I tend to agree.

I think the best way for straight people to contribute to the It Gets Better Project is to encourage their happy and successful* gay friends to make their own videos, and to help them (set up the camera, arrange the lighting, post the video, anything the speaker might be weak on).

* By which I do not mean to limit video-making to the rich and/or famous.  You can be successful as a barista or a schoolteacher or just as a parent whose kids are doing well.

Well put.

Exactly.  I can’t imagine how soul-destroying it must be to be told, over and over, that the very core of who you are is unacceptable and must be destroyed.

That video is wonderful. They are obviously nervous but committed to putting out their support, and the kiss at the end was so sweet.

So, no.  It’s not about bullying in schools.  It’s about homophobia, and bullying is just one expression of that.

Exactly. One of the commenters over at Coates’s place noted yesterday that they were able to get an anti-bullying bill through with the support of the Catholic Church. However, when it comes to things like the reproduction of a heterosexist and virulently anti-gay society, the Catholic Church is a major part of the problem.

But hey, at least Kim Kardashian and the Jersey Shore folks got a little more media attention for their contributions!

I do think some folks who made the videos mean well.  But I just don’t think they’re thinking it through.  They perhaps haven’t considered that kids who despair the most are getting literally no messages—-not from parents, teachers, or church—-that they can be happy, fulfilled adults.  Whereas the rest of us dorks were totally fed that message.  And increasingly, so are gay youth, but we have a long way to go.

Thank you for your post Amanda - spot on.

Yes. Exactly. Sometimes the role of an ally is to promote and amplify the speech of others, not to try to shoehorn your own experience into someone else’s.

This is a generic problem with open ended invitations to contributors on the internet. You are going to get contributions that are not up to the quality you want, or dilute the message, or are downright awful. The only way to control for it is to make the whole process “invitation only” but I love the idea of everyone pitching in and making their own videos. And I love the idea that a lot of people (even the Kardashians and other idiots) decided it was a good idea to pitch in.  Its all part of normalizing and, in a sense, nationalizing, gayness.

Here’s the thing—on one level the “it gets better” videos are just what they purport to be: an important or famous person gets up and makes a video that says to gay teens “hang in there/it gets better.”  But at another level the entire project aims at bringing the idea of successful gay adulthood/marriage/parenthood/joy to a previously entirely isolated set of gay individuals—teens who are stuck in highschools and communities that don’t value them.  To my mind the more people who pitch in, even if some of their videos are stupid or misconceived, the better. Because the videos themselves are a sign of just how national and widespread gayness is.  At the very least its become clear that a whole lot of people are gay—and a whole lot of them have friends, families, and supporters who are straight. 

The Christian right has always emphasized loneliness and isolation as the lot for gay people. But now its clear that this just is a lie.  There are hundreds and thousands of gay people out there, and their supporters, and they are comfortable enough to make all kinds of videos.  It just takes the whole isolation and squick factor out of the equation and makes the basic argument (“hang in there”) both temporal (eventually things will get better) and physical (somewhere else people are ok with gayness and I’ll get to that place eventually).

I haven’t seen all the vids but I’ve seen several and I am still moved by the whole thing. Of course there will always be hangers on and inept versions but that’s just the price you pay for throwing the whole thing open in an open sourcy way.

aimai

I do think it is about bullying.  Not every kid has a good grades to fall back on, or being a nerd; and not every kid escapes that when they get to college.  And not every kid knows if they’re gay or not at the time.

I think it’s important to realize our allies are larger than we know, and that kids kill themselves over fat-shaming or are killed for ‘acting too white’ as well as being gay.

I’m with aimai here.  Yeah, they aren’t all great, but… They’re more important than that.

Not to pick on Ezra Klein, whose widely watched contribution was thoughtful and interesting.  But his main point was that it will get better because you will eventually be able to choose a new community for yourself, one where your previously derided qualities are valued.  What he didn’t acknowledge is that this message only makes sense for bullying victims of certain social classes.  It’s not true of every bullying victim, or even most, that she has the ability, in any meaningful sense, to choose a new social world for herself once she grows up.

This, I think, connects to Amanda’s point.  When your stigma is that you are gay (rather than nerdy), you will always belong to a culture where there are voices deriding you.  If you’re lucky class- and education-wise, maybe you can choose a more congenial subculture and neighborhood.  And of course that will make a huge difference for the quality of your life.  But you’re still gay in a wildly hetero-centric world filled with bigots, and you still have to deal with that, and nerdy straight people don’t.

aimai, Crissa, I know you mean well, but you’re missing the point.

To make it about bullying is to say, “Anti-gay adults, it’s not about you.  So keep being anti-gay without guilt!” 

They are certainly taking it in that spirit.  A lot of anti-gay bigots are like, “Hey, bullying is bad!” and then they proceed to defend their own hatreds or claim their lies about gay people are true.  That doesn’t help anyone.  A lot of gay kids kill themselves not because some asshole shoved them into a locker, but because that happened, and then they went home and to church and got the same message.

And seriously, comparing it to nerd-bashing is particularly offensive.  Nerds have lots of adults that support them.

Just as with Pride parades and celebrations, the It Gets Better campaign wasn’t about straight people.

It’s not about “bullying” writ large, it was about surviving a culture that hates queer kids for existing, which includes bullying, but is far from limited to it. It’s about surviving homes in which your parents wish you didn’t exist. It’s about your evil pastor. Yes, there may be similarities with other issues, but…this isn’t about straight people, and the Kardashians and Jersey Shores and other folks injecting their issues into dilute the message.

There’s nothing wrong with dealing with oppression generally. There is, however, a time for dealing with its specific forms. That’s what gets lost when b-list straight celebs and other allies decide to make videos about themselves. Want to help? Post these videos on your facebook pages or create tweets or whatever else you do to transmit messages from queer adults to queer kids. Even straight folks posting those queer messages are a form of taking action, and they do so in such a way as to challenge heterosexual domination without diluting the fight against that particular form of domination.

I mean, also people with privileges should really get over feeling like they get to be part of everything, that their input is valuable above all others.  Sometimes listening is the most important thing you can do.

To echo what MAJeff is saying, think about it from a kid’s perspective.  You’re looking for a very specific set of information—-what your hopes and dreams can be, and what your possibilities are.  A straight person can provide a lot, but not that.  Not on this specific issue. It would be like a bunch of men saying to young women, “Hey, don’t let that sexism get you down.  Look at me!  I’m a doctor.”  The intended audience is going to be like, wuh?

I mean, also people with privileges should really get over feeling like they get to be part of everything, that their input is valuable above all others.  Sometimes listening is the most important thing you can do.

In-fucking-deed. The nerd thing also bugged me a lot, because I don’t know that I’ve ever seen laws passed making being a nerd a second-class citizen, or saying two nerds can’t get married or visit each other in the hospital, or heard churches rail on and on (and on and on and on) against the evils of nerdiness, except for those anti-Harry Potter people.

Conflating being picked on for something like reading or wearing old clothes with getting beaten up every day and told you’re going to hell is so damn douchey and totally missing the point. Privilege means shutting the hell up sometimes, and not being whiny about doing so.

Thanks for posting this Amanda.  I was kinda waiting for someone else to say it.  I’ve also felt all the straights making videos miss the point.  It’s not about them.  It’s good that they support the project, but yeesh.  Apparently a bunch of people can’t stand to not be in the spotlight for 5 minutes.  Jebus.  I kinda want them to make a separate channel for the straight contributions or something.  As someone who is just starting to date a man for the first time at 34 and facing up to the idea that I may have to come out to people at some point, I have a very keen interest in gay people showing me how it can be good, even when your whole family are religious fundamentalists.  I have just about zero interest in hearing what pretty, famous straight people have to say on the topic of homophobia.  Even still, I recognize this is mostly for gay teenagers, and not my age demographic.  I have a job and friends and stability in other parts of my life, and it’s been really difficult to deal with (due to my conservative upbringing).  I can’t imagine how hard this would have been to deal with if I had chosen to deal with it openly as a teenager instead of embracing the closet.  I love this project, but straight people, smile and nod and let the gay adults talk.  I want to hear what they have to say.  And I think it’s VITALLY important that borderline suicidal youth not have to filter through a bunch of well meaning people who they suspect probably just don’t get it.

@Amanda, I’m glad you were fed that message.  Boy howdy was I not.

Again, not that the bullying and abuse I suffered, as meaningful as it was to me, compares to what gay kids go through.

Amen. The straight-people videos have bugged me for a while, and you articulated the reason far better than I’ve been able to. My own experience with bullying is slightly more relevant than most straight allies’ (I was bullied because I was swishy and liked turtleneck sweaters and did musical theatre, so everyone thought I was gay. But I wasn’t told by the surrounding culture that it would be like that for the rest of my life, or that I’m bad because I’m swishy (well, at least not much), or that I shouldn’t be able to marry.

What I would like to see is straight people making another kind of video towards LGBTQ kids. “It gets better because people like me care about you and won’t tolerate bigotry.” If I were a LGBTQ kid dealing with bullying, I think that would be nearly as comforting as the testimonials of LGBTQ adults. Knowing that one person like you made it is inspiring, but knowing that you have an army of people behind you can mean a lot.

What I would like to see is straight people making another kind of video towards LGBTQ kids. “It gets better because people like me care about you and won’t tolerate bigotry.

It exists. It’s what Cyndi Lauper has been doing with the “We give a damn” campaign:

http://www.wegiveadamn.org/videos/

A query: how do you feel about the videos—I know there are a couple, but can’t find links right this second—by straight people who were bullied based on their *perceived* gayness/non-normative gender performance? That seems to me slightly more in line with the purpose and less of a failure to check privilege.

(All the same, that was my experience and I sure as hell don’t feel qualified to make a video, for whatever that is worth.)

I understand your point, but there has been another rash of kids who have committed suicide over bullying having nothing to do with being gay.

This is a tough one, and I understand what the people like Klein, are saying.

Ah, and I see that JefftheGreen has already touched on that a bit…sorry, should have refreshed!

Great article. 

The only reason I made a video was because I was asked to by a gay friend who happens to be in the military, who couldn’t make one on his own if he wanted to keep his job, which he did.  He wrote a great piece, third person, about his experiences, and a bunch of his friends from all over the country each recorded themselves saying a little piece of it.  It was cool.

I live with all the trappings of being hetro in our hetronormative society, but that is just because the person I happened to love enough to marry is of the opposite sex.  I am bi, but no one knows that unless I tell them or they know someone else with whom I was actively bi - a very small number of people.

I forgot to make my point.  It strikes me that it is important for people who may not appear to be gay to support this project, even if they do not produce videos themselves, and when someone asks why, since they aren’t gay they are doing so, ask them how they know they aren’t bi.  Clumsily worded here, I know, but I’m in a bit of a rush.

I understand your point, but there has been another rash of kids who have committed suicide over bullying having nothing to do with being gay.

And?

Again, bullying writ large is a connected if separate issue from the “it gets better campaign.” Not every campaign can tackle everything, and in turning it into a general anti-bullying campaign, which wasn’t ever the point, dilutes the anti-homophobia message.

That’s not to say that anti-bullying efforts aren’t necessary, but that you are deflecting away from the anti-homophobia message.

If I could give that video a big hug, I would.

Strong agreement on the post. Being bullied is something no-one should have to go through - but this is about a type of bullying that is all frequently supported, or even encouraged, by authority figures and society at large. The last thing gay teens need is straight people making it all about them.

Amanda,
I think you missed my point. I wasn’t arguing that nerdiness, or bullying, is the issue and not gayness and I wasn’t arguing for heterosexual piling onto a gay thing.  However, I was pointing out that absent a strict “invitation only” policy you are definitely going to get videos that don’t do what the organizers intend them to do.

But here’s the thing: I guess I will take a crack at defending (some/potential) straight videos on this subject. What about Nancy Pelosi’s video? I would have written it differently but I personally felt moved by this grandmother speaking qua grandmother about how important it is to all of us that each individual kid hang on until it gets better. 

There isn’t only one single point that these videos can or should make.  Dan Savage’s idea was brilliant and I applaud it, and I love the way he did the original—but I can imagine a whole lot of other kinds of videos by other people that would also be valuable. This isn’t about privilige or about some people horning in on the thing like its a kind of fad. That stuff always happens. Nothing can be done about it. But its an open source event—like Post Secret—that’s what happens when you try to allow as many people as want to take part in a mass event. 

aimai

Helen @25, I get that you can’t tell by looking who may be fighting the homophobic messages our society has fed them. But, what happens when someone knows they will NEVER love someone of the opposite sex enough to marry them? Bi people married to people of the opposite sex *do* have privileges that people with same-sex partners don’t. It doesn’t matter how queer you feel inside, you can visit your spouse in the hospital, YK?

