Dan Savage, the internationally syndicated relationship and sex advice columnist, has a message for gay teens struggling with their sexuality, discrimination and school bullying: “It gets better.”
Dan Savage
The Seattle-based activist and author of Savage Love, launched a YouTube channel his week to encourage teens who are struggling with how others react to their sexual orientation.
The channel is largely in response to the suicide of Billy Lucas, a teenager from Indiana who was bullied by classmates.
“I wish I could have talked to this kid for five minutes,” Savage writes in this week’s column. “I wish I could have told Billy that it gets better. I wish I could have told him that, however bad things were, however isolated and alone he was, it gets better.”
“Today we have the power to give these kids hope … But many LGBT youth can’t picture what their lives might be like as openly gay adults. They can’t imagine a future for themselves. So let’s show them what our lives are like, let’s show them what the future may hold in store for them.”
Each video on the “It Gets Better Project” channel will feature a role model sharing personal experiences that illustrate that life for gays and lesbians improves beyond high school. Savage and his husband Terry Miller have posted the first video, featured here:
Future videos will be picked from user submissions.
Go to www.youtube.com/itgetsbetterproject for instructions for submitting a video.
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Yes, it does get better. I didn’t come out and realize my sexuality until after high school. I was 23 when things changed. I wish things were different in high school. I was always picked on as I seemed different plus was overweight. I noticed all the classmates attitudes change big time a few years after they were out of High School. Its almost like its a status and growing up thing they do. Then they spend the rest of their life trying to apologize and make up for the mistakes they did in High School. I always thought they would end up better then me, but when we had our 10 year reunion, I found out that they weren’t better and I had succeeded in many areas that they didn’t and more to show.
I am now engaged and getting married in two months. That alone is something I never thought would happen in a million years.
My question to you is how did you find the adoption process and was it easy and the costs? We would like to someday have a child. I know there is a seregacy option but that is also really expensive.
Peer abuse happens not just to gay kids. I’m an adult survior of it and I think this is a really great movement. One thing you aren’t doing which you need to be proponents of is getting the word out about this one fact.
When you have a child in the midst of peer abuse, or if it is you. If you’re stuck in highschool and it is a living hell. There needs to be an alternative social group. Go the next town over and join a club or some youth activities. If that dosen’t work, if you are just waaay to rural get out when you can, go to camp every summer. Study hard get your GED and go to college early. Anything you can do to have actual social ties and get out as fast as you can. It is going to be extremely hard to make it. And they aren’t lying, it gets better. It really really does.
High school can be a bitch, especially when you don’t fit in. I didn’t play sports, was a roly-poly and (as it it couldn’t get any worse) I couldn’t carry a tune. Then I turned 19 and everything changed. My metabolism first…the pounds just melted away. Suddenly my attraction to men began to make sense. They were attracted to me. Life changed. I’m so glad I never gave up, although the temptation was there, during my teen years. I’m now 70 years old and the scars of high school are still there. But you know what? Things change, and they continue to change all through life.