It Has Been a Year and It Keeps Getting Better

Columnist and author Dan Savage created a YouTube video with his life partner Terry on September, 2010 with the intention of inspiring hope for young people facing harassment. “High schools was the worst time of my life, I was bullied everyday but it got better as soon as I graduated”, says Dan, who became an LGBT community activist after hearing about the rising numbers of teens committing suicide for being bullied at school. Then The It Gets Better Project was born.

This project seeks to show young people who are lesbian, gay, bi, or trans that life gets better and that love and happiness is not only exclusive for straight people, which is why everyone who wants support can share their story in the It Gets Better website.

“We created this project to remind people that it gets better” says Dan. Eleven months later, the It Gets Better Project (TM) has turned into a worldwide movement, inspiring more than 25,000 user-created videos viewed more than 40 million times in YouTube. To date, the project has received submissions from celebrities, organizations, activists, politicians and media personalities, including President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Adam Lambert, Anne Hathaway, Colin Farrell, Matthew Morrison of “Glee”, Joe Jonas, Joel Madden, Ke$ha, Sarah Silverman, Tim Gunn, Ellen DeGeneres, Suze Orman, the staffs of The Gap, Google, Facebook, Pixar, the Broadway community, and many more.

Six months after the campaign launch, the It Gets Better Project book, It Gets Better: Coming Out, Overcoming Bullying, and Creating a Life Worth Living, was released. The book includes essays and new material from more than 100 contributors, including celebrities, religious leaders, politicians, parents, educators, youth just out of high school.

(MS)