Tag Archives: it gets better

WATCH: Brittney Griner is ‘6-8 walking proof’ that it really does get better

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Brittney Griner

Brittney Griner

Former Baylor basketball player Brittney Griner came out several weeks ago with little attention, but she’s already using her announcement to speak to LGBT youth in an “It Gets Better” video.

In the video, Griner talks about being different growing up and being teased because of it, but she says she’s “6-8 walking proof” that things get better.

“As somebody that grew up taller than everybody, a little bit different than everybody, always voiced my opinion on my sexuality and who I was as an individual,” she said. “I got teased. With big hands, a little deeper voice, big feet. … It was hard growing up but you have to find an outlet. Basketball was my outlet.”

Griner, the WNBA No. 1 Draft pick, wrote about her coming out experience to her family as a teen in The New York Times yesterday. She addresses that while she didn’t feel the need to come out publicly until recently, being gay doesn’t define her any more than being a basketball star defines her.

In the NYT piece, she expresses her pride in Jason Collins for becoming the first male pro-athlete to come out while still playing. But she doesn’t address the lack of attention she received when she came out compared to the media firestorm surrounding Collins’ announcement.

Collins was praised for his trailblazing declaration last week by national media. When Griner came out a few weeks before, people barely blinked, and only sports media covered it.

While female athletes are often assumed to be gay — especially if they are masculine — Griner certainly isn’t the first to come out. Tennis players Billie Jean King and Martina Navratilova led the way in the ’80s. And major male sports have always attracted larger audiences and have been plagued with more homophobia.

Still, that’s no excuse.

When the No. 1 Draft pick in any sport comes out, it’s news. And it’s rude to assume masculine women athletes are lesbians. It’s just as offensive to assume a gay male athlete must retire before coming out.

But just as Collins broke the mold by coming out and still continuing his career, he’s set the pace for more male athletes to be true to themselves and come out still playing. That’s where I agree with Griner in her NYT piece. I, too, am “more optimistic than ever that people are ready” for more gay athletes to come out.

Watch the video below.

Continue reading “WATCH: Brittney Griner is ‘6-8 walking proof’ that it really does get better” »

—  Anna Waugh

13 LGBT Dallas employees honored for participating in ‘It Gets Better’ video

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ItGetsBetter

City employees who took part in an It Gets Better video with council members and video funders Ed Oakley and Greg Kilhoffer.

Dallas City Councilwoman Delia Jasso honored 13 LGBT city employees who participated in the city of Dallas “It Gets Better” video at a council briefing this morning.

Jasso said what the employees did was truly special.

“They sat in front of a movie camera and told stories of being picked on and bullied at school and losing family and friends,” Jasso said.

She said she was proud this video that has been viewed more than 3,000 times. She also thanked former Councilman Ed Oakley and Caven Enterprises President Greg Kilhoffer for providing the funding.

“To make the video happen quickly took money,” Jasso said.

Oakley described the 13 participants as people you work with everyday who revealed part of their life you don’t know about. He said he hoped the video would inspire LGBT youth to know they could serve on City Council or run for mayor.

He said some of the people in the video he worked with everyday when he served on the council and didn’t know they were part of the community.

Mayor Mike Rawlings concluded the presentation.

“I love our LGBT community,” Rawlings said.

—  David Taffet

Delia Jasso to recognize employees featured in city’s ‘It Gets Better’ video

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Councilwoman Delia Jasso addresses an audience of about 80 people at the LGBT Pride month kick-off Wednesday in the Flag Room at City Hall. (John Wright/Dallas Voice)

Councilwoman Delia Jasso at Dallas City Hall

Councilwoman Delia Jasso will recognize Dallas city employees who participated in the city’s “It Gets Better” video released in January at the council briefing tomorrow.

The video includes 13 LGBT city employees who told their coming out and bullying experiences. They talk about challenges they faced, hoping to inspire others who are struggling with their identity. Also featured are Mayor Mike Rawlings and City Manager Mary Suhm.

The video is part of the It Gets Better Project, whose mission is to communicate to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth around the world that their situations will get better, and to create and inspire the changes needed to make it better for them.

At tomorrow’s council briefing, Councilwoman Delia Jasso will recognize the city employees who participated, as well as Ed Oakley, Gregg Kilhoffer and Caven Enterprises, who funded the video’s production.

The meeting takes place at Dallas City Hall, Council Briefing Room – 6ES, 1500 Marilla St. tomorrow at 9 a.m.

—  David Taffet

WATCH: Mayor Mike Rawlings says ‘baloney,’ I say ‘malarkey’

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When CW33′s Doug Magditch said he wanted to talk about Mayor Mike Rawlings and the city of Dallas’ “It Gets Better” video on this week’s “The Gay Agenda,” I was happy to oblige him.

That’s because I’m among those who feel pretty strongly that Rawlings recent appearance in the “It Gets Better” video is no substitute whatsoever for supporting the LGBT community in other ways — including signing a pledge in support of marriage equality and backing two pro-LGBT resolutions introduced by Councilman Scott Griggs.

