What do you think is the biggest problem facing LGBTQ folks today?

I think discrimination and oppression.
Maybe in China or Turkey but I'm not that well informed

 

Society. This all leads to discrimination and oppression. I would love not to have to fear of being hurt or killed just by walking down the street holding a girl's hand.

And sadly society takes forever to catch up or change, considering we still have racism and sexism in this world.

 

The lack of accepting people for who they are and who they love.

There's a cure for that. Two actually. One is preferable to the other.

1.) Be happy for people who can be happy with themselves. Embrace everyone's rights as a human to be treated with kindness and understanding.

2.) Mind your own fucking business.

 

The church... no that might offend some people.... The government- no not that either :l

In all seriousness:
1.) Hive minding: People will develop homophobic, or non-accepting tendencies simply because they feel that since a group's thoughts that they generally share do.

2.) LGBTQ people sometimes don't fit in. Allow me to elaborate: It isn't a huge secret that actions of, let's say, a homosexual man and a heterosexual man can vary drastically. A person I know who is gay acts very effeminately and so I realize he is often joked about and or discriminated. Not saying that acting differently should be ridiculed, but acting differently due to orientation is something that prevents LGBTQ people from truly assimilating.

 

This! Just empathy, understanding and acceptance is all we need.

(Off Topic; Kasey you're looking very pretty in the new avatar pic )

 

Death

It said that in the previous years 40,000 gay people kill themselves a year.

 

They don't even let trans people join the military. :bang: Specifically, we need to get better info and treatment for transsexual people.

 

Yeah um, here's the funny thing. People have individual personalities/behaviour. and your orientation has nuthin to do with that.

There's hetero dudes who are fem too, y'know. There'd prolly be more but y'know, society and all that. Fucks with people. Guys are suppressed and/or don't want to come across as gay, so yeah...

and assimilating shouldn't be sumthin to aim for or even achieve. We don't need to conform just to "fit in." people should just be themselves, and whether it falls in line with current standards or not; whatever, it's all good. just as long as people aren't forced to be or do anything.

It's society that needs to get with shit and accept diversity/difference/range of expression/individuality/blah blah blah, all that good stuff.

 

Religion.

I'm not talking "oh, I believe Jesus Christ is my savior" or "I believe in the god Vishnu", no. I'm talking about religion as a whole. People take religion, its texts and its practices, and they either justify their own hatred with it as an excuse or they overblow one small text way out of proportion, and all of a sudden, we get days like these where we hear about Africa and the Middle East making laws to kill gay people, each penalty getting more cruel and more medieval. Every state that makes any move against LGBT people claims to do it in "religious freedom" and then has the nerve to say that we're the bully because we don't agree with what they say.

The world is like this: Where religion is more deeply rooted and more fundamental, the cruelty towards LGBT people is worse.

Religion has done this time and again. There is a message in religion that the "religious" people don't get, and they twist that message to try and make it fit what they think should be, which always, without fail, it always hurts someone because they don't like that person.

No.

NO.

NO.

Religion isn't about control. Religion was never supposed to be about control. And yet here we are, at the end of the Crusades, the beginning of the end of the societal patriarchy, at the tail end of racism, after many wars in the name of "who is right" about a message about love, tolerance and acceptance, where those same words and those same stories are STILL to this day being used for controlling people.

You want to know why religion is going downhill, and fast?

Because it was never meant to be this way.

If there is a god (or gods), t(he)y want(s) us to get the fuck along with each other and stop hurting each other. Growing up Methodist, I've heard of these "plans" God has for me. Perhaps they're real. I don't know. I can't say. My guess is those plans could be in another dimension, or even in another universe. Who knows?

And if not, someone likely saw a ton of hurting and suffering they never wanted to see in the future. And so they made stories and parables in a message that's supposed to help us get together, get together peacefully and stop hurting one another.

