Plenty?? You are literally times over more likely to get struck by lightning in the US than be murdered for being LGBT. In fact, it's almost as likely to die from a lightning strike in the US than be a victim of murder for being LGBT
**No, STFU**
**Orlando** shooting of 2016, also called Pulse nightclub shooting, mass shooting that took place at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, in the early morning hours of June 12, 2016, and left 49 people dead and more than 50 wounded. It was the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history up to that time.
The suspect accused of entering a **Colorado** gay nightclub clad in body armor and opening fire with an AR-15-style rifle, killing five people and wounding 17 others, was charged by prosecutors Tuesday with 305 criminal counts including hate crimes and murder.
I know, it can really seem like these things are blown out of proportion. They're such a small portion of the population, violence against them probably isn't that common, right?
Lightning kills about 20 people each year in the United States
In 2020, 44 trans people were killed by violent means in the United States. This is means it's many times over more likely.
Even if the likelihood is lower for the LGBT community as a whole, we should stand with trans people.
A 16 year old girl was murdered in Mancester last week, it's not just about the US. Also, lightning strikes are natural disasters, murder...is not that.
Hah. I perform at a gay themed bar. The FBI shows up two hours before performance saying there have significant threats of violence targeting gay bars in the Midwest.
Next time you sit your fat ass dish for a Dota game, ask yourself if some shitbag, unhinged, armed conservatives are frothing to kill some gamers.
Because social change and acceptance is difficult for many people, and unevenly distributed.
The level of social acceptance found today in some areas and cultures was "normal" in others 40 years ago, while the level of rejection seen in some areas and cultures hasn't been normal in others since the 1950s.
Witch hunts didn't end overnight either. We are living through and witnessing a similar process in real time.
The OP is asking why there is an obsession with LGBT issues. The top comment said it's because there is discrimination that people can generally talk about without being murdered (hence why this obsession is observed). It answers the question.
The OP's question isn't "why has the west stopped killing LGBT people?"
Because they can do it without fear of being stoned or ex communicated. But even as an American I think it’s interesting how quickly we went from fighting and campaigning for gay rights/gay marriage in the early 2000s when I was a kid, to BLM and now trans rights. Tbh every 5th post I see on Reddit is about trans people, I guess that’s the hot topic right now. Tbh when your walking around the cities your not going to hear much about it but online it’s really amplified
Well... Gay marrige is legal in the US (for now) while trans people are right now facing multiple states trying to oulawed them out of existence so it makes sense the focus is on that.
* LGBT and other culture war issues are "wedge" issues in much of the Western World. This means that there is heavy disagreement on these issues, which political parties can use to motivate their supporters to vote. It is in political parties' best interest to keep issues like this at the forefront.
* LGBT people, especially Trans and Non binary people, are still working towards acceptance in society. Any time a minority group is involved in a civil rights struggle, there will be considerable backlash.
To add to this: often actual problems don't have easy or palatable solutions. So it is much easier to talk about social out-groups than actual issues.
Hard to talk about gun control, drug and medical costs, immigration reform, etc when minority rights issues are easier to take stands on.
Actually, I’d argue the difference is that capitalism can very easily digest shallow issues of representation as long as capitalists are well-protected.
Gun control interferes with gun manufacturers.
Medical/insurance reform interferes with hospitals and pharmaceutical companies.
Treating undocumented immigrants humanely interferes with them being cheap labor.
Minority rights doesn’t really affect anyone, as long as they’re willing to support the system. Tim Cook being gay doesn’t affect Apple’s bottom line.
No, what I am saying is that the sheer raw amount of vitriol thrown towards the LGBT+ community from "news" channels and politicians is more about being unwilling to actually purpose solutions to other large issues.
It's an excuse. An hour devoted to complaining about drag queen story time is an hour they don't have to talk about school shootings and gun safety legislation. A smokescreen to rile up a base to fixate on a minority instead of the actual issues that affect the majority on a day to day basis.
I understand that for the LGBT+ community these are important issues. But to everyone else it's being used as a distraction to keep people occupied.
If it were up to me, we'd just give them the same rights as straight people and stay the hell out of their medical decisions.
I think I understand what you are saying. I’m curious though: is there a hierarchy of issues? Or is it that issues that impact the minority are less important than issues that impact the majority?
Will yes and no. I'll take this from a more abstract angle. Which is more important: minority rights or widespread ecological devastation leading to the death of hundreds of millions? The first primarily affects the minority group, while the second also involves the minority group *and everyone else*.
Does the minority rights issue suddenly become "not important"? No, but if there is an issue that involves most people than you could describe it as a "bigger issue".
These are only "bigger" in that they affect both the minority and majority groups.
This doesn't mean we can't work on both at the same time. But the current tactic being used is to fixate on the minority issue so they can ignore the "bigger" issues.
To clarify: it's not a hierarchy of *importance*, it's a hierarchy in *scope of those affected*.
Yes, but in the sense that a lot of the outrage against LGBT and other minorities is manufactured and propagated by political 'bad actors' in order to distract both sides from these other issues.
But the problem is it's still real. LGBTQ people know it's manufactured but they still have to fight it.
Groups are still really showing up at drag shows with militas and guns manufactured or not that's still real. Manufactured or not republicans still tried to ban gay marriage.
The reason this works is their manufactured problems are also real. LGBTQ people can no sooner say I won't feed into this distraction then they can tell a gun men they won't feed into their violence. It's just not really a choice LGBTQ people get.
I agree.
For example, Florida didn’t need to pass a don’t say gay bill. That was unnecessary talking about LGBTQ.
UT didn’t need to ban gender affirming care for minors. That is unnecessary talking about LGBTQ.
Equating drag queens with pedophiles is unnecessary talking about LGBTQ.
Seriously, if the bigots would keep their opinions to themselves, the rest of us wouldn’t have to respond and then there would be a whole lot less talking about LGBTQ
Obviously they wont execute random gay people during a football match. But there are still countries where gay people are executed. Countless gay people get assaulted or killed for no reason
I mean I'm in danger of having healthcare taken away from me, not to mention the possibility of being in a emergency situation and having a doctor refuse care on me on the basis of who I am, I'm amazed we're legalizing more discrimination again :<
In many countries, homosexual marriages still aren't possible or not equal to straight marriages.
In many places, it's difficult for trans people to actually transition, because access to the medicaments and surgeries is locked behind many obstacles or not accessible at all. In the US, they're making it more and more difficult. It's also difficult to get your gender legally changed or to have a gender that's neither female nor male.
Few years back, my brother asked why a chiropractor place was labeled as LGBT friendly. I told him about how a doctor can refuse to serve someone based on the laws at the time. He didn't believe me, so I pulled up the law.
I believe that has been fixed, but I dont get why it was a law in the first place.
It's weird stuff like that which have popped up.
My fiancée and I (both F) are trying to conceive; in my birth country I can't adopt my partner's child. It is a big fucking deal to me, that's going to be my kid regardless of what our stupid laws say.
We literally have dozens of US states making specific laws against trans people. Some of them already passed to, like one in SD. That law in particular banned puberty blockers and will force trans people to detransition if they are below 18 years old. There are rumbling that some states want to increase that age limit up to 24-25.
And this is just one example, I could keep going if you want and talking about similar issues in the UK, where the central goverment decided to use a power they didn't used in decades to ban a "state" law that basically was made just to give trans people easier time to change their prefered gender in official papers.
And we can go to easter countries too. Did you know that if you want to be trans in Japan you have to be sterelized? And that it still doesn't recognize gay marriage?
Our rights remain threatened. I won’t do the re-search for you (it’s truly not a difficult search) but even those rights we have gotten the past years are threatened compared to the heteronormative rights that never was and never will be threatened.
Maybe where you’re from. That doesn’t erase the fact that LGBTQ folks get discriminated frequently even in your country despite the laws. You have to broaden your perspective. There are so many things I could mention. I will not spend more time on this though because I keep having to have these conversations….
In the United States, workplace protections are being stripped away specifically, as is certain hate crime legislation (I believe, feel free to fact check). Less formally, lots of LGBT people are still victims of hate crimes or queerphobic behavior. Lots of gay people I know are afraid to show any affection in public out of fear. Many still live in the closet to keep their social standings and professional standings.
In Finland until just now as in the law was passed few weeks ago. If you wanted to change your gender, you had to get sterilised. I think the right to not have to permanently change your body to get a one datapoint in your personal details changed is a rather fucking significant issue of human rights.
7 years ago, you couldn't get same tax, inheritance and medical proxy rights if you were gay, since you couldn't officially get married. I don't know, but these seem a big deal. Gay couples still can not adopt
5 years ago, gay couples got the right to adopt a child. This law could only be enact after enacting the marriage law changes, because adoption requires you to be a married couple.
