“It gets better” for gay and Queer folks. But how? - San Francis AIDS Foundatn

Contents:

• GAY (SO)
• DO 'IT GETS BETTER' MAKE LIFE BETTER FOR GAY TEENS?
• IT GETS BETTER | GAY PRI CLASSICS MEGAMIX
• ‘IT GETS BETTER’: WISDOM FROM GROWN-UP GAYS AND LBIANS TO BULLIED KIDS

GAY (SO)

The It Gets Better Project is a nonprof anizatn wh a missn to uplift, empower, and nnect lbian, gay, bisexual, transgenr, and queer youth around the globe. — cludg Seth Walsh, 13, and Billy Lus, 15 — spired the gay advice lumnist Dan Savage and his now-hband, Terry Miller, to do somethg. 21, 2010, Savage and Miller talked about the bullyg and rejectn they experienced as gay teens, and how life got better for them the years after high school.

The CDC’s Youth Risk Behavr Surveillance System recently found that lbian, gay and bisexual teens are more than four tim more likely to attempt suici, and that transgenr stunts are at a siarly high risk pared to their non-LGBTQ peers. In 2019, four years after the legalizatn of same-sex marriage across the U.S., 72 percent of Amerins said homosexualy should be accepted, pared to 49 percent 2007, acrdg to the Pew Rearch Center.

The It Gets Better Project’s missn is to uplift, empower, and nnect lbian, gay, bisexual, transgenr, and queer (LGBTQ+) youth around the globe. In this excerpt om Dyg to Be Normal: Gay Martyrs and the Transformatn of Amerin Sexual Polics, Brett Ktzsch explor the origs of the “It Gets Better” mpaign and how the suicis of Tyler Clementi and other young gay people opened a new nversatn about gay clivy the wir culture. This excerpt has been adapted om the September of 2010, after a strg of wily reported suicis by gay teenagers, sex advice lumnist Dan Savage and his hband Terry Miller gurated the It Gets Better vio mpaign.

DO 'IT GETS BETTER' MAKE LIFE BETTER FOR GAY TEENS?

In their llaborative vio posted to YouTube, the two men shared a siar story: as teenagers, their peers harassed them bee they were gay. By that time, more than fifty thoand people had created It Gets Better vios and lns more had watched the ttimonials Gets Better had near immediate succs, acrdg to Savage, bee of the untry’s reactn to a gay teenager’s suici the day after the first It Gets Better vio September 22, 2010, Rutgers Universy hman Tyler Clementi jumped to his ath om the Gee Washgton Bridge after his roommate tweeted that he had spied on Clementi when he was engaged a sexual act wh another man.

IT GETS BETTER | GAY PRI CLASSICS MEGAMIX

In historilly unprecented ways, media mentators sisted that the untry need to addrs anti-gay bullyg and the stigma many LGBT teenagers faced. Effectively, the natnal attentn on Clementi’s suici and the It Gets Better Project revealed that although some LGBT and, particularly, gay Amerins had achieved greater visibily and legislative gas by 2010, many gay, queer, and transgenr youth still felt an overwhelmg sense of rponse to It Gets Better om policians, celebri, and average cizens revealed that many heterosexuals viewed Clementi’s ath as a tragedy the untry need to addrs.

Whereas fifteen years earlier, many straight Amerins associated gay men wh ath bee of AIDS, by 2010, the nnectn between gays and ath was not taken as a given.

By 2010, whe, genr-nformg gays like Clementi appeared to be on the precipice of full social cln the Uned Stat. She warned, “As a gay woman of lor, I jt want to let the youth know that kd of don’t get better... (NOTE: Avoid g the term “homosexual.

‘IT GETS BETTER’: WISDOM FROM GROWN-UP GAYS AND LBIANS TO BULLIED KIDS

” Bee of the clil history of the word, many feel that the term suggts that gay people are somehow diseased or psychologilly/emotnally disorred. Some prefer to intify as gay women, and some lbians also intify as non-bary. The acronym for “lbian, gay, bisexual, and transgenr” (sometim seen as “GLBT”).

In the past, queer was a negative or pejorative term for people who are gay, and th is sometim disliked.