Social LGBTQIA+

Fishy

tits McGee (๑˃̵ᴗ˂̵)
Instead of calling out individuals like I originally intended, I will just steer us completely away from discussing gun control in the United States (which is a trajectory we clearly can’t stay on), and instead toward the systemic issue of trans/Queer-presenting people being met with violence for standing out in their presentation in the first place.

If it’s not guns/arming oneself with devices that allow retaliation, what do y’all think are the answers for these dangerous and often fatal circumstances?
sorry dave this feels like a trick question: still guns?? :pikuh: maybe if you had to turn the safety off with your tongue there'd be less crime, we could use homophobia to the advantage??
 

KM

slayification
is a Community Contributoris a Tiering Contributor
Instead of calling out individuals like I originally intended, I will just steer us completely away from discussing gun control in the United States (which is a trajectory we clearly can’t stay on), and instead toward the systemic issue of trans/Queer-presenting people being met with violence for standing out in their presentation in the first place.

If it’s not guns/arming oneself with devices that allow retaliation, what do y’all think are the answers for these dangerous and often fatal circumstances?
1. direct financial support to trans/queer people who are at the highest risk of violence due to their identity (esp Black T/Q people / TPOC / sex workers / ppl in especially violently homophobic areas etc) to give them more wherewithal to afford basic life needs as well as healthcare needs (esp. hormones / gender-affirming procedures) without having to resort to higher risk forms of labor that marginalized people are more often pushed to

2. deemphasizing queer narratives that extol no-holds-barred personal expression and gender/sexuality exploration at the cost of safety as ideal or necessary to being an "authentic" lgbtq person, and instead recognizing the intersections of privilege that affect LGBT peoples' abilities to express their "true selves" safely and while maintaining a workable quality of life. not to say that pride in one's identity is bad or inherently privileged, but that the one-size-fits-all narrative of personal discovery -> "coming out" -> staying out is neither universally realistic nor advisable, and that employing techniques like passing (in any of its meanings), obscuring your identity, living a double life, etc is not morally wrong or indicative of shame / weakness.
 
Instead of calling out individuals like I originally intended, I will just steer us completely away from discussing gun control in the United States (which is a trajectory we clearly can’t stay on), and instead toward the systemic issue of trans/Queer-presenting people being met with violence for standing out in their presentation in the first place.

If it’s not guns/arming oneself with devices that allow retaliation, what do y’all think are the answers for these dangerous and often fatal circumstances?
Reading the bible to the person committing the act could probably scare them into submission. /s

I'd say education could probably go a very long way! More important to retaliate is probably to be in position to prevent it in the first place, and governmental support and interest towards this other than just prominent politicians making dry speeches about showing some form of support would be great too. Educational reforms? We have days dedicated to putting a pair of condoms on the tip of a broom, don't see why we have a day dedicated to sexual orientation, or gender identity?

A good portion of transphobia and homophobia is largely taught and inherited by family members, but it goes such a long way to show kids that perhaps we're just human beings n all, and even if we won't experience the fruits of the policy immediately, (as the kids need to grow up, go through puberty, partake in being an useful member to the society, etc.) it's probably not a super expensive policy to enforce on a national level, and even if you're not from somewhere within the rainbow spectrum, at least it'd get you connected to the subject?

Or we could read the bible idk.
 
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Aqua Jet

Stardew
is a Contributor to Smogonis a Community Contributor Alumnus
This may come off as naive, but I honestly think that education for transphobic, homophobic, etc. is a good start. In my personal experience, this works too! I've helped an aunt of mine who was extremely homophobic do a complete 360, and she even attended the pride parade 2021 in 2021! This just goes to show that changing people's opinions is possible, but it takes a lot of hard work. As for my generation, most people that I've interacted with at my school are fairly conservative but all of them appeared to accept an old friend of mine when they came out as gay. I think this, in part, is due to my school's inclusivity message.
 

cityscapes

Take care of yourself.
is a Tiering Contributoris a Community Contributor Alumnus
Stephen Universe has caused more damage to the queer community than homophobia.
Based and true. As a PNW user this show has entirely uprooted our queer culture over here and replaced it with endless iterations of this bozo built like Sans Skeleton (Halloween Reference). If you say you haven't watched the show you get bullied by all the 30 year old trans people. They have extensive fan work shared universes on Tumblr dot com in which they speculate that Stephen and all the gem motherfuckers are in a polycule (like a fraternity, but for gays). Fortunately my Lockheed martin six figure salary allows me to be the breadwinner of the shared household we live in whilst my housemates are still under the "spook" (Anarchist Reference) (Halloween Reference) that killing people is "bad" and "wrong".
 

shnowshner

You've Gotta Try
is a Pre-Contributor
Okay so I'm pivoting discussion from one thread where someone didn't want to actually find answers to this one where I hope people are more actively responsive to stuff I want to know more about.

I have heard a lot about LGBTQ education in public schools from the church I attend and the ways it affects children, both in terms of the content not being age appropriate for kids in late elementary school and how it promotes "gender confusion" among young people. I've chalked this stuff up to my peers not bothering to check sources or look into an issue past explosive headlines as is usually the case.