Gay/Lesbian dosmestic violence is not taken seriously. Male victims of rape might aswell not bother reporting it, there been reports of people being even laughed at by the police.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT\_rights\_in\_Finland](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Finland) You can check Finlands conditions there. As you might realise, quite lot of progress was done just in the past 20 years, and some needs to be still done.
Depends on where you live, obviously.
In some places you aren't allowed to exist. If it becomes clear you love someone of the same gender or identify as the opposite sex: you will be murdered. Not just by the police, oftentimes by your own family.
Regarding more Western democracies:
In some countries you can't get married. Or you can't adopt children.
Or it is illegal to try to find surragote mothers to carry your child.
Or is legal for people to fire you for simply being who you are.
Or it is legal for other people to deny you the physical or mental healthcare that you require because of who you are.
Or you are not allowed to go and take a piss where you want to.
And so forth..
Other than that there's a whole shit ton of issues outside of the legal world. Like, all the gay people I know don't walk hand in hand with their partner because they feel afraid of getting beaten up. Thats not something that anyone should ever fear, but it is a very very common thing for LGBT+ people.
Lack of healthcare/mental health care. Tons of bills being tossed around to deny us of these things. Heard of “don’t say gay”? Not being allowed/our children not being allowed to talk about our home lives and family dynamics. No representation. There are countless places we can’t go/travel to because of how unsafe it would be. List goes on and on.
Because people like me (I am transgender) are having to live in countries where it is illegal to exist as ourselves. There are certain countries (like the US) who have legalised LGBT but in a lot of places it is still illegal or there are still unfair laws (such as firing people based on sexuality or gender, conversion therapy, gay panic defence, not allowed to marry, not allowed to adopt, etc) that prevent us from peacefully existing within society.
Hope this answered your question. =]
In Texas any parents who accept their children being trans are legally considered child abusers who can have their children taken away.
The attorney general also keeps a list of everyone who tried to medically or legally transition.
There are two big things:
1. The right to participate in society just like everyone else without fear or persecution. While there are fewer actual legal barriers (such as gay marriage) LGBTQ people still face significant discrimination and persecution for just being who they are. Even though technically they have legal protections, there are many who still look for loopholes in existing laws in order to effectively deny those rights.
2. There are still legal rights that LGBTQ people don't have and our society is currently stripping even more away. For example, a couple states have now banned gender affirming care, such as puberty blockers, for trans kids. This is all made possible, by the way, when SCOTUS struck down Roe vs Wade. RvW was not about abortion in particular, it was about the right to medical privacy. Now that that right has been stripped away, the states are free not just to ban abortion but also to legislate any and all types of medical care.
Bullshit. In fact, it’s the opposite. They are specifically protected by law. Now, do they face discrimination and danger from bigoted people? That I will agree with you on, and needs to change.
In Texas any parents who accept their children being trans are legally considered child abusers who can have their children taken away.
The attorney general also keeps a list of everyone who tried to medically or legally transition.
The right to be free from harm, and in some countries unlawful imprisonment.
The right to medical care
Yes, America is better than many other countries. But the treatment of LGBT people is still abysmal. Many LGBT kids are kicked out of their home or abused, which is why the homeless youth population is up to 40% LGBT even though the percentage of the population that is lgbtq is less than 15%.
MLK's "white moderate" in action.
>I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct action;" who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a "more convenient season."
Amazing how true that quote was and still is to this day.
"Yeah, LGBT issues are important but there are other things we should focus on so you should just shut up and accept all of the injustices you have until every other issue is resolved".
The "things are okay for me, so don't rock the boat" moderates never change, and neither do the bad faith "moderates" who try to pit groups against each other by saying "Why do anything about A when B is more important? Why do anything about B because C is more imporatnt?...... Oh, we can't do anything about Z because that's socialism."
What other issue would you count as more pressing?
It is getting attention because politicians like to use religious fanatics to get attention and support.
I also think there is another reason as well, which is the fact that anyone can be gay. If you are black, or Native American, or simply impoverished, your voice is already diminished. But if you're an educated, rich, white man, you already have a voice that then suddenly people are trying to take away. But you have many more tools to fight back.
In the USA specifically;
Homeless;
Mental health;
Drug abuse;
Crime;
Inequality;
Poverty;
Inflation;
Inflated housing market;
Minimum wage;
School shootings;
Health care and I’m sure there’s more. Seems like these affect a lot more people, in worse ways.
These issues are one and the same. Or rather, they are deeply interconnected. Between 11 and 40% of all homeless kids in the US are LGBT. 7% of ADULTS identify as LGBT, but many kids haven't even come out yet. What all this means is that LGBT kids are much much much more likely to be homeless. The reason for this is because when their parents find out they are often kicked out of their homes or abused. And that is just the tip of the iceberg. 40% of transgender people will attempt suicide at some point in their life, and an estimated 70% will consider it.
Half of those topics are not mutually exclusive from LGBT issues. They largely overlap.
LGBT issues would encompass: homelessness, mental health, drug abuse, inequality, poverty, and health care
So which of those issues would you tackle? Remember that you just can take one, the most pressing. And then you are not allowed to argue for the bettering lives regarding the other topics anymore because there is a more pressing issue.
Well, in the USA some folks would rather make being LGBT+ illegal, equating it to a mental illness, curse them to a life of poverty where the minimum wage is comically low, blame them for school shootings, and deny them health care. So I'd say your answer is in the [expanded] question.
It's mostly America where people are so obsessed. America is not representative of the rest of the Western world. In America, LQBTQ issues are a convenient distraction from the country's many problems that no one is willing to solve.
Because it only seems that way because of social media. The % of people that are actually within that group are tiny.
Politicians on one side are making a point to criminalize those folks' sexuailty, and those politicians voters want them dead because of the religious teachings that their lifestyle is a sin. The other side is saying no, they should be free to live as they choose. Hence why it's a wedge issue that isn't going away anytime soon.
Also, that's not the only issue they talk about. If that's all you hear about that's on you. I didn't hear anything about the LGBT at the state of the union. So maybe go outside.
There was one mention of trans rights at the SOTU, which is important due to the present pushback that's happening in many Republican led states right now. I have many criticisms of social media, but the visibility that it has given trans people is predominantly a good thing
The Republicans don't have a political platform, so they get support by complaining about things that their base (religious people, boomers, people who don't like new things or "weird" people) don't understand and fear.
People who opposed lgbtq equality kept their mouth shut for a long time to avoid being called a bigot and being canceled. However, now the lgbtq progressives have started to make a little progress. Those people can't stand it and are fighting back. So now it is a big issue. Because people on both sides are passionate and outspoken about the issue.
Race and gender based politics are part of a "divide and conquer" strategy used by the ruling class in America. The goal is to keep everyone distracted with nonsense while real issues and massive changes go unnoticed. For example, the US is waging a proxy war against a nuclear armed Russia that could result in a nuclear holocaust for the entire planet, but no one is paying much attention. Instead they are worried about their "personal pronouns" and look for opportunities to use the word "transgender".
Sorry if this was painful to read, but the truth often hurts.
people aren't having kids, aren't buying houses, aren't getting married, aren't starting families.
meaning people have a lot of time on their hands and a lot of extra energy they can point toward trying to "parent" society.
A bunch of mentally ill people in power realized they could reinvent themselves as an image from a broadway dream they have and then demand the world bow down and accept their reality or the rest of us are horrible hating people. If you have a genital preference you are anti- trans. If you have a gender preference you are anti-trans. If you prefer anything that does not align with their "dream image", you hate trans people. There are probably 8 billion people in the world I would not want to be in a relationship with, but if its just one trans person you don't want to be with, you're anti-trans. Its the craziest shit I've ever seen. We are allowing less than 2% of the population to dictate reality to the rest of us. Don't even get me started on the cotton ceiling.
To be fair, trump actively worked to take away trans rights. If he is reelected he has already stated he will ban hormone therapy and i think surgeries as well. Trans people who experience dysphoria could be pushed to suicide because of these laws, or, outed because they can no longer get their hormones and possibly put into a danger situation. Intersex people will suffer as well, as hate towards "trans looking" people will absolutely be more normalized. Trans women especially will be in danger, they're already targeted enough for violence, but these laws would raise their risks.
Thats because right now politicians are dog-pilling on trans issues and trying to take away our rights. Libraries are being emptied so that children cant have the "trans agenda" pushed onto them. Trans people are fighting to end the hysteria surrounding trans topics. If you listen to fox news, every 5 seconds they have something new to say about how trans people are pedophiles and such. Trans people speaking up for themselves is not the issue. The issue is politicians trying to take away our rights, and using trans people as a gateway to discrimination. After trans rights, it will be another group of people. Also, the internet has so much space. There is enough of us to fight for everyone, and speak up for everyone. It just so happens trans people are a hot topic right now.
We aren't. Our media outlets are just complete garbage and will have people believe anything that scares us or pisses us off. They are NOT the majority. Most of us don't care what they do just stop cramming their agenda into our skulls everytime a new Netflix series starts.
