Giants Fan Petitions Team to Create "It Gets Better" Video for LGBT Youth

Do the Giants believe it gets better?

​SF Weekly readers might recall the recent Giants games against the Atlanta Braves. Yes, we got swept, but what was even more upsetting was the fact that the Braves pitching coach, Roger McDowell, accosted Giants fans, asking a group of men if they were homos.

It was that incident that got Sean Chapin, a self-described huge Giants fan, thinking: What if the Giants became the first professional sports team to create an "It Gets Better" video, encouraging LGBT youth?

If any team has the fearlessness for that, it's the San Francisco Giants.

So Chapin started a petition at Change.org, asking the Giants to make a "game-changing stand" for acceptance and equality and create a video. The It Gets Better Project started in 2010 after a slew of LGBT suicides across the nation. Since then, thousands of ordinary people, celebrities, and politicians have made videos.

According to the petition:

The San Francisco Giants are in an extraordinary position to lead the rest of the professional sporting world and possibly make the most impactful It Gets Better video yet, not just as the recent World Series champs, but also as ambassadors of an iconic city revered for celebrating diversity and differences with open arms.  Should the team make a video to tell our LGBT youth that it does get better, the Giants may catalyze a watershed moment in professional sports.

More than 4,800 people have signed the petition, including San Francisco mayoral candidates Phil Ting, state Sen. Leland Yee, and Joanna Rees.

"Professional sports is one of the few remaining pockets of strong homophobia in our country," the petition states. "That's why I am calling on the San Francisco Giants and their players to produce a video for the It Gets Better Project."
 

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