Stanford faculty and staff contribute their stories to LGBT support project

Amid Stanford’s sunny and scenic campus, Arnold Zwicky, a consulting professor of linguistics, poured his heart into a camera.

“One of my youngest childhood friends was a wonderful, sweet kid,” Zwicky said in a segment that is featured in Stanford’s contribution to the It Gets Better project. “A classic, sissy boy…was rejected by his father in the worst possible way. His life went downhill and he killed himself in high school.”

After seven youth who had been bullied for identifying as LGBT committed suicide last October, Dan Savage and his partner, founders of the It Gets Better project, spurred worldwide attention by posting a video on YouTube. Speaking candidly into a camera, they encouraged young adults to “stick out the bullying, the pain and the despair of high school” because “living life was the best revenge.”

With YouTube as its medium, the It Gets Better project aims to reach suffering LGBT youth and remind them that they are not alone in their struggles. With more than 40 million views from around the world, the project has worked to drive home its message with entries from the likes of President Barack Obama, a Marine sergeant, an openly gay Unitarian minister and even Jersey Shore’s Vinny Guadagnino.

Last year, LGBT staff and faculty at Stanford were inspired by the 25,000 user-created videos and soon decided to contribute their own personal struggles and triumphs to the It Gets Better project. After receiving support from the University and the Queer University Employees at Stanford (QUEST) organization, Noah Abrahamson, a system administrator in information technology services, quickly became the vision behind the videos.

“After watching Google’s It Gets Better video, I identified with these LGBT technology workers and wanted to put something together from Stanford,” Abrahamson said. “I wanted to make the point that being LGBT isn’t an impediment to reaching great heights in your career on campus and in academia.”

In a seven-minute video, five staff and faculty members reflect on past heartaches and pain from their childhood including the suicide of a high school friend, harassment by classmates and rejection by loved ones. A 10-minute video featuring students from the Graduate School of Business was also filmed. Together they garnered more than 3,000 views on YouTube.

“I had my own experiences as a child of being despised and bullied as a sissy,” said Zwicky. “Later, having gotten through this, I determined to be very open about my experiences, to identify myself publicly as gay, to work for gay causes and to make myself available for young people.”

Production started when Hugo Soskin, a former Knight Fellow at the Stanford Graduate School of Journalism and a QUEST member, offered to donate his video expertise. Prior to the project, Soskin, a documentary producer, had only produced history films for television, but he was more than willing to play a vital role in a grassroots cause he had long admired.

“Anything we can do to help diminish bullying and hate is good,” Soskin said. “I think positive images in video can really help, and make a small contribution to creating a better atmosphere. There’s still a lot of hate out there, and clearly it’s driving some people to want to end their lives. We have to change that.”

Reaction from the LGBT student community was overwhelmingly positive. After the videos rapidly spread through Facebook and email in September, many students felt their prospects rise for both their years at Stanford and their futures after graduation.

“One of the best things about it was seeing faculty who were willing to be out,” said Leanna Keyes ’14, Co-President of the Stanford Students For Queer Liberation (SSQL). “There is kind of a perception in a lot of fields that if you’re out, it’s going to hinder your chances at being successful. And yet we have very successful and notable world-class professors who are willing to be out and make a video that’s for anyone in the world to see.”

Buoyed by his own stressful encounters with bullying and prejudice, Ben Barres, professor of neurobiology, also participated in the It Gets Better project. He now serves a mentor to his LGBT students and hopes that the video will not only benefit LGBT students, but also the larger community.

“People…are not always aware of the stress that LGBT people face,” Barres said. “I hope it helps them to grow as human beings, to be able to think about — maybe for the first time — how difficult and stressful it is for LGBT people, and to teach them to be more supportive, rather than bullies.”

The It Gets Better videos extend in reach beyond Stanford’s boundaries, sending a message of tolerance to potential students as well as the greater public.

“It’s really important to me that this video reaches an audience broader than the Stanford community, because it’s reaching out to prospective students still in high school who are looking for a safe and accepting university,” said Elizabeth Matus ’14, a member of the Stanford LGBT community. “It allows the community here not only to exist in a safe space, but also to thrive and flourish.”

Throughout the videos’ creation, Abrahamson envisioned a “young, new Stanford student struggling with identity.” He believes the videos added to the dialogue of creating safer and more inclusive spaces in education for LGBT community members.

Keyes believes Stanford is one such inclusive space.

“Students may be coming from a home background that’s not as accepting or isn’t safe. But at least at Stanford, they’re doing what they can to make sure that you can live your life authentically,” she said.

Abrahamson said he sees the videos as a means to relay a message of solidarity with LGBT youth, especially those entering their transition to college, at Stanford and beyond.

“We need not wait, but sometimes we have to,” Abrahamson said. “If you’re a young person driven to succeed by attending a top-notch university, you may have put off dealing with life’s issues while focusing on academics. And once you get here, it can get all jumbled up and unmanageable. It’s in that dark moment that we need to be reminded that it does get better.”