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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13751
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I have made up my mind to create a video for the It Gets Better project. But I am having some difficulty working out what to put in and what to leave out.
I know I almost chose to kill myself when I was outed in school. I know I would have done if hospital and aversion therapy had been threatened. Am am an out gay man with no issues now, but I am married to a woman.
It needs to be short enough and long enough.
I don't promise to take your advice, but I will weigh it. What advice do you have for me?
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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I would definitely encourage you to make a video, Timmy...you have a lot to say beyond what we see here in the forum. The content should be spoken from the heart and not at all self critical, it needs to speak to the future.
I remember my seventh grade history teacher quite fondly. Mrs. Cave reached a point in her class one day, a very boring discussion as I recall, and she closed her textbook. "I want you each to think about the future," she said. "Where would you like to be in life five years from now?"
I knew I was different, and like most of us it had no name. Gay was not a word to any of us at that age, homosexuals were queers. I enjoyed the company of several friends and they were all male, we were exploring the physical aspects of our bodies whenever we could.
Would I still enjoy these things in five years? I sure hoped so, but I kept that part of my life hidden, there was no coming out in those days. I had girls as friends until I was sixteen and I did date, but something was missing. There were few feelings I could share with them.
In the present time I think Mrs. Cave's question would cause depression in a boy with gay feelings. A thirteen year old who is told "It Gets Better" once you reach adulthood has five years of doubt ahead. Five years of either hiding those feelings or sharing them, which would cause grief either way.
It gets better when you can be surrounded with support from peers that accept a gay boy in their midst. Much of that would come from joining a gay school group which are also the targets of bullies in the school system. No one child needs to set themselves up as a target, but I see a better way.
Establishing a high profile in school can be either good or bad. If a boy feels less than capable in sport then joining a team seems risky at best. But sports teams have a support structure, people who take care of uniforms and equipment. It allows someone to be a part of the team without actually playing in the game, it brings respect.
A gay boy might feel the urge to dance in the school musical, sing in the chorus, but these things are immediately identified with gay even though that is far from true. If a boy must dance then he ought to embrace the technical side of theatre as well. No one disrespects the guy who turns on the lights for the school dance or sells tickets in the boxoffice.
I personally worked on my high school newspaper and yearbook staff. No one would think of bullying the guy with a school camera who took photos in the lunchroom or asked questions like...what will you do after graduation?
"It Gets Better" is a very true statement, but then there is the five year walk through the minefield on the way to graduation. I would urge gay and lesbian children to become a part of their school, fit in, don't hide out. Earn the respect of teachers and staff, they will watch your back. Sitting in the corner will only attract attention.
It is harder for those in the early high school years. Mannerisms that appear gay, clothing that appears lesbian, these are all things that call attention to an individual. Yes, your favorite color is pink, but as a boy should you wear that to school?
We encourage self identity in the gay community, but there is a time and place when that is safe. High school is a herd of students heading in one direction towards graduation. Don't struggle against the flow, embrace it, become one of the lead cows if you must.
There is a time and place for individuality, and that must be judged carefully to avoid conflict. Bullys are not rational thinkers but you can't always identify them by their knuckles dragging on the ground. It's good to be popular but a child must choose their friends very, very carefully.
School is a place of learning not a dating service. Telling a cute boy that you like him is out of line. Boys of fifteen to eighteen are at risk because of their sexual urges. But a general lack of experience may lead to disaster if the wrong approach is made.
Once a boy reaches the age of driving then I would encourage joining a gay youth group, preferably across town, away from their school. With all the electronic tweeting and instant messaging, a child must see that as a risk factor. Anyone could play the fool, and coming out online to strangers is a danger.
The message of "It Gets Better" must be tempered with the realization that our society encourages us to move faster when slower is the safer position to a gay child. There is no hurry to come out, no prize to be had by such behavior. It may be seen as a danger when the real coming out point is at eighteen and after high school graduation.
I understand the urge gay adults like Dan Savage have in posting "It Gets Better," but just declaring that gay adulthood is wonderful does not help a gay kid survive the school years.
A gay kid who wants to dance in the musical would also do well in a karate class to build the body strength of a dancer. Survival starts with self image, any form of building a stronger body only serves the gay adult growing inside. I would relish reading an article in the news about a gay kid who beat the crap out of a bully.
So after all this, sharing positive steps to surviving the school years is the most practical way to making life better. Let's address the here and now and then embrace these children once they cross the finish line...only to discover that life will always be a challenge...five, ten or twenty years down the road.
Age appears to be best in four things; old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read. (Sir Francis Bacon 1561-1626)
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From The Bilerico Project's regulars, a compiled outlook on Dan Savage's 'It Gets Better' project on YouTube:
I've spent a lot of time looking at videos from the "It Gets Better" project and I don't see a specific promise the LGBTQ community is making about how life will be. I also don't get the sense of a "bill of goods" that LGBTQ kids are being sold that rainbows and unicorns will appear once they make it past some arbitrary moment in their lives.
I do get a sense of what is possible if LGBTQ kids hang in there until they get control of their own lives and can make their own decisions. As with all things in life, we are each responsible for what we do with the challenges and the time that is given to us. "It gets better (and it can get great)" is a modest message to build on.
The "It Gets Better" Project isn't a monolithic effort with a defined promise, it's an evolving community project saying that a better life, and even a great life, is possible and told through many voices, with many different experiences. I saw videos echoing your own experience about college and after, that things can still be hard, and how and why kids should hang in there.
We can't let the ache of present and past pains blind us to the goal of this project. The whole point is to give kids hope at a time when it's hard to see or feel it. To do that we have to talk about our lives and struggles, as so many already have, but also about the strength we've found and how they can find it too.
