Billy Lucas, Tyler Clementi, Asher Brown; the list continues to grow even into 2015. The name Leelah Alcorn may help piece things together.
Everyone listed has successfully committed suicide after dealing with harassment, homophobia, assault and more. These are all common experiences held by queer youth.
Dan Savage, author of the relationship and sex advice column Savage Love, made an effort in 2010 to respond to the tragedies befalling many families and communities across the world. His idea, with the help of his husband, became the “It Gets Better Project.”
The project has had tremendous success in terms of its mission to spread its message. The site hosts more than 50,000 videos sent in with their own message to youth, centering around a show of support and the moral that life gets better if you endure. Our President himself weighed in and created a video.
The heart is in the right place in both the founders and the participants of the project. However, like all movements, this LGBT+ movement has created unintended consequences by promoting its message.
We cannot be sedated with just the message “It Gets Better.” I, myself, am amazed how many people know this as a truth, well enough to spread it around.
To begin my suspicions of the matter, I’ll examine the title. It seems to me that there is a lot absent from the phrase “It Gets Better.” What exactly gets better? The trauma experienced in youth is not easily resolved and can have real consequences on youth – gay or otherwise.
When we suggest that life gets better for individuals without acknowledging the long-term consequences gay youth can be subjected to, it devalues those life experiences, and we become capable of ignoring both the perpetrators of injustices and the victims. Most importantly, we end up forgetting our survivors.
This leads me to my second point. We’ve covered what, but how about, well–how does it actually get better?
Time seems to be the largest factor mentioned in the video. Again, surely time does change your experience in life, but it does not change the experiences you have already had.
Citing a passage of time is horribly inactive, and not exactly the best message to spread to those in mental duress and positions where they may not have agency or safety. Life is time sensitive. Time shifts the responsibility away from society and suggests that youth should be complacent with the status quo in society.
When we focus on time, we delay action and neglect any personal participation. A movement needs movement. It needs action.
Now I take a look at “better.” Better is, well, better than before. Improvement. However, is better the real goal?
If you endure, things will improve. That doesn’t say by how much. We all know there are no guarantees in life, but this does not seem to even have a ballpark to go by.
You will get older; unless the IRS disappears, you will pay your taxes; and unless we do more than just say “It Gets Better,” if you’re queer and trying to grow up, you will likely experience mostly preventable trauma.
This isn’t to say that Savage’s campaign hasn’t made strides.
It Gets Better has created larger visibility of the very real struggles faced by the LGBT+ community. They have taken initiative, and as of March 19, had over 596,940 people take their pledge.
It reads:
“THE PLEDGE: Everyone deserves to be respected for who they are. I pledge to spread this message to my friends, family and neighbors. I’ll speak up against hate and intolerance whenever I see it, at school and at work. I’ll provide hope for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and other bullied teens by letting them know that it gets better.” Similar initiatives have even sprouted up locally.
In Dayton, the Love Wins Project is an initiative that aims to foster an inclusive environment for students, regardless of race, gender, religion or sexual orientation. Love Wins hosts several events a year, including an event in which students, faculty and the Dayton community are encouraged to come share their stories and record their own “It Gets Better” video.
But this isn’t just about gay youth to me. We all share similar experiences as humans. We will all face our own struggles. Falling is hard; getting up is hard.
Yet, lending a hand to someone who’s fallen down can be a lot simpler than we tend to think. Our everyday interactions give us chance after chance to actively improve the lives of not only ourselves, but also others.
The Advocate, a popular LGBT+ magazine, recently named Dayton as the “queerest city” in the country. As a resident and as someone who has grown up mostly in Dayton, I was shocked at my town taking the title.
I’m thankful for the opportunities Dayton offers for the LGBT community, but if Dayton is the most friendly of all cities in the States, we need to do better.
Barton Kleen
Social Media Editor