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For the LGBT community: does it get better?

Travis

Misanthrope of the Mountains
Travis
Joined
Mar 31, 2007
Messages
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There is a campaign called It Gets Better that aims to get LGBT teens through those tough years.

Well I'll let them describe it.

From their website:
The It Gets Better Project was created to show young LGBT people the levels of happiness, potential, and positivity their lives will reach - if they can just get through their teen years. The It Gets Better Project wants to remind teenagers in the LGBT community that they are not alone - and it WILL get better.
Growing up isn't easy. Many young people face daily tormenting and bullying, leading them to feel like they have nowhere to turn. This is especially true for LGBT kids and teens, who often hide their sexuality for fear of bullying. Without other openly gay adults and mentors in their lives, they can't imagine what their future may hold. In many instances, gay and lesbian adolescents are taunted - even tortured - simply for being themselves.
While many of these teens couldn't see a positive future for themselves, we can. The It Gets Better Project was created to show young LGBT people the levels of happiness, potential, and positivity their lives will reach - if they can just get through their teen years. The It Gets Better Project wants to remind teenagers in the LGBT community that they are not alone - and it WILL get better.
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Now I only bring this up because I found out today that the San Francisco 49ers became the first NFL team to sign on and support the initiative. In that vein they have created a video starring several team members.


Now, my question: does it get better? Is it easier being an adult LGBT than a teen? If so what are some of the tactics used to help?
 
I think a lot of teens could use a campaign like this, LGBT or not.

Let's face it -- a lot of communities do a really crappy job of supporting their students and protecting them from bullying. Teens should be made aware that the real world is not like the dysfunctional pseudo-prisons we call "public school." As an adult, you have choices about who you associate with and genuine recourse if people treat you like crap.

As for your question -- I can definitely say that the gays I knew in high school are a heck of a lot happier now. They've moved on and found lives and friends that work for them, more often than not by moving away from the community we all grew up in.

Bottom line -- it gets better because you have choices when you're an adult, and because malicious adults can be dealt with or avoided.
 
Travis said:
Now, my question: does it get better? Is it easier being an adult LGBT than a teen? I
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For me, yes. I was bullied pretty relentlessly in high school because I was visibly queer, and also "the ugly kid". Things immediately improved when I went to college, and quality of life has just gone up and up and up and up in the last 3 or 4 years. I attribute that to finding stable employment and feeling more comfortable in my own skin, also growing up in a more socially accepting decade :)

That just my experience, nowhere near universal for everyone.

If so what are some of the tactics used to help?
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For LGBT people: family support. People do phenomenally well when they have good family support, can be open without worrying about shaming themselves.

Also need much better training in the medical field on how to address LGBT issues. Half the gay people I know, and every one of the trans people I know have spent more time educating their doctors about issues unique to gay or trans people than the other way around.

For LGBT students: Gay-Straight Alliances in schools, LGBT youth groups, and other safe spaces for young people. I've helped a lot of young LGBT people, and that's the one they ask for more than anything, safe spaces where they won't feel alienated or feel like their the only people they know who are LGBT.

I help run a transgender youth group, and pretty often I'm seeing young people struggling because their schools are inadequately trained to accomodate transgender students. I've heard the exact same stories from dozens of different people about being purposefully referred to by the wrong name by faculty, being forced to use the wrong bathroom, having little to no action taken when students are harassed for being gender variant. Schools will inevitably have a few trans students, at least 2 or 3 per 1000 students at a minimum, they need to be better prepared for those students.

For young T's: Transitioning early in life really helps, early transitioners integrate flawlessly into their target gender.

Also need more endocrinologists who are willing to treat young trans people, there's only a handful of endocrinologists who are willing to treat trans children and teens at all.

Recently I met a young trans guy at the last youth group meeting I attended, he self-identified as femmy-butch transman, he was pretty much the polar inversion of close friend who is transgender kawaii tomboi. And I absolutely love this butch transwoman's commentary on transmisogyny and femmephobia in the lesbian community. These people remind trans people that they can comfortably integrate with their target gender without being pressured to conform to the gender norms which don't fit for them.

For T's in their 20s and older: money. And jobs. I know way too many trans people who have to push their transition out to their 30s, 40s, 50s, or later because the financial costs are so prohibitively expensive.