In fact, Rawlings has said repeatedly since he refused to sign the Freedom to Marry pledge almost exactly one year ago that he wants to focus on substantive things he can do to support the LGBT community, not symbolic ones. But it doesn’t get much more symbolic than an “It Gets Better” video, which also ultimately sends a mixed message to LGBT youth.

LGBT youth commit suicide in part because they are constantly told by society that they are less than equal — including that they can’t get married. So when the mayor of Dallas refuses to sign a pledge in support of marriage equality, it reinforces that message — and thus the mixed one.

Don’t get me wrong: City leaders and especially gay employees deserve credit for the “It Gets Better” video, which is a powerful statement. But if Rawlings thinks he’s going to win over LGBT voters in 2015 by merely appearing in this video and at gay Pride, I think he’s sorely mistaken.

To make matters worse, a few days after the IGB video was released, Rawlings stood at a press conference and said pledges like the ones he’s been asked to sign on gun control and marriage equality are “baloney.” Really? Standing up for civil rights is baloney? I think that’s malarkey, which is what I told Magditch. And you can watch it below.

Continue reading “WATCH: Mayor Mike Rawlings says ‘baloney,’ I say ‘malarkey’” »

—  John Wright

Rangers record anti-bullying PSAs — without telling gay youth ‘It Gets Better’

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In my post the other day about a homophobic tweet sent from Texas Rangers pitcher Derek Holland’s account, I mentioned that a team official told Instant Tea last year that the Rangers would consider filming an “It Gets Better” video, but they never did.

This week we again reached out to the official, Rangers executive vice president for communications John Blake, who responded by pointing out that three Rangers players did in fact record anti-bullying PSAs as part of a campaign unveiled last month.

“These PSAs and the pledge campaign have been very well received in school systems throughout the area and the state of Texas,” Blake said in an email.

Rangers players Elvis Andrus, David Murphy, and Michael Young filmed the PSAs, which can be viewed here.

“The public service announcements were created in August and are currently being distributed to school districts in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex for their use,” according to a press release. “Murphy and Young taped the messages in English while Andrus filmed a Spanish version.

“The Rangers are encouraging all students 14 years of age and older to make an anti-bullying pledge for this school year at texasrangers.com/stopbullying,” the release states. “All students who make this pledge can download a special full color anti-bullying poster of Elvis Andrus, David Murphy, and Michael Young. Students can also share the pledge with their friends through Facebook and Twitter. The PSA’s will also be distributed to local media outlets and are available for viewing online at texasrangers.com/stopbullying.”

I suppose this is better than nothing, but I can’t help but wonder why the Rangers wouldn’t simply join all of the other MLB teams that have filmed “It Gets Better” videos — which are, of course, specifically geared toward LGBT teens. Here’s the response to that question I got from Blake:

“The aim of our campaign is to deliver a message that all forms of bullying are abhorrent,” Blake said. “We wanted to reach the widest possible audience and encourage students all across the Dallas/Fort Worth area to take a stand against all forms of bullying.”

—  John Wright

WATCH: Gay BYU students say “It Gets Better”

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As I’ve mentioned from time to time (but try my best to forget), I lived in Utah for three years just prior to moving to Dallas in early 2006. Two of those years were spent in Logan, a very heavily Mormon area two hours north of Salt Lake City that’s home to Utah State University. Logan was a college town, but with only three bars, and USU — though public and not affiliated with the LDS church — was commonly referred to as “BYU 2.” It’s probably because of this experience that I consider this to be the most astonishing “It Gets Better” video I’ve seen yet (sorry, Joel). Watch it below.

Continue reading “WATCH: Gay BYU students say “It Gets Better”” »

—  John Wright

Ex-Dallasite’s Rainbow Chronicle website rates people, places according to gay-friendliness

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Travis Lowry

Former Dallas resident Travis Lowry recently launched a national website for the LGBT community to rank professional businesses, events, venues and even public officials based on their LGBT-friendliness.

Rainbow Chronicle allows people to search for businesses and people by zip codes and major cities, but visitors must register to post a review or to comment, Lowry said.

The site has roughly 4,500 frequent users with about 800 sustained users, who Lowry said visit the site about every three days.

The site can be used to find a place to take a same-sex date without awkwardness or to preview an upcoming event. But Lowry said he also wanted to give a voice to people who interact with pubic officials, especially since many conservative areas never see LGBT issues discussed at election time.

“Local leaders play a huge part in people’s lives,” Lowry said. “It’s really, really hard to find voting records, so having computer-generated reviews based on the people who interact with them is helpful.”

Continue reading “Ex-Dallasite’s Rainbow Chronicle website rates people, places according to gay-friendliness” »

—  Anna Waugh

Dan Savage: Every time a gay youth commits suicide, our enemies celebrate

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Dan Savage speaks at the University of North Texas on Tuesday. (Patrick Hoffman)

DANIEL VILLARREAL  |  Contributing Writer

DENTON — “Every time LGBT bullying kills a kid, Tony Perkins gets up from his desk and dances a jig,” sex-advice-columnist-turned-LGBT youth advocate Dan Savage said of the anti-gay Family Research Council president during Savage’s keynote speech at the 12th Annual University of North Texas Equity and Diversity Conference on Tuesday.

