GRSJ224/Intersectionality and identity

The “It Gets Better” (IGB) movement denotes a similar ideology of the queer movement, which seeks to gloss over the differences. It has been criticized as imposing a homogenized “coming out” experience or experience of being gay in general. The IGB campaign was sparked in response to Tyler Clementi’s and other suicides of young gay men. Individuals, such as gay journalist Dan Savage began posting videos and comments explaining how periods of bullying, self-loathing and other social violence will end if you just hold on. In addition to the common critique that the movement perpetuates a form of liberal handholding and upward mobility that caters to the “pull yourself up by the bootstraps” ideology. The movement was also exclusionary to racial, gender and ethnic minorities.

The dominant message that was fore-grounded was that it does get better for some, especially those who are white, cis-gendered and middle class (Puar, J., 2010). One individual writes the basic message encourages gay youth to stay ‘upbeat’ and ‘on message’ but dissent and diversity does not seem to be encouraged. This is borne out of the vast number of videos uploaded by white university-educated gay men, in comparison of those from women, transgender people, lesbians and gender nonconforming youth. What these comments seem to suggest is that the IGB movement denotes an expectation that things will get better and this in turn leads to mean, you will get more normal. This therefore illustrates how movements, which attempt to collapse a plurality of group identities under one mandate, inadvertently leads to expressing social hierarchies and suppressing the voices of minorities. While the movement was no doubt well intentioned and aimed at instilling hope into the minds of those suffering from bullying, the result is a reduction of a singular experience of what it means to be gay.