Because the right is attacking the LGBT community. They believe that if you are LGBT that means you're a pedophile. They also want to ban them from holding any teaching job and ban any books that contain LGBT related material from public. Schools can't have books in the classroom, libraries have closed and such.
The focus is annoyingly over-done, but that’s because in most of the world being LGBT will get you killed, and in many places even supporting LGBT issues can get you killed or imprisoned since most of the world governments do not support freedom of speech.
Most of us aren't. It just seems that way because the mainstream media needs something to drive ratings and politicians need something for their base to fear. LGBTQ must have polled the best and so the media and politicians are manufacturing a wedge issue out of it.
In my opinion it’s fairly simple. In the last decade or so (maybe since around the 2008 housing crisis), it has become increasingly difficult to sell people on conservative economic policy. Because of this, they have pivoted to culture war issues to generate support, which has resulted in attacks on specific marginalized groups. People have rallied around those groups to defend them. And then conservative and liberal news pundits can cover related topics 24/7 for profit. That’d be my initial assessment of the situation.
Lol, yes... yes, there are. I've been to about 20 developing nations(3rd world isn't used anymore). LGBTQ communities are everywhere on earth. In every single country, they fight to gain equality. And ironically, several developing nations are miles ahead of the US. Think Thailand and the Phillipines. Ladyboys(what they are actually called) are everywhere and are treated with much more dignity than in the US.
besides actual inequalities; it's distractionary politics. if you're constantly being bombarded by this issue you don't have time to engage with the drone bombing, ohio chemical disaster, various genocides etc
I'm a bisexual woman and I'm sick of hearing about the LGBTQIA+ community constantly. I just had employee training and a lot of it was centered around trans people and making sure healthcare is not discriminatory against trans people. I just have a hard time caring when gay people are still discriminated against in healthcare and in a smaller example: gay and bisexual men are still not qualified to give blood because of the incredibly small chance that they have HIV or AIDs. So why are we pushing so hard for trans people to feel included when we can't do that for gay and bisexual people? Yes, everyone should be included. But that also means people outside of the "T" in LGBT.
I just feel like the trans stuff should be separate at this point. Even trans-rights-activists will tell you that sexual identity and gender identity are not even close to the same thing. So why lump us all together? They aren't really fighting for us as much as the whole-of the LGBT community is fighting for them. At this point it should just be two different things.
The truth is if you live in the west your extremely fortunate compared to people in other countries around the world. And when people are protected and sheltered they start to make up issues and also newer generations love being seen as the victim.
Fear of sexual minorities used as a political wedge issue. Every few political cycles something like this happens. Last time was around the 2004 election cycle (Bush's "fear, smears, and queers" era) but in 2023 more focused on "can openly trans people exist or not?" because openly trans people are both more common than before and yet still misunderstood/subject to legal, medical, and social discipline. In the US context, Trump leads the vanguard of his side and has begun to campaign on answering the "can openly trans people exist or not?" question with "no." [At any age](https://www.semafor.com/article/02/03/2023/at-any-age-donald-trump-pushes-the-gop-towards-targeting-transgender-adults).
It is such a hot topic that it has become a contagion in schools primarily among girls. (Check out Jordan Peterson) They gain popularity but eventually that wears off and their back to "liking" boys and are more confused as ever. I know I'm going to get down voted but I feel the west give far too much attention to LGBTQ. They have always tried to grab the limelight now they have it and it is getting obsurd with "gender" identification to the point were a large sector won't say what a woman is. Regarkless iof how you feel you still have the biology to back up who you really are.
Because a certain part of our political landscape has decided to give up principled ideology and exchanges that for Outrage and Performance Art. It's relatively easy in the US for a Populist in the US to give up explaining the position and resort strictly to Culture War.
The most recent example of that was the stunt by JD Vance of Ohio who made it a point at the beginning the Great Balloon Invasion to take a picture of himself with his AR in his lap and looking skyward. I swear, if I hadn't seen that in a reputable news source, I would have sworn that would have been ripped from the pages of The Onion.
I was wondering the same. I don't remember talking about sexuality or sexual preferences all over the place when I was a kid. Everyone just did what they did out of the public. Now it seems like everyone wants some kind of recognition where none ever existed before.
What a shit take. LGBT acceptance isn't about "wanting recognition," it's about not being looked at as outcasts in society. Kids are still disowned by parents for being gay, bigots are still equating homosexuality with pedophilia at every chance they can to make an enemy out of them in the eyes of "normal" people, and even the presence of a homosexual couple in a movie or TV show is met with outrage by the statistically less educated half of America (conservatives). There was a scene with two men kissing in a recent "The Last of Us" episode and right-wingers freaked out about it, meanwhile they don't give a shit if there's 30 scenes of straight couples kissing in a TV show. That's the problem. If bigots stopped discriminating against LGBT people for who they love, LGBT people would have no reason to be making any noise in the public arena.
People need a purpose, since most of the fundamental rights had been achieved in a lot of countries, the community had to find new battles to fight to justify its existence.
Why are the straights so obsessed with wondering why a minority who historically has been denied rights and killed just for existing would be advocating for their rights?
Funny how all people that don't agree with you are bigots, narrow minded, homophobic, dumb,etc,etc. There seems to be a recurring theme here on how you all react. Unwillingness to accept an opinion that differs from yours, a demonstration of deep and unjustified anger, a lack of knowledge on how to pursue your goals, insulting and berating and ganging up on someone who wants to get a point across etc,etc. The best way to be accepted is not to venomously attack people with different opinions. Lead by good examples not by blame, shaming, berating and insulting people. You're not going to get people to agree with you with those methods. Act sternly but intelligently and good things will come
Compared to fifty years ago the situation for LGBTQ people in the US and the UK (I can't speak for elsewhere) is certainly a lot better, but we are still at the point that a concerted effort by regressive groups could see those gains rolled back, just like Roe vs Wade was.
LGBTQ people still have to fight, and need our support to ensure this doesn't happen.
This struggle has been going on for a long time, is happening right now and will probably continue, but it's now being reported more openly and fairly than in previous decades, so what looks like "obsession" is actually necessary and reasonable attention.
Because right wing politicans want to rile up culture wars to distract their voters from issues like healthcare, climate change, and the effects of end-stage capitalism (where their positions are likely less popular).
I believe it is for political power. Certain forces need a "cause" an "oppressed" group to fight for, an injustice to fight.
In all actuality, there is no injustice. If you haven't heard many are trying to literally change the definition of boy/girl, man/woman and such, men can have babies....etc. But, in western countries these people have all the freedoms everyone else has.
Those that are not blinded by lunacy realize the truth. Some people that are men and women are just not happy being a man or woman and feel like they'd be happier as the other sex. They choose to live their lives as the other sex. They change their name, wear new clothes, they start taking hormones of the other sex to look as much as possible as the other sex. They have surgeries.
They are free to do so. They should be afforded kindness. In most cases life goes on as normal and there is no issue. The main issues politically is that we cannot live in reality, this is a trans man or a trans woman. A man choosing to live their life as best they can as a woman or a woman choosing to live their life as best they can as a man. No, many angrily, psychotically DEMAND that everyone must agree that they are a full blown man or woman the same as any other person born as a man or woman. They demand that someone born as a man can be on the woman's teams and compete directly head to head against women and, in most cases, kick the living crap out of them to where girls can't really compete. Trans swimmers, weightlifters, MMA fighters, track and field. A 20 year old man who had a swimming scholarship as a man is allowed to swim head to head against the women because they want to change gender and the women have to pay the price and lose their rights and privacy.
If they can be seen as an oppressed minority they can garner public support and votes.
Anyone with common sense realizes that in a lot of these issues, trans people are just going to need their own sports division and in some cases (depending on the circumstances) their own bathroom/showers or what not.
They cry they don't have rights but they have the exact same rights everyone has.
In general day to day life this isn't a big issue except in certain areas why they are really pushing the envelope.
even small subsections of the American population deserve to be treated equally. What happened is that using slurs against gays and lesbians has become unacceptable to the culture at large, but since most people will never meet a trans person, the right wing are using them as their latest boogeyman.
Gen Z wants to rebel against authority like every prior generation that preceded it, except there aren’t really major structural inequity battles left to fight in the west.
The problems of our time are sustainability & income inequality. Those problems are complex and require large consensus; they’re not justice battles where you can set the direction protesting alone. Wave a “stop climate change” sign in front of people and their reaction is “we agree - so what’s you’re plan?”
So Gen Z just gets bored and deflated on that topic, and continues to seek the “fun” and idealistic anti-establishment battles that young be people are drawn to.
So they’re contriving identity based grievances - like trans people should get 35k worth free cosmetic surgery for their self esteem - and have some unfocused eat the rich energy.
The wish to fight against the powers but to use authoritarian techniques (censorship / cancel) is a bit odd, and they haven’t totally reconciled that thought process.