I'm sorry that I'm posting this on Easter Sunday, where many people may take this as offense. But this is what religion does. It hurts people because there are people who hurt others with a love story. This is the kind of people it's grown for the past 2 millennia. People who are afraid, people who don't know what's going on. People who think that it's better to put arms up instead of hands out.

Is there a god? I don't know. I honestly can't say. Unless I'm presented with evidence that's physical, even paranormal, I'll likely never be swayed. I know I'm naive. But when I see something's not working, I don't continue believing it's working. I knew religion and I never really clicked from the moment I was baptized in a church, and I think this is why.

Does this mean "stop believing in a god"? No, of course not. If you believe in a diety, go right ahead, believe in the diety. Believing in a diety and performing heinous acts in the guise of religion of said diety are totally different things, and it's really time people need to wake up to that. I'm really sick of keeping behind the door to my room because I'm afraid my religious roommate (or his friends) will do unspeakable things to me, despite my roommate saying he was fine with my being LGBT. Perhaps that's a hatred in and of itself. I honestly don't know.

And I think we're all sick of innocent people getting punished and killed. It's the 21st century, not the 14th.

 

+1

 

This.

 

People acting on their beliefs.

There are bound to be disagreements about the LGBT community because it's seen as a taboo subject in some places. And those disagreements are fine because people are entitled to their own opinions. But it doesn't mean they have to act on it. They don't have to find a reason for opposing it just because of different preferences, and they certainly do not have to act as if LGBT people are inferior.

 

It depends on the country you live in. There are places where homosexuality is a crime punished by death, in others punished by prison. In those places decriminalizing gays would be a good first start. Then there are places where they're fighting for legalizing marriage, etc.

As for my country, the biggest problem is discrimination. In recent years there has been positive evolution in this regard. People is more eager to accept gays than before, but I notice this is more likely if you are a not very girly gay man or a not very manly gay girl. The common saying is something like: if he's a "normal" guy, what's the matter what he does in his bed. Even some gay people dislike crossdressers or transgenders because they say: for people like you others think we gay are all sluts. Summarizing, I'd say that the biggest issue right now would be trying to erradicate transphobia.

 

It depends on the country.

In my country, it'd be the fact that being homosexual is illegal and you can get ten years in jail for it

 

Suicide probably

 

I think the biggest problem is that there are so many people that suffers from homophobia. Parents, teachers, friends, religious leaders etc. They don't understand homosexuality because it's different. And things that are different they fear. They teach their children that being gay is wrong. This leads to hatred and bullying towards LGBTQ folks, some even get killed. The bad stigma in the society makes some LGBTQ people hate themselves or hide who they are, when there is no reason for it. This can lead to low-self esteem, depression or suicide.

Homophobia is very contagious, and it's all over the world. Some places are worse than others. But there have been made a lot off progress the last couple off years. Celebrity’s like Ellen DeGeneres, Tom Daley, Ellen page, Anderson cooper, and many more, have come out as gay. This makes the world see that LGBTQ people really are great people, and nothing to be afraid off. The biggest tool to fight homophobia is education. People must learn that love is not dangerous. It's not something you should hate or be afraid of. Because love is beautiful. It's the biggest gift you get in life. Everyone deserves to experience it!

 

Thanks for pointing that out! ^^ I understand what you are saying about people having their own behaviours regardless of orientation- but with my example, I knew this kid before he came out and he never acted like that, only after coming out he started doing the sort of "stereotypical gay behaviours." I knew there would be some confusion on this, but I feel that he let people change his personality because of his orientation.

Also, I like your point of assimilation not being needed. Just from my standpoint, it seems that the root of discrimination is people standing out. You wont pick on your neighbor Average Joe if there is nothing different about him. However, if Joe acts atypically to the "normal" person, not even having to pertain to orientation or gender, that's where people form views of a person. It in itself is hard to form a basis on as well because people will have different ideas of what normal is. My point was simply that it's a lot easier to *ahem* "fit in" if there isn't anything "unusual" about you.