Dan Savage's It Gets Better Project versus the feminist whine-o-sphere

by Furry Girl

10.19.10

I realize that I'm a couple of weeks late to the fight in publishing this rant, but I was so angry when people first starting attacking Dan Savage's It Gets Better Project, I decided I needed to let this sit on the back burner for a bit.  Rather than being rendered irrelevant by the passage of time, I'd like to think it's the opposite.  Now that the feminist whine-o-sphere has moved on to bitching about other grievous injustices, the distance actually serves to show how little the haters accomplished, and how beautiful it has been to see It Gets Better grow and touch lives.

Allow me to start with a personal story.

I grew up in a part of the country that's - how do I put it delicately? - well-represented on PeopleOfWalmart.com.  My grandmother and J's grandmother were best friends, they lived on the same street in a middle class neighborhood.  J and I spent a bunch of time hanging out as kids.  He was a gentle, kind, effeminate boy, who always seemed somewhat lonely.  We drifted, as people do.  We went to different schools and spent less time hanging out at our grandmother's homes.  All I knew, beyond our childhood friendship, were the embarrassed whispers of family gossip that he was a homo and had "problems" dealing with it.

When J was 17, he put a gun in his mouth.

One of my only serious regrets in life is that I didn't make an effort to keep hanging out, keep making a point to see him, to hopefully maybe in the best of worlds to have changed the ways things turned out for him.

In 1999, my life was no picnic, but I knew it wasn't going to be like that forever.  My best friend at that point was the most gay-bashed kid in our school, who was repeatedly assaulted by bullies, including while teachers watched without intervening.  Dropping out and fleeing flyoverland was one of the best decisions I've ever made.  Even though I had a thick skin, I saw zero reason to purposefully keep subjecting myself to an environment where people hated me, called me a slut, and threw food at me.  I wish J has still been alive when I left, wish I could have brought him with me, I wish I could have shown him what I suspected all along - that there is a whole world outside of this shithole hometown of ours.

Even though I wasn't able to be there for J, I wish someone would have told him, "It gets better".  And with the rash of queer youth suicides in the media, Dan Savage decided to step up and do just that, for all the other kids just like my childhood friend who ended his own life.

There is not a person alive today with more drive and ability than Dan Savage to tell the world - through his column, blog, podcast, and television appearances - that it's okay to be queer, or kinky, or non-monogamous, and to embrace their sexuality.  Dan Savage a powerhouse of a sex-positivity activist, frequently maximizing his widely-syndicated sex advice column and popular podcast to drum up support for important issues.  I especially appreciate that he's consistently implored straight readers that they need to pay attention to anti-queer bigots and politicians, because those types aren't just after The Gays, they're out to take rights away from straight people, too.  So, with his ability to have an impact on public discourse, Dan launched the It Gets Better Project last month, based around a video channel on YouTube, for anyone to upload messages of love and support for isolated and struggling queer kids who may be thinking of taking their own lives.

The videos I have watched are so moving and inspiring, and positively radiate care and love.  Participants get choked up over telling the world about how they'd tried to kill themselves, how glad they are to be alive today, how they have amazing partners now, how they've come to meet so many other great queer people, and how important it is to just stick it out, because it gets better.  Internet celebrities like blogger Perez Hilton and porn star Buck Angel both tell viewers that they're welcome to email them and they'll gladly offer their personal support.  (It bears emphasizing: I didn't see a single person who was attacking the It Gets Better Project put themselves out there to offer their personal support to queer kids.)

I've only watched a dozen or so of the videos, but the ones I've seen are just so damned beautiful and filled with love for lonely and bullied queer kids.  I've cried watching some of the videos I've clicked on.  It's one of the best, most direct, and most effective activist projects I've seen in ages.

So, in harsh contrast to all that support and hope, I witnessed many people in the feminist whine-o-sphere predictably became enraged at the offensiveness of it all.  The nerve of that asshole Dan Savage!  Using his fame and popularity to reach out and try to prevent queer kids from killing themselves!

The two key arguments against It Gets Better seem to boil down to a) "privileged" bullied queer kids thinking of killing themselves don't matter anyway, and b) if an activist project doesn't instantly fix all problems for everyone, it is therefor a horrible idea and shouldn't be done at all.

Dan Savage has addressed critics by blogging,

To the angry folks: I admit that IGBP doesn't do the impossible.  It doesn't solve the problem of anti-gay bullying, everywhere, all at once, forever.  The point of the videos is to give despairing kids in impossible situations a little thing called hope.  The point is to let them know that things do get better.  For some people things get better once they get out of high school, for others things get better while they're still in high school.

[...]