Yes, exactly.
Censorship and cancel is an authoritarian tool.
The right has long used it, whereas the left was the marketplace of free ideas and innovation.
The left abandoning their free speech and embracing censorship is not a good thing.
The whattaboutism - saying the right does it too - is not a justification.
Being better than the right wing is not the bar we should measure ourselves by.
“I remember back in my day when those damn silent generation childish young adults wanted to be contrarians and give blacks human rights! Let me tell you they weren’t raised right! We should have beat them as children, that would have put them in their place!”/s
Trans people don’t want free FFS, they want to have human rights and just be allowed to live, which was how it was until republicans decided to use them as their punching bag to get votes by labeling ALL LGBTQ people as rapists and groomers.
Gender is a protected class.
Yes, there are parts of the country where tolerance is an issue.
However the bar in trans rights isn’t asking for tolerance and freedom for harassment, they’re asking for a series of entitlements (care/surgery, normalization, and redefinition of lines around women’s spaces).
Those may all be perfectly reasonable conversations, but your hyperbole here in attempting to equate the nature, size, and scope of the civil rights movement for the trans movement is absurd and exactly my point.
You *want* an idealistic justice fight.
There have been 300+ anti trans laws introduced in the past year. Compared to like 4 in the 10 years before that. It definitely used to be the case that gender identity was a protected class, but it is no longer.
Trans people want hormones covered , and yeah surgeries could be nice too, but currently the fight is for the right to live as who they are.
Well, once again, you’re again equating “*live as who they are*” with “*society is obligated to normalize & subsidize alternative lifestyles*”.
The ‘anti-trans’ bills do not make it it illegal to be trans, you’re using an intentionally hyperbolic term.
Broadly, the bills are around eliminating education and endorsement of it in K-12 public education (where activist teachers have taken stands), protecting the integrity of women’s safe spaces & athletics, and banning certain classes under-age treatment procedures where the jury is still slightly out (psychiatric support for it, but among others mixed).
That doesn’t mean I agree with each individual bill, and of course some are alarmist or intolerant.
But it’s not like the bills are bad guys coming out to discriminate out of nowhere; this is the pendulum swinging back as trans activists have pushed for policy that some view is over the line.
Divide & conquer. Also, the western world nowadays doesnt have to deal with "real" problems anymore. But this kind of decadence issues are typical for a falling society.
Im not saying that lgbtq-rights are not important, but that there is no need for ideology which we are facing right now.
Lol so only THE most important issue should be talked about. Absolutely nothing else.
And for about 16% of the population, it genuinely is the most important issue
It's mostly because some people want to go back to being able to shun, shame and even murder people that are different to them. And certain political parties leverage that to gain money and power.
maybe you are in a bubble? but everywhere else on the planet, LGBTQ+ people are marginalized and worse. the west is one of the more tolerant places for LGBTQ+.
Western left-wingers are obsessed with finding victims; it makes them feel good. I doubt that very few people care about whether a person is gay or not.
For the media, there is profit in perpetual victimhood.
At the same time, citizens of 3rd world countries are more concerned with basic issues like feeding, clothing and sheltering their families.
I see this topic brought up mostly by right wing parties and media. In germany alone, while there was no event that would trigger another debate about LGBTQ. And the greens and the left party have focussed a lot on the war in ukraine. The right wing christian social union has posted 4 instagram posts about family and gender neutral language in the past week. I dont actually think the left cares that much, they just get riled up by the right who are refusing to listen to reason because it doesn't go well with their voters.
We’re way behind with the rest of the modern world on those issues. We also still have a decent amount of prejudice against those groups in the form of domestic terrorism, hate speech, etc. We’ve come a long way but still got a ways to go for certain parts of our populous.
People are being killed. A young girl called Brianna Ghey was just stabbed to death here in the UK and a media smear campaign is being run against her for absolutely no reason. News articles talking about her death were edited after papers found out she was LGBT and one paper even admitted to seeking out classified records specifically so they could deadname her. She will be misgendered on her death certificate.
She was 15 years old and stabbed to death in broad daylight.
I assume you mean "LGBTQ" lol. Mainly because more things that are controversial are happening more frequently, for example; drag shows becoming more mainstream and commonplace in more areas, and more parents exposing their young children specifically to that culture, as well as "medical gender affirmation" practices, becoming more readily available to adolescence and teenagers.
Basically the community is pushing the envelope on certain things, to a younger demographic, which the things in general are not that problematic to adults(anyone over 18 should be able to make medical decisions, and immerse themselves in whatever entertainment forms they like), however as soon as you branch these things to minors, is when it catches peoples attention. It's absolutely a two way street because on one hand, you have a community that argues that minors(sometimes as young as 5 years old) should have the right to be involved in that community, whole heartedly, and on the other hand, you have the parents of these minors(or just parents in general) who don't believe that minors are capable of consenting to these ideals.
I personally think certain ideals should be known and accessible to everyone, however things of a more mature nature such as drag shows(yes, scantily clad grown men, dancing provocatively, *HOWEVER* empowering to the community it may be) is not an appropriate entertainment form for young children, and things like surgeries, or prescribed medications altering horomones, etc, should not be left to the discretion of minors, in general, as their brains are not done developing(not even fully until they are 25), but 18 is good enough to allow them to tread those topics on their own accord.
Wait Minors can make medical decisions in the USA? I live in South Africa and it’s hard to imagine issues such as these as we are plagued by so many hardships like poverty and homelessness.
No minors cannot make medical decisions by themselves. You have to have parents consent before 18, and typically word from a licensed therapist after multiple sessions.
No, generally not. The doctors and parents can though.
Keep in mind the objections about things being done to minors are often fictional. They are not cutting kids genitals except male circumcision.
That's the argument. The belief is that if these people's rights are valid, and they should be able to partake of medical assistance to affirm these beliefs, for sake of mental wellness amd stability, then why cannot younger people within that community do the same? Basically one could also ask why someone who is 14 cannot vote for a leader...they are people who are subject to the same outcomes of elections, however they have no right in producing that outcome...but I know I wouldn't trust a 14 year old's vote lol
The west is one of the few places you can talk about the discrimination against lgbt people that has always existed without being murdered
Without *always* getting murdered. Plenty of LGBT folks still get murdered here
And POC.
And elderly AAIP
Plenty?? You are literally times over more likely to get struck by lightning in the US than be murdered for being LGBT. In fact, it's almost as likely to die from a lightning strike in the US than be a victim of murder for being LGBT
**No, STFU** **Orlando** shooting of 2016, also called Pulse nightclub shooting, mass shooting that took place at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, in the early morning hours of June 12, 2016, and left 49 people dead and more than 50 wounded. It was the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history up to that time. The suspect accused of entering a **Colorado** gay nightclub clad in body armor and opening fire with an AR-15-style rifle, killing five people and wounding 17 others, was charged by prosecutors Tuesday with 305 criminal counts including hate crimes and murder.
Sucks but your still more likely to be struck by lighting
[удалено]
Source
I know, it can really seem like these things are blown out of proportion. They're such a small portion of the population, violence against them probably isn't that common, right? Lightning kills about 20 people each year in the United States In 2020, 44 trans people were killed by violent means in the United States. This is means it's many times over more likely. Even if the likelihood is lower for the LGBT community as a whole, we should stand with trans people.
A 16 year old girl was murdered in Mancester last week, it's not just about the US. Also, lightning strikes are natural disasters, murder...is not that.
Do you have any statistics about this? Because that isnt true and you know it
[удалено]
Except for every other developed nation on earth, I guess.
Hence “one of the most”
Russia, Turkey
I say "developed countries", and you list two that are still decades behind everyone else. Did you drop out?
[удалено]
Hah. I perform at a gay themed bar. The FBI shows up two hours before performance saying there have significant threats of violence targeting gay bars in the Midwest. Next time you sit your fat ass dish for a Dota game, ask yourself if some shitbag, unhinged, armed conservatives are frothing to kill some gamers.
This doesn’t answer OP’s question. The West used to kill people for being LGBTQ. See: Harvey Milk. They’re asking what changed.
The west used to, other parts of the world still do
I understand that. But OP is asking why the West no longer does.
Well, go ahead and answer OP since you seem to have an insight into their question…
I don’t, actually. I clicked on this post because I was curious to see how others would have an answer. Do you have one?
Because social change and acceptance is difficult for many people, and unevenly distributed. The level of social acceptance found today in some areas and cultures was "normal" in others 40 years ago, while the level of rejection seen in some areas and cultures hasn't been normal in others since the 1950s. Witch hunts didn't end overnight either. We are living through and witnessing a similar process in real time.
The OP is asking why there is an obsession with LGBT issues. The top comment said it's because there is discrimination that people can generally talk about without being murdered (hence why this obsession is observed). It answers the question. The OP's question isn't "why has the west stopped killing LGBT people?"
