A new study reports that gay teens face
less bullying after they leave high school, proving that the
sentiment behind the It Gets Better campaign is more than just a
slogan.
Columnist and gay rights activist Dan
Savage co-founded the It Gets Better project. Through videos posted
online, adults promise bullied gay teens that life eventually gets
better.
“The sentiment of the It Gets Better
campaign is that things will get better because chances are you are
not going to be bullied later in life,” Joseph Robinson, a
professor of educational psychology at the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign, told Time.
“This is the first time we have strong empirical evidence to
suggest it does get better.”
According to Robinson's research, all
students reported a decline in bullying over time, regardless of
sexual orientation. More than 50 percent of gay teens reported being
bullied at ages 13 or 14. That figure drops to less than 10 percent
at ages 19 or 20.
Gay and bisexual men, however, continue
to be bullied four times as often as heterosexual males following
high school.
“It definitely gets better on average
for all gay kids,” Robinson said. “Rates for gay men are getting
better but when compared to straight boys, it's still much higher.
We would be remiss to ignore that in relative terms, it gets worse
for gay men.”
Robinson's research appears in the
journal Pediatrics.