Nothing about letting kids know that it gets better excuses or precludes us from pressing for the Student Non-Discrimination Act, demanding anti-bullying programs, confronting the bigots who are making things worse, or supporting the Trevor Project.  But we're not going to get legislation passed this instant or get anti-bullying programs into schools in rural areas—particularly private Christian schools—before classes start tomorrow.  Doing all of that is going to take years of hard work and dedicated activism.  In the meantime, while we work on all of that, we can get these messages of hope in front of kids who are crisis right now.  And we must use the tools we have at our disposal right now—social media and YouTube and digital video—to get these messages of hope to kids who are suffering right now in schools without GSAs and kids who are trapped schools that will never have GSAs and kids whose parents who bully and reject them.

There's nothing about this project—nothing about participating in this project—that prevents people from doing more.  Indeed, I would hope that participating in this raises awareness and leaves people feeling obligated to do more.

When I saw people expending their energy attacking It Gets Better, the dynamic felt all too familiar.  Just another group of elite politically correct liberals who prefer to focus on honing and touting their perfect theories, rather than taking real tangible actions.

My childhood friend I mentioned earlier?  J was a white guy, middle class, able-bodied, and presumably cisgender.  In the eyes of the feminist whine-o-sphere, I guess it that this means his life wasn't worth saving, and he didn't deserve receiving a message of hope and support during the darkest days of his life.  After all, he was just some privileged gay kid, not a caricature of perfect oppressions, a lab-created layer cake to salivate over, like a transgender wheelchair-bound black queer kid who grew up in a slum in Rio.

J's suicide is a very personal reason I want to slap every insipid armchair pundit who devoted time to attacking Dan Savage and the It Gets Better Project.  These critics blithely dismissed the campaign because they viewed it as only reaching out to privileged queer kids, which tacitly argues that those kids don't really matter and don't really suffer. Activists in first world countries often forget - while ironically often accusing others of being "too privileged" - that there are actual lives involved in the issues they theorize and pontificate over.  Kids who get bullied to death and are physically attacked by tormentors are not abstract concepts to me, they're people I've known and cared for.  They're living, and dead, reminders of why I didn't need to read The God Delusion to form an analysis of how religion poisons everything.

Growing up as a picked on queer kid isn't easy for anyone, even if they are non-poor caucasian able-bodied cisgender boys.  If life is so gleefully "privileged" for them, why do these queer kids kill themselves?  What if my friend J had been deaf?  What if he was Hispanic?  Would his life have been worth caring about then?  What does it take to get some simple fucking human decency towards the misery of people like J, or my other "privileged" friend who dealt with assault at school on a regular basis?  When you dismiss reaching out to "privileged" kids (and I dispute the accuracy of that allegation anyway), you dismiss and belittle the pain of those kids, plain and simple.

Samuel Johnson famously quipped a delightful observation - that patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.  I shall now famously quip that "activism" which centers on accusing others of being too privileged is the last refuge of the lazy.

You know what's not lazy?  The It Gets Better Project.  Go submit your own video message, support initiatives in your area that address bullying in schools or provide funding for queer youth services, and donate to organizations such as The Trevor Project or  The Ali Forney Center.

Stick it to the feminist whine-o-sphere: actually do something.





18 Comments »

  1. It angers me to see how easy it is for people to find faults and complain but not do anything to change the situation. It's one of the reasons I generally dislike heavy political discussions because, 9 times out of 10, it's all theory and no actual *practice*. Everyone offering their opinion from their comfy chairs instead of doing something.

    Last month, I got into a discussion regarding the DADT where a friend suggested abolishing the military as a solution. I wrote back:

    "I believe in practical solutions to real world problems. Idealism is great, but how can we begin putting REAL solutions into place that can bring about REAL change? Thought experiments are fun and could provide directions towards solutions but rarely are they, themselves, practical.

    It's why I volunteer to teach women technology versus talking about an ideal world of women in tech. I leave the speeches and preaching to others in the movement while I sit down and actually *teach them technology*."

    Comment by Ai — October 19, 2010 @ 7:18 am

  2. I agree with most of this, I wish I had more time to comment in depth, but I wanted to point out that while a lot of criticism has been of the form you mention I know of at least one project which was spurned by taking the ideas of IGBP and trying to improve them. Once I am finished with my thesis (which is currently eating my life I intend to contribute to both of them. Hoever I think one of the real strength of IGBP is that Dan Savage is well known and so I think their is a real chance that a lost/confused teenager is going to stumble on it is much higher. http://cypheroftyr.wordpress.com/2010/09/29/868/

    Comment by cheshire — October 19, 2010 @ 10:04 pm

  3. Agree so so much.

    I think for the FWOS, equality is paramount, so if something improves the lives of only some people, especially if those are people who are already better off, it's actually a bad thing, because it increases inequality.

