It seems no matter where you turn there is hate towards the LGBT community. Why? Since I embraced myself as transgender, I am becoming more and more aware of all the hate. With Chick-fil-a, with the debates over same-sex marriage so much hate. The people I follow on Tumblr post their asks on their blog and many anonymous people say such hateful things. Again I ask why? What is so wrong with being a lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender that people hate us so much. We do not hurt anyone. We just want to lead normal lives without being hated.
Yesterday I read an article about parents of transgender children. It talked about the fears they had. They had to hide the fact that their kids were transgender. They tried to go "stealth". But when it was discovered that their girls were born boys or their boys were born girls, they ended up having to move to get away from the bullying and hate. Why as a society can we not accept everyone for who they are? I remember the first article I read about a transgender individual. It was about Cece. Who is now in jail for killing her attacker in self defense. She was beaten and could have been killed, but faced her attacker in a kill or be killed situation. Fearing for her life she ended up killing her attacker. Now she is in jail. Why? It was self defense. But the bigger question is why did those people hate her so much to want to kill her? Why is there so much violence against the LGBT community?
This past weekend my wife and I watched a documentary on HBO about Vito Russo. "Vito was one of the pivotal players in many of these gay rights organizations during their formative years. He was an early member of GAA (Gay Activists Alliance), whose goal was to secure basic human rights, dignity and freedom for all gay people. He was one of the co-founders of GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation), which was formed to ensure that media representation of gays and lesbians was accurate. Towards the end of his life, he was one of the founders of ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power), a guerilla activist group whose goal was to bring legislation, medical research, treatment and policies to ultimately eradicate the AIDS epidemic." This was a very informative documentary. What was very interesting was the part about his project "The Celluloid Closet." In his project he documented homosexuals in film from it's beginning. It showed how there has always been homosexuals in film. In the early years the characters were shown as normal people. There was nothing wrong with a man kissing another man, a woman kissing another woman, two men dancing together, men in woman's clothes, woman in men's clothes, etc. Then, I think in the 40's (I maybe wrong on the decade) there was an act that prohibited any homosexual acts or characters in film. Around the 60's the ban was beginning to lift, but the homosexual characters were then shown as evil or bad people. They were being shown in a very negative light. It continued on that way until around the early 80's. But with 20 some odd years of anything homosexual being shown as bad, the damage had been done.
As much as I don't like to admit it, our society is shaped by what we see on TV, in the movies, and hear in music. With such homophobia being ingrained in our minds, I started to see why there is so much hate. Society was brain washed into thinking anything homosexual was bad, evil or wrong. Now this also sheds some light on the reason why the younger generations in today's society are more accepting. With media portraying homosexuals in a better light as normal characters with nothing wrong with it and social icons such as Ellen Degeneres coming out as gay and Chaz Bono coming out as a transgender man, the younger generations are more accepting. This gives me hope that one day the old homophobia will die out and be replaced with an accepting society. It may take a few generations, but there is hope.
People fear what is different, like LGBT folks or Muslims. Fear breeds hate. Fear is caused by lack of information or misinformation.
ReplyDeleteI think the biggest lesson here, is don't just believe what you're told. Always question who's telling you, where they got their info, etc.
We need to start raising kids to think for themselves & not just believe whatever the tv or internet says.
Even with certain drugs, because the media hyped up all the bads for decades (straight lies, mostly), there are still waves of people afraid to believe there could also be goods. Nothing is so black & white as that, everything has it's greys.
Some LGBT ppl are probably assholes, some Muslim people are terrorists. BUT NOT ALL and likely, not even most. And an asshole here or there will never excuse someone else going out and killing another human being, simply because they're too afraid to realize that every "group" has it's goods AND it's bads and you cannot judge an entire group on a few statistical outliers.
And it's funny how many don't see this as a common issue among all "minority" groups... LGBT & Muslims should team up & fight the ignorance together. ;) Since they seem to be the two biggest groups being singled out simply because of fear of differences.
"when I was four years old /
they tried to test my I.Q. /
they showed me a picture /
of 3 oranges and a pear /
they said, /
which one is different? /
and does not belong /
they taught me different /
is wrong."
-Ani DiFranco.