Syndicated columnist and author Dan Savage talked candidly about life experiences and the It Gets Better Project, an outreach to gay youths, on Tuesday at the University of North Texas.
Savage was the keynote speaker for the 12th annual Equity and Diversity Conference, sponsored by the UNT Division of Institutional Equity and Diversity and the Multicultural Center.
In 2010, Savage, who is gay, and his partner, Terry Miller, launched a YouTube channel, aiming to encourage and give hope to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youths victimized by bullying. He urged others to submit their own videos with a positive message.
The project, a response to reports of teens committing suicide because of bullying, was an effort to show gay teens that they're not alone, that others have been through the same experiences and that things will get better.
Savage talked of how things have improved in just the three decades since he came out to his own family.
"When I came out to them as gay in 1980, '81 … I wasn't just telling them that one of their sons, the one that was thinking about the priesthood, coincidentally enough, was gay," Savage said. "I was also telling my very Catholic, family-oriented, conservative parents that unlike them I would never marry; I would never have children; I could never be a Marine. And just in my lifetime, just in the 30 years [since] I came out to my family, I am married, I have a child that I adopted with my partner … and now I can be a Marine - not that I want to be a Marine, but I can be a Marine.
"Things have gotten better at a macro level and a micro level."
Parents who are loving and accepting of their gay children "are no longer the exception, they're the rule," he said.
But for some, bullying doesn't stop at the school doors - they're also bullied at home by parents, he said.
LGBT children, he said, are four times likelier to commit suicide, and those who come from hostile and homophobic households are eight times likelier to take their own lives.
"When a 13-year-old queer kid kills himself, part of what he's saying is that he doesn't believe that there's enough joy in his future to compensate for the pain he's in now," Savage said. "And we need to share our joy because for so many LGBT kids who are raised in isolation … they've been told that gay life is misery … and it is a lie."
The It Gets Better YouTube channel went viral, he said, and has evolved into www.itgets
better.org, a website with more than 30,000 videos featuring the likes of President Barack Obama and Ellen DeGeneres as well as videos created by site users. A year ago, Savage released the book It Gets Better: Coming Out, Overcoming Bullying and Creating a Life Worth Living.
Organizers said the UNT conference drew more than 400 people from high schools and colleges around North Texas and the state for talks and workshops on topics such as civility, awareness and inclusiveness. Shortly before noon Tuesday, 5,000 tickets had been sold for the conference's closing event that night, featuring Grammy winner John Legend.
Gilda Garcia, vice president for institutional equity and diversity at UNT, said she hoped attendees would walk away with an understanding about differences and "how to leverage those differences to create a more inclusive environment."
Garcia said she enjoyed hearing about the outpouring of support for Savage's project.
"His message is so uplifting simply because it's a message of joy," she said.
Beth Hughes, International Baccalaureate coordinator at Denton High School, took 14 IB students to UNT to hear Savage speak. His message, she said, was the talk of the ride back to school.
Denton High junior Sarah McLaughlin said she liked how "open" Savage was throughout the nearly hourlong talk. "That was really cool," she said.
Hughes said she hopes the experience helps students exhibit an "open-minded and accepting point of view."
"The kids, I think, really enjoyed it," Hughes said. "I was really hoping that they would gain an appreciation that would help them be better role models on their campus. There's so much that can be learned from modeling appropriate behavior."
BRITNEY TABOR can be reached at 940-566-6876. Her e-mail address is btabor@dentonrc.com .
