Ever since Dan Savage announced the It Gets Better project, where older LGBT people tell younger, stressed out, considering-suicide LGBTQ teens and young people that they should try really hard to hang in there, because life gets better, I’ve wanted to contribute.
The thing is, I hate video of myself. And in my heart of hearts, I am technologically old: I like my computer to be quiet and have the images be still. So I didn’t.
Two things happened yesterday, November 2, 2010, that made me decide I have to contribute to It Gets Better, even if I don’t do video.
1) The elections. They were depressing, and probably a significant setback for the prospect of LGBTQ civil rights in the US. But not nearly as bad as the 2004 elections, when state anti-gay marriage ballot measures were all the rage. That year was WAY worse. See? It gets better. Ok, bad example.
2) I got offered an awesome fellowship for my graduate school program.
ASIDE for those of you who may not realize how Ph.D. programs work: Although most people have to find their own ways to pay for college and for professional degrees like law school or business school, most Ph.D. programs are different.
In a Ph.D. program, accepted students usually get offered some kind of part-time work doing research or as a teaching assistant. Most Ph.D. students do not take out student loans to pay for their degrees. The luckiest get something called a fellowship, which pays a similar amount of money, but doesn’t require the student to teach or work on someone else’s research.
Back to point #2. Yesterday, I was offered the opportunity to become one of those lucky ones. And it would not have happened if I were not out as a lesbian.
Really!
Here’s what happened: My doctoral program received a major grant, providing the opportunity to expand the diversity of both the program, and in the long run, our academic discipline. The terms of the grant proposal defined diversity very inclusively, specifically including (among many other perspectives) sexual orientation.
In the ordinary course of life, I’m out. But the way I look almost never sets off people’s “gaydar,” and sometimes LGBTQ issues just don’t come up. I don’t generally walk into a room and announce my sexual orientation. But I’m social and chatty, and my partner and I have been together for almost 8 years. We have 2 small children together. So my having a wife does come up pretty often. (Most frequently in the context of my answering the question, “So what does your husband do?” Answer: “Actually, my partner is a woman. She does blahblahblah.”)
When I started the program, I knew I was out to at least some of the faculty and my fellow students. I assumed that meant I was out to everyone, or at least close to everyone, but didn’t give the matter much thought.
A few weeks into the semester, during one of my classes, we had a conversation about the fact that doctoral students were needed to serve on various departmental committees. I volunteered for the Research Committee, commenting that I was concerned about being pigeonholed as “The Lesbian” if I sat on the Diversity Committee, so I wanted to serve elsewhere.
The next day, the professor approached me, tactfully inquiring as to whether or not he had correctly understood that I was an out lesbian, and thereby a member of an historically underrepresented group within the profession.
I agreed that I was, and assured him that I was generally out, and even slightly surprised that it had not come up previously, but of course, sometimes it doesn’t.
As we continued talking, he brought up the grant, and asked if it was something that would be of interest to me. The fellowship offers some fantastic opportunities within the program and the profession, and covers 3 years of study: of course I was interested!
I was formally interviewed a couple of weeks later, and yesterday, they offered me the fellowship.
So if you are a lonely, or depressed, or bullied, or fearful young person, and you are or wonder if you might be lesbian, or gay, or bisexual, or living in the wrong gendered body, or are otherwise feeling misfit and miserable, I promise you, it gets better.
In college, you will find people who like you and want to be around you because of who you are, not in spite of it. You’ll have an easier time avoiding the people you don’t like or want to see.
After college, there’s a good chance you’ll find someone who loves you because of who you are, and about whom you feel the same way. In my case, we also made the choice to have a big honking wedding, and to have children together.
You can do that, too, or you can choose to build a different kind of future.
And if you are really, really lucky, someone might even decide to reward you for being out.
P.S. I went to go upload this story to the It Gets Better web site, and found that Laura Bush did an It Gets Better video! Thank you, Mrs. Bush! My fellowship is funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Studies’ Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian program!
