Last week, a deranged gunman opened fire at a Catholic school in Minneapolis, killing two children and injuring 17 others. Because the shooter identified as a trans woman, the media, Right-wing commentators, congresspeople, and influencers jumped to the narrative that the trans community is mentally ill. At a news conference the day of the attack, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey urged the public not to use the shooting “to villainize our trans community.” That backlash is raising concern among transgender Americans.
Homophobia is a big problem nowadays, but it shouldn’t be around to hurt the people who are a part of the LGBTQ+ community. About 39% of LGBTQ+ kids commit suicide each year because of the hate they have to endure while being a part of the community; these people don’t deserve the hate.
Kids who identify in the community are commonly mistreated and viewed as different from others, sometimes even by their own parents. This leads many to hide the fact that they are a part of the community. Some kids even get kicked out of their homes because they are LGBTQ+. Without supporting children and molding them into adults, the world cannot sustain itself, and current workers will eventually die out. With fewer and fewer people in the world, jobs will not be able to sustain themselves.
The queer community has existed for centuries, yet they still face extreme backlash from homophobes, as they have since the beginning of time. Each year, it feels like the homophobia is getting worse and worse as more people grow to hate because of the media or the people around them convincing them that being LGBTQ+ is a horrible thing.
To fix the problem, we need first to understand why homophobes are being homophobic to begin with.
Not every homophobe is religious, and not every religious person is homophobic, as most think is the case. There are lots of them who may also be a part of the community. The Christians who are homophobic, though, may believe that the community isn’t following the rules of Jesus and the Bible, but that, however, is wrong because it never mentions anything about the LGBTQ+ community in the Bible. Christian Tim Keller wrote, “…I see people discarding their older beliefs that homosexuality is sinful after engaging with loving, wise, gay people, I’m inclined to agree that those earlier views were likely defective,” which shows how Christians can change their once homophobic views when they meet someone who is a part of the community, and that’s a good way to tell how people in general can learn to look past things they see as harmful or wrong by actually learning about said thing they found wrong.
Another common problem is that some stores may sell merchandise for Pride Month, and it ends up getting destroyed by homophobes because they don’t believe that the community deserves the same rights as them. I believe that we deserve the same rights because, in the end, we are all human and all deserve the same respect as one another to make the world a better place as a whole. In my opinion, this is why homophobia shouldn’t even exist anymore in today’s age.