One of my closest friends is very clear on this point. She was in a same-sex partnership for many years before her partner transitioned. He is now a man and they are legally married and have a child and it’s stunningly obvious to her how many privileges accrue to their family, now that in order for someone to know they are not “straight” and cis she has to actively choose to tell them that.

Dan Savage spoke at my university last week and discussed the It Gets Better project at length. He specifically welcomed more videos by straights, as part of the general PFLAG outreach and how it adds weight to the project, especially when you get high visibility straight folks giving their support.

Great piece Amanda and also great comments. Thank you for totally getting it.
Gay kids are isolated in a way most straight nerds can’t really comprehend. Its not just other kids being ignorant and hateful that gay youth have to deal with, its adults as well, often even their very own families, and the larger hetero-normative culture. It produces a totally different kind of isolation with its own specific problems. I respect that many straight people have had a tough time in their youth being bullied but it really is just NOT the same. Understanding that is important and respectful.

Before I read the post, I thought the videos from straight people must be irrelevant, because empathy can go only so far. But after reading the comments, I’m confused.

Example: Hillary Clinton’s “It Gets Better” video. Yea or Nay?

I understand that this particular campaign is supposed to focus on gay/queer/etc. kids, but I can also understand how it would be legitimately read as focusing on bullying (and general suicide prevention) of all types. The name is very broadly applicable; “It Gets Better” is word-for-word what I repeated to myself constantly to get through the day, as a teenager, and I wasn’t a target of homophobic bullying. “This too shall pass” and all that is a message that every teen certainly needs, including the unbullied gay kids or the bullied non-gay kids (even the unbullied non-gay kids, many of ‘em.)

Personally I won’t contribute a video, but I’m also not sure that this expansion into non-gay realms constitutes a dilution of the message. It’s online and aimed at kids, right? Kids will see the videos they want and need to see. (As for the homophobes ...they’re going to be homophobes regardless. If a parent is telling their child that they are going to hell I don’t think a video campaign is going to fix that level of fucked up, high gay-centric-video ratio or otherwise.)

Obama, Pelosi, and Clinton have staffs of speech writers and gay advisors who can help them craft a message that’s both relevant and empathetic as well as acknowledging their role as leaders who take a personal and political interest in the needs of gay Americans. I don’t, so I’m more willing to give them the benefit of the doubt on their “It Gets Better” videos than I would any video that I could make.

A query: how do you feel about the videos—I know there are a couple, but can’t find links right this second—by straight people who were bullied based on their *perceived* gayness/non-normative gender performance?

Not the same.  Being told, “You’re gay and that makes you worthless” is not the same message if you’re not gay.  You can simply say, “No, I’m not gay.”  It’s something addressed in the link. 

Not that this isn’t a problem, of course, but it’s like the patriarchy hurts men, too issue.  When someone is talking about how she was raped and no one did anything about it, it’s not the time to be like, “Well, I’m a dude and sometimes guys pressure me to be more manly.”  That’s an interesting discussion, to be had at a more appropriate time and in a more appropriate space.

MaJeff - I strongly disagree with you, and your dismissive attitude is telling.  You obviously think you know everything about this, and you’re right and anyone who disagrees even slightly, is dismissing homophobia.

To me, you write as if you are convinced you know what you’re talking about, but you don’t.  I could sit down and right about I don’t know, a lot of words about this, that would blow a hole a mile wide through your attitude, but you know, it’s the internet, and I’m not going to get into stuff that personal with a bunch of strangers.

But you definitely don’t know what you’re talking about, so, talk a little bit lower.

Amanda, an 11 year old boy hanged himself because he wasn’t gay and was being called gay by his team members.  I’m sure it’s easy to google, I won’t do it because the picture of his face is haunting and I’m not going to go there again.

You’re way off on this. 

Maybe give a little more consideration to your position.

@ Amanda # 36, let me be more specific.

I feel you are implying, or actually stating, that if a kid isn’t gay, then being bullied as if he were gay, is something that can’t be as bad as actually being bullied for actually being gay.

IT’s just not the same because after all he’s not gay, so he knows society is going to accept later on.

Well, we’ve got one dead boy that says otherwise.  That I know of.

So ,that is where and how I believe you are wrong, specifically.

Angl is totally right.  Being bullied for some reason still hurts, even if that reason isn’t true.  I certainly wasn’t gay when I was a teen - but that didn’t stop the taunting.

Sure I’m a in a committed lesbian relationship now but I’ve decided I don’t actually care the gender of my partner since.  At the time it wasn’t important, either - because I was more interested in learning than in a sexual relationship.  And the taunting and bullying wasn’t helpful.

Amanda, I think your point that ‘it makes it not about anti-gay persons’ is misplaced.

you are definitely going to get videos that don’t do what the organizers intend them to do.

Yeah, people do stuff that’s misguided all the time.  Your point?  Does this in any way invalidate pointing out that it’s misguided?

Besides, even with an invitation only policy, you end up with videos you don’t want - see MoveOn and getting raked over the coals for a commercial they didn’t make, didn’t air, and didn’t endorse.

Are you rather doing similar here?

Angl, please point to where I said that anti-bullying efforts aren’t worthy in other contexts.  Please point to where MAJeff or I supported bullying in any context for any reason.  Please. 

I actually said that anti-bullying measures are good.  But making an anti-homophobia campaign about just bullying lets homophobes off the hook.  They can say, “Hey, I’m against shoving kids into lockers. Now let’s talk about how gay kids will all grow up to be lonely depressives. Which is totally not bullying.” 

Which is what they’re doing.

AngelScarlett Yes, that is a problem.

A problem to be solved by starting a new campaign specifically targeted at that problem NOT by hijacking a different campaign and erasing it’s original message!

“It Gets Better” is not and never was a general anti-bullying campaign. It is, as Amanda stated, an anti-homophobia campaign. Yes, it was started in response to incidents connected to (but not exclusively caused by) homophobic bullying. But the point was always anti-homophobia (in all forms, not just bullying), not general anti-bullying. And changing the focus to general bullying lets (non-bullying) homophobes off the hook.

For instance, the Arkansas guy who said gay kids should kill themselves only walked it back by saying he was opposed to bullying.

He left the message that gay is wrong out there.

See how there’s a major loophole built in when you make this about being rude and not about being anti-gay?  A lot of anti-gay sentiment is disguised as concern, but felt as abuse.

Indeed, Ruby.  In fact, Dan initially asked people to highlight the positivity in their lives and not focus exclusively on the bullying.

Why?

Because bullying is one part of the overall problem.  The overall problem is despair caused by hopelessness, because you are solely hearing messages—-some in non-bullying formats—-about how you will amount to nothing.

Having been bullied as a child doesn’t give a straight person license to make this all about them.  Believe me.  I was a well-bullied child who suffered from some depression from it, but I still don’t think this is about me.

In-fucking-deed. The nerd thing also bugged me a lot, because I don’t know that I’ve ever seen laws passed making being a nerd a second-class citizen, or saying two nerds can’t get married or visit each other in the hospital, or heard churches rail on and on (and on and on and on) against the evils of nerdiness, except for those anti-Harry Potter people.

In other words, when assholes pick on nerds, nerds know it’s because they’re assholes, but when assholes pick on gays, gays think maybe it’s because they’re gay.

As we speak, many anti-gay churches and groups are crafting a response to the project that centers on the bullying, where they say, “We oppose children picking on each other.  However, (fill in anti-gay rhetoric that drives kids to despair of ever being happy).” Also, they don’t really care about kids picking on each other, but being anti-bullying is an easy win that costs them nothing.

Amanda, your claim that anyone is trying to “make it all about them” is really rubbing me the wrong way.

Understanding that the dehumanization involved in any kind of concentrated bullying is harmful, both long-term and short-term to all human beings on the receiving end of it, is not an attempt to make this all about anybody.

I feel no harm is done by ADDING other experiences.  This is not “hijacking’ as someone else above said.  It’s just adding other experiences, of other people who experienced severe dehumanization.

I think overall it’s a really good thing.  If anyone disagrees that’s okay, but why impune my motives?  Never assume what motivates someone else.  You are almost always telling very little about them.

This entire thing has nothing to do with me, other than the fact that when someone harms a child, it always pains me.  So when I read about these suicides I am pained by them.

That’s what this is “all about”.  For me.  I can speak to what motivates others.

Again, please where I denied you the moral right to join an anti-bullying campaign.  Please point out where I supported bullying.

I think anti-bullying efforts are great.  So great, that they shouldn’t be wedged into an anti-homophobia campaign.

Also, point to where I impugned motives.  I said they were well-meaning but off-base, making this all about straight people’s pain instead of gay people’s hopes.

I’m sorry you were bullied.  So was I!  There’s a time for that discussion.  We don’t need to hijack gay people’s lives for it.

AnglScarlett, you suffer from the stick rule more than most trolls do.  Trolls, at least, are aware that they are trolling.  I literally do not think you have the self-awareness, intelligence, or insight that a stick OR a conservative wingnut has.

Trust me, MAJeff and Amanda and others know a shit lot more about this topic than you do simply by virtue of being smarter than a stick.  Maybe you should keep your irritatingly low-value comments to yourself.

@30

Except that despite the straight privileges sometimes accorded to bi people in heterosexual relationships, there is a whole new set of biphobic crap that only bisexuals have to deal with. You’re still excluded from the straight community, because you are still attracted to the same sex and the moment someone realizes this, you get the same treatment as the gay and lesbian kids. Even when you remain successfully closeted, there’s a constant gut-wretching feeling of alienation. There’s the confusion of wondering how close you have to be to the 50% straight 50% gay mark to be a “real” bisexual…you start to wonder if you’re just faking it. But when you pretend to be straight, that doesn’t feel right either.  You’re fetishized and objectified by straight men, to the point where people assume you’re faking it to get male attention. You’re constantly ignored, erased, told you’re lying, told you’re confused, told you don’t exist.

And at the same time as all of this, you sometimes get excluded by queer community. Maybe it’s because they just assume you’re straight during a passing encounter, or because they resent you for getting “straight privilege,” or because they don’t trust you enough to date you because you might leave them for someone of the opposite sex. Maybe it’s because they think being bi is just a phase, before you come out as a “real” gay. Bisexuals often lack the community support gay and lesbian kids find with (although some LGBT communities are getting better about this, happily!).

I don’t want to play Oppression Olympics here, because I think the LGBT coalition is a good thing, and I am sure there are struggles unique to gays and lesbians that bi people don’t get. But please don’t downplay the oppression faced by bisexuals. Especially because bisexual teens are very much a part of those teen suicide statistics.

Of course, I don’t necessarily agree with Helen either…a straight-seeming bisexual should probably out themselves as such in an “It Gets Better” video. But she does have a point that some of those “straight” people who make videos about the bullying of LGBT kids specifically (rather than the ones who make videos about bullying nerds or bullying generically) might not be as straight as you might think.

Amanda, I think if you read my comment at 50, and your response at 51, it’s clear we are just talking past each other. 

Stubbles, go fuck yourself sideways.

Shouldn’t it be possible to leave the “It Gets Better” Initiative to gay teens, like it was intended to be, without turning it into a contest about what kind of bullying is worse? I get that maybe probably gay teens are going there looking for videos from other gay people, not from the straight, bookish, ugly-duckling geek girl that everyone used as punching bag, verbal and otherwise. So, I wouldn’t make a video.

But that doesn’t mean I didn’t consider killing myself every single damn day for a while.

Yeah, I can do that, but you’ll be dumber than stick with nothing worthwhile to listen to so I’m not sure what that would accomplish.

I reread what I wrote, and I’m very satisfied leaving it to stand for itself. 

I have no idea why you feel entitled to come on this thread an hurl abuse at me stubbles, but if you need to do that to feel okay about yourself today, then I’d say I"m much better off than you. 

Have a good night.

I agree, you ARE better off than me.  I try to enjoy comment threads and then see you show up and it isn’t long until you just Do Not Get The Point and derail the entire thing, but you get to just say whatever clueless thing you want without such irritation.  No matter how small a pebble is in your shoe, it still forces you to stop walking so you can pay attention to it.

Yes, it is hijacking.

It is taking a specifically anti-homophobia campaign that only tangentaly relates to bullying and muddying it up with stories of straight people that were bullied for reasons completely unrelated to even the perception of homosexuality, thus risking transforming the campaign into a simple anti-bullying one and erasing the anti-homophobia message.

Look, I was viciously bullied for no reason other than I was shy and the teachers couldn’t be arsed to do anything to stop it. It was horrible and left me with awful emotional scars. But that is still nothing compared to what gay kids deal with and <u>me</u> talking about <u>my</u> (straight) experience with bullying it does jack shit to help <u>them</u>. (See also: what everyone else has said about this making it about the straight people, not the gay kids.)