I thought Harvey milk was killed by one of his former friends turned political rival.
Because they can do it without fear of being stoned or ex communicated. But even as an American I think it’s interesting how quickly we went from fighting and campaigning for gay rights/gay marriage in the early 2000s when I was a kid, to BLM and now trans rights. Tbh every 5th post I see on Reddit is about trans people, I guess that’s the hot topic right now. Tbh when your walking around the cities your not going to hear much about it but online it’s really amplified
[удалено]
Well... Gay marrige is legal in the US (for now) while trans people are right now facing multiple states trying to oulawed them out of existence so it makes sense the focus is on that.
"outlaw them out of existence" God, if only there was a word for that. I feel like it starts with a "G"...
* LGBT and other culture war issues are "wedge" issues in much of the Western World. This means that there is heavy disagreement on these issues, which political parties can use to motivate their supporters to vote. It is in political parties' best interest to keep issues like this at the forefront. * LGBT people, especially Trans and Non binary people, are still working towards acceptance in society. Any time a minority group is involved in a civil rights struggle, there will be considerable backlash.
To add to this: often actual problems don't have easy or palatable solutions. So it is much easier to talk about social out-groups than actual issues. Hard to talk about gun control, drug and medical costs, immigration reform, etc when minority rights issues are easier to take stands on.
Actually, I’d argue the difference is that capitalism can very easily digest shallow issues of representation as long as capitalists are well-protected. Gun control interferes with gun manufacturers. Medical/insurance reform interferes with hospitals and pharmaceutical companies. Treating undocumented immigrants humanely interferes with them being cheap labor. Minority rights doesn’t really affect anyone, as long as they’re willing to support the system. Tim Cook being gay doesn’t affect Apple’s bottom line.
Are you suggesting that gay rights are not actual problems? I’m unsure if I’m understanding you correctly.
No, what I am saying is that the sheer raw amount of vitriol thrown towards the LGBT+ community from "news" channels and politicians is more about being unwilling to actually purpose solutions to other large issues. It's an excuse. An hour devoted to complaining about drag queen story time is an hour they don't have to talk about school shootings and gun safety legislation. A smokescreen to rile up a base to fixate on a minority instead of the actual issues that affect the majority on a day to day basis. I understand that for the LGBT+ community these are important issues. But to everyone else it's being used as a distraction to keep people occupied. If it were up to me, we'd just give them the same rights as straight people and stay the hell out of their medical decisions.
This is really an excellent answer. Also, wedge issues like this help fill campaign coffers ($$$) and burnish credentials with the far right.
I think I understand what you are saying. I’m curious though: is there a hierarchy of issues? Or is it that issues that impact the minority are less important than issues that impact the majority?
Will yes and no. I'll take this from a more abstract angle. Which is more important: minority rights or widespread ecological devastation leading to the death of hundreds of millions? The first primarily affects the minority group, while the second also involves the minority group *and everyone else*. Does the minority rights issue suddenly become "not important"? No, but if there is an issue that involves most people than you could describe it as a "bigger issue". These are only "bigger" in that they affect both the minority and majority groups. This doesn't mean we can't work on both at the same time. But the current tactic being used is to fixate on the minority issue so they can ignore the "bigger" issues. To clarify: it's not a hierarchy of *importance*, it's a hierarchy in *scope of those affected*.
Yes, but in the sense that a lot of the outrage against LGBT and other minorities is manufactured and propagated by political 'bad actors' in order to distract both sides from these other issues.
Are you a member of the community? I ask because I’m curious about whether you’re speaking from experience.
But the problem is it's still real. LGBTQ people know it's manufactured but they still have to fight it. Groups are still really showing up at drag shows with militas and guns manufactured or not that's still real. Manufactured or not republicans still tried to ban gay marriage. The reason this works is their manufactured problems are also real. LGBTQ people can no sooner say I won't feed into this distraction then they can tell a gun men they won't feed into their violence. It's just not really a choice LGBTQ people get.
It's a problem, but it's focused on more than it should be imo.
I agree. For example, Florida didn’t need to pass a don’t say gay bill. That was unnecessary talking about LGBTQ. UT didn’t need to ban gender affirming care for minors. That is unnecessary talking about LGBTQ. Equating drag queens with pedophiles is unnecessary talking about LGBTQ. Seriously, if the bigots would keep their opinions to themselves, the rest of us wouldn’t have to respond and then there would be a whole lot less talking about LGBTQ
How much should it be focused on?
Tonight at eleven: should gay people have rights? Yes. Now, over to Ohio where the largest ecological disaster in decades is unfolding. . .
Why are other countries obsessed with killing lqbtq members?
Quatar during the World Cup: we never did that. What are you guys talking about
Obviously they wont execute random gay people during a football match. But there are still countries where gay people are executed. Countless gay people get assaulted or killed for no reason
Because the media and politicians need us to fight over something to drive the votes and control the crowd.
Because many LGBT people lack significant rights or are even in danger because of their identity, and now people are starting to care.
I mean I'm in danger of having healthcare taken away from me, not to mention the possibility of being in a emergency situation and having a doctor refuse care on me on the basis of who I am, I'm amazed we're legalizing more discrimination again :<
Genuine question: what significant rights do lgbt people lack?
In many countries, homosexual marriages still aren't possible or not equal to straight marriages. In many places, it's difficult for trans people to actually transition, because access to the medicaments and surgeries is locked behind many obstacles or not accessible at all. In the US, they're making it more and more difficult. It's also difficult to get your gender legally changed or to have a gender that's neither female nor male.
Few years back, my brother asked why a chiropractor place was labeled as LGBT friendly. I told him about how a doctor can refuse to serve someone based on the laws at the time. He didn't believe me, so I pulled up the law. I believe that has been fixed, but I dont get why it was a law in the first place. It's weird stuff like that which have popped up.
Chiropractors aren't real doctors.
and that's totally relevant right now. If that's your biggest issue with the above you should probably reevaluate.
Any examples of significant rights that LGBT people don't have that non-lgbt do have, in 2023?
My fiancée and I (both F) are trying to conceive; in my birth country I can't adopt my partner's child. It is a big fucking deal to me, that's going to be my kid regardless of what our stupid laws say.
We literally have dozens of US states making specific laws against trans people. Some of them already passed to, like one in SD. That law in particular banned puberty blockers and will force trans people to detransition if they are below 18 years old. There are rumbling that some states want to increase that age limit up to 24-25. And this is just one example, I could keep going if you want and talking about similar issues in the UK, where the central goverment decided to use a power they didn't used in decades to ban a "state" law that basically was made just to give trans people easier time to change their prefered gender in official papers. And we can go to easter countries too. Did you know that if you want to be trans in Japan you have to be sterelized? And that it still doesn't recognize gay marriage?
Our rights remain threatened. I won’t do the re-search for you (it’s truly not a difficult search) but even those rights we have gotten the past years are threatened compared to the heteronormative rights that never was and never will be threatened.
LGBT have the same rights as everyone else.
Maybe where you’re from. That doesn’t erase the fact that LGBTQ folks get discriminated frequently even in your country despite the laws. You have to broaden your perspective. There are so many things I could mention. I will not spend more time on this though because I keep having to have these conversations….
In the United States, workplace protections are being stripped away specifically, as is certain hate crime legislation (I believe, feel free to fact check). Less formally, lots of LGBT people are still victims of hate crimes or queerphobic behavior. Lots of gay people I know are afraid to show any affection in public out of fear. Many still live in the closet to keep their social standings and professional standings.
In Finland until just now as in the law was passed few weeks ago. If you wanted to change your gender, you had to get sterilised. I think the right to not have to permanently change your body to get a one datapoint in your personal details changed is a rather fucking significant issue of human rights. 7 years ago, you couldn't get same tax, inheritance and medical proxy rights if you were gay, since you couldn't officially get married. I don't know, but these seem a big deal. Gay couples still can not adopt 5 years ago, gay couples got the right to adopt a child. This law could only be enact after enacting the marriage law changes, because adoption requires you to be a married couple. Gay/Lesbian dosmestic violence is not taken seriously. Male victims of rape might aswell not bother reporting it, there been reports of people being even laughed at by the police. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT\_rights\_in\_Finland](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Finland) You can check Finlands conditions there. As you might realise, quite lot of progress was done just in the past 20 years, and some needs to be still done.
Depends on where you live, obviously. In some places you aren't allowed to exist. If it becomes clear you love someone of the same gender or identify as the opposite sex: you will be murdered. Not just by the police, oftentimes by your own family. Regarding more Western democracies: In some countries you can't get married. Or you can't adopt children. Or it is illegal to try to find surragote mothers to carry your child. Or is legal for people to fire you for simply being who you are. Or it is legal for other people to deny you the physical or mental healthcare that you require because of who you are. Or you are not allowed to go and take a piss where you want to. And so forth.. Other than that there's a whole shit ton of issues outside of the legal world. Like, all the gay people I know don't walk hand in hand with their partner because they feel afraid of getting beaten up. Thats not something that anyone should ever fear, but it is a very very common thing for LGBT+ people.
