It gets better. ♥
Click to viewSex advice columnist and gay rights activist Dan Savage began the "It Gets Better Project" after hearing of the September suicide of 15-year-old Billy Lucas in Greensburg, Ind. Bullies tormented him with gay slurs.
Only weeks later, the country was shocked when Rutgers student Tyler Clementi jumped off a bridge after classmates webcast a video of his romantic interlude with another man.
"I wish I could have talked to that kid for 5 minutes," Savage told me of yet another case. "And been able to tell them it gets better."
--Dan Savage: Gay Teens Need to Know it Gets Better @ Huffington Post
★ What is this about?
★ It Gets Better Project
★ The Youtube channel
★ The Trevor Project
ETA: So I can't say I am all that charmed by Dan Savage as a person, but I still respect this project and hope it brings more awareness (and needed action and change) to the problems surrounding bullying of gay kids. And if the videos might make an impression on even just one gay kid who is struggling, save just one life - ♥.
ETA 2: All this said (I wept at so many of the videos, at the stories, at the bravery--), this post does a really great job at breaking down some of the problems with this project, in that it is classist, in that it tells people their hardships are "just a phase", more or less, and in that it is ignoring each individual kid's situation and focusing instead on the people who already made it through. I love this post because it voiced a lot of niggling issues I had unformed in the back of my mind that I ignored when I was swept away by the emotion in the videos. I feel like I should disclaim every post that I am always, always learning and I really truly value that.