It Gets Better Read online

  I was a spy in a hostile country. I had to be perfectly adept at its ways and customs, or my true identity would be revealed, and I’d be deported. I was nervous almost all the time.

  I didn’t come out until I went away to college. In college, it seemed I could be somebody new, and could befriend the outcasts and miscreants, the ones who loved David Bowie and who dressed extravagantly and went to the bars in San Francisco on the weekends.

  It was, in a sense, the beginning of my real life.

  But still. A beginning implies an end. I felt as if I couldn’t go home anymore. I couldn’t act like the high school boy I’d been, and I couldn’t present myself in my new, mutated form, either. When I had to go back, over the holidays, I didn’t see much of my old friends. They assumed it was snobbery. I’d gone off to a fancy college and left them behind.

  What I wanted to leave behind, of course, was that perpetually frightened boy, that imposter.

  I told myself it didn’t matter. I had a new life, after all. My history started at the age of seventeen. Everything before that was more or less erased. The secret agent had gone to his true home.

  Years passed. I published a novel, A Home at the End of the World, about a gay boy in love with his straight best friend.

  I wasn’t private anymore. I was taking it out into the world. Terry Gross, on NPR, asked me if I was a gay writer, and I told her I was.

  I decided, after much debate, to send copies of the book to Craig, Peter, Bronson, and Rob. I didn’t want an obliterated past anymore.

  Craig called me a few weeks later.

  Hey, buddy. I loved the book.

  Did you really?

  Yeah. Are you ever coming back to LA?

  Yeah, for Christmas.

  Let’s have a drink when you’re in town.

  Okay. I’d like that

  We did. The five of us. Here we are on that night, in a local bar festooned with garlands and blinking lights.

  So. I’m gay. Ta-da.

  We knew.

  You did not.

  We sort of did.

  Hey, as long as you never hit on me.

  You’re ugly. I’d never hit on you.

  It must have been a drag for you.

  I don’t do drag.

  Ha-ha.

  Does this mean we can’t talk about women in front of you?

  No. Talk about poontang all you want.

  I like the cocktail waitress.

  Dream on.

  I like the guy sitting at the bar.

  The one with the mustache?

  Yeah, him.

  That’s your type?

  I don’t have a type. I just think he’s cute.

  Go talk to him.

  I don’t pick people up in bars.

  No shit.

  Well, sometimes I do. But he’s straight.

  How can you tell?

  I just can. We call it gaydar.

  Do you have a boyfriend?

  Yeah. His name is Mark.

  Bring him next time.

  You want to meet him?

  Man. Of course we do.

  And on into the night.

  I did bring Mark, the next time. Craig and Rob brought their girlfriends. Peter and Bronson were still shopping around.

  Our friendship has dwindled over the years, as childhood friendships do. We call occasionally. I get Christmas cards with family photos inside.

  I was lucky, luckier than many gay boys. But I still remember—I will always remember—that ongoing feeling of terror, that sense that my dark secret must remain forever concealed. Like many men who were once gay kids.

  And I’ll always know that I was more loved, and more clearly seen, than I’d ever dared to imagine.

  Michael Cunningham is the author of the novels A Home at the End of the World, Flesh and Blood, The Hours (winner of the Pen/ Faulkner Award and Pulitzer Prize), and Specimen Days. His latest novel is By Nightfall. He lives in New York.

  © 2011 by Mare Vaporum Corp.

  AND THE EMMY GOES TO . . .

  by Barbara Gaines

  NEW YORK, NY

  I’m fifty-three-years old, and I’m a lesbian. I’m also an executive producer of the Late Show with David Letterman. I’ve got the kind of full life I never could have imagined would be mine when I was in my teens and twenties.

  I grew up in the ’60s and ’70s in the suburbs of Long Island. I didn’t find it easy. I looked, felt, and acted different from all the other kids. When I was ten years old, I was actually the only kid in my class who wore eyeglasses. I could never really play the clarinet but, of course, I was that kid who played the clarinet in the band. I had three good friends in my neighborhood, but I didn’t fit in, wasn’t interested in what other people were interested in, was more sensitive, and less able to handle school and navigate challenges.

  I started doing drugs when I was twelve to feel better, but self-medicating never works. My high school guidance counselor said I wasn’t college material but my parents wouldn’t let me stay home. I was just as bewildered, lost, and unconnected in college.

  There was a legend at my school that if a virgin graduated, the statue in the center of campus would fall down. I’m here to tell you that definitely isn’t true, because at my graduation, the statue was still standing. But, in some ways, the miracle was that I graduated at all.

  After college, and a short-lived job in Los Angeles, I tried to kill myself. I was in intensive care for three days. I was twenty-two years old.

  But here’s the thing: Just six months later, things started to get better. I met someone. I got a job.

  Let me tell you, with all of my heart, if I had died in 1979, if I had left this earth then, I would have missed so many wonderful things: I never would have married my partner; I never would have seen the birth of my son; I would not have heard my mother, on her death bed, accept me for the gay person I am. And I would not have had the thrill and honor of receiving five Emmy Awards for the work I love to do.