If you want a general anti-bullying campaign, great. Go start one. I’ll gladly contribute, and so will most other people here. But that is not what the specific “It Gets Better” campaign (which is what were talking about) is about. And no straight person has the right to just take over IGB and make it just about general bullying because they don’t feel like making the effort to start their own anti-bullying campaign!

@ stubbles, it’s absolutely amazing to me that you were raised to believe it’s perfectly okay to talk to people that way.  IN looking over the thread I see I am one of about 6 or 7 people who disagree with Amanda on this, and yet you have flipped out at only me.  You have hurled abuse at me.  On a thread about bullying.  You are acting as if you are an animal.  I don’t think that’s okay, but I actually feel sorry for you.  Hating random people on the internet?  Really indicates other problems.

@ RUby, I disagree with you.  It’s not hijacking because it’s just in addition to the specifically anti-homophobia videos.  I believe there’s room for them all.  I don’t see the bad here.

But I respect your opinion.  Mine differs.

I didn’t make one. Because it does get better. But “better than soul-crushingly awful” is still pretty bad.

AnglScarlett, it’s also bad for men to be raped or to have domestic violence inflicted on them, or for white people to be discriminated against based on race.

But it’s pretty much a progressive-101 concept that to introduce those topics into a discussion specifically about the threat of rape culture to women and girls, the high rate of domestic violence directed at women, or institutional racism against people of color, is to hijack the discussion. The same applies here.

Or, the Shorter: it wasn’t meant to be a conversation about bullying. It was meant to be a conversation about homophobia, which topic becomes muddled when 40 kabillion straight people poke their heads in to say “oh yah I was bullied too and bullying sucks”.

There is enough room for everything, because I’m not sure if Youtube actually has a limit.  But the “It Gets Better” campaign was specifically for gay kids.  If people post video after video that has nothing to do with gay kids, then the campaign loses its message and it means nothing.  Post anything you want on Youtube, support kids who are dealing with bullying because they’re nerdy or fat or abused or have any other problem.  That’s great, and important.  If you can think of a catchy name and make your own campaign, that’s better.  But this campaign was made for gay kids, and it should stay that way.

@AnglScarlett
Obviously your heart is in the right place but I really believe you are very much in the wrong here. This campaign started as a way to help gay kids with their specific problems, including, but not limited to, bullying. No one is saying that fighting bullying in general is not a worthy project, just that its not really the intention of THIS project. And, yes, to me as a gay man, it does feel like hijacking and like you are showing some privilege in this discussion.
I know straight kids face horrible bullying. Bullied straight kids were my friends in high school but even their bullying paled in comparison to what I went through: Death threats in my locker, threats of psychical abuse which occasionally manifested and which I had no way to retaliate against and constant daily verbal abuse from students and sometimes teachers. Outside of my daily experience in high school I was living in a culture which totally devalued me as human being with NO images of happy gay men and lesbians. THAT is what this is about: providing hope via positive representations of adult gay life to gay kids, often totally isolated in their communities, even from their families. Its not just about general bullying, it never was.

Gotta agree: when you talk about the difference between regular bullying (which believe me, I got in spades, and it was pretty horrible) and bullying kids who are being targeted because of their sexual orientation, there is a pretty wide gulf there. Because the bullying I got was bad. And it was tacitly supported by the teachers and administrators who were willing to let one or two unpopular kids get eaten alive rather than make enemies of the alpha dogs and their powerful parents. And there were times where it got pretty hard for me to take.

But I wasn’t hearing about how I deserved it from people in my church.

And I didn’t have to hear about how some horrible wasting disease was God’s punishment for who I was.

And I wasn’t being raised to expect that I wouldn’t have the same rights as everyone else.

And because I didn’t have to worry that my mom, who bless her heart knew something was wrong but couldn’t quite put her finger on it, would throw me out of the house.

Being the subject of rage by your classmates because you don’t fit in is bad. I know this. If you are the receptacle for deep-seated anxieties regarding intelligence or conformity, it can really and truly suck.

But being the subject of rage by your classmates because you are the target for their deep-seated sexual anxieties is something else entirely. For as uncomfortable as people can get when they encounter someone smarter than them, or as mean and biting as they can be if you don’t quite fit in socially, that is nothing compared to the primal rage that accompanies having their sexual identity threatened. When every dirty and uncomfortable thought that they have must be strongly beaten down and disproven to themselves and the world by beating up a queer, and everywhere you turn you see people shutting down and throwing up their hands because you’re just “broken” for being attracted to the same sex…. I do not know what that is like. That is a powerful experience. And to have someone declare “Holy crap I just lost my arm at the elbow” and I come back with “yes, but look, I cut my finger!” is just fucking wrong in my book.

“But it’s pretty much a progressive-101 concept that to introduce those topics into a discussion specifically about the threat of rape culture to women and girls, the high rate of domestic violence directed at women, or institutional racism against people of color, is to hijack the discussion. The same applies here. “
EXACTLY!

Having a straight person who got bullied for gender variance make a video telling gay kids IT GETS BETTER B/C I GREW UP TO BE STRAIGHT! helps WHAT, exactly?

I just watched Klein’s video.  It’s really very beautiful. 

I’m glad he made it.  Good for him!

Most bullying does take on homophobic elements: girls gender police the everliving shit out of each other in middle school, and being anything less than a knuckle-dragger when you’re a boy is likely to get you called faggot at least once.

But if you know you’re straight, then those words don’t stick because you know that you’re straight.

Homophobic elements to bullying are symptomatic of a larger problem, but that larger problem isn’t a straight person’s problem.

AnglScarlett, you are not remotely important enough for me to hate.  You have a history here of saying immature, uninsightful crap that other people don’t.  That’s what I’m referring to

Also, I’m providing a PERFECT example of how 100% wrong you are.  I am bullying you.  You can start an anti-bullying campaign to make me stop it.  Maybe I’ll listen to that campaign and stop online bullying.  And gay people would still be subject to homophobia.

Shorter Angi: who cares if an anti-homophobia campaign ceases to be an anti-homophobia campaign?

But if someone else starts a campaign against online homophobic bullying, and I add some stories about online bullying in general, then both issues will be addressed and we will hopefully teach a few people that it’s important to recognize everyone’s humanity.

BTW, you have addded sooooo much to this thread.  Your contributions must be why I’ve never noticed you before.  They are truly intellectually stunning.

And check yourself stubbles - you are attempting to bully me.  It’s really a very flaccid display.  I don’t feel very bullied.  Try harder.  Pull out all the stops.

Come on, show everyone who you really are.

whoooosh

No MaJEff, it’s still an anti-homophobia campaign.

I feel that we are all human, and gay teens can definitely recognize that the experiences of both gays and non-gays alike contain something to relate to and learn from, and take comfort in.

I have no doubt that straight teens watched Savage’s original video and related to it and were able to understand that it’s going to get better for them too.

Also, gay teens can just watch the videos made by gays if they want to.  THere are plenty of them.

There’s no harm here, and I think you really have to search for it, and you also have to ascribe highly questionable motives to people.  “It has to be all about them”.  Alright, I do admit the Kim Kardashian thing is just silly, but the rest of it, Pelosi, Obama, even Klein, they all added to the conversation. 

This is an emotional subject.  It’s interesting that some people assumed I had been bullied as a child (I wasn’t, it’s personal to me because i love a child right now who is going through it, and that is what I won’t get into, it’d be a violation).  Some assumed that I want this to be all about straight people, or all about my experiences.  That’s emotions ruling the debate.  Because I never implied any such things. 

I would urge you to watch the Ezra Klein video if you haven’t already.  He really makes some great points I hadn’t seen made in other videos.  And this is still an anti-homophobia campaign.  I just don’t see that being diluted.  Certainly not to the point where it’s been hijacked.

Again, that’s just my opinion, but there’s no need for you to “shorten” it.  I have already spoken for myself.

I’m sorry MAjeff, what point do you feel stubbles made that went over my head?

The pont that he or she is bragging about bullying me?

Do you feel that this is right and something you are enjoying, or at least, it’s something that is not bothering you at all? And if so, is it because I"m not gay, or because I disagree with you?

In other words Majeff, please tell me your position.  I know that you believe bullying is wrong if the victim is gay.

Is bullying a good thing, or simply a neutral act, if the victim is straight?  If the victim disagrees with Majeff?

Be specific about under which conditions you are okay with bullying.

Thank you.

Be specific about under which conditions you are okay with bullying.

Are you fucking kidding me?  Are you that pathetically stupid? I’ve never said any such thing; what I’ve said, and what Amanda has said, is that there is a problem transforming a specific program dealing with addressing homophobia into one that expands beyond that and loses the focus on addressing homophobia.  From that, you take that I’m cool with bullying.

Before you critique others’ intellectual abilities, maybe you should develop some.

Guess what Angi—-the It Gets Better campaign was about gay kids.  It’s ok to specifically address gay kids. They have specific needs, and homophobia is a specific problem. It wasn’t about you. The world isn’t about you. Get the fuck over yourself.

No, no, don’t bring Amanda into this.

You just watched stubbles bully me, and then brag about bullying me, and your response to my response to his or her bullying was “woosh”.

Don’t drag Amanda into this and don’t try and pretend that you posted “wooosh” in response to any comment I made other than the exchange between stubbles, the admitted bully, and myself.  That’s just so weak.  You defend what you actually did Majeff.  And don’t call me stupid because I refused to let you get away with it.  That’s even weaker.

As for your position on the OP, I understand your position.  I have just written why I disagree with it.

That stands.  If you feel that my post @ 80 qualifies me as stupid, that’s okay by me.  A lot of people -especially on the internet for some reason! - believe that anyone who disagrees with them is stupid.

I feel I have thoughtfully explained my opinion.

This is actually quite humorous to watch.

Wow.  So you didn’t read my post, or you read it, and are just going to continue to respond to things I don’t believe ,and never said. 

IN fact, I specfically said this has nothing to do with me, it’s not about me, I was never even bullied.

But you felt compelled to repeat that same, specious claim about my motives.  When you begin telling others what motivates them, I always recommend to people that they take notes ,because what they are hearing is a confession.

I don’t know who you are describing Majeff, but since it’s not me, I can only suspect it’s you.

You’re not watching Majeff, you are a full participant.

You are reacting in a very unflattering manner to someone on the internet disagreeing with you.

I’m sorry to have to inform you that when you are responding to someone, you are not a bystander.  lol.

I always find amusement in the kind of people who call me stupid.  I have to admit that. 

I had considered doing one, but my bisexuality has never been a terribly large part of my life, especially back in school. Since I barely hit a 2 on the Kinsey scale, I’m not sure I have anything to add to the conversation apart from some general comments on not being ashamed of your sexuality.

Kate, I can see that being a concern.  I think that if it should actually reach anywhere near that point, Dan Savage, who began this, will be very capable of calling for a halt to straight participation. 

He’s not exactly a shrinking violet as I think we all know.  He seems to be very cool with it right now, so I think it’s just about right.  I will definitely be interested in anything he writes to the contrary.  And I’m very open to changing my mind, should it come to that.

@ACG

IGB isn’t an anti-bullying campaign because bullying is just the very start of it. And to make it about what is, in the end, a significantly different experience really does change the message.

I agree for pretty much the same reasons that I argued in the original IGB thread that promotion of resources to help teens are important, but should not be part of the project itself.  By all means, speak to all kinds of bullied kids, but these specific bullied kids need a message that stands by itself apart, but connected to the other messages.  (Since the goal of “It Gets Better,” resource creation and promotion, anti-bullying, anti-homophobia, etc. are really the same: Save Kids.  Claiming there is, or should be, a catch-all way to help kids that or we should treat all kids who need help the same will help some and harm others.  I think we should try not to do that.)

And if so, is it because I"m not gay,

You aren’t gay?  Shut up.  THIS ISN’T ABOUT YOU.  You don’t get to decide what’s appropriate.

I love lots of straight people (how could I not, they’re the majority of people I know), but jesus fuck is this just not another perfect example of a privileged majority making all about them.

I’m in agreement with what Amanda and others are saying, but re the Arkansas guy:  I happened to see the interview of him by Anderson Cooper, which was right after he spoke with a guy who’s son had committed suicide because of bullying, and he acted like he’d just seen a ghost:  white as a sheet, emotionally stumbling over his words.  I can’t recall if he only decried bullying in that interview, or whether the son if the person who spoke with him was gay, but I do think he was visibly shaken by what he was told.

Cosign the “lay off Angl” bit from Salient. Something worse than straight people trying to make it “all about them” (as y’all claim she’s doing) is the other people in the conversation proceeding to be verbally abusive fucking jackasses all over the thread and really derailing the damn thing. Shut the hell up for a second all three of you, please!

