In September of 2010, in response to several stories of teen suicides in response to bullying and harassment made national news, author Dan Savage and his husband, Terry Miller, uploaded a video to YouTube called "It Gets Better." It was their personal story of how they were bullied and how coming out and surviving eventually allowed them to make their dreams come true. They called for other people to upload their stories of how life got better. In 24 hours, someone uploaded a second video. In less than 3 days, there were several hundred videos. By the end of one week, there were 1,000. In less than a month, the White House called with a request to add a video from President Obama. This book is a collection of messages from people of all walks of life and touches all aspects of growing up gay, bi, or trans. Everything from faith, family, romance, friendship, jobs, dreams, and anything and everything in between. It shows that as long as someone doesn’t give in to despair it really does get better.
This is an absolute must read. Not just for teens that deal with issues of sexuality and gender, but their families, anyone that has friends that deal with these issues, anyone that feels like an outsider, anyone that knows what is like to be an outsider, or just anyone that wants to be inspired by stories of overcoming pain, hatred, intolerance, bigotry, loneliness, and confusion to achieve dreams they once thought impossible. This is a truly powerful book and wonderful companion the Youtube channel’s videos. Definitely take a look at both, because they really do complement each other very well. You can find the Youtube channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/itgetsbetterproject
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