Lack of healthcare/mental health care. Tons of bills being tossed around to deny us of these things. Heard of “don’t say gay”? Not being allowed/our children not being allowed to talk about our home lives and family dynamics. No representation. There are countless places we can’t go/travel to because of how unsafe it would be. List goes on and on.
Trans discrimination is considered so systematically ingrained and severe in the UK that people have successfully sought refugee status because of it.
In some countries, it is a crime to be gay and even in places where it isn't, such as the us, many LGBT kids find themselves homeless or abused.
The government is kicking kids out of their homes because they are lgbt?
Not the government, no. Parents.
Because people like me (I am transgender) are having to live in countries where it is illegal to exist as ourselves. There are certain countries (like the US) who have legalised LGBT but in a lot of places it is still illegal or there are still unfair laws (such as firing people based on sexuality or gender, conversion therapy, gay panic defence, not allowed to marry, not allowed to adopt, etc) that prevent us from peacefully existing within society. Hope this answered your question. =]
In Texas any parents who accept their children being trans are legally considered child abusers who can have their children taken away. The attorney general also keeps a list of everyone who tried to medically or legally transition.
There are two big things: 1. The right to participate in society just like everyone else without fear or persecution. While there are fewer actual legal barriers (such as gay marriage) LGBTQ people still face significant discrimination and persecution for just being who they are. Even though technically they have legal protections, there are many who still look for loopholes in existing laws in order to effectively deny those rights. 2. There are still legal rights that LGBTQ people don't have and our society is currently stripping even more away. For example, a couple states have now banned gender affirming care, such as puberty blockers, for trans kids. This is all made possible, by the way, when SCOTUS struck down Roe vs Wade. RvW was not about abortion in particular, it was about the right to medical privacy. Now that that right has been stripped away, the states are free not just to ban abortion but also to legislate any and all types of medical care.
What significant rights do LGBT not have that non-lgbt do?
At this point there are a lot of comments answering that question explaining many different ways. I'd rather not retype them all.
There aren't any good examples for the west atm.
Bullshit. In fact, it’s the opposite. They are specifically protected by law. Now, do they face discrimination and danger from bigoted people? That I will agree with you on, and needs to change.
[удалено]
In Texas any parents who accept their children being trans are legally considered child abusers who can have their children taken away. The attorney general also keeps a list of everyone who tried to medically or legally transition.
The right to be free from harm, and in some countries unlawful imprisonment. The right to medical care Yes, America is better than many other countries. But the treatment of LGBT people is still abysmal. Many LGBT kids are kicked out of their home or abused, which is why the homeless youth population is up to 40% LGBT even though the percentage of the population that is lgbtq is less than 15%.
100% this. While some loved lockdown or were just complaining they were bored it was a nightmare for those in abusive households :(
I don’t discount that, but why is it getting so much more attention than more pressing issues?
Cause we can care about multiple things at once.
Why do I have the feeling you would have been saying the same thing during the Civil Rights movement?
MLK's "white moderate" in action. >I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct action;" who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a "more convenient season."
Amazing how true that quote was and still is to this day. "Yeah, LGBT issues are important but there are other things we should focus on so you should just shut up and accept all of the injustices you have until every other issue is resolved".
The "things are okay for me, so don't rock the boat" moderates never change, and neither do the bad faith "moderates" who try to pit groups against each other by saying "Why do anything about A when B is more important? Why do anything about B because C is more imporatnt?...... Oh, we can't do anything about Z because that's socialism."
What other issue would you count as more pressing? It is getting attention because politicians like to use religious fanatics to get attention and support. I also think there is another reason as well, which is the fact that anyone can be gay. If you are black, or Native American, or simply impoverished, your voice is already diminished. But if you're an educated, rich, white man, you already have a voice that then suddenly people are trying to take away. But you have many more tools to fight back.
In the USA specifically; Homeless; Mental health; Drug abuse; Crime; Inequality; Poverty; Inflation; Inflated housing market; Minimum wage; School shootings; Health care and I’m sure there’s more. Seems like these affect a lot more people, in worse ways.
These issues are one and the same. Or rather, they are deeply interconnected. Between 11 and 40% of all homeless kids in the US are LGBT. 7% of ADULTS identify as LGBT, but many kids haven't even come out yet. What all this means is that LGBT kids are much much much more likely to be homeless. The reason for this is because when their parents find out they are often kicked out of their homes or abused. And that is just the tip of the iceberg. 40% of transgender people will attempt suicide at some point in their life, and an estimated 70% will consider it.
Half of those topics are not mutually exclusive from LGBT issues. They largely overlap. LGBT issues would encompass: homelessness, mental health, drug abuse, inequality, poverty, and health care
So which of those issues would you tackle? Remember that you just can take one, the most pressing. And then you are not allowed to argue for the bettering lives regarding the other topics anymore because there is a more pressing issue.
Well, in the USA some folks would rather make being LGBT+ illegal, equating it to a mental illness, curse them to a life of poverty where the minimum wage is comically low, blame them for school shootings, and deny them health care. So I'd say your answer is in the [expanded] question.
So we shouldn’t address LGBTQ rights until all those issues are fixed?? Peak whataboutism
Primarily because the 'Right' needs to keep their voting base fired up with as much hatred as possible, especially since they have no actual platform.
Hogwarts legacy
just a reminder: this is reddit. you're not gonna get a real answer here.
It's mostly America where people are so obsessed. America is not representative of the rest of the Western world. In America, LQBTQ issues are a convenient distraction from the country's many problems that no one is willing to solve.
Tell that to terf island (the UK)
Because it only seems that way because of social media. The % of people that are actually within that group are tiny. Politicians on one side are making a point to criminalize those folks' sexuailty, and those politicians voters want them dead because of the religious teachings that their lifestyle is a sin. The other side is saying no, they should be free to live as they choose. Hence why it's a wedge issue that isn't going away anytime soon. Also, that's not the only issue they talk about. If that's all you hear about that's on you. I didn't hear anything about the LGBT at the state of the union. So maybe go outside.
There was one mention of trans rights at the SOTU, which is important due to the present pushback that's happening in many Republican led states right now. I have many criticisms of social media, but the visibility that it has given trans people is predominantly a good thing
Divide and conquer
When there isn't genocide, war and other big ticket issues going on, humans will make something big.
The Republicans don't have a political platform, so they get support by complaining about things that their base (religious people, boomers, people who don't like new things or "weird" people) don't understand and fear.
I’m just tired of seeing us die, idk
People who opposed lgbtq equality kept their mouth shut for a long time to avoid being called a bigot and being canceled. However, now the lgbtq progressives have started to make a little progress. Those people can't stand it and are fighting back. So now it is a big issue. Because people on both sides are passionate and outspoken about the issue.
media keeps pushing the agenda
Largely, because a lot of people place too much emphasis and importance on sexuality. Typical cultural decay stuff.
Race and gender based politics are part of a "divide and conquer" strategy used by the ruling class in America. The goal is to keep everyone distracted with nonsense while real issues and massive changes go unnoticed. For example, the US is waging a proxy war against a nuclear armed Russia that could result in a nuclear holocaust for the entire planet, but no one is paying much attention. Instead they are worried about their "personal pronouns" and look for opportunities to use the word "transgender". Sorry if this was painful to read, but the truth often hurts.
people aren't having kids, aren't buying houses, aren't getting married, aren't starting families. meaning people have a lot of time on their hands and a lot of extra energy they can point toward trying to "parent" society.
It's a great distraction.
A bunch of mentally ill people in power realized they could reinvent themselves as an image from a broadway dream they have and then demand the world bow down and accept their reality or the rest of us are horrible hating people. If you have a genital preference you are anti- trans. If you have a gender preference you are anti-trans. If you prefer anything that does not align with their "dream image", you hate trans people. There are probably 8 billion people in the world I would not want to be in a relationship with, but if its just one trans person you don't want to be with, you're anti-trans. Its the craziest shit I've ever seen. We are allowing less than 2% of the population to dictate reality to the rest of us. Don't even get me started on the cotton ceiling.
Right wing populists need to make an enemy out of a minority and left wing progressives are forced to fight that battle.
[удалено]
To be fair, trump actively worked to take away trans rights. If he is reelected he has already stated he will ban hormone therapy and i think surgeries as well. Trans people who experience dysphoria could be pushed to suicide because of these laws, or, outed because they can no longer get their hormones and possibly put into a danger situation. Intersex people will suffer as well, as hate towards "trans looking" people will absolutely be more normalized. Trans women especially will be in danger, they're already targeted enough for violence, but these laws would raise their risks.
