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Gay teenagers have been committing suicide in disproportionate numbers for a long time. What’s different this time is that folks – gay and straight – are finally outraged enough to try to do something about it. Ellen’s eloquent segment on gay teen suicide went viral. And Dan Savage has started a phenomenon – The It Gets Better Project youtube channel, directed to gay teenagers. Hundreds – now moving into thousands - of video segments have been posted by folks, telling their own horrible stories, and how they got through it.
And then comes the predictable criticism. No, not from the Right, or the homophobes (like 50 Cent, but that’s a whole other story). From our own. The criticism is that the It Gets Better project is too simplistic and that it fails to address the systemic conditions that support and perpetuate homophobic bullying. True. It doesn’t. There are other projects that do – like the Make it Better project, or Egale’s Gay Straight Alliance – that are designed to help kids make their high school environments less hostile and more inclusive. But, these are simply not the same projects.
When a teenager – or anyone for that matter – is in the midst of a dark night of the soul, when they are seriously contemplating taking their own life – they are NOT looking for tools to organize for change. If they are on line at all – and luckily this generation often is – they are looking for ways to get through the night.
It Gets Better is about speaking to those kids who need to get through the night. And the next day, and the day after that. Then, maybe they can think about organizing for change.
And the projects are not mutually exclusive. We should all be working for change. We should all be supporting the Gay Straight Alliances, and the Make it Better Projects, and trying to make a world where gay teenagers don’t find themselves in this dark, desperate and alone place.
I haven’t always agreed with Dan Savage. But, right now, for starting this, he is my hero. If you have a story, make a video and post it. It might – just might – help someone.
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