It Gets Better (27 page)

After college, I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with my life, so I moved to Costa Rica and studied monkeys for a year on a volunteer basis. I loved it so much that I went to graduate school at NYU to continue studying primate behavior in the wild. I've been living in New York for the past six years, and just this September I received my PhD in physical anthropology, studying the behavior and genetics of woolly and spider monkeys in the Ecuadorian Amazon. All of the things that I've done since I was that thirteen-year-old kid who was followed home and spat on and called a faggot, all of it's been fantastic. And all of it was worth it just to get to where I am now. Right now, I'm in South Africa studying primates, doing what I have wanted to do since I was a teenager. And I've done it all as an out and proud and openly gay man. I've been able to travel everywhere with this job. I've lived in the Ecuadorian Amazon. I've worked in Peru and Colombia and Nicaragua and Costa Rica and Argentina.

So no matter where you are if you're being bullied, if you're being gay bashed, no matter what age you are, it gets better. Once you turn eighteen, you've got control of your life. You can do with it what you want. And it doesn't matter what other people think. If other people are going to try to push their opinions on you, then go somewhere where they won't. Create a safe space for yourself.

You can do that anywhere. Everywhere that I've worked, I've worked with other gay people. We're all over the place; trust me, even here in South Africa. It gets better for all of us. No matter where you are, it's going to get better for you. You can do all of the things that I've done and come to these amazing places and fall in love and have your heart broken and get married (legal in South Africa, Argentina, Canada, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Belgium, Portugal, as well as Connecticut, Washington, DC, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont; and several other countries recognize civil unions). Things are improving. So please just hold on and make it through the next few years, and I promise you that your life is going to be amazing. You're going to be amazing.

BERKELEY HEIGHTS, NJ

 

 

 

 

W
hen I was younger, life was a royal bitch.

On the surface I had it easy. I grew up in Warren, New Jersey, an upper-middle-class suburb of New York City. Most people who knew me well were supportive of my decision to come out in 1986 at age fifteen. My parents were initially upset but over the years grew to be supportive as well.

Loneliness was my real issue. While my straight, male friends learned the art of dating and relationships, I had so few gay acquaintances that my dating experiences were often limited to semi-anonymous hookups with what passed for the Internet back then.

College was worse. Shortly after arriving at Iowa State, I was harassed by the people on my dorm floor. My roommate moved out because I was gay. When I complained to my RA, he replied, “Well, I can't blame your roommate for moving out. Why would anyone want to live with a gay person?”

A number of students on the floor put up signs on their door that read, “SAFE—Students Against Faggots Everywhere.” I received threatening phone calls, and a few students harassed me in the hallways. I complained to the residence life staff but was told that the signs were free speech and there was little they could do about the phone calls. So I moved out.

For a while I thought about transferring to another school. My parents even encouraged it. They thought I would be happier somewhere else. I stuck it out, in part, because I didn't know where else to go.

In the end, I'm glad that I stayed. I became active with the campus LGBT organization, which helped me gain a lot of self-confidence. I met a young man named Jeff in 1992. We started dating, and nineteen years later, we are still together and very happy. We adopted our son, Devon, in July of 2009. The following April a judge officially made us his parents and I cannot tell you how happy we are. We've got everything that we ever wanted. We've got a home, we've got each other, and we've got our little guy. Life really does get better.

I know that some of you reading this are feeling lonely or depressed. You feel like no one in the world understands you. All I can tell you is that life does get better and there is help out there. If you're feeling lost or suicidal, and there is no one you can turn to, contact the Trevor Project. If you feel like you haven't got a friend in the world, know there are people out there who will listen to you and will understand.

I've gone from being that lonely, depressed gay kid to being a parent who has his life together. I can't tell you how lost I would feel if Devon ever started thinking about killing himself, or if something awful happened to him. He's everything to me. This little guy and my husband are so much of my life. I love them both so much.

You, too, can be happy. You can have the things you dreamed of, whether that's a house and a kid, a successful career, traveling the world, winning an Olympic gold medal, or whatever else you want to do.

Just don't hurt yourself. It does get better.

NEW YORK, NY

 

 

 

 

Eileen:
You're a part of creation, a beautiful part of creation. If people have a problem with you, then it's their problem, not yours. The wonderful diversity of creation is manifest in each of us, and we can learn so much from those we think of as different.

