PART I
tHE qUEER aLPHABET & bEYOND
1
Queering In/Equality: LGBTQ, ‘It Gets Better’ and Beyond
Malinda S. Smith, University of Alberta
The increase in lesbian, gay and bisexual characters on primetime television not only reflects the shift in … culture toward greater awareness and understanding of our community but also a new industry standard that a growing number of creators and networks are adopting.
The above hope for greater awareness and understanding of the diverse LGBTQ community is, at least, the desire of Jarrett Barrios,1 president of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD). Arguably there is a disjuncture between visual and virtual equality and the everyday lived experiences of many LGBTQ and Two-Spirited people.2 This other reality – marked by bullying, persecution and violence – has been brought home by the recent spate of LGBTQ gay-bashing and youth suicides.
If popular culture was our principal guide then one might be forgiven for thinking it’s ‘in’ to be ‘out’. There is definitely a rapacious appetite for the glamorous camp and chic of queer, including the gender bending antics of Lady Gaga and American Idol contestant Adam Lambert. It is hard to miss the visibility – even hyper-visibility – of LGBTQ characters on television and the big screen, from gay characters in Hollywood movies like Brokeback Mountain to a wide range of ‘gay films.’ Ryan Murphy is an openly gay director/writer on the Emmy-winning musical comedy-drama Glee, which also features the ‘out’ character Kurt. The main protagonist in the popular vampire show, True Blood is a bisexual character Sookie Stackhouse played by Winnipeg-born Anna Paquin, and the show has featured at least six gay characters.
For five seasons The L-Word prominently featured lesbian, gay and trans characters including Jennifer Beals as Bette Porter and Cybil Shepherd as Phyllis Kroll. Following in the path of Sean Hayes who played a camp gay dad of a teen son on Will & Grace – the most successful show with principal gay characters – Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Eric Stonestreet are cast in Modern Family as gay dads in a multiracial family (their baby Lily was adopted from Vietnam).
These diverse representations do help to humanize LGBTQ and Two-Spirited peoples. Television characters may chart the possibilities and complexities of LGBTQ lives, but such popular depictions are not cases of art imitating life. Visual and virtual equality may radically differ from the everyday. Visibility may, at times, mask the everyday challenges of coming out, especially for youth.
The suicide deaths of American students, Justin Aaburg, Cody Barker, Asher Brown, Raymond Chase, Tyler Clementi, Billy Lucas and Seth Walsh speak to the violence and social exclusion experienced by LGBTQ and Two-Spirited youth in a society characterized by homophobia. In Canada, lesbian youths Chantal Dube and Jeanine Blanchette called friends to say goodbye, wrote pain-filled notes for family members – then committed suicide. Death was seen as better than the life they were living.
“These tragedies remind us that while society is working to eliminate prejudice on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans-identified (LGBT) youth still experience overwhelming adversity and many do not see a hopeful future ahead,” argues Cherie MacLeod, Executive Director of Parents Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) Canada.3
For years, groups like PFLAG have worked to educate teachers and administrators about the harmful impact of bullying and schoolyard violence against LGBT and Two-Spirited youth. PFLAG data shows:4
• 51 percent of trans-identified persons attempt suicide;
• 30 percent of youth suicides are LGBTQ or Two-Spirited;
• 26 percent of LGBTQ and Two-Spirited youth are told to leave home.
• LGBTQ and Two-spirited youth are more likely than peers to be homeless.
1 World Entertainment News Network. (2010, September 30). GLAAD Praises “True Blood” and “Glee” for Gay
Portrayal. Aceshowbiz. Retrieved from
http://www.aceshowbiz.com/news/view/w0006764.html
2 Two-Spirit. (2013, February 24). Retrieved February 24 from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-Spirit
School clubs such as Gay-Straight Alliances5 have developed initiatives to educate peers about homophobia but the challenges often exceed the capacity, as many of these programs are small, voluntary and under-resourced. Numerous videos and documentaries6 have been produced to help teachers deal with combating homophobia in the classroom and bullying in cyberspace.7
Teen suicides tell us that much more needs to be done. In September 2010, 18-year old Tyler Clementi jumped off the George Washington Bridge after his university roommate virally distributed a video of him having sex with another man. His last message was posted to Facebook:
“Jumping off the gw bridge, sorry.” His tormentors were charged with invading his privacy but their actions, so banal, also revealed a stunning indifference to Clementi’s humanity. In a statement by Garden State Equality, Steven Goldstein named the devastating impact of homophobia on human life and talents: “We are heartbroken over the tragic loss of a young man who, by all accounts, was brilliant, talented and kind. And we are sickened that anyone in our society, such as the students allegedly responsible for making the surreptitious video, might consider destroying others’ lives as a sport.”8
It’s hard to believe it was only a year ago that federal hate crime legislation in the United States was expanded to include gender, sexual orientation, gender identity and disability. President Barack
3 PFLAG Canada. (2009). Home. Retrieved from http://www.pflagcanada.ca/en/index-e.php
4 PFLAG Canada. (2009). Home. Retrieved from http://www.pflagcanada.ca/en/index-e.php
5 Vancouver School Board. (2010). VSB committed to combating homophobia in school. Retrieved from http://
www.vsb.bc.ca/district-news/vsb-committed-combating-homophobia-school
6 Queer Resource Directory, Ferris State University, Office of Diversity and Inclusion. Retrieved from http:// www.qrd.org/qrd/
7 The Huffington Post. (2012). Antigay Bullying. Retrieved from
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tag/antigay-bullying
8 US student Tyler Clementi jumps to his death over sex video. (2010, September 30). The Guardian. Retrieved from http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/30/us-student-tyler-clementi-death
Obama signed the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act9 in October 2009. Young men such as Ruddy Vargas-Perez and eight other youth gang members were arrested by New York City police for the brutal beating, torture and acts of sodomy inflicted for hours upon three men before murdering them. Why? Because in the gang members’ twisted belief system – their homophobia – it was socially permissible to torment, abuse, torture and even kill those who are gay.