On an unrelated point, I could see an argument being made that bullied straight kids may have more in common with bullied gay kids than non-bullied gay kids (at least on that particular axis.) I don’t identify as gay (or straight, kind of? it’s complicated) but my parents and the vast majority of my community growing up were generally cool with various sexualities. My high school had a thriving LGBT club, the church-going community was quiet and socially liberal, etc. etc. So I could totally imagine a kid growing up in that kind of situation, even if they were gay, not necessarily having experienced the kind of bullying that other gay kids (or not-gay kids) experience. Or, for example, maybe someone didn’t even realize they weren’t totally straight until they were older and missed out on bullying that way.

Should non-bullied people of any stripe shut up too, then, is my question? Or would it still be appropriate to be like “I’m gay but I was actually pretty alright all along” do you guys think?

And re. some of what Amanda’s been saying, the “anti-homophobia not anti-bullying” thing is new to me—I’d thought, from the bits I’d heard, that this campaign was about the bullying gay kids face, which made me (and, it seems, many others) assume that anything gay or bullying-related was within its scope. So I think that people are innocently coming at it from very different understandings of the main purpose.

Salient, you don’t get it then.  That’s okay.  Everyone’s on their own path.

Salient and AnglScarlett, you both are confusing “bullying” with “offering up some uncomfortable truths.”  Some people are just in over their heads.  Some people try to tell those people know as politely and nicely as possible.  I’m not one of those people.

A word of support for AnglScarlett.  I don’t agree with her stance on IGB videos but that doesn’t matter; she speaks clearly, and she makes this site better.  Everybody singing from the same hymnal is deadly to a blog.  (I’m sure I’m not the only commenter here who was turned off Shakesville by the heavy-handed patrolling and leader-worship.  That site seems to be in decline.)

Truth, Unree.  That is a 100% valid point.

Some people also misapply the word “troll”, stubbles.  You clearly *are* one of those kind of people.

There, done feeding!

(See what I did there, stubbles?  That was intentional)

Aaaand I see that a reasoned defense of AnglScarlett by Unree has resulted in a reasoned agreement by stubbles.  Please disregard my previous post, and stubbles, please accept my apology for implying that you were a troll.

You know Emmet, the author of the original post is straight.  Look, straight people are talking about this.  But what’s more important is that when I read your post telling me to shut up, what flashed across my mind was the story Malcom X recounts in his autobiography about the white woman who was so affected by his words, that she ran up to him and asked him what she could do to help, and he responded with a cold and nasty “nothing”.

He wrote that this incident was one of his biggest regrets.

Maybe Bagelsan is onto something when she wonders if gay kids who have been bullied might have more in common with straight kids who have been bullied than they do with gay kids who haven’t experienced bullying.  I don’t know.

But I definitely think it’s worth noting that Savage himself appears to have no problem with this, and that he in fact has encouraged some straight participation.  And I don’t think telling people to shut up is that good of an idea.  You know, unless they are Glenn Beck.  Then it’s okay.

Maybe we should wait a bit and see where this all goes.  It’s very new!  And things tend to take on a life of their own.

LOL @ stubbles.

It’s been a good long time since anyone has accused me of being in over my head.  I love this blog.  Never have more people so convinced of their own superiority gathered in one place.  Hysterical. 

Luckily I have a very healthy self-image.  No blood, no foul.

Unree: preach it.  I was at Shakes’ (Sis) since the beginning but I can’t handle it anymore.  Plus, the emphasis on liveblogging TV shows, which , y’know, require one to have a TV and to watch it on a schedule to participate in like half the threads. 

Bagel: Gay kids deserve something for themselves.  If IGB spins off into wider initiatives against bullying, I’m all for it, but IGB, itself, is not about straight people (Nor is it particularly about gay people of color, poor LGBs, or trans people, but I digress).  Angl (in #81) is essentially saying if it it’s not about straights too, then it’s discriminatory.  That’s ridiculous.

You know Emmet, the author of the original post is straight.  Look, straight people are talking about this.  But what’s more important is that when I read your post telling me to shut up, what flashed across my mind was the story Malcom X recounts in his autobiography about the white woman who was so affected by his words, that she ran up to him and asked him what she could do to help, and he responded with a cold and nasty “nothing”.

He wrote that this incident was one of his biggest regrets.

See, from your point of view, his regret is that he wasn’t kind to her.  From my POV, it’s that he left her determination of what was helpful up to her.   This is an explicit theme on a lot of feminist blogs by people of color: white folks don’t get to decide what’s best for POCs.  Same principle applies here.  You deciding that gay kids and straight kids have it so similar is galling b/c you’re not queer.  That’s not your call to make.  As for Savage and his vision for the project, I have other criticisms: largely that the project ignores poor and colored queer kids, and trans kids.  Savage doesn’t have the greatest grasp on things outside his his white, upperclass, male realm, so I’m not so sure I’d be referencing him as an authority here is such a good idea.  After all, if the concept and execution were flawless, this post wouldn’t have been written.

Maybe we should wait a bit and see where this all goes.  It’s very new!  And things tend to take on a life of their own.

Historically, where it goes is privileged people co-opting something meant to help oppressed groups and patting themsleves on the back for identifying so well with the struggles of the oppressed.

You know Emmet, the author of the original post is straight.  Look, straight people are talking about this.

Wanted to add: Amanda’s post was about how she didn’t participate b/c it’s not her place to do so.  She is exactly right in her decision not to butt in.

Anglscarlett,
I don’t approve of the way you were treated here by stubbles but I didn’t see MAJeff’s “whoosh” connected to that. The vast majority of these comments here, many by gay people, have told you that you are speaking about this topic from privilege but you seem to refuse to see that and continue to make arguments based from that position. As a former bullied gay teen myself, I find the position you are taking pretty disrespectful for the topic. So, yeah, I think a “whoosh” is not entirely inappropriate.

Emmett, I never said that if it’s not about straights too it’s discrimatory.  WOw, where are you reading that??  You know, it’s very difficult to defend yourself on this blog, because so many people start demanding you defend something you never said.  Now, please go read my post #81 again.  That is a post to MAjeff asking him about another poster’s bragging about bullying me.  I mean, how do read “angl is essentially saying if it’s not about straights too it’s discrimatory” into that?  And if you made an error on the number, and are actually referencing my post #80, well, nowhere do I say that either.

That thought never even crossed my mind.  Please, stop projecting your own concerns, or fears, onto my actual posts.  I stand by what I wrote, not what you think I wrote.  That’s not even remotely fair.  And I find the position you ascribe to me offensive.  So I"m pretty offended at your claiming I hold it.  Since I don’t.  And if someone said they did, I would tell them they were being offensive.  Jesus.

As to the rest of your post.  I believe you may not have a firm grasp on what Malcolm X actually felt, and what he wrote, about that incident, and after all, that’s what’s important.  It’s not from my point of view, or your point of view.  It’s from his point of view.  Have you read his autobiography? 

I have not “decided” that gay and straight kids have it so similar.  I offered the opinion that straight kids who are victims of bullying could watch Savage’s video and find some solace in it even though they are not gay.  And that it stands to reason that the opposite is also true.

Lastly, you go on to deride Savage as someone who should not be cited as an authority on…his own project. 

Come on Emmett, really? 

So now not only should I shut up, but Dan Savage should shut up because he’s white and middle class.  Even though he is the one who founded this entire project.  You know, we are getting way off track here.  It’s fine to offer criticisms of Savage’s project being unresponsive to the concerns of poor and minority gays.  But to claim that Savage has no standing on the direction of his own project…that’s just beyond the pale.  Of course he does.

@ Salient and Adam and a couple of others.  Seriously, don’t worry about my feelings over what stubbles said.  It’s really sweet and speaks highly of you, but you can let it go.  Adam if you have something to say you don’t have to preface it by expressing your disapproval of how stubbles treated me.  I feel kind of bad, because I guess my emphasizing his brag that he was bullying me, made people think that I felt bullied.  I really didn’t and took his bragging about bullying me much like the ant floating down its back and yelling out “raise the drawbridge; I’ve got a hardon”. 

Salient I hope you will lurk less and post more.

Adam, I’m sorry I have said anything to offend you.  I don’t disrespect you or the project at all.  Maybe I have misinterpreted the intent of the project.  And again, I have an open mind about it, and I will read other gay opinions on this, especially from those who are directly involved in the project.  Right now, I really think this is a tempest in a teacup and nothing has been hijacked or taken over.  A few straight people have made tapes.  The president made a tape.  You know, maybe he reached some young gay people of color.  The first black President talking making an “it gets better” video.  I think that’s something.  It will be most interesting to see some of the reactions from the actual target audience; teen gays who are being bullied now.

I hope we get to read and hear some of them.  I bet we will all be in for some surprises.  Even those of us who already know everything there is to know about this.

Bagel: Gay kids deserve something for themselves.  If IGB spins off into wider initiatives against bullying, I’m all for it, but IGB, itself, is not about straight people ...

I certainly agree with you! I guess where I’m coming from, a bit, might be a very fluid/casual/confused? view of sexuality. I have a hell of a time drawing a line between “gay” and everyone else, so when I try to lay out precisely who should be involved in this (and who should not) my mind starts boggling. If someone ID’s as 100% hetero then yeah, I think that shushing is appropriate—but then you’ve got bi people, tried-it-once-in-college people, asexual people, yanno, all that crowd who I wouldn’t call “gay” but who certainly wouldn’t be mainstream sexualities either. Who may or may not be bullied about it, depending on lots of factors (such as visibility, location, and so on.)

So that’s why I’m leaning a bit towards personally mentally grouping people into “bullied (particularly for sexual identity/gender presentation/etc.)” who can/should participate, and “<u>not</u> bullied (due to straightness/late-blooming gayness/good luck/etc.)” who should…maybe participate? depending on individual circumstances? For example, I would not probably pick “straight” as my sexual identity but I wouldn’t really say “gay” either and it’s very wishy-washy for me (I’m sure I’m queer of soooome flavor, yay broad umbrella…) But I definitely was never bullied because of my sexuality (or anywhere near the level some of these kids get for any reason) and I was never a universal community target of bullying for any reason, so I would feel more like I was appropriating the “bullied” label than the “gay” label if I made a video.

Of course, the official word for this particular campaign trumps my opinion in this matter—so I will let Savage and other definitely-gay-and-bullied people call the shots. It’s just in my mind, “gay” and “not gay” are far from concrete categories.

I never said that if it’s not about straights too it’s discrimatory.  WOw, where are you reading that??

Is bullying a good thing, or simply a neutral act, if the victim is straight?

So if gays don’t want straights butting into an initiative started to help gay kids, gays are A-OK with bullying.  Or did you mean something else there?  Seems to me you were accusing Jeff of discriminating against straight kids.

Have you read his autobiography? 
No.  Feel free to call me on context.

offered the opinion that straight kids who are victims of bullying could watch Savage’s video and find some solace in it even though they are not gay.  And that it stands to reason that the opposite is also true.

This demonstrates an ignorance of how oppression works to Other minorities.  If straight kids get something from gays, fine, great.  Suggesting gay kids get something from straights is just reproducing the dynamics of straights telling gays what to think about themselves.  That it’s benevolent instead of malicious doesn’t change that it’s oppressive.

Lastly, you go on to deride Savage as someone who should not be cited as an authority on…his own project. 

He can run his own project any way he likes.  It can be helpful in some ways while being completely shortsighted in others.  Me pointing out those shortcomings on a blog doesn’t affect him or his direction of IGB in the least.  But if you’re going to argue on intent, I’m going to point out the things his project scope overlooked.

No Emmett, you completely misread that exhange between Jeff and I.  Seriously, you actually owe me an apology, but that’s okay, just stop saying that I made that claim.  I did not, I do not, and I find the position you are claiming that I hold to be offensive in nature.  I do not hold that position, I never said or implied that I did.  YOU misread.  Period.  I am not going back over that.  That’s done.  Anyone wanting to make that claim from this point forward is simply invested in being an asshole.  I’m sure you won’t do that.

As for Malcom X, he writes very movingly of how he really believed that white people had nothing to offer the movement, or him.  He was a separatist, you probably are aware of that.  Anyway, he has a change of mind and heart in later years, and when he writes about this one woman, he sounds almost as if the exchange had haunted him for years afterwards. 

“If straight kids get something from gay kids, fine, great. Suggesting gay kids get someting from straights is just reproducing the dynamics of straights telling gays what to think about themselves”.

Wow, I just don’t see that.  It’s almost as if you are suggesting that gay kids aren’t human or something.  I mean, I know you are not suggesting that, but…no, sorry, I just don’t get that.