“Every LGBT youth suicide for them is a victory, a rhetorical and moral victory,” Savage added.

When some LGBT teenagers come out to their parents, Savage said, the parents do “what the Christian right tells them to do”— cut them off financially and emotionally, disown them, turn them out into the streets or send them to camps meant to “turn them straight,” often repeating the lies spread by so-called Christian groups like the Family Research Council — which say that LGBT people are child-molesting sexual predators whose mere existence threatens families and the very survival of the planet (a line uttered by the Pope just this last month).

Savage and his husband, Terry Miller, hoped to counteract the lethal effect of such anti-LGBT attitudes when they started the It Gets Better (IGB) video campaign in September 2010. They thought that user-created videos encouraging LGBT youth to keep living might stem the epidemic of bullying-related LGBT suicides that killed 10 teenage boys that month alone.

As the number of user-uploaded videos for IGB quickly rose from 200 in the first week to the current count of more than 30,000 videos (viewed more than 40 million times internationally), Savage came to realize that IGB had effectively placed an LGBT youth support group in the pocket of every teenager with a cell phone — no matter their geographic location or their family’s prejudices.

But while applauding the program’s success in potentially saving lives and giving children hope that their parents might one day accept them as other parents in IGB videos have, Savage admitted to the crowd made up mostly of students that the It Gets Better project can’t end bullying.

“[However, that] does not excuse or preclude us from doing more …” Savage continued, “from confronting bullies, from holding schools and teachers and preachers and parents responsible for what they do or don’t do or fail to do for LGBT kids in pain.”

That’s why Savage’s project has supported Sen. Al Franken’s Student Non-Discrimination Act as well as the efforts of groups like the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, the Trevor Project and the American Civil Liberties Union.

“[The Trevor Project] is there to talk kids off the ledge,” Savage said, “GLSEN is there to make sure there are fewer kids in our schools climbing out onto that ledge and the ACLU is there sue the crap out of schools that push kids onto that ledge.”

Citing studies from the University of Illinois and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Savage said rates of teenage suicide (LGBT and straight) and sexual violence against girls is much higher in schools where anti-LGBT bullying is tolerated — in short, that anti-LGBT bullying makes schools unsafe for everyone. And yet the religious right continues to oppose campaigns against anti-LGBT bullying as “indoctrination.”

Quoting Johann Hari, a writer with UK-based The Independent, Savage said:

Being subjected to bullying and violence as children and teenagers makes gay people unusually vulnerable to depression and despair. The homophobes then use that depression and despair to claim that homosexuality is inherently a miserable state – and we shouldn’t do anything that might “encourage” it.

However, Savage asserts that he isn’t hostile to religion, citing his good relationship with his Catholic father and the fact that his last act of love for his mother as she lay dying in an Arizona hospital bed was to find a priest to initiate her last rites.

But instead of letting kids act out the violence of their adult role-models who bash gays at the pulpit and the ballot box, Savage called on school members to actively oppose anti-LGBT bullying and on liberal and more progressive Christians to stop “the complicit silence … aiding them and abetting [the religious right] in their crimes.”

—  John Wright

‘Wicked Haute’ to raise funds for LGBT Youth Scholarship

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Wicked HauteThe LGBT community has rallied behind the message that “It Get’s Better” in an effort to prevent teens from hurting themselves during their vulnerable adolescent years. Sometimes those difficult years are followed by the heartbreak of missed opportunity as kids without parental support, or whose academic record is less than stellar due to the pressures of bullying and harassment, struggle to pay for college. One local group is working to change that.

The PFLAG/HATCH Youth Scholarship Foundation hosts ‘Wicked Haute’ (pronounced ‘wicket hot’), Thursday, October 27 at F Bar, 202 Tuam Street. The fundraiser, which starts at 9 pm, benefits the foundation’s scholarship programs and features a “wickedly haute” fashion parade modeled by former scholarship recipients. The entertainment is coordinated by Ty Blue, FBar’s Director of Entertainment and includes plus show-stopping performances by vocalists, drag stars and dancers. Additionally, raffle tickets are available (1 for $10 and 3 for $20) for a 40 inch flat screen and other great prizes.

For the people behind the foundation, which is 100% volunteer driven, their efforts are a labor of love. “Whether you want to volunteer your time or donate your money, PFLAG HATCH Youth Scholarship Foundation is a solid investment in our LGBT Youth,” says foundation president Linda Enger. “I have been involved since 2003, and I have had the benefit of seeing our recipients complete their college education, and give back to the LGBT Community. This is a WIN WIN!”

The PFLAG/HATCH Youth Scholarship Foundation was born out of a collaboration between its two namesake organizations (Parents and Family of Lesbians and Gays and the Houston Area Teach Coalition of Homosexuals), both of which were independently raising funds to send LGBT kids to school. In 1999 they joined forces and created a separately incorporated charity with both parent organizations lending financial and volunteer support. In the last two years the Foundation has distributed over 1 million dollars to LGBT students.

There is no cover charge for the event, but a $10 donation is suggested. For information on sponsoring Wicket Haute, including information on the special VIP area email rkshipman@gmail.com

—  admin