In one of the latest efforts to reaffirm the human rights and dignity of LGBTQ people Dan Savage created a viral video campaign with one important message: “It Gets Better”. In explaining the campaign, Savage notes:
“Billy Lucas was just 15 when he hanged himself in a barn on his grandmother’s property. He reportedly endured intense bullying at the hands of his classmates — classmates who called him a fag and told him to kill himself. His mother found his body… I wish I could have talked to this kid for five minutes. I wish I could have told Billy that it gets better. I wish I could have told him that, however bad things were, however isolated and alone he was, it gets better.”10
The world for young people is challenging as it is, and even more so for LGBTQ and Two-Spirited youth who face harassment, alienation, and depression. In academe, we do have a responsibility to educate, including about the dangers of inequity, hate, violence and social exclusion. University- community programs like Camp fYrefly11 aim to empower youth by helping them build personal resiliency and leadership skills. Similarly, initiatives like Interaction12 develop and disseminate knowledge on Two-spirited peoples in Indigenous history and culture. We must also expose the cynicism that allows leaders to claim they support equal rights yet sanction discrimination through public policies that engender ‘separate but equal’ social worlds, as in the case of policies like ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.’13
I don’t know how effective the It Gets Better social media campaign will turn out to be. But I do know that some of the most inspired efforts to combat homophobia and hate crimes against LGBTQ have come from activists, artists and film-makers, such as Artists Against Rampant Government Homophobia (AARGH)14 and the Embracing Intersectional Diversity Project.15 The It Gets Better16 campaign builds on these earlier efforts and it includes a YouTube channel,17 video clips on Mashable18 and blogs. There are inspiring video messages from celebrities19 such as the cast of Wicked,19 Ellen DeGeneres,20 Sarah Silverman, and Eve. The power of many of these videos is the compelling storytelling of celebrities who experienced homophobia as youth, struggled to survive and found a way to make their lives better.
Let’s not kid ourselves. We know there are actors, professional athletes, politicians, and corporate executives who remain in the closet for fear of stigma and sanction. Things may get better. But that better world is some distance from the one in which we currently live. In the meantime, our challenge as humanists and educators is to mobilize every means necessary to engender a world in which life is worth living for LGBTQ and Two-Spirited people.
9 Belge, K. (n.d.). What the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act and how will it help gays an9d lesbians?. About.com.
Retrieved from http://lesbianlife.about.com/od/lesbianactivism/f/HateCrimes.htm
10 It Gets Better. (2012). It Gets Better Project. Retrieved from
http://www.youtube.com/itgetsbetterproject
11 ISMSS. (2012). Camp Fyrefly. Retrieved from
http://www.fyrefly.ualberta.ca/index.htm
12 McGill Project Interaction. (2012). Two-Spirited People. Retrieved from
http://www.mcgill.ca/interaction/mission/ twospirit/
13 Lesbiangayvideos. (2010, March 31). !!Larry King> Lady gaga Repeal Don’t Ask,
Don’t Tell!!. [Podcast]. Retrieved from
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9G_UuxbWSA
14 AARGH (Artists Against Rampant Government Homophobia). (2011, September
30). Retrieved February 24, 2012 from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AARGH_%28Artists_Against_Rampant_Government_Homo phobia% 29
15 Embracing Intersectional Diversity Project, Vimeo:
http://vimeo.com/channels/eidproject
16 It Gets Better. (2012). It Gets Better Project. Retrieved from
http://www.youtube.com/itgetsbetterproject
17 It Gets Better. (2012). It Gets Better Project. Retrieved from
http://www.youtube.com/itgetsbetterproject
18 Five Inspiring Celebrity Videos Tell Gay Teens “It Gets Better.” (2010). Mashable
US & World. Retrieved from http:// mashable.com/2010/10/03/it-gets-better-youtube-videos/#_B-hVWQnjjM
19 Five Inspiring Celebrity Videos Tell Gay Teens “It Gets Better.” (2010). Mashable
US & World. Retrieved from http://
mashable.com/2010/10/03/it-gets-better-youtube-videos/#_B-hVWQnjjM
20 Five Inspiring Celebrity Videos Tell Gay Teens “It Gets Better.” (2010). Mashable
US & World. Retrieved from http://
mashable.com/2010/10/03/it-gets-better-youtube-videos/#_B-hVWQnjjM