What do you think straight people mean when they say that? I think they either mean: 1. Girls who kiss girls for attention or people who identify as transgender just because they don't fit gender roles 2. People who don't fit the stereotype of being gay or trans.
I think that is the narrow-minded cishet community saying that some ppl are faking their orientation/identity bc it's "trendy" to be lgbt. It's a very ignorant and disrespectful thing to say as it belittles and/or ignores the very real dangers and struggles lgbt ppl face daily being honest about who they are.
I think this is pretty on-target for what's being said. However, most myth is rooted in reality. I think it's pretty clear that people (all people, including straight cis people) are more open these days to the fact that there's nothing wrong with gay or trans people...so they are more open to the *possibility* that they themselves might be gay or trans (this has helped many LGBT individuals come to terms with themselves early, which is a great thing). But this also means that even straight/cis people are questioning incidental moments of same-sex attraction and every little variation from the gender that matches their birth sex. In adolescence humans are terribly self-absorbed and sensitive to *any* difference from the norm, so we see a lot of this in adolescents. Now people seem to come in 3 flavors: those who actively want to be like everyone else; those who actively want to be different from everyone else; and those who don't appear to give a shit either way. With this trend toward acceptance and self-examination, we have people who want to be different latching onto signs of LGBT-ness as proof that they are LGBT because they see that as a way to make them different. I think this is how this is seen as a "trend". (I'm sure we even have *some* people who want to be like everyone else viewing the trend toward acceptance as "everyone I know seems to be LGBT" and reading their own self-evidence as LGBT for that reason.) All of this was more rare in the days when being LGBT was seen societally as something that would fuck up your life and that nobody anywhere should want or accept in themselves. Straight/cis people would see those moments of same-sex attraction or of gender variance, and bury them deeply...with relatively little consequence. Conservatives miss those days, and hence are apt to call attention to this "trend", and write it off simply *as* a trend. As queermeerkat says, this is BS, because it invalidates actually LGBT peoples' real experience, and gives people who *are* having a hard time with self-acceptance something more to worry about. But I think it's rooted in a real change in our society, and even if that change has brought mostly good things to our community.
People were I'm from don't really do those sorts of things to be honest. Never seen a straight person act LGBT for attention. I have seen some LGBT folks do things for attention on the other hand, these days it seems to be trendy for Gays and Lesbians to lie about being confused about their gender to seek attention, now what do we make of that rather?