    Comment by Sagredo — October 19, 2010 @ 11:26 pm

  4. Thanks for speaking your piece, from your heart and your convictions.

    -arvan

    Comment by sexgenderbody — October 20, 2010 @ 6:45 pm

  5. As an aside, this month has a blog carnival for Scarleteen.com I'm a part of it, as are many other bloggers. Scarleteen is a great resources, and universally praised by sex-positive types.

    Now, one of the reasons people dismiss It Gets Better is that it's YouTube-based, and excludes queer kids who don't have internet access. This is apparently evidence that the project is only for privileged middle and upper class youth. But, but... Scarleteen only exists online, and I've never once seen anyone freak out about how awful that is, seeing as how poor kids without internet access won't get to read it.

    Accusations of "privilege", in my experience, are often very selectively made, and only towards people one already hates. Dan Savage has pissed off more people over the years than Heather Corinna (founder of Scarleteen), so I suppose his online outreach is privileged, and hers deserves a blog carnival and pleas for donations. (For the record, I love both.)

    [Edited to add: Heather Corinna, the director of Scarleteen, pointed out to me on Twitter that she does do offline outreach and works with clinics, as well as has written a book, and that Scarleteen as a text-in question service. So, yes - Scarleteen has an offline presence, and no offense was intended by neglecting to mention all of Scarleteen and Heather's projects. Just to be fair to "both sides" here, Dan Savage has many books, a syndicated column, a call-in podcast, an iPhone app for people to ask questions, and appears regularly on TV and in print. So everyone has an offline presence, neither of these projects or the individuals who manage them are *only* doing online outreach.]

    Comment by Furry Girl — October 21, 2010 @ 2:55 pm

  6. Thanks for the comments.

    Cheshire: I'm all in favor of It Gets Better prompting more people to start their own projects in "protest". But, there is the issue of spreading efforts too thin, and actually being able to reach people. It Gets Better has been in the national news, on TV and in publications like the New York Times, and that's simply going to reach more people than a project started by some unfamous bloggers, however caring and sincere they are. Since the point is outreach, I don't think it behooves people to start increasingly obscure efforts, since those might only reach a tiny handful of people. A video that's a part of It Gets Better, however, is guaranteed to be seen my large audiences. I would consider it the best use of energy to talk directly to Dan Savage and ask if you could *transcribe* the existing videos, both for people with slow net access, and for the hard of hearing, and create a text section on the ItGetsBetter.com.

    Comment by Furry Girl — October 21, 2010 @ 3:02 pm

  7. I've been meaning to blog about this myself, but every time I mean to I get frazzled and inarticulate.

    There is a huge community of people who seem to absolutely despise Dan Savage and honestly, sometimes I can see why. He can be incredibly arrogant, sometimes he says incredibly stupid things... but for fuck's sake, he IS a human being.

    Despite his shortcomings (HE'S HUMAN) I have listened to every single one of his podcasts and I am a huge fan because I think he does SO much in promoting alternate views on sexuality in a really accessible, humorous and fun way.

    So, like Dan Savage I think that the "It Gets Better" project is imperfect... but it's something he's fucking doing out of the kindness of his fucking heart, you only needed to hear him talk about it on his podcast to get that. He's not a Government institution, he's not responsible for looking out for EVERY SINGLE MEMBER of the LGBTQ community. If there are people the project's missing, nuances it's not getting... well the whingers should stop attacking the project and go fill the damn gaps themselves.

    Argh, I'm all for constructive criticism but so much of the whinging I'm seeing is just totally invalidating the project and I think that's bullcrap. The project is imperfect but most every human construct is and from the talks I've had with various friends from the LGBTQ community, they still think it's valuable.

    ... I've just ranted my head off here. I really should get to making that blog entry.

    Comment by Nio — October 21, 2010 @ 3:26 pm

  8. I've been reading your site for months now, but this is the first time I've commented. There are truly no words to say how much appreciation I have for this post. It's disgusting to see quote-unquote "queer allies" and feminists say how null the IGB project is, mainly because Dan Savage is in on it. How DARE he tell queer youth that things won't be complete shit all their lives. How DARE he tell people to have hope and not to give up. Don't you know that anyone with a disadvantage is supposed to just sit and never bother to change their situation? That's the only way your opinion--no, your life--can be considered valuable. Don't try and change anything, because you'll be bullied/poor/disabled etc until the day you die. Being privileged in any way makes you a terrible human being who isn't worthy of compassion.
    It's gross how people like that almost fetishize a lack of privilege, latching onto it just to prove how ~enlightened~ and ~progressive~ they are. They're even worse than the people they rail against.
    Is IGB perfect? No. But it's a great idea, and a truthful one at that. Everyone, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, class, or abilities deserves to hear that message.
    ...Damn, sorry for the rant.

