30 CommentsThe “It Gets Better” project was started by Dan Savage, The Stranger‘s Sex Columnist, and is addressed to teenagers of the LGBTQ community who experience bullying in schools and thoughts of suicide. Last year, Hudson Taylor, the assistant coach of Columbia’s Wrestling Team, recorded an “It Gets Better” video of his own for young athletes across the country facing similar issues both in school and on the team. This time around, faculty and students bravely joined his ranks to make their own “It Gets Better” contributions in a video created by Ben Harris, CC ’14.
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30 Comments
@Um... This is a sanitized version of what it means to be gay at Columbia. Also, putting students who recently came out next to Peter Awn is one of the silliest/most objectionable things I have seen in a while.
@Anonymous this^
@Anonymous Bwog… are you coming out?
@It gets better but only if you’re gay. If you’re straight and miserable you’re pretty much fucked forever.
@Hm... Probably because if you’re gay and miserable, it’s likely tied to people beating you, harassing you, stigmatizing who you are, and using who you are as an insult against both yourself and others. While not all of this changes immediately once you get out of high school, much of it does — and signs point to the increasing acceptance of LGBTQ people in society generally.
Because of the huge amount of privilege held by straight people in society, if you’re straight and miserable, it’s probably tied to things other than your straightness.
@Anonymous Yay! Positivity!
@Anonymous PETER FUCKING AWN.
@Hmm What a marketing ploy…
But also true. Columbia is not the worst place to be gay.
@Awkward Lol I totally forgot they gays at Columbia were 90% white.
@Anonymous why is this being downvoted?
i know some white people don’t want to acknowledge/may not know how problematic it is that the mainstream gay rights movement is so eurocentric, but newsflash: you can be marginalized even within another marginalized population.
And it fucking sucks.
Just saying.
@Anonymous Post inflammatory statement with no context, then get outraged when people are inflamed by your inflammatory statement with no context, classy stuff
@Anonymous In my experience, there are actually a significant number of non-hetero, same-gender-loving, and LGBTQ people of color at Columbia (staff and students). For many reasons — perhaps a limited scope of the filmmaker, “down low” culture,” or the continuing stigma of sexuality in communities of color — there may be serious barriers for them from fully participating in such a visible campaign.
@Anonymous BEN HARRIS IS AMAZING!
@Gaffer/Sound Op Thank you so much, Bwog, for posting this! It means a lot. And thank you to everyone who agreed to be in the video! You are all wonderful people.
@Anonymous this is pretty gay Bwog
@this is AMAZING!
@CC '13 This is absolutely amazing. kudos to everyone who made this a possibility, and for showing the world everything Columbia stands for. Seriously, Thank you.
@alum aww this is touching.
@Anonymous Ben Harris is a great guy and this is really an inspiring video…thanks for all the hard work you put in man..this community will be better off for it.
@Anonymous this makes me proud to go to columbia – well done.
@Anonymous Hudson Taylor is more than just a wrestling coach, he is also the founder of Athlete Ally, an amazing organization promoting equality and fighting intolerance in sports.
http://www.athleteally.com/
The world is lucky to have people like him.
@RR I don’t think there’s an appropriate way to point out how very ~~jazz hands~~ the default screenshot is, but I’ll do it nonetheless.
@Anonymous This is great!
@Anonymous This is great
@Anonymous Phoenix, Love Like A Sunset Part II
@Anonymous Hat tip to Ben Harris for putting this together!
@CC Forever Thank you Columbia for putting this together. As a gender nonconformist studying here, I greatly appreciate it!
@It gets better! U mean like getting scissored or ass fucked and giving reach-arounds?
@Just curious... Can shemales be gay?
@Anonymous I can’t tell if this is supposed to be a joke or is just a product of idiocy.
Just in case…
sexual orientation is based on the type of other person(s) that you are (or are not) attracted to (gay/bi/lesbian/pansexual/polysexual/queer…whatever), whereas gender identity is based on your internal identity in regards to how you experience the world (man/woman/genderfluid/genderqueer/etc.). This is all separate from biological sex (chromosomes/hormones/genitalia) and gender presentation (masculine/feminine/androgynous). Transgender/transsexual individuals often fall under the umbrella of people whose gender identity is at odds with their biological sex at birth. This is NOT the same thing as being a “drag queen” which is often for performance, or a “transvestite” which specifically refers to someone who has a sexual fetish for wearing clothing of the opposite gender. So “shemale” isn’t really a word anyone uses, but you can be ANY sexual orientation in combination with any gender identity, gender presentation, and biological sex. Also the reason “shemale” is a HIGHLY offensive word to describe a trans-woman is because it assumes that this woman is in the sex-worker or porn industry.