For co-founder of the It Gets Better project Dan Savage, helping lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender teenagers is all in a day’s work.
Savage, the latest Kennedy Political Union speaker, discussed the impact of his project, how it came to be and how things are changing for the LGBT community on March 20 in Ward.
“Suddenly LGBT adults all over the country, all over [the] continental world were opening up and speaking to LGBT kids, whether their parents wanted us to or not,” Savage said.
Savage and his husband Terry Miller started the project following the suicide of Billy Lucas. He wrote about the suicide, and one person commented that they wished they could tell Lucas that it gets better.
Together, Savage and Miller posted a single video on their YouTube channel. Others caught on and added their own videos to the channel. Within days, the channel reached the 600 video limit on a single channel and surpassed their original goal of 100 videos.
“We thought if we could get to 100 videos we would get a little bit of everything so that every LGBT who came to the project, who came to the channel, could find someone like them, who walked the path had the same sort of life experience that they did,” Savage said.
Savage’s goal was to save lives by giving support to LGBT teens. The It Gets Better project has done that, he said.
“We have heard from hundreds and hundreds of LGBT kids all over the country who credited the It Gets Better project with getting them through terrible times, getting them past suicidal thoughts,” Savage said. “We’ve heard literally from people who were going to commit suicide, who instead sat down and spent a few days doing nothing but watching videos.”
The project saves lives by bringing support to LGBT teens that lack parental support, he said. Teens who were bullied by their peers and parents were able to get support through the videos.
“People sometimes miss that there is a great big upraised middle finger behind the It Gets Better project,” Savage said. “It is an act of aggression. We are going to talk to your kids whether you want us to or not.”
The project centers around support for LGBT teenagers, although Savage knows that bullying occurs for other reasons as well. However, straight bullied kids can often go home to seek shelter, where in many cases, LGBT teenagers cannot.
“I want to live in a world where 13- and 14-year-old kids aren’t bullied to death by their peers and their parents and their preachers,” Savage said in an interview with The Eagle.
hmongilio@theeagleonline.com