  In 1984, I started going to Congregation Beit Simchat Torah, the gay synagogue in New York City, where I found a community of Jewish gay people, something I didn’t even know existed. In 1989, I started taking prescribed antidepressants. These are some of the things that worked for me. There are things that will work for you. Each person’s path is different. Is my life perfect? No, it is not. But it’s so much better now than it was or than I ever imagined it could be. And I want every bit of life that I can get. Please don’t give up. Believe me, something better is around the corner.

  Originally created as part of the Strength Through Community Project of Congregation Beit Simchat Torah in New York.

  Barbara Gaines has been an executive producer of the Late Show with David Letterman since May 2000, and has worked for David Letterman since starting as a receptionist on his morning show in 1980. In her fourteen years as a producer for the Late Show, Gaines has received thirteen Emmy nominations and won five consecutive Emmy Awards. She has also worked in production for the Orange Bowl Parade; One of the Boys, a comedy series starring Mickey Rooney, Nathan Lane, and Dana Carvey; and The $50,000 Pyramid. Gaines was raised in Hewlett, New York, where she began her career making home movies. She graduated in 1979 from Ithaca College with a BS in educational television. She lives in New York with her partner of twenty years, Aari Blake Ludvigsen, and four-year-old son, Simon Michael Ludvigsen Gaines.

  A MESSAGE FROM U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON

  WASHINGTON, DC

  Like millions of Americans, I was terribly saddened to learn of the recent suicides of several teenagers across our country after being bullied because they were gay or because people thought they were gay. Children are particularly vulnerable to the hurt caused by discrimination and prejudice and we have lost many young people over the years to suicide. These most recent deaths are a reminder that all Americans have to work harder to overcome bigotry and hatred.

  I have a message for all the young people out there who are b
eing bullied, or who feel alone and find it hard to imagine a better future: First of all, hang in there and ask for help. Your life is so important—to your family, your friends, and to your country. And there is so much waiting for you, both personally and professionally—there are so many opportunities for you to develop your talents and make your contributions.

  And these opportunities will increase. Because the story of America is the story of people coming together to tear down barriers, stand up for rights, and insist on equality, not only for themselves but for all people. And in the process, they create a community of support and solidarity that endures. Just think of the progress made by women just during my lifetime, or ethnic, racial, and religious minorities over the course of our history—and by gays and lesbians, many of whom are now free to live their lives openly and proudly. Through the State Department, I am grateful every day for the work of our LGBT employees who are serving the United States as foreign service officers and civil servants here and around the world. It wasn’t long ago that these men and women would not have been able to serve openly, but today they can—because it has gotten better. And it will get better for you.

  So take heart, and have hope, and please remember that your life is valuable, and that you are not alone. Many people are standing with you and sending you their thoughts, their prayers, and their strength. Count me among them.

  Take care of yourself.

  On January 21, 2009, Hillary Rodham Clinton was sworn in as the sixty-seventh Secretary of State of the United States. Secretary Clinton joined the State Department after nearly four decades in public service as an advocate, attorney, first lady, and senator. Secretary Clinton is the author of bestselling books, including her memoir, Living History, and her groundbreaking book on children, It Takes a Village. She and President Bill Clinton reside in New York.

  THIS I KNOW FOR SURE

  by A. Y. Daring

  WATERLOO, ON

  Regardless of what country you live in, regardless of where you’re from, or what you look like, or who you are, once you are out of that phase called high school, it gets better. People stop treating you like a child. They start respecting your opinion. But even more than that, I think what happens, or at least what happened to me, is that I proved to myself that that wasn’t as good as it gets. When I was in the tenth and the eleventh grade, right after I came out, I used to sit and cry all the time because I felt so alone. I thought I would never find anyone who got me or was like me. I’m black and I’m queer. Where the hell am I going to find people like me? You know what I mean? I was living in Burlington, Ontario, after all!

  When I graduated, I moved to a bigger city and enrolled at a massive university, where our campus queer and questioning committee is about to celebrate their fortieth anniversary. It’s the longest-running queer campus organization in the whole of Canada. So during all those years in high school, when I was sitting there wondering who would possibly understand me, and why I couldn’t find them—turns out, they had been here the whole time, just waiting for me to get through high school and to get up the courage to leave that awful phase behind.

  Everyone who has supported me, everyone who loves me for who I am—exactly the way I am—they have always been here, too. They weren’t born the day I came out, or even the month before I came out. They’ve been here with open arms just waiting for me to come alive and realize my potential. And all the people who are going to be there for you on the other side, they’re walking around right now wondering where you are. And they’re waiting excitedly with open arms for the day you finally have that diploma and you can get out of there and go on to something better.

  I can attest to the fact that I honestly, legitimately, literally do not know of a single queer adult who graduated from high school and went on to bigger cities and bigger schools—better, more accepting places—and didn’t eventually find a place where they belonged . . . where they belong.

