Saturday, February 22, 2014

It Gets Better

Hyperlinks

When reading Safe Spaces this week the one thing that kept popping into my mind is the popular "It Gets Better Project".
You may have seen commercials or YouTube videos featuring the campain. 
 


Started in 2010 by Dan Savage, author, journalist and newspaper editor with the help of his husband Terry Miller, the project began with a video of Dan and Terry discussing their belief that life as a gay person does in fact get better. They begin the video discussing their upbringings and how difficult it was going through the catholic school system as a gay youth. Within the first two minutes of the video, Dan Savage says: "Your life can be amazing, but you have to tough this period of it out and you have to live your life so that you're around for it to get amazing"
Dan and Terry's bravery in sharing their story has led to thousands upon thousands of replies from people around the world sharing their own personal stories and passing along comforting thoughts to those struggling with being an LGBT youth. Even President Obama joined in on the growing campaign to share his thoughts: 


The It Gets Better Project now has over 580,000 members on its website: http://www.itgetsbetter.org/ as well as 51,000 subscribers on YouTube, 99,000 Twitter followers and 333,290 likes on Facebook. And these numbers are constantly rising. 

To me, the It Gets Better Project and Safe Spaces are directly correlated. With the intent of preventing suicide of LGBT youth, the gay adults featured in the It Gets Better videos share their stories of life improving after completing the traditional K-12 schooling. At the same time, Safe Spaces aims to share ways in which the K-12 experience can be improved for LGBT youth. Safe Spaces suggests that the more students are introduced to LGBT topics, the less taboo and alienated it becomes. In fact if evey class was identical to some of those featured in Safe Spaces, perhaps there wouldn't even be a need for the It Gets Better Project.  But unfortunately that isn't the case and we don't live in a perfect world. So for now, there is a need for LGBT support groups such as It Gets Better. But who knows, maybe someday there won't be such a stigma associated with being LGBT. For now though, LGBT youths need to remeber...It Gets Better


Below I've included links to all of the It Gets Better Project's social media sites in case you're looking for more information on the campaign: 

YouTube Channel:http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCblryhVf-nnueGdOKZtmLZA
Twitter:https://twitter.com/itgetsbetter
Facebook Page:https://www.facebook.com/itgetsbetterproject


Or you can also visit http://www.whitehouse.gov/itgetsbetter to see more videos from White House officials.

Thanks for reading this week ! 

5 comments:

  1. Hey Jen! Great post this week. I liked that you really focused on one organization that is aimed toward helping the LGBT community. I also like the videos you posted. Definitely fits with the topic this week. Good Job!

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  2. Hey, nice post! It is obvious you took the time to research relevant videos to relate to the article and I learned alot from them. I also did not realize how many organizations there are for the LGBT community. good work !

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  3. Hey Jen! Awesome post! I actually used yours to write my extended comments, so check it out!! Good job I found the "it gets better campaign" very interesting and going to help a lot of people!!

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  4. Hey Jen! Great post! I really like how you connected Safe Spaces with It Gets Better! It totally fits and is a great campaign to research! I also really like all the videos you posted they were really interesting. Nice job! :)

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  5. Such a thoughtful discussion of the It Gets Better project. Great post, Jenn. I actually didn't realize that the White House actually has a LINK on the official website! Pretty incredible.

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