SF Giants are the first major sports team to make an “It Gets Better” video

Yesterday, the San Francisco Giants became the first major sports team to release an “It Gets Better” video.

The team decided to make the video after a fan, Sean Chapin, used social media to collect over 6,500 signatures on a change.org petition. And now others, including a 12-year-old Red Sox fan, have started similar petitions to their favorite teams.

We’ve written before how disappointing it is to see some high-profile politicians like Hillary Clinton and Mayor Mike Bloomberg jump on the “It Gets Better” bandwagon without acknowledging that they are, in fact, in a position to actually make things better for LBGT folks. Professional athletes obviously don’t have the same kind of power to change discriminatory policies, but, since sports are so often bastions of homophobia and toxic masculinity–particular during the teenage years–I think they do have a real ability to influence the cultural underpinnings of homophobia.

So I’m glad the Giants have made this video–although I do wish they had mentioned LGBT youth specifically more that just the once. And I hope that they back it up by calling out anti-gay slurs by fellow athletes, vocally supporting the ever-increasing number of openly gay people on their teams and in their communities, and taking a cue from New York Rangers player Sean Avery and getting involved in pro-equality politics.

St. Paul, MN

Maya Dusenbery is executive director in charge of editorial at Feministing. She is the author of the forthcoming book Doing Harm: The Truth About How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed, Misdiagnosed, and Sick (HarperOne, March 2018). She has been a fellow at Mother Jones magazine and a columnist at Pacific Standard magazine. Her work has appeared in publications like Cosmopolitan.com, TheAtlantic.com, Bitch Magazine, as well as the anthology The Feminist Utopia Project. Before become a full-time journalist, she worked at the National Institute for Reproductive Health. A Minnesota native, she received her B.A. from Carleton College in 2008. After living in Brooklyn, Oakland, and Atlanta, she is currently based in the Twin Cities.

Maya Dusenbery is an executive director of Feministing and author of the forthcoming book Doing Harm on sexism in medicine.

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