It Gets Better! (2)

One important facet of LGBT aging is the influence that the older LGBT community has on LGBT youth. More and more people are coming out to say that life improves as you get more comfortable in your own skin and as people's minds continue to become more open. The growing presence of the LGBT aging community can be a beneficial force for the youth who are struggling with identity crises and bullying. While it is important to recognize the ways in which the LGBT aging community does not have access to adequate resources for their comfort or even for their survival, it is just as important to recognize what progress has been made. Neil Patrick Harris and Ellen Degeneres do a particularly good job encouraging the LGBT youth to keep living, to work through the trying times, so that they can live to be happier later in life.

Neil Patrick Harris says, "There is no needs to harm yourself if something is going bad - act with strength, act with courage, act with class, stand tall and be proud of who you are." He also adds, "When you get older, you find that people are actually drawn towards individuals with different points of view who are proud of who they are, and who make interesting, different and unique choices." Instead of focusing on the ways in which homosexual teens are different from other teens, Harris focuses on the idea that everyone is different, and homosexuality is just one way that people are different, but it is no different from other differences that separate us from one another and make ourselves our own original beings. He reminds youth that the LGBT community is being granted more and more rights and assures them that progress will continue in that direction.

Ellen's video is a message to LGBT youth and to the rest of society. She says that the suicides are a wakeup call that teenage bullying and teasing is climbing. She says that "one life lost is a tragedy, four lives lost is a crises". She mentions that there are many people suffering in silence, struggling to figure out who they are. She blames the ignorance and intolerance of society for putting additional stress on teens and for continuing to allow this to happen. But her final message to the youth is one of optimism, "things will get easier. People's lives will change and you should be alive to see it."

Neil Patrick Harris


Ellen DeGeneres