I’m sure Savage as well as his project have shortcomings.  That’s part of what I meant when I said these things take on lives of their own.  They always do.  Much will be added to this.  Maybe straight stories should be part of what is added and maybe they shouldn’t be.  But it’s certain that the original project is going to morph and change, and grow.  All I am saying is that right now, it’s so new, I really am looking forward to hearing about how it has actually impacted gay youths.  And then from there, how it can be made better.  I’m sure that gay activists, including Savage, will be reactive to the concerns of the actual kids.  Right now, aren’t we all just speculating?

Bagel:  I definitely see your point.  It’s difficult to keep aware of grey areas and I haven’t done a good job of that.  I’m just not sure how someone who ended up being straight—for the purposes of discussion, someone bullied over gender stuff who grew up not be queer in any way—could contribute to making definitely LGBT kids feel better.  I know that the ‘homosexual feelings can be suppressed and/or fixed’ was the party line I learned.  I would have latched onto any slim hope I could find that I might not have to be ‘like that.’  Even if they didn’t mean to, straight folks could contribute to the feelings of queer kids that it’s possible to grow out of it, or deliberately change it into an acceptable sexuality.  In an environment where sexualities are actively policed, that seems like false and misleading hope.

I’m sorry, then. 

It’s almost as if you are suggesting that gay kids aren’t human or something.  I mean, I know you are not suggesting that, but…no, sorry, I just don’t get that.

Would it make more sense if I phrased it as, “Oppressed groups are expected to identify with the oppressor”?  That is, gays are supposed to find straight narratives relevant solely b/c they come from straight people.  In this specific context, what can gay kids learn from straight adults?  See #115 for one damaging interpretation that could result.

@Anglscarlett
Thanks for your respectful and kind response.
I actually think Obama doing an IGB video was great and kind of incredible in some ways. I imagine to be young and gay and see the President as voice of support would be really wonderful.
I am not against occasional straight allies making videos, that was never my point. Nor do I think it is Amanda’s entirely- see the mention of Sarah Silverman for example. The point was keeping the focus of the project on gay kids instead of a general anti-bullying campaign. Gay youth faces its own specific problems and this project was started to deal with that. If it loses that focus, it becomes about something else and, once again, gay kids are left feeling isolated and cut off without anyone addressing them and their specific problems.

I’m sure Savage as well as his project have shortcomings.  That’s part of what I meant when I said these things take on lives of their own.  They always do.

The thing is, like I said above, the direction things usually take is co-option by privileged groups.  My admitted bias is that I don’t think Savage is aware enough to prevent that from happening with IGB.  I would like to be disproved, honestly.  But I’m skeptical.

@Bagelsan

I agree with you that kids who are bullied or otherwise oppressed based on their gender presentation or perceived sexuality, whether or not they actually identify as “gay”, are definitely a part of this issue.Whether or not they have significant same-sex desires, they are still subject to significant gender and sexuality policing that reinforces the difficulties of those who do identify as LGBT. Plus, not everyone is sure of their sexual orientation in high school or middle school. In fact, as you so eloquently describe, not everyone is completely sure as an adult! (I have sooo much empathy for the way you describe your sexuality…the generic “queer” feels like it’s the label that fits the best these days, although I identified as “bisexual” in high school and I still use it as shorthand when I don’t feel like getting into a complicated discussion about terms.)

But I also think that this campaign is not only about bullying of teens by teens…it’s also about living under the crushing weight of homophobia by parents, churches, teachers and school administrations, unfavorable or nonexistant media representations, etc. So I think Amanda’s right that there’s a real danger of the anti-homophobia message being lost in a sea of generic anti-bullying messages that deal only with peer-on-peer bullying by children. It’s really cool of her to act on this by not making a video and by stating why she feels it’s not her place I think, for LGBT kids, there’s a lot more to it than that. I would be totally fine with the campaign expanding to all flavors of non-normative sexuality, but I think we should be hesitant to overemphasize the peer bullying aspect over the heterosexism aspect.

Emmett, yeah, there would certainly be a trade-off between giving a very complex and accurate portrait of human sexuality (which would include basically every permutation of gender/sex/orientation/changes in all the above) and giving a more direct message. I think there’s value both in a campaign saying “people have all sorts of identities and get bullied about them, gender and sex policing is a systemic problem, nothing about your childhood (neither your sex experiences nor your happiness level) is totally predictive of your adulthood, sexuality can be fluid, etc.” and something saying purely “I am gay and I’ve always been gay, I’m still happy as fuck!”

...the latter seems to be the case for this campaign. Which I’m absolutely down with. And I think that it’s probably appropriate to start with “gay is fine and great!” as the primary message. There is plenty of time for gay teens to grow up and start fine-tuning their understanding of adult sexuality—they just need to be allowed to survive growing up first.

Well, Adam and Emmett you have both given me a lot more to think about than people who yell out “you fucking stupid idiot” or “you just want this to be all about you” ever could.

Great examples on this thread of how treating people like human beings and explaining yourself rationally, will always move more people to your side than hurling insults at them or assuming their motives are shallow, suspect, or outright malicious.

I will defintely continue to give this a lot of thought as I read more and more about it and its effects.  Certainly the things you have both written will weigh into that.  You have both made some excellent points.

@reverie

I would be totally fine with the campaign expanding to all flavors of non-normative sexuality, but I think we should be hesitant to overemphasize the peer bullying aspect over the heterosexism aspect.

One of the things that came up in talking to a bisexual friend, who is not out beyond select family and friends and teaches at a public high school in a moderately conservative area, was her observations on how gay and lesbian students are treated differently by teachers who are completely unaware they are doing so.  My friend obviously gets to hear a lot of the overt homophobia that the teachers hide from the students, but she also gets to observe the different ways that “inappropriate PDA” policies are enforced. 

For example: a straight couple holds hands down the hallway with no problem, a gay or lesbian couple does so and they are told not to.  My friend has tried to point this out to the teachers she has seen do so, but they really don’t get what she is trying to say.  (And she feels limited because she doesn’t feel that she can be out among these people.)  As I understand it, they think they are calling out all inappropriate PDAs that they see and, to a certain extent, they are.  The problem is in the fact that they have different standards for gay and straight kids that they have little to no awareness of and so they only notice the gay or lesbian couples.

My friend isn’t sure how much the students notice (since obviously some teachers call out all hand holding and some think all hand holding is ok), but some certainly do.  It isn’t exactly bullying, but it certainly isn’t exactly not-bullying.  And it is incredibly fucked up.  It would be really hard to do anything about it because no one gets punished in these situations, just told to stop what they are doing.  (If a student refused, that would certainly become a bigger problem, but AFAIK none do.)

And that sort of thing will get better.  (Not all the time for everyone, there was the lesbian couple recently who were asked to leave a mall for having the audacity to kiss in public.)  I don’t think straight adults have much to say to gay and lesbian and bisexual kids trying to get through that.

Geez, can’t anybody anywhere admit they might have been wrong without trying to get in extra digs at the people who made them feel bad?  “Yeah, I guess I can see how I might have been wrong.  BUT YOU WERE WRONGER.”

@Atheist, A Feminist:

It’s just like the “shoving it in our faces” complaint that so many homophobes make.  “I have no problem with gay people, I just wish they weren’t always shoving it in our faces.”

Where “shoving” is defined as:  talking about a relationship, kissing a significant other, holding hands, flirting with somebody they’re interested in, inviting acquaintances to dinner with their significant other, getting married, etc.  All things that straight people do with their partners constantly.  I play World of Warcraft, and occasionally hear players identifying as gay complaining about homophobia.  At which point others say, “well this is a game, why do people even know you’re gay, why are you shoving it in people’s faces?” when it is far from uncommon to see (presumably) straight, male players talk about how much they get laid and how hot their girlfriends are.

@ Atheist
A gay male couple in my high school, actually the only other out gay kids in my high school other then me, were attacked by bullies after holding hands walking down a school hallway. Both of the gay boys were suspended from school for provoking with inappropriate conduct and both ended up leaving my high school after the incident. The bullies that beat them up were not suspended and graduated with me from my high school. So incredibly fucked up…Every single day I was scared to go to high school for fear of what would happen to me and this incident reminded me that the adult world would not protect me from whatever could happen but instead more likely punish me for having the audacity to exist. And this was 1996 or so…not very long ago at all.
@AnglScarlett
Yes, I agree civil and polite conversation and debate is more productive but its hard for a lot of people not to get riled up when speaking about this kind of subject matter-homophobia, bullying teenage experiences. I think the best thing though in this kind of discussion is to defer to the views and opinions of a minority group when they are speaking about an issue that directly affects them or their community. I can empathize intellectually and be a strong ally to women and people of different races, but my perspective as a white man means that I never can be an authority on their experiences or issues. But listening and trying to understand is the first step in really helping others.

@Denise

It definitely is the “shoving it in our faces” thing, but I think it is interesting that the teachers my friend has talked to don’t say that.  The disgust in the actual articulating of that sentiment is obvious, and the disgust with these teachers is less so.  It isn’t an improvement by any means, and in some ways it seems to be worse because it is so much harder to tell someone they are doing something wrong when they don’t seem to be aware that they are actually doing anything.  (The obviously homophobic crowd know they are doing something, even if it is just making the “correct moral judgement” and that is a place to start, maybe.)

@AdamN

Wow, that is appalling.  I think it is really reassuring that my friend teaches at a school in a conservative-ish area that, so far, hasn’t had anything like that happen and has a decent number of out students.  (Of course, I find it incredibly not reassuring that my friend frequently must remind her students that “gay” is not an appropriate insult and where so many of her fellow teachers are homophobic.)  It would be wonderful if at least one of the straight (and so less/not afraid of putting her job in jeopardy if discovered to be not-straight) teachers would notice this sort of thing and at least get the school to enact extremely specific policies so that differences in enforcement would be more noticeable and could be combated.  Or, of course, if my friend had nothing to worry about at all if her co-workers or students were to discover that she isn’t straight.  Hopefully that will get better too.

Everybody singing from the same hymnal is deadly to a blog.  (I’m sure I’m not the only commenter here who was turned off Shakesville by the heavy-handed patrolling and leader-worship.  That site seems to be in decline.)

Careful - you may be oppressing McEwen and intruding on her safe space again by saying this.  Time for another samokritika comments thread, comrade!

Adam, gays have differing opinions on this.  As discussed upthread, the person who began this program obviously feels much differently about this than you do. 

I expressed an opinion that I actually still hold.  I think you and others have pointed out some possible dangers that could yet develop.  If straights were to appropriate this program to the point where it lost its anti-homophic message, then that would be very wrong.  But that hasn’t happened, and it may never happen.

It’s good for straights to be aware of the possibility though, and to conduct themselves accordingly.

Shakesville is an easy place to mock.  It’s not the place for me certainly.  But some people do need so-called safe places.  If you’ve ever tried to recount a sexual assault incident on an open board, you may find out why sooner than you’d like.  There’s a lot of cruelty in cyberspace.  I mean, no one need wonder why children are so cruel.  Many of their parents are monsters.  And when they believe that no one they know is looking, they do and say monstrous things.

IMO.

I’m not sure that kids who are perceived as gay can just say, “Hey, I’m not gay,” and have any of the abuse let up.

I’m also not sure that perceived gayness (or lack of masculinity/femininity, and these two charges are related) don’t have major, social messages attached about worth and being hell-bound.

Perhaps more saliently, I’m not sure that it’s productive to try to separate out a single, distinct line between gender non-conformity and queerness. I’m queer—I’m a bisexual woman, married to a man, and I have no doubt that homophobia, internal and external, had a profound effect on me and my actions—but apart from isolated occasions, I wasn’t directly bullied for my sexuality. My husband doesn’t identify as queer to my knowledge, but he was targeted frequently as a young person (yes, he did get beaten up every day), and is still targeted as an adult, sometimes, when he fucks up and fails to play-act a masculinity he doesn’t identify with in a space where that’s not acceptable. Sometimes that’s dangerous, though mostly it’s not. But he’s always watching for someone to be violent, because being victimized for that long isn’t something that leaves you.

With respect, he was indeed told by both individuals and a larger society that there was something wrong with him for being a feminine man, and that there was something at the core of him which was untenable.

He’s not the only man I know in this situation, and I really don’t think it’s easy to tease out from a more general queerness. Queerness, to me at least, isn’t just about sexual orientation, but also includes issues of gender identity—and lots of people *are* abused, wholly, roundly, socially, for non-conforming gender roles.

I think I understand what people are saying when they’re arguing against the inclusion of heterosexuals who are subject to homophobia, mind, and I support their goal of centering queer experiences. But I’m not sure I agree with their basic premises.

@Mandolin

I think, although I might be misremembering, that most people are torn on the inclusion of heterosexuals who are subject to homophobia.  I think that it is a much more delicate and tricky issue than the inclusion of heterosexuals who were bullied for other reasons.  My sister was bullied because she skipped a grade and was the youngest in her classes throughout school.  I don’t think that her “It gets better because eventually you are old enough that one year doesn’t make a difference to anybody but the person selling the liquor” is anywhere near as relevant as what you describe.

Most of the kids I saw being bullied for being “gay"were not really gay.  Calling someone gay is sort of a one size fits all insult and chances are a lot of straight males have been bullied for being “gay”, which makes me think that a lot of straight people can speak with knowledge about how life gets better once you get away from high school.

Some of it is about gender policing as “gay” is a substitute word bullies use for any type of behavior they deem feminine.

I read the original article and wholeheartedly agree that the vast majority of straight people do not need to make It Gets Better videos as the bullying they experienced does not compare with what a gay teen goes through. Off the top of my head I can think of eight people (the surviving members of the Little Rock 9) who can totally relate to a bullied gay teen. They too had the entire school, community, their state and 1/2 the country against them. Most other straight people cannot say the same and should not be posting false equivalencies where vulnerable teens can see them.

When I first heard about the project I was tempted to post a video, but then reconsidered. These IGB videos are first and foremost stories of a particular group’s survival meant to inspire and hearten other members of that group who are still oppressed. Although I’m sympathetic I’m just not a member of that group.

There’s a place for straight folks to express their sympathy and solidarity, and that place is apparently Cyndi Lauper’s site mentioned at #20 by MAJeff. I hope that Lauper and Savage do some co-marketing, because the projects are natural affiliates.

Just to add: for kids who have been abused in certain ways going into middle school or high school, homophobic bullying will have a strong influence on their self-perceived sexual orientation. After all, if someone calls you “faggot” they must be right, and even if you don’t recognize any obvious signs of same-sex attraction, that must be your fault. Of course, this requires a deeply homophobic surrounding culture to work, but we’ve got plenty of that.

I think perhaps an interesting dividing line for IGB is “It gets better because as you get older society at large will accept and value you” versus “It gets better because you will find enough people to love and value you, even if society at large continues to be fscked up.”

136 comments.

Man, some straight people really don’t like being asked nicely not to poach on gay people’s experiences.  Fascinating, truly.

I mean, when does this turn into getting angry that black people can say the n-word but white people can’t?

136 comments.
Man, some straight people really don’t like being asked nicely not to poach on gay people’s experiences.  Fascinating, truly.

You’re right. This should have been followed not by analysis and discussion, but by all the internets simply nodding in awed silence. Because when you write a blog post on the internet, THAT EVER HAPPENS.

What the…what? People have made excellent, if tangential, points about sexuality in early adolescence that have, largely, been left out of this discussion for the most part. The majority of posters agree with you in nearly lockstep. (Though one of the dissenters is certainly prolific in posting.)

And it’s worth noting that no post on this thread is literally poaching anyone’s IGB experiences, because this thread isn’t IGB.

I think the minimum requirement should be that everyone specify that being mean in homophobic ways is a jackass thing to do.

I’m with you on that; I actually am somewhat uncomfortable, as I said, with straight people making these videos at all. After reading this whole thread, I still think that non-normative gender performing persons, regardless of who they fuck, probably have some kind of place in the project, but that’s about it.

What I resented about Amanda’s comments @ 137 and 138 was the implication that just by discussing the issue at all, we’re all clearly bigots and bonus! probably racists too. I mean it’s okay for her to turn the matter over in her head and write a post about it, but if we try and break down the issue for ourselves, we suck. What the everloving fuck, that.

purpleshoes, I don’t follow you on how what I said could be interpreted as biphobic…?  The “if you’re not gay, butt out” bit?

I don’t have a problem with the calling-out on this thread whatsoever. The posts to which I objected were not call-outs, they were blanket shut-downs that I thought were, frankly, unworthy. They were directed at every participant in the thread, when I’d say 99% of us are discussing in good faith and with humility.

I just cannot understand how some straight people here want to define what is and is not an acceptable anti-homophobia campaign, insisting they are right despite all the gay people saying, nope, feels like hijacking to us.  Perhaps next, white folks will tell us what’s anti-black racism, and tell the black folks they’re wrong about their perceptions of that too.  And then men can tell us what’s an acceptable feminist campaign, dismissing what women have to say on the issue.

Bagelsan, I think you and I might be in the same boat. (If I were to make an It Gets Better video - and I’m not going to - I would be all “and for the people whose sexual identity remains a question mark well into adulthood, you will also be okay!”.)

It’s not a bad boat, it just results in a lot of hazily-phrased and slightly too-personal blog comments.

But yeah, I think that having a message somewhat like the above might not be bad to include. I know I felt a little pressure to identify as something concretely in high school—I think I sort of got shuffled into “straight” and didn’t challenge it, which I’m sure is not a situation unique to me. However, I was never bullied for it or actively mistreated (it’s not a highly visible identity, for one*) so I wouldn’t personally make a video because it was never terrible and it hasn’t “gotten better” so to speak (ie. I remain undefined.)

*you’re not going to get megachurches saying stuff like “and all you people who don’t have an entirely clear picture of your sexuality, that not-exactly-gay-but-probably-queer fluid identity is sending you to hell!” because I’m pretty sure they don’t know that’s even a thing in the first place. :p

(Er, to be clear, I say it hasn’t “gotten better” because nothing has changed for me in how I’m treated, not because pinning down a sexual identity would be “better.” So my message would boil down to “I was somewhat undefined and alright as a kid and I’m somewhat undefined and alright still, so no changes here” which seems a little off-topic for this campaign.)

Re Salient @148 - Amanda did say (as did I at 149) “SOME straight people.”  Yes, the majority are seeing the point and expressing support.  But it is the few who steadfastly refuse to hear what the gay people are telling them, specifically ABOUT what it’s like to be a gay kid and what is helpful to a gay kid (and what is not), that are indeed fascinating.  I’m not sure if they’re really trying to say “no, gay folks, you’re wrong about what’s good for gay kids, and I (straight person) know better” or if they’re saying “it doesn’t matter if the message to gay kids is diluted and unhelpful, far more important to use this campaign to help others.”  So either gays are (a) wrong, or (b) not uniquely important.

It’s easy to understand (and appreciate!) the supportive allies.  It’s the others that we puzzle over.

Anglscarlet
“Adam, gays have differing opinions on this.”
The vast majority of gay voices here are in pretty much agreement. Sure there may be exceptions but, as with any discussion like this, that isn’t a reason to assume that you can be authority on another minorities group project dealing with THEIR group.
“As discussed upthread, the person who began this program obviously feels much differently about this than you do. “
Does he? Is there a link anywhere to how Savage feels about the specific topic at hand? I think Savage was OK with straight allies voicing their support, NOT with the project being diluted by straight voices turning the campaign into a general anti-bullying one and not a campaign focused on gay youth. That seems to be what is happening now to many of our eyes and what this discussion is based on.
@CalliopeJane
“I just cannot understand how some straight people here want to define what is and is not an acceptable anti-homophobia campaign, insisting they are right despite all the gay people saying, nope, feels like hijacking to us.”
Yep, its frustrating.

Bagelsan, I think nobody has mentioned that when straight kids get bullied and called gay, gay kids hear that too, even if they aren’t bullied themselves.  I was closeted, gender conforming, and didn’t date until college, so I never got any shit about being gay, but I grew up in suburban Christianist Texas, so I sure as fuck saw other people being bullied and taunted for being gay.  I now know a friend of a friend who I went to school with was in a similar situation, and attempted suicide. 
You don’t need to be a target to know you would be a target, if the bullies noticed you.  So yeah, IGB is relevant to gay kids who aren’t bullied, even if gay kids who feel accepted don’t need it.

Adam, well, I think that the President making a video, as previously discussed, was a very good thing.  I think that Pelosi’s video was a good thing.  don’t forget Hillary made a video and here is something we all tend to forget - Hillary CLinton was bullied as a “lesbian” on the world stage by a bunch of men, relentlessly, and for years.  So, her video was a good thing.

Kim Kardashian jumped the shark with it, no doubt.

That’s probably the big red flag that it’s gone too far. 

To be fair, I have read this story in many other places, and the reception to these videos has been overwhelmingly positive from gays and straights.  So, yeah, three? (i think, maybe more?) gay people who post here, have “told me” and of course, AManda in her arrogant manner, has informed me I am a homophobic bigot and a racist, but that’s just ignorance.  This is a very, very, tiny corner of opinion. 

To be clear - I do think Kardashian jumped the shark with it, and I can definitely see it may need to stop now.  BUT, it was a good thing to begin with. 

IMO.

If you are referring to Amanda’s comments at 137 and 138, she is making a point about privilege in this discussion. I found her piece and her comments to be sensitive and articulate. She understands what means to be an ally to another community and is not under the mistaken assumption that she has the authority to speak for a community that she isn’t a part of.

You don’t need to be a target to know you would be a target, if the bullies noticed you.  So yeah, IGB is relevant to gay kids who aren’t bullied, even if gay kids who feel accepted don’t need it.

That’s a good point. Homophobic (and other types of) policing and bullying are very efficient because there just need to be a few examples made of people, and you’ve effectively terrorized an entire population. I wonder if it’s a bit of a gradient—the actively targeted victims get the highest concentration of trauma but then it radiates out to the passively bullied potential-target kids and eventually laps up against the non-target kids like a big pool of hate.

Which actually makes my point about “bullied” vs. “non-bullied” not work so well as a dichotomy; I guess it’s more of a spectrum also, like sexuality. Aw man, now I’m imagining additive wave functions of gayness and trauma… like a 3D graph of childhood misery where getting two overlapping peaks can be fatal.

@CalliopeJane

Chiming in on the I don’t think Amanda meant that we shouldn’t still be talking.  Most threads don’t get this long unless it is a really contentious issue (hipsters and food, I think, are the main ones here) or the comments thread has become a troll buffet.  By reaching this length and remaining troll-free, I think Amanda was observing that apparently this is really contentious, which she finds fascinating because discovering to what extent people will argue they aren’t privileged/have just as much right to be included in a minority rights issue as the minority is always fascinating (even if totally foreseeable/unsurprising).

You know what Adam, I can see that this can go on forever, and you can have the last word, I’m out for the weekend in a moment anyway.  But i just want to say that I never ever thought I was speaking for any community. I was discussing a post.  This blog has begun to attract the type of people who attack first, and ask questions later.  If I don’t sit up and applaud every word Amanda writes like a seal, strike that - it’s not about me.  I often agree with her, so it usually doesn’t happen to me, but i see it happening on nearly ever thread to SOMEONE - if you don’t applaud and say “wonderful Amanda” there’s a pileon, and Amanda has a terrible and arrogant habit of calling people names in a very underhanded way.  I used to think she was going to mature out of it, but it’s become obvious she isn’t going to.  Eventually, that will bring down this blog, because the fish rots from the head, and she is setting a tone here that encourages pile-ons, arrogance, superiority, assumptions of people’s motives, and name calling. 

Three gay people on Amanda’s blog don’t speak for the gay community either.  I have yet to see anything but a (nearly) all positive reaction to the videos elsewhere. 

And discussion can help everyone, including me. 

But it’s becoming more and more difficult to discuss anything here.  And you can pick any thread, and I guarantee you will find someone being piled on.  It’s a different person in every thread.

And that should tell you something. 

I’ve been very nice to you, but your insistence on stating that I believe I’m speaking for any “community” is rank horseshit completely unsubstantiated by anything I have written.

I got more out of this thread then I lost in aggravation.  But it’s becoming a closer closer call on that. 

I wish you a good weekend.  Sincerely. 

AnglScarlett,

I really think you are missing the point—there is a strong distinction between allies making videos supportive of gay people, and straight people making videos about how they were bullied too, not for perceived or actual sexuality, and it is all the same.

Because it is Not.  All.  The.  Same.  As AdamN and Calliope Jane and others have pointed out upthread.

And as Amanda has too, see in particular her comment 15:

It would be like a bunch of men saying to young women, “Hey, don’t let that sexism get you down.  Look at me!  I’m a doctor.” The intended audience is going to be like, wuh?

I need to point out something that Amanda said at the beginning that seems to have gotten lost.

This isn’t just about bullying.

If we magically stopped the bullying - of everyone - gay kids still grow up in a vacuum. Honestly, I’m not sure if you could call what I went through bullying - I know I don’t think of it that way, and I’m sure that most of what I got crap for was being a hell of a lot smarter than my classmates and being Teacher’s Pet and lousy at sports - the nerd stuff - whether anyone thought I was gay or not.

But my family took for granted I was straight, and subtly and not-so subtly constantly reinforced that. I grew up knowing that every fairy tale where the Princess found a Prince didn’t apply to me, that every wedding I went to could never be mine, that the girls I took to dances and to the Prom weren’t my girlfriends and that I never would have one. I wouldn’t ever have kids. I wouldn’t ever be married. I wouldn’t ever get to hold someone’s hand, go on vacation together, sit on a porch together, make a home together. My local church never talked about homosexuality, so while I wasn’t villified, my experience was invisible - and there was Mother’s Day, and Father’s Day, and weddings, and baptisms, and the Holy Family and how God’s plan was for everyone to get married and have kids and how that love was a mirror of God’s love for the Church. And that it would never apply to me.

