Comments | ganimede: It Gets Better

ganimede

It Gets Better

Oct 03, 2010 16:17

I was catching up on my feeds on Google Reader just now as I do every Sunday. One of the feeds is from the GLAAD blog, all the news and media announcements from GLAAD (the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation). One of the major pieces of news on there this week is that in September, four young lads, aged between 13 and 18, killed themselves ( Read more... )

little trans activist me, too much numpty business

Comments 10

ftmichael October 3 2010, 16:09:49 UTC

*nods a lot at this* I had the same reaction. It just sounds so incredibly condescending, and if you're already suicidal it's really not likely to help - and could potentially make things worse. It's wonderful for you if things got better and you're happy now, but for a suicidal teen, that means you live in a completely different world than theirs. They have problems now and the whole point of being suicidal is that 'just hanging on' does not feel possible. I was a suicidal teen and the idea that things might improve someday was enough to keep me hanging on, but I think I'm in the minority on that and I would never project that onto someone else. And if adults had told me 'hang on, it gets better', I would have felt wicked patronised and like they had no idea what they were talking about and clearly had no concept of what my life was like or how I was feeling ( ... )

sullen_hearts October 3 2010, 17:32:52 UTC

Dan Savage is a horrible, mean, nasty little person who doesn't deserve to be listened to, ever.

And, you're right, and thank you for voicing what I was thinking. If someone had told me at 15 that "It got better" I think I would've punched them.

ganimede October 3 2010, 21:07:47 UTC

He certainly seems to think very highly of himself from what I can tell.

I'm having a hard time at the moment thinking that it will get better. If someone had told me that at 15, and some random adult that I didn't know, I doubt I would have believed them.

wellinever October 3 2010, 18:01:01 UTC

i agree with some of what you've said in the way it comes across but i disagree that it won't help at all. i think if i'd found something like that regarding my situation when i was in school it would have been a huge help. some of the videos really resonated with me for that exact reason - i found myself wishing i could be 13 again and watch it because i think it would have made me feel way less alone and saved me a very long time of believing my isolated school world that made it very clear i would never have a normal life of any description ( ... )

ganimede October 3 2010, 21:13:33 UTC

One of the main issues I have with the video is that it's a very temporary fix. It doesn't provide people with a coping mechanism, a support network, a shoulder to cry on/ear to vent to or a peer network of people in the same situation and around the same age. I think the age thing is important, a lot of young people find it hard to believe that an adult understands or has experienced what they're going through.

Sometimes to give someone false hope can be worse than having no hope at all, because when it doesn't get better, or it is a long way off, people can crash even harder :-/

wellinever October 3 2010, 22:50:54 UTC

but the reality is without a vast overall of youth services that frankly isn't going to happen anytime soon, a kid isn't going to be handed any of those things on a plate. no video is likely to really provide those things, so should people not start youtube projects like this? i'm seeing a lot of criticisms of these videos but not many realistic or useful alternatives offered. i don't think the project is claiming to be the entire solution to lgbt kids problems, but there's a good chance it could help be a stepping stone towards someone being able to cope a little bit better. i think the point is to try and bridge that gap where young people assume no adults could have ever been through anything similar - i think a large part of young people believing that is because the stories of LGBT adults are rarely told.

ganimede October 7 2010, 22:50:11 UTC

Belated response because I've been busy. The main thing is this: the video is aimed at the wrong people. It should be addressing the issue of the homophobic bullying. That's the root cause of this and it seems to have been forgotten.

Thread 5

sullen_hearts October 6 2010, 20:46:15 UTC

http://tempcontretemps.wordpress.com/2010/09/30/why-i-dont-like-dan-savages-it-gets-better-project-as-a-response-to-bullying/

:)

And, the thing about Dan Savage is that he's all about you if you're white, cisgendered male, fairly middle class, thin, and aged about 25-40. Other than that, forget about it. Dan Savage does not care about you.

ganimede October 7 2010, 22:48:08 UTC

I think actually, Dan Savage only cares about Dan Savage and how this makes him look very good.

I completely forgot to include in my post my major issue with the project which is that it is not addressing the real problem, that being the homophobic bullying. It's treating the LGBT youth as the problem instead.