Determined to reach out to queer youth who feel alone in the face of bullying and harassment, columnist Dan Savage started a YouTube campaign with a message: “It Gets Better.”
Savage explains why he started the project:
“Billy Lucas was just 15 when he hanged himself in a barn on his grandmother’s property. He reportedly endured intense bullying at the hands of his classmates — classmates who called him a fag and told him to kill himself. His mother found his body…. I wish I could have talked to this kid for five minutes. I wish I could have told Billy that it gets better. I wish I could have told him that, however bad things were, however isolated and alone he was, it gets better.”
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Savage is encouraging queer adults to upload videos to YouTube and share their stories about how it gets better. Watch them all at the It Gets Better YouTube page. Here’s Savage and his partner:
If you’d like to take part: record a video, upload it to your YouTube profile and email the YouTube URL to mail (at) savagelove.net.
Since the project’s launch on Sept 23, the YouTube page now links to more than 300 videos.
Staff at Xtra‘s parent company, Pink Triangle Press, have created a video for the campaign. Watch below:
Egale’s 2009 report on homophobia and transphobia in Canadian schools found that most queer students feel unsafe.
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