"It's a quite expensive endeavour. I'm a science teacher, I know how bad the cotton industry is. It's environmentally terrible. There's not a lot of money being made in any of this, but that's not my intention. It's meant to better the lives of communities who could use some support. It's completely a passion project," she said.
A plan is in the works to debut a pink t-shirt in the new year. The shirt will be designed by local, indigenous artist Keith Gattie in support of anti-bullying and the money raised by the sale of the shirt will go to the Gwekwaadziwin Miikan Youth Mental Health and Addiction Program.
"We can't get into the oppression Olympics and only look after our own. You can't liberate one group without liberating all. Until we are all free no one is. So we have to work together," said Glanfield.
