Our September Banner – Pennyroyal for Trevor
Pennyroyal Adam Lambert Peace pendant
If you weren’t too preoccupied daydreaming about Adam Lambert, you may have noticed that our Salon has been re-decorated. For the rest of this month, we are featuring a banner promoting the Pennyroyal Silver’s Peace Pendant campaign to benefit the Trevor Project and help Adam’s fans reach a cool $1 million donated to charities in Adam’s name.
In addition, Tim Foster from Pennyroyal Silver has generously donated a pendant, and we have bought a second one, to offer as incentive prizes for our own fall campaign for the Trevor Project. Here’s how you can enter to win one of these beautiful pendants:
- Subscribe to our blog to qualify. Just enter your email address in the box at right.
- There are four ways you can enter our drawing. Pick one (or more, for more chances):
- Purchase “On the Meaning of Adam Lambert” from our Online Store. We will donate 25% of proceeds to the Trevor Project.
- Make a direct donation to the Trevor Project. Email juneau600@gmail.com the receipt and we’ll enter your name into the drawing – one entry per every $20 you donate!!
- Post an “It Gets Better” video for the Trevor Project.
- Write an “It Gets Better” message to LGBTQ youth (use the Comments here).
The deadline to enter is September 30, 2011.
Thank you Tim for the generous donation and the beautiful banner!
Thank you Adam Lambert for inspiring your fans.
Thank you fans for opening your hearts.
I posted an It Gets Better vid on YouTube at the very beginnings of the project (before the Trevor Project even became affiliated), but that’s not to say it doesn’t keep getting better. My original video is here, and since I made it eleven months ago I’ve moved across the country, gotten a job, and started working on a dream I didn’t even know I had.
Being in a position where you feel you’re not wanted because of your differences sucks. But that doesn’t mean it’s going to be that way forever. When changes come, they can come very quickly. Five years ago I was suicidal because of my sexual orientation and terrified that nothing would ever change. Today I tell other people every single day–literally, every day–why I’m so very glad I didn’t succeed at killing myself. And sure, five years sounds like a lot–but it’s not like I sat there with a sucky life for five years and then, magically, at the end, it was okay. I graduated high school in June of 2006 and in October of the same year I came out as lesbian at school before telling my grandfather, sister, and mom. I was in college for less than one high-school grading period before it was already getting better, and by December–less than ten months after I tried to swallow an entire bottle of pills–I was happier than I’d ever been, ever, at all, in my entire life. It hasn’t all been puppies and roses since then, but better than it was? Oh, yes. Definitely.
It gets better, you’ve just got to believe and seek out like-minded people who understand that freedom, like love, should expand. You’re just as much a vital part of the It Gets Better movement as I am. How? Easy: I wrote my first letter to a political figure (it happened to be the President) when I was thirteen. It was about education, not civil rights, but it was actually read, and he actually responded. You DO have a voice! Write to and call your school board members, teachers, local clergy, Congresspeople (they represent you, too). They can’t do anything effective if they don’t know you’re there.
Yes, it’s a risk. Most things worth fighting for are, and the risk doesn’t always end with teasing. I was spit on at a marriage equality march in 2009. But that’s not the whole story. Sure, I was spit on by a protester from Westboro, but the total number of protesters (which included Westboro and two other more sane, if equally misguided, churches) was under twenty, and several of those looked ashamed to be there. The total number of marchers believing in people like you and me? Over HALF A MILLION, and among them was a woman who sticks in my memory to this day: a housewife standing on the corner with two kids, little rainbows painted on their cheeks, and a sign as big as she was: “This straight woman stands with you.”
Since that day in 2009, a lot has changed, and it’s gotten better. Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell has been repealed. Two more places have passed marriage equality (Washington, DC and New York State). DOMA, one of the most prejudiced laws in this country at this date, is rapidly falling by the wayside. Educators all across the country have been called on by the President to help end bullying. It’s a work in progress, but we’re getting there.
Be brave, stand tall, overcome. And remember: it gets better, all the time.