Transwomen transitioning after their 20s can expect hair removal (180 hrs * $75/hr), facial feminization ($30,000-40,000), may opt for breast enhancements ($6000), and SRS ($25,000). Transmen generally have mastectomy ($6000), hysterectomy ($10,000), may opt for SRS (I've seen numbers between $50,000 and $100,000, most t-guys I've met are choosing not to have SRS, not sure if this is a general trend)

I've met maybe around a hundred trans people in my life, and too many of them are in the lower-end of the socioeconomic class or have unsteady employment. Financial impediment can cost people years and years of potentially happier life.

More than anything, insurance companies need to treat gender dysphoria as a serious medical condition which requires therapeutic intervention, should be covered by insurance.
 
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Yes. But how much of that is due to being older myself, and how much of it is due to the changing culture, I can't really say. Being a thirty-something gay monkey is better than being a teen-something gay monkey, and being either is better than being a gay monkey in the 1980s, 90s, or even the 00s. And certainly one's environment makes a difference--working in a professional company is a lot different from attending a high school. Most people do in fact grow up.
 
Though I have plenty of misgivings about the slacktivist movement, random people and groups like sports teams getting in on it just doesn't seem to fit with the point. I mean, it is nice that they are supportive and voice it, but them saying "it gets better" doesn't really hold any weight. Their PR person is also way behind the times :p .
 
Yes, but I grew up in a part of the country that by and large hates LGBT people and I don't live there anymore. If I still lived there I probably would consider the risk of being lynched an actual possibility and an occasional concern.
 
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Dessi said:
More than anything, insurance companies need to treat gender dysphoria as a serious medical condition which requires therapeutic intervention, should be covered by insurance.
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Insurance companies generally operate for-profit, and it makes sense that they would want to cover as little as actually possible without great consumer backlash. I don't like this, but I think it is the reality of the situation and they will only cover that which will overall net them the biggest profits.

I can't see this changing until muuuccchhh later on in the future. Lots of people don't even see healthcare as a right, to begin with.
 
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Travis said:
There is a campaign called It Gets Better that aims to get LGBT teens through those tough years.

Well I'll let them describe it.

From their website:


​
Now I only bring this up because I found out today that the San Francisco 49ers became the first NFL team to sign on and support the initiative. In that vein they have created a video starring several team members.


Now, my question: does it get better? Is it easier being an adult LGBT than a teen? If so what are some of the tactics used to help?
Click to expand...


From my brothers experience , the experience of my friends and from the experience of ally groups I know.

Yes it does get better:

-in middle school, conformity to the norms and social taunting are prevalent, the entertainment and dominance factors seem to cause some student to persecute any student who does not meet the norms. These patterns often persist into high school.

-in small social groups, be it small towns or rigid class expectations it can be very hard to even survive if you get ostracized, not only is their the peer taunting and abuse, but family and authorities may tell you it is your fault

-when you receive a message that you are defective, wrong and evil it has a very strong impact on your self image.

Now as adults most people leave their home environment and social groups, through employment and moving they obtain greater freedom to learn about social mores that they feel more comfortable with. Be it religion, politics or social norms, many people feel very free to explore their own interests once they graduate and leave home.

Now without going into the historical records of what I have seen in my life where I was persecuted for being perceived as feminine (despite the fact that I was openly heterosexual), most of my peers in the mid 1970s did not even know homosexuality existed until after graduation from high school. Seriously, it was so taboo, it was not even discussed. And my friends who were gay did not even know what the possibility was until after they graduated. At the time community awareness programs were just starting.

This is in contrast to my son's life where there is a perceived and acknowledged part of life called homosexuality. It is no longer hidden, it may be condemned but it is not a secret. and in fact in my son's life it is a more acceptable norm.

Now ally groups, unfortunately they can't do more than provide solace, refuge and support to the students that attend them. Often the advice is to take care of yourself, lay low and wait for graduation. Yet they also serve as a forum for education and advocacy of tolerance and equal treatment. My wife was still encountering staff resistance to anything homosexual at her middle school two years ago, but from a minority of staff. So part of it is just keeping it from going back in the closet and giving students the opportunity to just think and feel in a nonjudgmental environment.

It does not do more than offer solace in some cases, but at my son's high school it has changed since the 1970s, many students do come out their senior year, some even in groups with a very low tolerance for homosexuality. And they are not hounded incessantly or beaten senseless.
 
Wuglife said:
Yes, but I grew up in a part of the country that by and large hates LGBT people and I don't live there anymore. If I still lived there I probably would consider the risk of being lynched an actual possibility and an occasional concern.
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This is true across the US in many places. There are gay people who travel a hundred miles or more on the weekends to go to gay bars and visit with their friends. Then on Monday it is back to their small town life and work.
 
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