    Comment by The Virgin Queen — October 21, 2010 @ 6:55 pm

  9. Thanks for the rants, Nio and The Virgin Queen. :) Never apologize for ranting, not in my blog comments.

    Comment by Furry Girl — October 21, 2010 @ 6:58 pm

  10. Yes, I agree. There is no reason to criticize a campaign that sends the message to gay kids to stick it out and hope the abuse will go away eventually, rather than tries to target the behaviour of actual bullies and those indifferent ones who stand on the sidelines watching the abuse happen.

    Comment by Abe — October 22, 2010 @ 10:28 am

  11. My problem with IGB is that, though its intentions are good, I don't think that just telling LGBT youth to "stick it out" when they're being bullied is really all that great of a message.

    I don't know if you've heard of them, but the Make It Better Project (makeitbetterproject.org) takes IGB a step further and tries to help make victims' lives better now, instead of until after they're out of school.

    Comment by Ghouldilocks — October 23, 2010 @ 3:37 am

  12. Ghouldilocks: So, what is the message that people should be sending to bullied queer youth? If "stick it out, it will get better" is wrong, then what do you propose? What are *you* telling bullied queer teenagers in rural Alabama? And no one, Dan Savage or otherwise, has claimed that It Gets Better means that no one should partake in any other forms of youth activism - THE OPPOSITE, IN FACT. Did you even read Dan's blog post that I quoted? Dan called out the fucking president of the United States on CNN this week to not just make an IGB video, but to actually step up and *change* things for queer people. I'd hardly fair call Dan and IGB to be some kind of half-measure that's opposed to activism and creating change *now*. It's a false dichotomy set up by IGB critics, and it's bullshit.

    Comment by Furry Girl — October 23, 2010 @ 2:45 pm

  13. Living in Seattle, reading The Stranger, I was aware of the IGBP peripherally, but am amazed and appalled that people would attack it: WTF? Get a life, you bastards.

    I'm looking at YOU, Ghouldilocks: perfection is the enemy of pretty fucking good, so great, work on MIBP, but save your stones for the real goddamn enemy, not IGBP.

    FurryGirl, No idea how I linked in here (DKos?), but I think I'll enjoy your writing.

    Comment by Eric_RoM — November 7, 2010 @ 2:36 pm

  14. Thanks, Eric.

    Comment by Furry Girl — November 9, 2010 @ 10:00 pm

  15. I love the project, and if it took Dan Savage to make it happen, well then that's what it took.

    But Dan Savage is an asshat in general.

    Comment by ANM — November 18, 2010 @ 6:24 pm

  16. The ITB project was brought to my attention by some of my lesbian friends and I immediately brought it to the attention of everyone I knew (sometimes facebook is good for something.) Especially wonderful ones were put out by Pixar and George Takei. Not only does the project let LGBT youth know that things get better, they provide information on where they can go to find resources and support networks.

    In addition to their message of hope to LGBT youth the ITB project (and others like it) expel, like a breath of fresh air, all the noxious lies and myths that state how 'different,' 'perverse,' 'evil,' etc. alternative lifestyles are. Equal rights will be won not only by people standing up and demanding them but by exposing all the bullshit that homophobes spout.

    Mr. Takei's method of mocking his opposition is an excellent method to follow, the more ridiculous these people look and feel saying the things they do the sooner they'll shut the hell up (this works when it comes to religion too...)

    Thanks for sharing, I had no idea there was backlash to such a great idea.

    Comment by Jonathon Howard — November 23, 2010 @ 10:03 pm

  17. I like IGB, I think it's great. The one improvement I would like to see to IGB is that young people are given encouragement to make things better themselves, rather than just passively waiting for things to get better. That's not to say that it isn't a great project and hasn't already done wonderful things for queer youth who really need to hear that message. I really like this video from Rude Mechanical Orchestra, It Get's Better Because We Make It Better http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTsXmEgSlcQ.

    Comment by alysia — December 28, 2010 @ 9:35 am

  18. People just don't get what it's like to grow up queer, or just different, in a conservative rural community. You are just so totally ALONE, with the certain knowledge, demonstrated daily, that the whole world damns your entire existence. It's all about survival, just making it through to the day when you finish school and get the fuck out of there. The idea of MAKING it better, of becoming an activist in that environment, is just ludicrous. Just hang in there, kiddo, there is another life waiting.

    Comment by Billy — January 2, 2011 @ 1:27 am

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Comment policy for Feminisnt: I do not publish blatant insults and trolling. You must use a name/handle other than anonymous or asdf because I am tired of giving space to detractors who are too lazy to pick a fake handle and too scared to use a real one. I no longer publish comments bitching at me about how feminism is the greatest thing ever. And I may not publish your comment if I have already addressed that specific issue several times already. Read my responses to other comments before asking a new question. Finally, if your comment hinges on an obvious logical fallacy, I might not publish that, either, except to make fun of you. All new commentors have their first comment held for moderation. Commenting on my blog and taking up space on my server is a privilege, not a right.

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