It Gets Better

"Hello everyone, my namy is Chris Kelly, and when I was younger, when I was a kid, there was nothing that I wanted more than to not be gay. That was all I wanted. Was to not be gay."

You can't imagine all the weird ways that life is going to change, but it changes and it gets better. I promise you, it gets so much better, it really really does. -Chris Kelly

Dan Savage created a YouTube channel called the "It Gets Better Project," which features a collection of video clips of adults from gay & queer communities who share their own stories of surviving school bullying and going on to build amazing, wonderful, happy, healthy and successful lives.

An interview with Dan Savage, Seattle activist and columnist, in the NY Times explains what moved him to reach out to teenagers through his It Gets Better Project on YouTube.

Why did you decide to create a YouTube channel to talk to gay teenagers?
There was another suicide of a teenager, a kid who was being harassed for being gay. I put up a link to the story, and someone said in a comment that they wished they could have talked to the kid for five minutes to tell him it gets better. That’s always been my reaction too. I realized that with things like YouTube and social media, we can talk directly to these kids. We can make an end run around the schools that don’t protect them, from parents who want to keep gay kids isolated and churches that tell them that they are sinful or disordered.

Read more.