It Gets Better

Did you know that queer kids have four times higher suicide rate? Did you know that 40% of homeless teenagers are LGBT who were kicked out of their house by their own parents? How can this happen?

I could not think of a better name for this post. In fact, it would make no sense to call it differently because I will be talking about the "It Gets Better" campaign by Dan Savage. Dan and his husband in Canada (and boyfriend in America) Terry came to Google today and shared the story of the campaign he and Terry started, what lead them to it, and what was the response from the internets.

As Dan pointed out, bullying is often something that goes away as soon as you come home from school. But not for LGBT teenagers. They are often bullied in their own homes, by their own family. That's why so many LGBT teenagers run away from home or get kicked out. And the rest of them stay in the closet pretending to conform with the gender expectations associated with the reproductory organs they carry. They are living zombies, waiting to turn eighteeen when they can freely decide their own destiny and find happiness.

LGBT activists have hard time getting invited to talk at middle schools or high schools. Parents often think that LGBT people are trying to recruit these kids to their camp. Or they think that they are some creeps trying to get their hands on their kids. That's why it is so extremely difficult to access the kids that need help the most.

Thankfuly, there are the internets and smart phones! Kids watch "It Gets Better" YouTube videos in their room, at night, under the blanket, on their phone. They watch adult LGBT folks talk about their own growing pains, bullying, and finding the happiness later in life.

My co-workers created one such video as well:

And so did the President:

Here is a moving video of two middle school teachers who in fear of losing their jobs filmed this video without speaking or showing their faces:

There were somewhere between twenty and thirty thousand (!!!) videos submitted to this day. In fact this campaign reached such a huge magnitude, that many middle schools started GSA (Gay-Straight Alliance) groups. Lots of straight kids join the groups to show their support for their queer classmates. It became cool to be for the queer kids and be on their side. I am very happy this movement is happening, and hope it will keep killing hompohobia accross the Globe. Please do support the "It Gets Better" campaign and share the videos with teenagers and their parents.