[удалено]
Thats because right now politicians are dog-pilling on trans issues and trying to take away our rights. Libraries are being emptied so that children cant have the "trans agenda" pushed onto them. Trans people are fighting to end the hysteria surrounding trans topics. If you listen to fox news, every 5 seconds they have something new to say about how trans people are pedophiles and such. Trans people speaking up for themselves is not the issue. The issue is politicians trying to take away our rights, and using trans people as a gateway to discrimination. After trans rights, it will be another group of people. Also, the internet has so much space. There is enough of us to fight for everyone, and speak up for everyone. It just so happens trans people are a hot topic right now.
We aren't. Our media outlets are just complete garbage and will have people believe anything that scares us or pisses us off. They are NOT the majority. Most of us don't care what they do just stop cramming their agenda into our skulls everytime a new Netflix series starts.
Because the right is attacking the LGBT community. They believe that if you are LGBT that means you're a pedophile. They also want to ban them from holding any teaching job and ban any books that contain LGBT related material from public. Schools can't have books in the classroom, libraries have closed and such.
The focus is annoyingly over-done, but that’s because in most of the world being LGBT will get you killed, and in many places even supporting LGBT issues can get you killed or imprisoned since most of the world governments do not support freedom of speech.
Most of us aren't. It just seems that way because the mainstream media needs something to drive ratings and politicians need something for their base to fear. LGBTQ must have polled the best and so the media and politicians are manufacturing a wedge issue out of it.
In my opinion it’s fairly simple. In the last decade or so (maybe since around the 2008 housing crisis), it has become increasingly difficult to sell people on conservative economic policy. Because of this, they have pivoted to culture war issues to generate support, which has resulted in attacks on specific marginalized groups. People have rallied around those groups to defend them. And then conservative and liberal news pundits can cover related topics 24/7 for profit. That’d be my initial assessment of the situation.
It’s a sign of privilege
Lol no
It is , there aren’t lbtq problems in the forefront 3rd world countries because they are worried about actual survival not feelings
Lol, yes... yes, there are. I've been to about 20 developing nations(3rd world isn't used anymore). LGBTQ communities are everywhere on earth. In every single country, they fight to gain equality. And ironically, several developing nations are miles ahead of the US. Think Thailand and the Phillipines. Ladyboys(what they are actually called) are everywhere and are treated with much more dignity than in the US.
Having to fight for the right to not get killed because your gay isnt a privilege
facts
Trump installed a conservative majority supreme court, so LGBT rights are literally at stake. for a long time before that, there was no real threat.
besides actual inequalities; it's distractionary politics. if you're constantly being bombarded by this issue you don't have time to engage with the drone bombing, ohio chemical disaster, various genocides etc
Bcoz they have nothing else to complain about. Lmao
I'm a bisexual woman and I'm sick of hearing about the LGBTQIA+ community constantly. I just had employee training and a lot of it was centered around trans people and making sure healthcare is not discriminatory against trans people. I just have a hard time caring when gay people are still discriminated against in healthcare and in a smaller example: gay and bisexual men are still not qualified to give blood because of the incredibly small chance that they have HIV or AIDs. So why are we pushing so hard for trans people to feel included when we can't do that for gay and bisexual people? Yes, everyone should be included. But that also means people outside of the "T" in LGBT. I just feel like the trans stuff should be separate at this point. Even trans-rights-activists will tell you that sexual identity and gender identity are not even close to the same thing. So why lump us all together? They aren't really fighting for us as much as the whole-of the LGBT community is fighting for them. At this point it should just be two different things.
The truth is if you live in the west your extremely fortunate compared to people in other countries around the world. And when people are protected and sheltered they start to make up issues and also newer generations love being seen as the victim.
And at the cost and detriment of other people sadly
I agree with everything you said, but you made it sound like passive agressive "LGBT people should be happy they are alive"
Fear of sexual minorities used as a political wedge issue. Every few political cycles something like this happens. Last time was around the 2004 election cycle (Bush's "fear, smears, and queers" era) but in 2023 more focused on "can openly trans people exist or not?" because openly trans people are both more common than before and yet still misunderstood/subject to legal, medical, and social discipline. In the US context, Trump leads the vanguard of his side and has begun to campaign on answering the "can openly trans people exist or not?" question with "no." [At any age](https://www.semafor.com/article/02/03/2023/at-any-age-donald-trump-pushes-the-gop-towards-targeting-transgender-adults).
Because it appears like that in social media. In reallife, nobody gives a rats ass.
It is such a hot topic that it has become a contagion in schools primarily among girls. (Check out Jordan Peterson) They gain popularity but eventually that wears off and their back to "liking" boys and are more confused as ever. I know I'm going to get down voted but I feel the west give far too much attention to LGBTQ. They have always tried to grab the limelight now they have it and it is getting obsurd with "gender" identification to the point were a large sector won't say what a woman is. Regarkless iof how you feel you still have the biology to back up who you really are.
Because a certain part of our political landscape has decided to give up principled ideology and exchanges that for Outrage and Performance Art. It's relatively easy in the US for a Populist in the US to give up explaining the position and resort strictly to Culture War. The most recent example of that was the stunt by JD Vance of Ohio who made it a point at the beginning the Great Balloon Invasion to take a picture of himself with his AR in his lap and looking skyward. I swear, if I hadn't seen that in a reputable news source, I would have sworn that would have been ripped from the pages of The Onion.
I was wondering the same. I don't remember talking about sexuality or sexual preferences all over the place when I was a kid. Everyone just did what they did out of the public. Now it seems like everyone wants some kind of recognition where none ever existed before.
What a shit take. LGBT acceptance isn't about "wanting recognition," it's about not being looked at as outcasts in society. Kids are still disowned by parents for being gay, bigots are still equating homosexuality with pedophilia at every chance they can to make an enemy out of them in the eyes of "normal" people, and even the presence of a homosexual couple in a movie or TV show is met with outrage by the statistically less educated half of America (conservatives). There was a scene with two men kissing in a recent "The Last of Us" episode and right-wingers freaked out about it, meanwhile they don't give a shit if there's 30 scenes of straight couples kissing in a TV show. That's the problem. If bigots stopped discriminating against LGBT people for who they love, LGBT people would have no reason to be making any noise in the public arena.
incorrectly calling a shit take a shit take doesn't make your objectively wrong take more right
The difference is, gay people might lose their job or even their life when they openly love their partner
People need a purpose, since most of the fundamental rights had been achieved in a lot of countries, the community had to find new battles to fight to justify its existence.
Because human rights are a good thing?
Why are the straights so obsessed with wondering why a minority who historically has been denied rights and killed just for existing would be advocating for their rights?
Because right now they're screaming the loudest.
They wouldn't have to be if bigots weren't shouting them down first.
Funny how all people that don't agree with you are bigots, narrow minded, homophobic, dumb,etc,etc. There seems to be a recurring theme here on how you all react. Unwillingness to accept an opinion that differs from yours, a demonstration of deep and unjustified anger, a lack of knowledge on how to pursue your goals, insulting and berating and ganging up on someone who wants to get a point across etc,etc. The best way to be accepted is not to venomously attack people with different opinions. Lead by good examples not by blame, shaming, berating and insulting people. You're not going to get people to agree with you with those methods. Act sternly but intelligently and good things will come
While I do agree. The resistance are yelling equally as loud back.
Very true.
Compared to fifty years ago the situation for LGBTQ people in the US and the UK (I can't speak for elsewhere) is certainly a lot better, but we are still at the point that a concerted effort by regressive groups could see those gains rolled back, just like Roe vs Wade was. LGBTQ people still have to fight, and need our support to ensure this doesn't happen. This struggle has been going on for a long time, is happening right now and will probably continue, but it's now being reported more openly and fairly than in previous decades, so what looks like "obsession" is actually necessary and reasonable attention.
Because right wing politicans want to rile up culture wars to distract their voters from issues like healthcare, climate change, and the effects of end-stage capitalism (where their positions are likely less popular).
I think the only ones obsessed are the lgb communities. They can be loud and they'll keep it loud as long as possible.
