Dan Savage started a campaign called "It Gets Better" to reach out to LGBT youth who are struggling with bullying and he attempts to let them know that despite the hard times they may be going through now, to stick it out because in the future, their lives are sure to get better. Joelle Ryan responds to his campaign in her blog by making several important points. She blatantly disagrees with Dan Savage and offers several examples from her own life where she states that she faces transphobia, fatphobia, and classism everyday and it certainly has not gotten any better for her. Joelle even goes so far as to say, "Telling vulnerable queer and trans teens that it gets better when it doesn't is incredibly cruel and heartless" (Ryan, 2010).
I think it is important to bring up these intersectionalities of social identities, especially if it results in multiple oppressions for a single person. This is something that Dan Savage cannot relate to, as he is a white, gay man and really only speaks about the hard times he has had regarding his gay identity. He doesn't face racial, classist, or sexist discrimination on a daily basis and, for some people, their multiple oppressions are what put them over the edge. Several times, Joelle mentions that LGBT youth need to be told the truth about the patriarchal world they're about to grow up in, instead of sideswiping them with the fallacious notion that their future will be better and brighter if they just wait around for it long enough. The truth is, not all children can look forward to a rosy future with promises of health, prosperity, acceptance, and happiness. Dan Savage's story is just one experience and there is no way he can speak for all gay youth in America. I am not a pessimistic person, I am honest and rational, and would rather speak a realistic truth than an idealistic lie.
Even for those people who do decide to live in the "it gets better" mentality, what about the present, the here and now? Some people are literally dying out there and can't just sit around and wait for their lives to get better. Children are ostracized, bullied, mocked, beaten, and abused everyday and they need help now. I think a more effective approach is to be active. Dan, if you really want to help the youth of America, educate them, give them resources, give them support, give them truth. Give them anything but false hope. I am in complete agreement with Joelle when she says "I wish more people had been real with me about what was ahead for me in this patriarchal world" (Ryan, 2010). I wish I were better prepared to live in such a hierarchical way of life. Maybe somebody could have explained to me that under the patriarchy, hierarchies exist for every social identity and at least for race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, sex, gender expression, religion, political affiliation, and class, I am close to the bottom rung of the ladder and I should expect members of the dominant identities to step on me as they make their ways to the top. At least then I would have known the only thing that can help me survive is my own strength, because as we know, the bottom rungs of the ladder encounter the most weight.
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