Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Hi.My name is Madi Russell, I am from upstate New York, and I'm here to tell you that it
gets better. It doesn't always get better right away. You can't expect things to just
poof and all the bullies, all the misunderstanding, is gone. Sometimes in life it just gets a
little worse. But that doesn't mean that you have to give up. It's hard, I understand,
I've been through it too. I have been through it and I'm still going through it, and I'll
probably always be going through it. But the important thing I learned is it might not
always get better, but you get better. You get stronger. You start to believe in yourself,
more and you start to help people understand. Sometimes it's not about other people stopping
their misunderstanding, it's you helping them to stop misunderstanding.
When I was in my sophomore year of high school, I came out and my friends were less than pleased,
and I'm disappointed to say that one of them tried to take me to a Christian music festival--conservative
Christian music festival. Right after I came out to her, and that was a sign that I needed
to get some new friends. If your friends try pulling stuff like that--no. No. It's not
you that's messed up, it's them. So your friends aren't...friends if they don't accept you,
and try to shut you out. Get new friends. And that's not always easy. You've gotta take
a deep breath and put your trust in someone else after you've already been hurt and it's
hard. Terrible. Having to abandon--not even abandon but being abandoned by people who
you thought cared about you. And you do want to give up. But you can't. Because we are
everywhere. Love is everywhere, equality is everywhere, it might not be where you are,
it might not be in the open, but it's there. You gotta find it. And if you can't find it
right away, just let it come to you. It's...it's hard. I've said that already. When I was abandoned,
I didn't know what to do. I didn't know where to go, I didn't know any other LGBTQ kids.
I didn't know anybody. I didn't know a damn thing about what I was doing, or who I was.
And it was difficult. This has to be one of the most difficult things I've ever done so
far in my entire life. But I kind of just had to sit down and tell myself: okay, I'm
this way for a reason. And that doesn't make me a bad person. If being gay made me a bad
person, then I wouldn't be here. I'd be in prison, or something outrageous, because it
doesn't make you bad, you're not wrong, you're not a mistake, not messed up. And if people
tell you that God made you a certain way and you deviated from that, and you're a mistake,
from God. If you believe in God, let me tell you this. If there's a God, I'm pretty sure
he does not make mistakes. Which means you (I learn to use the webcam and figure out
where I'm pointing) and I--we are not mistakes. We were made the way we were for a reason.
I don't know what that reason is. But homosexuality exists in all sorts of species. Lions, tigers,
bears...oh my. You're not a freak. You're not messed up. You're not genetically degenerate
or something. You're not a freak of nature, because nature's already, you know, nature's
on your side. You can't control what your heart does, and your brain does and what your
hormones do. If you love somebody, you love somebody. And if you can have gay lions at
the zoo, or gay penguins then I don't know what the problem is with gay people. We're
all the same. People are genetically the same. We have the same genetic code, we evolved
from the same bugs. But some people like to think they're better than others because they're
afraid of what they don't understand. If someone asks you a question about your sexuality,
or your gender identity, don't just assume that they're doing it to be mean. That's something
I had to learn really quick. People kept asking me 'Why do you like girls? Why do you like
girls better than guys? Why do you not like guys at all?' And it wasn't that they were
trying to be cruel, it was that they didn't understand. Some people aren't ignorant and
mean, they're just confused. So if someone asks you and they're curious, it's okay to
say 'I don't want to talk about it', but it's also okay to tell them and set them straight.
Some people are homophobic because it's all they know. They were raised up that way, and
it sucks. It sucks that people are raised into hate, but people are also raised into
racism, sexism. It's how people are brought up. No one is born to hate. No one's born
to hate, but we can teach them how to love. We can teach love, because we know love better
than probably anybody else. We know what love feels like, and we're not confused. We know.
If we are confused, then that's okay because we're not supposed to figure anything out.
We're not supposed to know all the answers. We're just like regular kids. We're just like
regular teenagers, going through life, trying to figure out who we are, what we're meant
to do. We just have an extra added struggle, and that is: who do I love? And you don't
have to know the answer to that. You don't have to know the answer to that ever, you
can go and have a romantic attraction to boys and girls. Or to just boys, or to just girls,
or you could have it to nobody. And the same thing goes for sexuality--for *** attraction.
You can just be sexually attracted to girls, or boys, or both, or no one. You could be
whatever you want. There's no gender box, either. There's no sexuality box. You don't
have ti be straight, you don't have to be gay, you don't have to be bi, you don't have
to be pans, you don't have to be trans, you don't have to be gender ***, you don't have
to fit in any specific box. We are not...we are not products. We're not being shipped
from Amazon, or Fed Ex. We're not full of packing peanuts. And we don't have to fit
in any specific confine. Just be who you are, because you are unique. And you are beautiful.
Every last one of you. You're beautiful. And I know it's hard, and I know you might be
running out of hope. But you are beautiful. Always. You're a kid. And you're scared. But
I want to tell you now that you get better. Other people might not get better. People
are always going to judge you, and it's not fair. People are always going to say things
about us, and point things out that they shouldn't, and say things on the street. But you get
better because you learn to love in spite of that. And you learn to forgive them because
they don't know any better. They're just as scared as we are. That doesn't make them right.
They're wrong. They have to be wrong because we're still here. We're always here. And they're
wrong about us. They're wrong. We're not freaks, we're not messed up, we're not missing a few
springs, w'ere...we're different. But everybody's different. Genetically, we're all humans,
yeah, but we're also so different and that's what makes the world a beautiful place. If
everybody was straight, we probably wouldn't have Broadway. We wouldn't have, you know,
we wouldn't have Ellen Degeneres, or Neil Patrick Harris. We wouldn't have some of the
greatest role models for youth if everyone was straight. We wouldn't be a real world
if there wasn't anybody who was different. So...I'm here to tell you that it's okay to
be different. It's okay because you're different, and the fact that you're not like the person
next to you, is what makes the world so beautiful. This is a beautiful place, and I don't want
you to give up on it. Please. Please. It gets better. And if it doesn't get better right
away, then you get better. You get stronger. I'm sorry. You get...you get stronger. And
you learn to fight hate with love. So just remember. The people who bully you, and judge
you, and tell you that you're messed up...they're wrong, and they're scared. So please. Ignore
them, and help them understand. Because everyone is beautiful, and so are you, and everyone
should be able to understand that. So here I am, Madi, Rochester New York, age eighteen...It
gets better.