Nobody in any movie I ever saw fell in love the way I would have. Nobody in any love song I ever listened to was singing to me.

And it was never, ever, ever going to change. And it Anita Bryant had her way, it would actually get worse. And later, it was a good thing that people like me were dying of AIDS, and decent people didn’t even talk about it, much less fight to change it.

I was never shoved into lockers or down stairs. I got called “sissy” a lot, and “faggot” once or twice. But the thing is, I knew they were right. I WAS a faggot. And it was never, ever, ever going to change.

It’s why this isn’t “about” bullying, and why the biggest problem about including discussions of how straight bullying ends too just makes it about bullying - but not about telling gay kids to hate themselves. It just tells them we’ll stop throwing them into lockers while they still hate themselves.

I was in my mid to late 30’s before I stopped looking at myself in every mirror I passed to quickly check whether my wrists were in a limp pose, or whether I looked too faggy. And this was as an honor graduate of the fucking NAVAL ACADEMY, as a serving Naval Officer.

I still remember the near lethal panic I experienced when one of my high school classmates relatively innocently pointed out how weird it was that I held my books like a girl. Here was an obvious, universal gender conformity clue, and I hadn’t even noticed it was there! What else was I doing that gave me away?

Yes, it is absolutely, unquestionably and inarguably wrong for kids to get physically bullied or called names. And it has to stop. For any reason.

But we have the Focus on the Family assholes planning an annual nationwide Day of Discussion, or whatever they are calling it, for officially telling every gay kid in every school everywhere that they are evil, going to hell, and that they are supposed to acknowledge that the people telling them that have a right to do so, and that the opinion is just another valid option. We have one of two major parties having official platform statements that we aren’t citizens. People are spending million of dollars to write into state Constitutions that same message I got when I was a kid - those weddings will never be yours, those families will never be yours, those anniversary parties and baby showers and the happy endings in the movies don’t belong to you.

We have to tell the gay kids that it will - that it even CAN - get better. FOR THEM. Not that the other straight kids getting bullied beside them are going to grow up to have those happy endings. I know it doesn’t make sense to some people, but a straight person telling a gay kid that they were bullied and got through it can be even more disheartening than the outright hatred.

The gay kid finds himself or herself standing on the street outside the candy store. The homophobes and haters chase them off and throw rocks at them, telling them they don’t deserve to be in the store. A straight person saying “I was bullied too” can come across as saying “look at all the yummy stuff I get to have. I used to be just like you.” But you weren’t.

Isomen, you are absolutely right.  I missed the point.  I apologize.  Let me have a do over.

Amanda, what a post.  You really hit it out of the park with this one.  This is why i come to this blog.  You’re incredible.  I couldn’t agree more, and since you have said it all, and said it so perfectly, there’s nothing left to say, so why say anything?

I have no interest really in getting into a discussion here about how you feel the threads at Pandagon are uncivil or unfair or about your personal gripes with Amanda.
The reason you have been piled onto on this thread, by a bit more then 3 people I might add, is because your argument is flawed by your perspective and you refuse to really comprise your argument or own up to that even as it has been continuously been pointed out to you here. Which by the way, is why my complaints aren’t “rank horseshit”. I’ve tried to be polite to you for the most part even though your position on this topic is frankly very offensive to me as I have stated.
“I have yet to see anything but a (nearly) all positive reaction to the videos elsewhere.”
Yes, the videos have been a positive force. NO-ONE is arguing against that. Just that increasingly the project is moving away from its intended audience by becoming about bullying in general and not about gay youth and their problems. If it continues to do so, it will lose a great amount of its effect on helping gay youth. That is the discussion we are having here.

@AnglScarlett

Amanda has a terrible and arrogant habit of calling people names in a very underhanded way.  I used to think she was going to mature out of it, but it’s become obvious she isn’t going to.  Eventually, that will bring down this blog, because the fish rots from the head, and she is setting a tone here that encourages pile-ons, arrogance, superiority, assumptions of people’s motives, and name calling.

Are you seriously blaming Amanda for your own tendency to get vitriolic and personal in response to anything that could remotely be construed as disagreeing with you or thinking that your P.O.V., for whatever reason, isn’t the most valuable on here?

I actually happen to appreciate that Amanda is good with a insult and that there is some leeway to be mean.  (I wouldn’t want to participate in a discussion where my tone was constantly policed by those I considered wrong, and from your comments I can’t imagine that you would feel very welcome in such a community either.)  When insults, etc. get out of hand, there are always other commenters who attempt to get back to the actual discussion.  I can’t see how allowing things to occasionally get heated will bring down this blog.  (Although, blogging in general is young enough that I don’t think anything is actually predictive of a downfall except the person hosting the thing losing interest.)

But, y’know, when you “mature out” of some of your worse tendencies, then maybe we can set that as an age when it would be reasonable to expect Amanda to “mature out” of what you see her worse tendencies as being.

For the gay voices here being critical of your views to actually be an exception, I suggest that you would have to find proof of another large body of gay voices elsewhere suggesting that they are OK with the impetus of IGB being moved from gay youth issues to general bullying of all types. I have not seen that anywhere. Have you?

Well, Bored Now I wasn’t writing to you, and you did miss the point.

The point isn’t that Amanda is awesome.  God knows she and I have had our scrapes, including the one time she told me I had psychosexual issues I should work out in a safe space, i.e., counseling.

I was writing to AnglScarlett, who I think is really failing to check her privilege, and engage with the arguments of people, including gay people, explaining why it is that the experience of being LGBT and the negative way that our culture reacts to that goes beyond bullying.  That if you swamp the message that homophobia is bad with the message that bullying is bad, you lose.  She could choose to reject that argument, so could you, so could anybody.  But she’s completely ignoring that it exists, and only engaging with the low-hanging fruit.

But she’s not doing that, and that’s why I’m disagreeing with her, because like Amanda, Angl Scarlett shouldn’t be told she’s hitting it out of the park when she isn’t even swinging at certain pitches that are being repeatedly lobbed her way, and only calls foul on the bad ones.

if you don’t applaud and say “wonderful Amanda” there’s a pileon

That is observably horseshit. I personally have disagreed with her in the comments and argued with people, yeah, but there wasn’t a pileon, just a debate.

I suggest that you find it a “pile on” because you’re incapable of not personalizing criticism of your ideas, and debate reads as attack to you. And then you attack back and act like a jerk, and ok, sometimes then there *is* a pileon. but it’s not because you disagreed with Amanda.

Really, Atheist, AF said it best @165.

Oh, cute handle switch, Angl.  You’re Bored Now, are you?  Well then, feel free to walk away from this discussion.  After all, you have that privilege.  Because you’re not queer.  All this is “just a discussion” to you.  I should have stopped after my first comment, because look! a whole day later and we’ve come full circle.  I was spot on about the problem being your refusal to butt out.

This blog has begun to attract
I hope you’re not referring to me here.  I’ve been here since shortly after Amanda came on board.

Oh, and Angl: your last couple posts, especially #160, could fill a Derailing for Dummies bingo card.  I suggest you check it out, since I’m not the only one here who’s pointed out your privilege.

Chiming in all late n stuff but adolescent kids who are bullied for being perceived as gay or lesbian, whether that perception is correct, the IGB campaign would still help by telling them that they’re okay no matter what their orientation is and that there’s a better future waiting for them.
I’m hetero and was bullied for rationale other than my orientation or gender presentation and I think some of the IGB videos would have helped me feel a little better.

Besides, there are already anti-bullying campaigns not based on gender or orientation.
http://www.stopbullyingnow.com/
What I’d like to see is something that helps adolescent and teenage girls deal with sexual harassment, because girls in that age group are targeted really heavily for that, and it’s a form of gender-based bullying, but I haven’t figured out how that kind of campaign could be done. The google’s only giving me results aimed at adults, and most of it’s pretty victim-blamey.

@171 - I mean it’s like “how to teach your daughter to not get sexually harassed.” There’s not even much on it at scarleteen.

oh. good. god. you really are the grand emperor of passive aggressive bullshit, aren’t you, artist-formerly-known-as-anglscarlett who has now changed your identity.

“I used to think she was going to mature out of it, but it’s become obvious she isn’t going to.  Eventually, that will bring down this blog, because the fish rots from the head, and she is setting a tone here that encourages pile-ons, arrogance, superiority, assumptions of people’s motives, and name calling.  “

k bai! clearly since this blog offends you ever so much, you won’t be back. unless you’re one of those people who likes being pissed off and creating your own drama.

This discussion has produced an interesting off-shoot. People were pretty uniformly in the closet when I was a kid—let me tell you about my semi-blind date with a lesbian some time—but effeminate acting/“pretty” guys were the ones who got picked on. I was somewhat surprised when the guys who came out after high school turned out not to be the ones who had been visibly picked on.

Now should the het victims be making utube videos? I think we can all agree that they should be making them for a separate project. Maybe call it “It Gets Better, You Het Sissy.”

Really late to the party but ...

I realize this is splitting hairs, but what exactly do people picture as the aim of the IGB campaign?  Is it a campaign to stop homophobic bullying and gender policing?  Or is it a campaign to reassure gay kids that being gay is normal and, although adolescence sucks, they’ll get through it?

Those are often related but, as other people have pointed out, they’re not identical things because not every kid who gets bullied for “being gay” is actually gay.  You have straight kids who were beaten up every day because they didn’t gender conform, and you have gay kids who stayed closeted through all of high school and never experienced a minute of direct harassment.  So is this actually an anti-bullying campaign in your view, or is it a campaign to reassure gay teenagers that they’re normal?

Given that the crisis point was that kids who were bullied for not conforming to gender expectations started killing themselves, I would say that the immediate point would be to talk to those bullying victims and tell them they don’t have to give up, but that would have to include the straight ones.  Believe me, if you’re getting the shit kicked out of you every day after school because you’re a “fag,” the straight kids aren’t experiencing any secret satisfaction in knowing that they’re actually straight.  They may end up having an easier time after high school, but when you’re in the depths of being bullied, that possibility doesn’t even cross your mind.

If it is a campaign to stop homophobic bullying, then hearing from people who were bullied because they didn’t gender conform would be helpful even if they’re straight because they were still beaten up for homophobic reasons.  There’s a reason why hate crime laws specify that the defendant had to perceive that the victim was a member of the hated group—if you beat someone up for being Jewish, it doesn’t suddenly make it all okay if he turns out to be a Presbyterian.  You were still committing the crime in part to terrorize Jewish people.  A straight kid getting beaten up for being a “fag” sends the exact same terroristic message to GLBT kids at that school as it does if an out of the closet gay kid gets beaten up.

If the campaign is really meant to reassure gay teenagers that they’re normal and is not at its base an anti-bullying campaign, then I would agree that there’s not much point in having straight people do videos because, well-meaning as they are, they’re not going to be able to get the message across.

@Mnemosyne
From the website of IGB on the front page:
“Many LGBT youth can’t picture what their lives might be like as openly gay adults. They can’t imagine a future for themselves. So let’s show them what our lives are like, let’s show them what the future may hold in store for them.”
I get that straight people have horrible bullying experiences and agree something should be done about it, but the purpose of THIS project is focusing on gay youth in particular as our community has it own set of issues regarding growing up gay.

Really actually I think a lot of this conversation would have gone down differently if people looked at the IGB website: http://www.itgetsbetterproject.com/
Its pretty clear what the intentions of the actual project are. Again, I think its great that people have ideas for other projects with a different or wider target audience but IGB is about GLBT youth and their problems and should remain as such. It was created precisely because no-one was speaking to these kids in particular.

And this is kind of a perfect example of how IGB is in danger from well meaning straight allies:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sqvf3dwzV8o&feature=player_embedded
Two celebrities reassuring kids in general that they will survive high school. That’s great and all but its not much help to gay kids. It doesn’t speak to their experiences, fears or desires or show them what is possible for THEM after high school. They don’t even mention gay people. One could assume that they also think the whole project is about bullying and not about gay kids.
Gay kids are vulnerable and isolated in ways their straight counterparts are most often not. This project was a rare instance of people actually attempting to reach out and speak to THEM. But if this trend continues, that will be lost.

I guess the thing is, as a kid who was positively suicidal in high school, Due to bullying, this was exactly the sort of thing I needed to hear, and what I got was high school is the best time of your life. I do get your point Amanda, But I can also understand the straight people making just plain anti bullying video’s because, honestly, it pretty much does get better, for everyone on leaving high school.