Part of it getting better is that you realize that you're part of this wider world; you're part of this world that's been with you since your birth. If your family won't accept you for who you are, it's certainly harder but you'll just have to find new family. You'll have to find your advocates no matter where they are. Find people who honor you, look for people who are lifelong learners because those kind of people embrace difference.

When Lawrence told me he was gay, I knew nothing about being gay. My family did not have a tradition of gay, transgender, and lesbian people—at least not that anyone knew of. I'm sure they were there, they just weren't out. Yet watching my son grow and come out and accept himself has really been such a wonderful learning experience, and one that I continue to learn from. If you look for people who are lifelong learners, no matter what age they are, they'll become your family. They'll become your strongest allies and advocates because you're teaching
them
. Most of the people who are very down on who you are and what you are, they have a lot of pain inside them. After all, what you're doing is not hurting them, it's got nothing to do with them, it does not threaten their lives at all, and yet they react so strongly against you. The only conclusion I can draw is that they must have some kind of pain inside them that makes you a threat. They have made you a threat. But, again, that's their problem. It's not your problem at all.

Please, keep yourself safe; my biggest worry for these two fine gentlemen, my son and son-in-law, is that they'll get into a dangerous situation. Honestly, that was my biggest concern when I learned that Lawrence was gay. I was so worried that somehow the world was going to be suddenly very unsafe for him. That all the people out there who have all this pain inside them were going to make him the scapegoat of that pain. That still worries me to this day. But I live with it because he is who he is. And don't worry about worrying your parents, because none of that is your responsibility. Your responsibility is to be who you are and make the world more beautiful.

 

Ed:
My wish is that no matter how put upon you might feel, understand that this is just a moment you're having, a bad moment, but a moment nonetheless. It always seems like it's going to last forever, but it doesn't. It passes and time takes it away and something new and usually better takes over. You just have to get through those really difficult spots and then you find that there are wonderful moments to share.

I always felt that whatever Lawrence and Fyodor felt, I was willing to accept it because they were the ones feeling it. It's their lives. And I never felt for a moment that it was strange or different, or I should talk them out of it. It's what they were feeling. It's the people that they are. I only wanted to encourage them to be as much of themselves as they could. And the years passed, and we had this wonderful wedding, and we're all one family now. There was nothing to work out, it just happened.

If you're having problems with your parents—and I know some parents are more accepting than others—or if you're having problems with friends or whomever, know that it will resolve itself somehow. You will find a better place. Or you'll find better people, more accepting people.

But you should never, ever, ever do anything to yourself that would punish yourself for things that other people do.

SAN JOSE, CA

 

 

 

 

I
'm a lesbian, and a high school teacher. I was called “fucking dyke” by someone who I thought was my friend. In the early '90s, I attended a Gay Pride Event and had a slough of hateful epithets thrown at me by strangers claiming God was on their side and that I should burn in hell. I've experienced prejudice in my career as a teacher from parents, administrators, and even from other teachers. It took me a long time to come out, stand up for myself, and stop allowing others to define me.

I attempted suicide in my teens. I took a lethal dose of prescription medication and meant to remove myself from where I didn't feel I belonged. When I look back now, I see that I was trying so hard to be who I thought everyone else wanted me to be that I forgot who I was. I lost my sense of place and my own worth. I didn't feel I deserved to be loved, at least not in the way I wanted to be. So, I know how horrible it can be. I know how awful it can feel.

Fortunately, a dear friend came to visit me in the hospital, and when I told him what I had done, he threw himself on me and wept. He told me how much my friendship meant to him. Although I had been unable to conjure any circumstance in which I felt needed (before taking the pills), he gave me one. My friend made me feel useful and worthy of being loved. I didn't dare tell him about my feelings about being gay (not then), but I knew that I mattered and that somehow helped me to know that if I could just hold on until college, that I would grow past those empty moments.

Now, at forty-four, I have been with the same woman since 1998 and I know how demeaning it feels to have other people who don't know us decide whose relationship should be legally recognized. I know how all of this hateful and mean-spirited debate can hurt. My wife and I have three children. I see the flawed world they, and you, are coming up in. But please hear me when I say, it really does get better.

As an adult, I have found friends—straight, gay, bi, and poly (
polyamorous
) who love and support me for who I am. I've even found a church where I am not just tolerated but respected, honored, and cherished. My family and I live in a neighborhood where most of our neighbors are accepting. And perhaps, most importantly, I've come to a point in my life where those who don't accept me can't hurt me the way they did in my youth.