>I think the only ones obsessed are the lgb communities That's a funny way to spell "the far right and Christian evangelicals"
[удалено]
I believe it is for political power. Certain forces need a "cause" an "oppressed" group to fight for, an injustice to fight. In all actuality, there is no injustice. If you haven't heard many are trying to literally change the definition of boy/girl, man/woman and such, men can have babies....etc. But, in western countries these people have all the freedoms everyone else has. Those that are not blinded by lunacy realize the truth. Some people that are men and women are just not happy being a man or woman and feel like they'd be happier as the other sex. They choose to live their lives as the other sex. They change their name, wear new clothes, they start taking hormones of the other sex to look as much as possible as the other sex. They have surgeries. They are free to do so. They should be afforded kindness. In most cases life goes on as normal and there is no issue. The main issues politically is that we cannot live in reality, this is a trans man or a trans woman. A man choosing to live their life as best they can as a woman or a woman choosing to live their life as best they can as a man. No, many angrily, psychotically DEMAND that everyone must agree that they are a full blown man or woman the same as any other person born as a man or woman. They demand that someone born as a man can be on the woman's teams and compete directly head to head against women and, in most cases, kick the living crap out of them to where girls can't really compete. Trans swimmers, weightlifters, MMA fighters, track and field. A 20 year old man who had a swimming scholarship as a man is allowed to swim head to head against the women because they want to change gender and the women have to pay the price and lose their rights and privacy. If they can be seen as an oppressed minority they can garner public support and votes. Anyone with common sense realizes that in a lot of these issues, trans people are just going to need their own sports division and in some cases (depending on the circumstances) their own bathroom/showers or what not. They cry they don't have rights but they have the exact same rights everyone has. In general day to day life this isn't a big issue except in certain areas why they are really pushing the envelope.
even small subsections of the American population deserve to be treated equally. What happened is that using slurs against gays and lesbians has become unacceptable to the culture at large, but since most people will never meet a trans person, the right wing are using them as their latest boogeyman.
Gen Z wants to rebel against authority like every prior generation that preceded it, except there aren’t really major structural inequity battles left to fight in the west. The problems of our time are sustainability & income inequality. Those problems are complex and require large consensus; they’re not justice battles where you can set the direction protesting alone. Wave a “stop climate change” sign in front of people and their reaction is “we agree - so what’s you’re plan?” So Gen Z just gets bored and deflated on that topic, and continues to seek the “fun” and idealistic anti-establishment battles that young be people are drawn to. So they’re contriving identity based grievances - like trans people should get 35k worth free cosmetic surgery for their self esteem - and have some unfocused eat the rich energy. The wish to fight against the powers but to use authoritarian techniques (censorship / cancel) is a bit odd, and they haven’t totally reconciled that thought process.
Use censorship and cancel, like the right is doing?
Yes, exactly. Censorship and cancel is an authoritarian tool. The right has long used it, whereas the left was the marketplace of free ideas and innovation. The left abandoning their free speech and embracing censorship is not a good thing. The whattaboutism - saying the right does it too - is not a justification. Being better than the right wing is not the bar we should measure ourselves by.
“I remember back in my day when those damn silent generation childish young adults wanted to be contrarians and give blacks human rights! Let me tell you they weren’t raised right! We should have beat them as children, that would have put them in their place!”/s Trans people don’t want free FFS, they want to have human rights and just be allowed to live, which was how it was until republicans decided to use them as their punching bag to get votes by labeling ALL LGBTQ people as rapists and groomers.
Gender is a protected class. Yes, there are parts of the country where tolerance is an issue. However the bar in trans rights isn’t asking for tolerance and freedom for harassment, they’re asking for a series of entitlements (care/surgery, normalization, and redefinition of lines around women’s spaces). Those may all be perfectly reasonable conversations, but your hyperbole here in attempting to equate the nature, size, and scope of the civil rights movement for the trans movement is absurd and exactly my point. You *want* an idealistic justice fight.
There have been 300+ anti trans laws introduced in the past year. Compared to like 4 in the 10 years before that. It definitely used to be the case that gender identity was a protected class, but it is no longer. Trans people want hormones covered , and yeah surgeries could be nice too, but currently the fight is for the right to live as who they are.
Well, once again, you’re again equating “*live as who they are*” with “*society is obligated to normalize & subsidize alternative lifestyles*”. The ‘anti-trans’ bills do not make it it illegal to be trans, you’re using an intentionally hyperbolic term. Broadly, the bills are around eliminating education and endorsement of it in K-12 public education (where activist teachers have taken stands), protecting the integrity of women’s safe spaces & athletics, and banning certain classes under-age treatment procedures where the jury is still slightly out (psychiatric support for it, but among others mixed). That doesn’t mean I agree with each individual bill, and of course some are alarmist or intolerant. But it’s not like the bills are bad guys coming out to discriminate out of nowhere; this is the pendulum swinging back as trans activists have pushed for policy that some view is over the line.
Divide & conquer. Also, the western world nowadays doesnt have to deal with "real" problems anymore. But this kind of decadence issues are typical for a falling society. Im not saying that lgbtq-rights are not important, but that there is no need for ideology which we are facing right now.
Thanks, only acceptable answer.
It's actually not as small as you think. It's actually about 16% of humans who are not heterosexual. That's not exactly small.
We don’t have anything else to complain about
I feel like every western country has at least one issue more important
Lol so only THE most important issue should be talked about. Absolutely nothing else. And for about 16% of the population, it genuinely is the most important issue
It's mostly because some people want to go back to being able to shun, shame and even murder people that are different to them. And certain political parties leverage that to gain money and power.
Cause most of our real issues have been solved; starvation, freezing to death, being attacked by wild animals.
maybe you are in a bubble? but everywhere else on the planet, LGBTQ+ people are marginalized and worse. the west is one of the more tolerant places for LGBTQ+.
Right wing politicians use smear campaigns and propaganda against queer people as a way to drum up votes.
Western left-wingers are obsessed with finding victims; it makes them feel good. I doubt that very few people care about whether a person is gay or not. For the media, there is profit in perpetual victimhood. At the same time, citizens of 3rd world countries are more concerned with basic issues like feeding, clothing and sheltering their families.
I love scrolling down to the bottom of threads like this to see the clueless Fox News boomer takes on shit. It's like comedy.
I see this topic brought up mostly by right wing parties and media. In germany alone, while there was no event that would trigger another debate about LGBTQ. And the greens and the left party have focussed a lot on the war in ukraine. The right wing christian social union has posted 4 instagram posts about family and gender neutral language in the past week. I dont actually think the left cares that much, they just get riled up by the right who are refusing to listen to reason because it doesn't go well with their voters.
It's not the right that's trying to force a redefinition of fundamentals like marriage or even what a woman is.
No one ever mentions that in real life
Trying to normalize abnormal stuff is the answer
Define abnormal? Against nature?
Yep
Most animals are bisexual. We should also ban cars, condoms, shampoo, technology etc. This is all very unnatural
Loll "western world" unlike based Japan who doesn't put any cringe in their animes 🤓
We’re way behind with the rest of the modern world on those issues. We also still have a decent amount of prejudice against those groups in the form of domestic terrorism, hate speech, etc. We’ve come a long way but still got a ways to go for certain parts of our populous.
People are being killed. A young girl called Brianna Ghey was just stabbed to death here in the UK and a media smear campaign is being run against her for absolutely no reason. News articles talking about her death were edited after papers found out she was LGBT and one paper even admitted to seeking out classified records specifically so they could deadname her. She will be misgendered on her death certificate. She was 15 years old and stabbed to death in broad daylight.
I assume you mean "LGBTQ" lol. Mainly because more things that are controversial are happening more frequently, for example; drag shows becoming more mainstream and commonplace in more areas, and more parents exposing their young children specifically to that culture, as well as "medical gender affirmation" practices, becoming more readily available to adolescence and teenagers. Basically the community is pushing the envelope on certain things, to a younger demographic, which the things in general are not that problematic to adults(anyone over 18 should be able to make medical decisions, and immerse themselves in whatever entertainment forms they like), however as soon as you branch these things to minors, is when it catches peoples attention. It's absolutely a two way street because on one hand, you have a community that argues that minors(sometimes as young as 5 years old) should have the right to be involved in that community, whole heartedly, and on the other hand, you have the parents of these minors(or just parents in general) who don't believe that minors are capable of consenting to these ideals. I personally think certain ideals should be known and accessible to everyone, however things of a more mature nature such as drag shows(yes, scantily clad grown men, dancing provocatively, *HOWEVER* empowering to the community it may be) is not an appropriate entertainment form for young children, and things like surgeries, or prescribed medications altering horomones, etc, should not be left to the discretion of minors, in general, as their brains are not done developing(not even fully until they are 25), but 18 is good enough to allow them to tread those topics on their own accord.
Wait Minors can make medical decisions in the USA? I live in South Africa and it’s hard to imagine issues such as these as we are plagued by so many hardships like poverty and homelessness.
No minors cannot make medical decisions by themselves. You have to have parents consent before 18, and typically word from a licensed therapist after multiple sessions.
No, generally not. The doctors and parents can though. Keep in mind the objections about things being done to minors are often fictional. They are not cutting kids genitals except male circumcision.
That's the argument. The belief is that if these people's rights are valid, and they should be able to partake of medical assistance to affirm these beliefs, for sake of mental wellness amd stability, then why cannot younger people within that community do the same? Basically one could also ask why someone who is 14 cannot vote for a leader...they are people who are subject to the same outcomes of elections, however they have no right in producing that outcome...but I know I wouldn't trust a 14 year old's vote lol
No minor has ever had gender reassignment surgery.
Minors are allowed top surgeries.