You kiddos have no idea how groundbreaking this was. Like there’s a reason THE lesbian website for a billion years was called After Ellen. She changed everything.
oh man you know that feeling that’s like kind of an ache right between your heart and your stomach? like nostalgic knowing of pain? that’s how the scared look in Ellen’s eyes makes me feel.
Look at her hand too and how nervous she is. Every gay and lesbian person knows this feeling, because we know there are assumptions and consequences and there’s no telling how someone will react.
Right, she lost her first TV show. She worked hard to get up to where she is today.
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You can see the moment where she’s like “I can’t just like and make up a name. I can’t just pretend that the person I felt a deep connection with doesn’t exist.”
@ellendegeneres ““If this isn’t an example of ‘It gets better,’ I don’t know what is,” DeGeneres says. “Time is a strange thing. I was at rock bottom and out of money, with no work in sight, but one step at a time, it gets better. It gets much better than better.”
“What I have learned is that love, the beauty of it, the joy of it and yes, even the pain of it, is the most incredible gift to give and to receive as a human being. And we deserve to experience love fully, equally, without shame and without compromise.“ - Ellen Page
Since 2010, the It Gets Better Project has collected over 60,000 video stories from LGBTQ people and their allies from around the world. Here are some of our favorites from June 2017.
1. #PorUnFinalFeliz – “For A Happy Ending” Campaign
Through July, our affiliate in Chile, Todo Mejora, continues the campaign Por Un Final Feliz with the help of several media partners. A number of new videos have been uploaded to their YouTube page featuring uplifting stories from Chilean young people, as well as messages of hope from actors and other popular figures.
2. El Summit 2017 de Pride Connection Summit – It Gets Better México
It Gets Better México participated in the 2017 Pride Connection Summit and has a large number of It Gets Better videos uploaded to their YouTube page from other participants they came across there. Featured below is Carlos Maza, a manager over at Moovz, a global LGBT social network that’s particularly popular in Latin America. Pride Connection aims to foster inclusive company cultures for LGBTQ employees at professional work places across the world.
In July, we heard from some of the kids featured in the documentary Check It, which chronicles the journey of a group of young black LGBTQ men and women in Washington D.C., breaking out of poverty by launching clothing labels, walking runways, and putting on fashion shows. Emerging from violence and harassment, they made a family where they didn’t have one.
“Life for the Check It can be brutal, but it’s also full of hope and an indomitable resilience.”
In this series of videos, various members of the Check It share their stories & their messages for others in the LGBTQ community.
EL PAÍS is a daily newspaper based in Madrid, Spain with a circulation of over 15 million unique readers. In this video, a number of their staff have words of encouragement for LGBTQ jóvenes – young people.
5. Petra Bayr, a Member of Austrian Parliament, Says “It Gets Better”!
Petra Bayr knows that there is bullying and even violence against LGBTQ young people in her country. But as part of the government, she she hopes she can encourage young people to come out and stresses that things will be better.
Craving more?! Go to www.itgetsbetter.org, or keep scrolling to learn more about the cool things It Gets Better and its affiliates are doing around the world.
Colombia: It Gets Better Colombia marched for Pride in Bogotá alongside 150,000 other passionate fighters for the LGBTQ community.
España: Our affiliate in Spain also marched at World Pride 2017 alongside our Portuguese and Austrian affiliates! Supported by Lush Spain, we were proud to spread hope for LGBTQ youth around the world.
Paraguay: Meanwhile, It Gets Better Paraguay was busy participating in the first module of a workshop for a leadership school in Oviedo where they educated and empowered young people on topics of human rights.
Greece: Finally, It Gets Better Greece marched at both Pride events in Athens and Thessaloniki. “Ήταν ένα εξαίσιο (It was exquisite!)” they said.
For the last fifteen years, I have had the opportunity to see the positive impact of LGBTQ activism on college campuses. It all started when I was an undergraduate college student on my rural campus of Emporia State University in Emporia, Kansas.
This was before the days of out high-profile celebrities such as Ellen Degeneres and long before the media was even paying attention to LGBTQ youth issues. My campus passed “sexual orientation” as part of an inclusive nondiscrimination statement and also created one of the first national “Safe Zone” programs for gay and lesbian students. I look back on this remembering how difficult it was to get college administrators to listen, understand and then make the changes. Of course, I am quite proud of this accomplishment back in the early 90s – and in the middle of Kansas.
Since then, I have seen LGBTQ and ally college students do the same fierce activism and, in most instances, still encountering difficult challenges from college administrators. Sometimes the LGBTQ and ally students stage peaceful sit-in protests and other times using “glitter bombs” to get necessary attention. As the founder and executive director of Campus Pride, the leading national nonprofit organization for LGBT and ally college students, I applaud the college students working tirelessly to continue this legacy of activism and truly help others.
A safe, welcoming learning environment should be afforded to all students.
Shane L. Windmeyer, M.S., Ed., is a leading author on gay campus issues, a national leader in gay and lesbian civil rights, and a champion for LGBT issues on college campuses. He is co-founder and executive director of Campus Pride, the leading national organization for student leaders and campus organizations working to create a safer college environment for LGBT students. Learn more online at www.CampusPride.org.
Since 2010, the It Gets Better Project has collected over 60,000 video stories from LGBTQ people and their allies from around the world. Here are some of our favorites from June 2017.
1. Advice From Your Favorite Drag Queens - DragCon 2017
At this year’s DragCon, we met up with some of RuPaul Drag Race’s most wise & hilarious drag queens to ask them for the advice they’d give young people in today’s LGBTQ community.
We partnered with SAGE Table to start conversations with LGBTQ community members of varying generations and backgrounds. Among them were social media creator Shannon Beveridge, Matthieu Dahdah, our own intern McKenna Palmer, and more. The crux: how can we change our future without knowing our past?
3. President Michelle Bachelet - President of Chile
President Michelle Bachelet advocates for the LGBTQI youths of Chile – for their talents and abilities through which a more democratic, inclusive, and tolerant Chile will be built.
“There is a world of possibilities waiting for you,” she promises. [Though she says: “hay un mundo lleno de posibilidades esperándolos”]
Google employees assure others from the LGBTQ community that the future is for them – that it’s for everyone, and that they don’t need to worry about being “normal.”
“Normality” is a beautifully diverse world, they assert.
Craving more?! Go to www.itgetsbetter.org, or keep scrolling to learn more about the cool things It Gets Better and its affiliates are doing around the world.
COLOMBIA: It Gets Better Colombia participated in Pride Month by Marching through Bucaramanga. They invited participants to share their photos using the hashtag #unamarchalgbt
MÉXICO: Our team in México also marched for Pride! Check out their photos across Mexico City on their Facebook here, along with other organized Pride marches alongside the U.S. Embassy, AT&T, Nielson, and more.
CHILÉ: Our affiliate in Chile has launched a new campaign #PorUnFinalFeliz which hopes to provide welfare and assistance to LGBTQ adolescents targeted by bullying or who otherwise have suicidal thoughts. For information on how to contribute, access more information here.
It’s been a year, which means it’s now legal to make terrible puns about all this! They can’t arrest us all.
Jokes aside, though, this is the cover of my new comic book, a collection of some of my favourite comics I made in the past year.