Savage Love s-x advice columnist Dan Savage doesn't consider himself a journalist or gay activist.
"I'm very bad at forming coalitions. I'm very bad at holding my tongue," he says. "I'm very bad in activist circles and environments."
For a nonactivist, Savage has done a remarkable job of rallying millions to combat bullying and gay-youth suicide.
Since September, his "It Gets Better Project" has spawned about 10,000 videos that have been viewed nearly 30 million times on YouTube and other websites. The video in which Savage and his husband, Terry Miller, talk about their painful childhoods and the happy adult lives they've made with their adopted son account for nearly 1.3 million viewings alone.
Savage, 46, the internationally syndicated "gay Ann Landers," as he has called himself, gives a public lecture Saturday night at Broward Center for the Performing Arts, the finale of ArtExplosion, the 11th International LGBT Arts Festival. Last month, he appeared before hundreds of students at Florida International University's Biscayne Bay Campus.
"He talks past all the bull and gets to the point. That's why people listen to him," says Brandon Campbell, a gay 18-year-old from Kendall who heard Savage at FIU.
"It's inspiring. It's about time. With all the media and society that looks down on this community …we need someone to tell everyone it gets better."
Savage launched his campaign last fall after Justin Aaberg, 15, hanged himself in Minnesota and Billy Lucas, also 15, hanged himself two months later in Indiana.
"I was just stewing on the kids, and the reaction you always have as a gay adult is 'I wish I could have talked to that kid,' to have been able to tell him it gets better," Savage said in an interview.
"When a 15-year-old or a 13-year-old kills himself because he is gay, what he's saying is that he can't picture a future with enough joy in it to compensate for the pain he's in now, to make enduring this and getting through it worth it.
"We gay adults know adult gay life is pretty awesome. You don't have to be Ellen, to be rich and famous. You don't have to be a porn star Adonis. You can have a totally wonderful, rewarding adult gay life."
"A lot of gay kids don't know that. You wish you could tell him that it gets better and that was the phrase rattling around in my head."
The Internet has made it possible for older gay, lesbian, bis-xual and transgender people to safely speak to younger generations.
"If gay adults reach out to gay children, we're accused of being pederasts and pedophiles and recruiting, so we don't talk to them" Savage says.
"And then it just occurred to me ... that I was waiting for permission that in the YouTube-Facebook-Twitter era I no longer needed."
A few teachers and guidance counselors have told Savage some of the videos are too adult for young ears.
"There are some we put up that people thought that we should take off our site because they acknowledge s-x. I'm sorry, but s-x is one of the ways it gets better. As an adult, it's something to look forward to. And it's a huge part of gay life and it's usually risky for a lot of young gay males. They need to know how to navigate it," Savage says.
"There are videos up by the president of the United States, the prime minister of Great Britain. There are videos up by drag queens and porn stars. Well, some kids want to grow up to be president and some kids want to grow up to be a fabulous drag queen. The drag-queen kids want to hear from the drag queen and the politico kids want to hear from the president. And I thought they both belonged."
Next month, Dutton will publish It Gets Better: Coming Out, Overcoming Bullying, and Creating a Life Worth Living, a compilation of essays inspired by the video project that he and Miller edited.
Gay teens are much less likely than straight ones to confide in their families about being bullied, Savage says.
"We're isolated in this way, where we're often being bullied -- and not just by our peers at school but by our parents at home, by preachers on Sunday -- and we don't have a support system," Savage says.
Savage recommends "The Trevor Project" to gay adolescents and teens.
"It's a crisis line for LGBT kids who are thinking about suicide. It also runs message boards. -- It's a safe place for kids, for gay kids to be online where they're not going to be preyed upon."
He advises young people to think carefully before coming out.
"My advice to 13-, 14-, 15-year-olds isn't 'Oh, come out to your families, it's going to be beautiful.' You have to look at your family and really think about how they'll react.
"If you think that they'll react positively, come out to them. If you think that they might not react positively, if you know they won't, don't come out to them. Wait. Lean on your friends, look for a teacher at school who you feel will be supportive and have your back, maybe talk to that teacher, talk to your friends. Find support online."
Young people who are rejected by their families because of their s-xual orientation are eight times likelier to attempt suicide than other kids, Savage says.
The Chicago native began his column 20 years ago in The Stranger, a Seattle alternative newspaper. Gay people have made many social and political strides since then, he says, and LGBT youth today have much to look forward to.
"When I came out and told my parents I was gay, I was telling my Catholic parents not just that I was attracted to boys, I was telling them that I would never get married, never have children, I would have a really marginal professional life and career. I could never be a Marine," Savage says.
"And now, here we are 25 years later, 30 years later, and I'm married and I have a child. I have a great job and now I can be a Marine. Yeah, things have gotten a lot better. Not that I want to be a Marine."
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