@Leah Jaclyn
After all the comments in this discussion, reading yours makes me want to pound my head against the wall. ONCE AGAIN: Straight people are bullied and often become suicidal and that is awful and a big problem. People should go ahead and do things, like creating another video project, to help with that problem. But THIS project is aimed at LGBT youth and their unique and specific problems. The project was made to fill a void and speak to a group of kids that weren’t being spoken to in our culture.

I get that straight people have horrible bullying experiences and agree something should be done about it, but the purpose of THIS project is focusing on gay youth in particular as our community has it own set of issues regarding growing up gay.

So, as I said, it’s not actually an anti-bullying campaign, but it’s being presented that way in the media.

I think the problem some people have is that bullying is a huge problem in schools right now, and to some people this feels like Dan Savage is taking attention away from that problem and re-directing it to a different problem using bullying as his jumping-off point.

One could assume that they also think the whole project is about bullying and not about gay kids.

That’s the problem, though:  a lot of the publicity and PR is presenting it as an anti-bullying campaign when it is not.  I mean, what “action” is expected from politicians?  It can’t be anti-bullying legislation, because that’s not what the campaign is about, so what “action” are they supposed to take?

A girl in Michigan just committed suicide because friends of the guy she said raped her harassed her relentlessly.  I realize that’s not what the IGB project is about, but it does feel in some ways that the IGB project is taking attention away from something that is a huge problem for all kids and re-directing that energy towards its own agenda.  That may not be what Dan Savage intended, but that’s what it’s turning into.

One other thing:  People magazine, in particular, has been all over teen suicide this summer and has run multiple stories on it (like this one from May of this year) and this cover that featured Tyler Clementi, whose death helped spark the idea for IGB.

I think it’s natural for people to hear that IGB was sparked by Clementi’s death and think it’s an anti-bullying campaign, because that’s how Clementi’s death was presented (and, frankly, sensationalized) in the mainstream media.  So then they’re confused when it turns out it’s not actually about bullying, and it may seem to them like all of these other children who killed themselves are being ignored in favor of the one for sure gay one.

I’m not saying they’re right to feel that way, but that’s where some of the blowback is coming from:  teen suicide blew up big this year after Phoebe Prince’s suicide and it really does feel like nothing is being done and no one cares.  And then when a big splashy campaign comes along that gets a lot of publicity thanks to a story that was on the cover of People, people are told that it’s not about bullying after all.

Note that in the story I linked to, the two boys killed themselves because their classmates harassed them for being “gay.”  Homophobic bullying in schools is a huge problem that needs to be addressed, and telling kids it will get better after high school isn’t as much help to a 10-year-old as you’d think.

@Mnemosyne
“...to some people this feels like Dan Savage is taking attention away from that problem and re-directing it to a different problem using bullying as his jumping-off point.”
WTF? Seriously, it almost sounds you are taking Savage to task for creating his project because it doesn’t have the intentions you, or other straight people, want it to.
The project was started to help LGBT kids after a recent wave of suicide by gay teens. Some statistics from IGB:
  “* 9 out of 10 LGBT students have experienced harassment at school.
  * LGBT teens are bullied 2 to 3 times as much as straight teens.
  * More than 1/3 of LGBT kids have attempted to commit suicide.
  * LGBT kids are 4 times as likely to attempt suicide then our straight peers.
  * LGBT youth with “highly rejecting” families are 8 times more likely to attempt suicide than those whose families accept them.”
“I mean, what “action” is expected from politicians?  “
The idea is that anti-gay laws or second class citizenship in the US contribute to the problem of gay kids devaluing themselves.
“but it does feel in some ways that the IGB project is taking attention away from something that is a huge problem for all kids and re-directing that energy towards its own agenda”
Actually, it feels like straight people, who have our entire culture directed toward them and their needs, are taking something specifically directed at other people and making it all about themselves. Again.

Also:
“Homophobic bullying in schools is a huge problem that needs to be addressed, and telling kids it will get better after high school isn’t as much help to a 10-year-old as you’d think. “
How do you know that? Were you an LGBT teen? I was and I can say that without a doubt I would’ve been helped by something like this campaign directed SPECIFICALLY to LGBT kids. I was hungry to see any and all representations of gay adult life and felt totally isolated from other gay people. A project like this would have me hope and provided me with evidence of life after HS and the variety of LGBT experience that awaited me.

@Mnemosyne

So, as I said, it’s not actually an anti-bullying campaign, but it’s being presented that way in the media.

Anti-bullying is much more palatable to much of the media’s audience than anti-homophobia is.  The fact that the focus of the IGB campaign seems to have been lost in the shuffle seems to me to prove that Amanda’s point is a good one and that straight people should either 1) help in others ways than making videos for IGB, 2) work with/make videos for an actual all-encompassing anti-bullying campaign, and/or 3) work with/make videos for an anti-bullying of straight kids campaign so that they can re-direct attention back to where it would be if no one had made a project focusing of LGBT kids in the first place.

I frankly think that the third one there is a bit of a dick move, but I really don’t know what else to take from your “oh noes, people will totally forget that straight kids - the majority - exist and have problems if we spend a little bit of time talking specifically about the problems of the minority.”  I mean, that isn’t even a “yeah women have problems, but what about the men?” that’s a “yeah Muslims and Atheists have problems, but what about the Christians?”

@Mnemosyne

Homophobic bullying in schools is a huge problem that needs to be addressed, and telling kids it will get better after high school isn’t as much help to a 10-year-old as you’d think.

Seconding AdamN’s “How do you know?”  Sure, it won’t help all kids, but I find it hard to believe that it won’t help some.  (Not bullied, straight, former suicidal teen, here, and messages like this, tailored to teen girls, were extremely helpful.)  More importantly, what do you suggest that we do in addition?

Thanks for getting it Athiest
I just wanted to point out one of the great things about IGB in answer to the question you posed to Mnemosyne “More importantly, what do you suggest that we do in addition? “
IGB is partnered with, and in many videos and the site encourages visits to, the Trevor Project. The Trevor Project is a national hotline for suicidal LGBT kids, as well as site with helpful information and other resources for gay kids.

@AdamN

Yeah, I feel a little strange feeling so passionately that I know what is right to have for gay kids since I’m straight, but as I pointed out in the original IGB thread, I can’t help but think that as someone who was (and still occasionally is) suicidal, I have something to say about preventing suicide.

I am really glad that IGB is connected to, but still largely separate from, resources like the Trevor Project.  I think that “It Gets Better” is a message that should stand alone from “Make It Better”.  (I do wish that the Make It Better Project would find a better way of describing what they do than “tak[ing] [Dan Savage’s idea] one step further, giving youth the tools they need to make their lives better now.”  Resources like they offer are great and absolutely necessary, but they are a different way to approach a goal not a better or more advanced one.  Since I’m critiquing resources, I wish that the Trevor Project offered more information about other suicide hotlines-I had a lot of trouble playing around with their “local resources” search-because IME sometimes suicide hotlines get more calls when you can handle and while being put on hold made me laugh at the sheer inanity of it, other people may not have that response.)

*than they can handle, not “when you can handle,” which in addition to not making any sense, makes it sound like I am blaming you specifically for the problem.  Sorry.

AdamN,

I hear you.  Thanks for continuing to explain, in the face of the same repeated misunderstandings . . .

Two celebrities reassuring kids in general that they will survive high school. That’s great and all but its not much help to gay kids.

Hell, it’s not even much help to straight kids, it’s just generally pretty inane. I got well-intentioned advice along those lines—the pretty people advising kids in general that high school is tough but you survive it—when I was a straight bullied kid, and all it ever made me think was “that’s what YOU say. It’s pretty freaking obvious that I’m different from you, or else why would everyone pick on me?”

So I think I can get a glimmering of what it might feel like to be a bullied gay teen, knowing there is this difference within you, and being blithely assured by straight people that “it gets better”. How would they know?

@kristin

The Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick video is incredibly ridiculous.  There isn’t even a mention of anything bad that could possibly happen to high school kids.
After the introductions:

Kevin: I was a high school kid. 
Kyra: I was a high school kid. 
Kevin: We both raised high school kids.
Kyra: Two.
Kevin: So, trust us when we say
Both: It Gets Better.

What gets better?  High School?  That was seriously one of the most useless things I have ever seen.  I think it would be the most useless except, at 13 seconds, at least it was shorter than an Axe ad.

@Athiest
I’ve noticed that you speak with sensitivity and empathy in your comments, here and in the hipster thread, so there is no reason you should feel awkward about your comments here. Just like Amanda, you get what it means to be an ally. I try to do the same when I speak about feminist and race issues and I hope whenever I make a misstep or intrude into the issue someway someone is there to catch me and correct me.
I agree with your ideas about “Make it Better” as well.
@Ismone
Thanks. I understand people getting passionate about the larger problem of teen bullying and suicide. Its important and we need to do more to combat it and I never meant to belittle those problems with my comments. Its just that this isn’t really the proper context for it. Although I would like to think that other ostracized kids could find something positive for themselves watching these videos as well…
@Kristin
Yeah, exactly. Its amazing that there are so many high profile allies for gay people nowadays but actually the most powerful and exciting thing about IGB is all the videos from non-famous LGBT people talking about their lives and sharing their experiences. Yesterday I spent a couple of hours watching the videos. It was really very moving.

@AdamN

Thanks, but I do think that feeling a bit awkward is a good thing.  At the very least, it reminds me that I do have privilege that I should pay attention to.  It also means that if I do misstep of intrude and someone calls me on it, I personally am more likely to admit that yeah, it was awkward of me to do that.  I think it would have been nice if Kevin and Kyra had felt a bit more awkward.  You really were too kind in your description of that video.  I really wonder if they made one because someone asked if they would contribute to a project that hoped to prevent high school kids from killing themselves, and they replied “Sure, that’s bad, but also silly because why would anyone in high school want to kill themselves?  If telling them It Gets Better will help, we’re all for it.”

There are more and more well meaning but kinda clueless celebrity videos. But there are still also many really wonderful ones like this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yBx8hanu5I

@AdamN

I don’t know how anyone can watch a video like that and think that what the project really needs is lots of straight people.

I think a useful thing for a straight person who really wants to make a video would be is to start a “We Get Better” channel.  I know, for me at least, that I wasn’t homophobic in high school (it seemed weird and rare and I didn’t buy my mom’s “it’s disgusting” response because at the time, frankly, nothing described seemed more disgusting than what I would be expected to do as a straight woman), but it didn’t really occur to me to care.  That certainly changed, I got better.  High school is pretty hard for almost everybody and it is hard for many people to stand up for those who need help.  That changes for many after high school.  I would think that hearing from a lot of different people from around the country that they got better, grew up, and are in communities that will be welcoming once the ordeal of high school is over might be helpful alongside the “It Gets Better” campaign.

It also seems like hearing from people who bullied in high school, people who did nothing about bullying in high school, etc. might have an impact on bullies themselves.  While bullying certainly continues into adulthood for some people, most grow out of it.  If the bullies hear that they will grow out of their crap, they might be more inclined to try to grow out of it sooner.

All they have to say is that they object to the narrow behavior of shoving kids into lockers,...

And sometimes not even that. The NYT had a piece recently on how some homophobic Godbags are objecting to school anti-bullying programs because they (sometimes) stress tolerance for Teh Gay.

@Bitter Scribe

Ah, another “you are being intolerant of my intolerance” accusation.  Strange how it never occurs to such righteous people to turn the other cheek and tolerate our perceived intolerance.

While it is a bit petty, I’ve always wondered what would happen if a bunch of non-asshole Christians (and anyone willing to pretend to be) got together and started collectively quoting chapter and verse about how Jesus (probably) wouldn’t condone their shit and they hope the homophobes enjoy their time in hell.  Followed up, of course, by a “We’ll pray for you.” 

It seemed a particularly fun thing to do at the Trinity Church Hell House since they have the prayer/conversion room at the end set aside for them to pray with willing participants.  I bet it would actually shake the beliefs of those responsible for creating/working at the place if a group went in and started praying for and attempting to convert them to a more tolerant (and fun!) Christianity.

A lot of the basis for “teaching homosex to 12 year olds!!!!111eleventy” propaganda is from programs designed to cut down on anti-gay/gender policing-based bullying in schools, so they definitely would prefer this to be about general bullying with no emphasis on who’s doing the bullying to whom and why - because people don’t know they’re gay until they hear about it somewhere, and there’s no way that schools could serve as a microcosm of society where the existing power differentials and hierarchical allocation of privilege are replicated to scale.

Late to the thread, but just wanted to say: AdamN, I hear you too and agree 100%. Often on blogs we jump in when we disagree, but don’t just chime in to say “right on!” so I know it must feel frustrating.

@158,
Damn, fractals are not what I expect to think about on Pandagon.