  When you’re young—and granted, I’m just a second-year student myself—everything feels like the end of the world because you haven’t seen how good it can get. By the time you graduate from high school, four out of eighteen years feels like a pretty significant percentage of your life. But four out of forty years, or four out of fifty, or sixty years of amazing-ness is absolutely nothing.

  So, in the meantime, you’ve got to hold your head up and you’ve got to look for the light at the end of your tunnel. Because it’s there, even if you don’t always recognize it or you can’t always find it, it’s there all the same, and always has been. And don’t forget those people who are there to support you. They’re so, so excited to finally get to meet you, they are waiting with open arms. Good luck, guys. See you on the better side!

  Author’s Note: I’ve started a project called Focus on the Love. (Like Focus on the Family, except not bat-shit crazy.) Focus on the Love is where you tell me what you love about yourself, and I write you back a love letter. I’ve got hundreds of envelopes and stamps waiting. The goal is to keep writing letters and various other super-exciting, stillin-development ideas until we’ve reach one million queer individuals and their allies with the message of self-love. Join in: www.piazzaroom.com/focus-on-the-love/.

  A. Y. Daring is a young, glamorous, and adventuresome jetsetter. When not gallivanting around the globe and putting out forest fires, she’s a full-time university student with a major in philosophy and two minors in business and French. In her spare time, she writes about how to be fabulous and successful at www.aydaring.com and does choreography for Lady Gaga on the weekends.

  IT GETS BETTER BROADWAY

  by Members of the Broadway and New York Theater Community

  Michael Arnold (Billy Elliot): I grew up in a community where the only thing that mattered was sports, and anything else and everything else was gay. If you did anything else, you were a faggot. So when I started taking dance classes to improve my hockey game, I was a faggot.

  I was bullied in high school, I was ridiculed, and I was made fun of. The thing that hurt the worst was that all the adults who were there to protect me . . . didn’t protect me. Nobody stepped in.

  J. R. Bruno (West Side Story): When I was getting changed for gym class one day, a bunch of kids stole my wallet and my watch and my glasses and my clothes. And the principal couldn’t do anything about it because there was no proof.

  Derek St. Pierre (Rock of Ages): I was called names all the time and bullied. People called me “faggot.”

  Tim McGarrigal (High School Musical): I remember distinctly having other kids call me “faggot” and “gay” and “homo.” I didn’t even know what that meant at the time but gradually I started feeling more and more isolated.

  Brad Bradley (Billy Elliot, Spamalot, Annie Get Your Gun): Once I started taking ballet and wearing ballet tights, I was introduced to the word faggot. I was told I would make a really pretty girl if I wasn’t a girl already, and my father even once referred to me as the “Sugar Plum Fairy.”

  Danny McNie (Miss Saigon): I was thrown against a fence and had my pants pulled down, just to prove to that group of guys—boys—that I was a boy.

  Tony Gonzalez (Mamma Mia!): One morning when I was fifteen years old, a freshman in high school, I came outside to the entire side of my house spray-painted with terribly profane pictures and words.

  Chris Nichols (New York talent agent): I would show up to high school and my locker would be Super Glued shut. People would kick me, people would beat me up.

  Jeremy Leiner (Bombay Dreams and New York talent agent): This kid came up and pointed at me, stopping with his crowd, and said, “Fag.” And they all just laughed and walked away. I remember how humiliated I felt; I wanted to just crawl in a hole and hide.

  Raymond J. Lee (Mamma Mia!): Because of all this pressure from my parents, from my Christian friends, I actually attempted to take my life.

  J. B. Wing (High Fidelity): I tried to take my own life. And I can’t tell you how much I thank God that I was not successful in that a
ttempt.

  Corey West (South Pacific): I remember hearing so much in school and in church about praying. That if I just prayed, it would go away. So at night I would pray so hard, and I would cry, just asking for these feelings to go away.

  Jose Llana (Spelling Bee, The King and I, Rent): I’m from a Filipino Catholic background. I was born in the Philippines and moved to the States when I was really young. At a certain point, as a kid, I knew I was gay but I didn’t know how to tell my parents. As a Catholic, there were times I felt like I was the biggest failure to my family, my country, and my faith.

  Ben Franklin: I grew up Southern Baptist, deeply immersed in my religious background, and as a young gay man, I was terrified. Fear was my bully. I was afraid I was going to lose my religion, my family, everything that I held dear to me. It ate me up inside.

  Alex Quiroga (Wicked): It’s a really different time, and I know that it’s hard. And I am sure that you’re sick of hearing everybody say, “I know how you feel. It gets better.” And we don’t really know how you feel because we’re not you. But if you are feeling hopeless and you are thinking about doing something drastic, maybe hurting yourself or even suicide, don’t, because then they win.

  J.B. Wing: When I first came to New York to pursue my acting career, I got a survival job in an office. My first day walking in to that office I heard the soundtrack to Barbra Streisand’s Yentl playing through the speakers, and the owner came out, wearing freedom rainbow rings in her ears, and shook my hand. I remember thinking, “Oh, my gay God. I’m home.”