Reproducing and Subverting the Coming Out Storyline: A Case of the It Gets Better Project

Abstract

The It Gets Better Project is a website that anyone in the general public can use to upload or view videos about experiences of living as a lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) individual. Using theories of discursive practice, socio-cultural learning, and cyberspace, I employ qualitative content analysis to examine the videos in the It Gets Better Project associated with colleges and universities to determine the common elements of participants’ coming out stories: adversity, declaring, affirmation, and encouragement. Many of the narrators follow this prototypical storyline, strongly connecting LGBT identity with adversity and emphasizing the possibility of overcoming the adversity. Other participants disrupt the dominant narrative by significantly altering or excluding one or two of the themes. As they tell their coming out stories to support viewers who are struggling with their own experiences of sexual or gender identity, participants both reinforce and subvert dominant discourses of sexuality and gender.