This is an aside to the main point, but I get the impression that raganwald doesn't quite understand the "it gets better" movement (I'm not sure if that's quite the right word to use for it, but I'm failing to come up with a better term). "It gets better" wasn't started to try to claim that the situation for LBGT teenagers was improving (although that's true), because that message doesn't really help the individual teen. The message was: as you, individually, get older, it will get better. And, more specifically, please don't kill yourself because your life is difficult right now. A similar idea appears in some of PG's essays where he points out that high school is pretty unpleasant for nerds, but most of that disappears later in life. It gets better because the community of adults is structurally different than the community of children.
Yeah, I do understand that it gets better when you get out of HS. Paul Graham made a similar point about being a nerd, I don’t recall which essay it was from.
Here’s an interesting video, Rick Mercer calling on people in the limelight to stand up and be counted. I am not endorsing his views, just suggesting it’s an interesting perspective to think about:
