Members of the Stanford faculty and staff have added their stories of discovery, coming out and self-acceptance to the “It Gets Better” website.
The website was developed in 2010 in response to the suicides of teenagers bullied because they were gay or suspected of being gay. The goal of the site is to diminish the rate of suicide among lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth by assuring them that life gets better, despite initial feelings of isolation, fear and loneliness.
The website explains, “Many LGBT youth can’t picture what their lives might be like as openly gay adults. They can’t imagine a future for themselves. So let’s show them what our lives are like, let’s show them what the future may hold in store for them.”
The Stanford submission features RAMZI SALTI, lecturer in African and Middle Eastern languages and literatures; BEN BARRES, professor and chair of neurobiology; ABIGAIL SCHAIRER, client manager of direct appeal services for the Office of Development; RYAN TAMES, lead cataloging specialist in the Stanford Law Library; and ARNOLD ZWICKY, consulting professor of linguistics.
The submission was created under the auspices of Quest, the Queer University Employees at Stanford group. The filming was coordinated by NOAH ABRAHAMSON, computer information systems analyst in Information Technology Services, and produced by former Knight Fellow HUGO SOSKIN and communications graduate student GEORGIA WELLS.
The video joins a similar piece created by students at the Graduate School of Business.