I think the critical point missing in the "It Gets Better" message is that ONCE YOU ARE AN ADULT, [ high school teen],you will have more freedom to direct your life than you do now. You will have a stronger say in what you choose to believe, who you hang with, what information you can gather about yourself and the LGBTQ community, and where you will spend your money and time. For the first time in your life, you will really be stepping out from under your family's wings and directing your life in the direction you want to go.
And you will need what Hemingway called a shock-proof shit detector. Not everything your family taught you about love and relationships and human sexuality was true; not everything the mainstream lesbian and gay community tells you about sexuality and gender is true. Particularly if you are bi and trans, you're going to need your SPSD to guide you through all the bad advice you can get from both the straight and the gay sides.
If there's a message about surviving our culture's fear and hatred of fluid sexuality and gender, it's that you become better at sorting out the bullshit from the real thing. You become better at defending yourself psychologically and physically against people who look down on you. You become better at gathering around you the people who really are your friends. You become stronger at demanding what it is that you really need to succeed.
Plus, even if Mom and Dad homophobically reject you when you first come out--years of openness can melt away their opposition. Continue on with your life and they will see the child they raised to adulthood who is a decent, caring person who brings great things to the world. They might also stop listening to the clergy who told them that queer is evil and that your queerness is all their fault.
[Updated on: Mon, 04 October 2010 01:21] |
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... and lips of an aging queer.
Thank you.
Now would you be able express the substance of that message, without paragraphs 1 and 3, in a vidéo? Preferably under 3 minutes duration; because if you can, and will, I just might be able to get (and if I can't Joseph most certaintly could) the good folks at Kid's Help Phone to place it in rotation for broadcast as one of their "full-length" educational PSA's.
What do you think?
Warren C. E. Austin
The Gay Deceiver
Toronto, Canada
"... comme recherché qu'un délice callipygian"
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... I see from your "personal" Blog that attribution for the foregoing should he given to the Bilerco Project. I assumed that as none had been given it was your thoughts and words being expressed, and had they been, using your position as a successful Canadian Journalis, work in the political arena of Washington, they most certainly would have made good copy for a Canadian PSA.
Warren C. E. Austin
The Gay Deceiver
Toronto, Canada
"... comme recherché qu'un délice callipygian"
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Apparently the attribution line was cut off when I copied & pasted into the IOMFATS window. I've since corrected that. No harm, no foul, Warren.
As far as the blog is concerned, as it is a collaborative effort Warren, its not really my "personal" blog.
[Updated on: Mon, 04 October 2010 01:25] |
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Benji
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Likes it here |
Location: USA
Registered: August 2007
Messages: 297
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The problem I see of most of the older survivors of the LGBTQ community are in fear of the continuance of others that try and link us to pedophiles. I'm sure everyone knows what I'm talking about, even though I know I have no desire for 'kids' but if I reach out to them, will I get targeted? It is an evil two edged sword, I have donated much to an organization called Street Teens here in Las Vegas, even held a yearly Halloween party with money donations going to the organization. But I was always faceless to that organization that is focused on teens that are homeless, I wanted it that way. I also know for a fact that many are there on the street because their 'loving' families threw them out because they were gay. (Utah being very close to Vegas) You do what you can do, but only so much, Hollywood has been helping us for years. But if they were to focus on the "It Get's Better' platform, instead of other issues they have helped us out over the years with, I think that is the right direction to start with.
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For many years, initiated out of mine and my then business associates desire to not discard obsoleted computing technologies in some landfill somewhere if a suitable home for it could be found, and in recent years as a concerted and targeted endeavour through the auspices of my local Saint Vincent De Paul Society and two other Government and Non-governmental Social Services agencies, I have been refurbishing and rebuilding aging computing technologies and placing then free-of-all-cost in the hands of those least able to afford them.
Currently we supply largely socket 472 P4 machines, themselves tailored software wise according to the recipient's needs.
From the outset, I have utilized the services of a Business Manager, himself heterosexual, to oversea all contact with prospective clients, in particular those who are pre-teen or teen-aged youths, thus ensuring no possibility of my sexuality ever being used as leverage in any potential claim that these computers were being provided as a fee-for-service rather than the gift they were truly intended to be. He became the "public" face of this endeavour, with myself being simply someone in the background, and for the most part unknown excepting to the local businesses and agencies which comprise the lion's share of our donor base and vetting process.
Those I do interact with, the donors and the referring agencies, are all fully aware of my sexuality, and have been from the outset because I have always chosen to live as an out gay, both in the community where I reside, and in the workplace. I have been most fortunate that I have been able to live openly as a do; but, I have always been cognizant of the very real potential for disaster that existed, and continues to exist, in my doing so.
Too, the Courts and the Police, have always been cognizant of my sexuality, this becoming necessary in their consideration in the early 1980's of placing two teen-aged youth into my care, and more recently a third; but, this has not been without its' hurdles either. Luckily I have enjoyed the their open-minded support and that of others as the need has arisen with regard to counseling and other services these youth have at one time or another required; but, I am ever aware that it might not have been so readily given; and that by its' very nature, continues to be very fragile and fluid.
It is often a very lonely road we aging queers tread; one which is literally, and not just potentially, a minefield just awaiting our one wrong or ill-advised step forward.
Warren C. E. Austin
The Gay Deceiver
Toronto, Canada
[Updated on: Mon, 04 October 2010 13:04]
"... comme recherché qu'un délice callipygian"
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13751
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I have made the video. Not once, but twice. Take 2 was substantially better. It is uploading to youtube now.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13751
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There is now a video and a message at http://tinyurl.com/34bnh9e and any messages about it should, please, go in the comment field there.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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Re: It Gets Better 
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