Because It Will Get Better: LGBTQ Youth Find Support in Hollywood and on the Hilltop
http://guide.thehoya.com/?q=node/645Carolyn Shanahan
11/21/10
Kermit the Frog has a video. So do Barack Obama, Ellen DeGeneres and Neil Patrick Harris. They are only four of dozens of
celebrities and political figures who have lent their star power to the It Gets Better project, which has drawn mixed reactions from the LGBTQ
community at Georgetown.
Launched in September of this year, the It Gets Better project is an online video channel created by author and journalist Dan Savage as a response to the recent nationwide string of suicides among gay teens. The website was initially intended as a forum for gay adults to assure teens and young adults struggling with their sexuality that there is life beyond the small, often intolerant world of high school.
In about two months, however, the It Gets Better site has exploded into a collection of over 3,000 video messages posted by both straight and gay individuals. The posts encourage lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and
questioning young adults to hang tough through the challenges of adolescence. For many teens, high school is an unsettling time; it can get even worse when aggravated by the oppression of an environment unaccepting of their sexuality.