Just as a bit of perspective, the issue a lot of Christians I know have with this stuff is they feel schools are teaching children topics that should instead be relegated to their parents, i.e. they don't like young kids learning about homosexuality and gender identify from a school body and would rather have the kid's family explain the subject. Which is stupid and only further instills animosity between two social spheres that really don't need more hate coming their way, but that's the current mantra adopted by Christians because they want to protect their religious beliefs and as a result those of their own children.

Was doing a bit of digging on my own and it looks like there's a ton of misinformation being thrown around (surprising), it feels like this is being painted as a plot to like liberal-ize the Christian children or whatever asinine stuff people believe in nowadays, and I know the actual situation is certainly very different, but I am wondering if anyone out there is willing to shed light on what is being taught to students, and more importantly how said students are reacting to the curriculum.
 

Wigglytuff

mad @ redacted in redacted
is a Tiering Contributoris a Dedicated Tournament Host Alumnus
but I am wondering if anyone out there is willing to shed light on what is being taught to students, and more importantly how said students are reacting to the curriculum.
there doesn't appear to be any empirical studies on the issue so i can only offer anecdotal stories of my midwest ass iowa high school. the city my high school is in also has a large state university, so i imagine we're regressive compared to the coasts but progressive compared to the rest of the midwest and definitely the South. i was close to and have kept in contact with a couple teachers from the english department so i asked them after seeing your post. i'm also in the varsity soccer chat for some reason (i graduated 2 years ago and i never played s*ccer) so i hear about any gender/sexuality related incidents pretty immediately.

i graduated in may 2020 (technically march since i didnt do a single thing for class after march 17). its my perception that the spotlight on G&S in school curriculum started mid pandemic with parents working @ home and noticing what's in their kids' schoolwork more, so with this assumption, my memory is the before and what i've heard back can be the after.

- english teachers were already discussing sexuality as it pertains to literature in their classes prior to the more recent movement to destigmatize the topic of gender & sexuality in schools. the required courses are focused on classic literature rather than contemporary so gender identity/transgenderism doesnt come up often, but some of the advanced elective courses offered do touch on contemporary queer literature (some of which has been brought up in this thread). overall, the teachers feel more empowered to talk about these subjects in the classroom as well as running advocacy groups & safety spaces for LGBTQ+ students, though they are wary of blowback (hasnt happened yet tho)

- classes where gender & sexuality don't come up are more or less the same, though reportedly all teachers & councilors have a sticker with a "LGTBQ+ Safe Zone" in rainbow text on their doors. prior to the school closing for the pandemic (my senior year in HS), i only remember seeing this on a couple doors - every teacher in the english department and our AP government teacher. possibly the councilors as well, but i never saw them so i dont know

- sections on DV and unhealthy relationships in the health class mandatory for graduation have been updated since prepandemic to include statistics and guidance for same sex relationships. they've also added a small note about violence against transgender people.

- those stickers are often vandalized/stolen. CAD and woods classrooms in particular since they're in isolated parts of the school & possibly (probably lol.) the subject matter

- the "king" "queen" roles in the homecoming court were abolished in fall 2020 in favor of all members just being part of the homecoming court to be more accommodating of NB students. i dont think an NB student being elected precipitated this. actually not that much controversy over this, because the school band (by far the largest student org in the school) had been rigging those positions for at least a decade anyway and, with no offense intended, had been putting joke picks in there, ex ppl that wouldnt have gone to hoco but now they have to since they were "elected"

- to my knowledge prom still retains those roles and also retains the rigging

- spectrum (the most prominent LGBTQ+ club on school campus) reported on their insta page that gender/sexuality based harassment has been on the rise. i find it hard not to believe this, given that violence in general on school campuses country wide has been on the rise post pandemic

- at some point after the pandemic, the student government established a DEI chairperson who acts as a student advocate for issues related to race, gender, and sexuality, and reports directly to the DEI director of the school district.

- a couple bathrooms have been reconstructed into single user restrooms to be used regardless of gender identity or expression. this has been a source of ire because some (as in more than one) bathrooms have been closed due to things such as the toilet seats being stolen, the urinals flushed to the point of overflowing, and people sitting on the sinks and breaking them (and also stealing the sinks).

- the single user restrooms are popular hookup spots - i verified this on the police reports. "2 students 1 bathroom" is the most famous one

- a school clothing store was started just before the pandemic, and had the usual male/female options. they quietly changed to unisex options at some point. i remember the clothes being dogshit + overpriced so i dont think anyone cares

- use of slurs in a derogatory fashion are an automatic 3 day ISS, while use of slurs in a non derogatory context (quoting literature in english class) is a 1 day ISS. this was announced schoolwide in fall 2019 because there was a huge blowout between a civil rights student group and the english department because a white chick was reading huckleberry finn and said the hard r. the result was that no slurs are allowed to be said even when quoting literature and english teachers are asked to instruct students to replace it with "f-slur" "n-slur" etc, as well as announcing this policy at the beginning of each school year

- apparently transgender students in high school sports is a regular topic of discussion in government class

- athletics seem to be unchanged, though i believe there is a trans female student in the cheer team

student reactions to these changes:
- indifference, at worst mild annoyance (esp about bathrooms)
- these changes arent a big deal and ppl ignore/adapt to them
- most bigotry was and continues to be underground, away from people that are outwardly LGBTQ+.
- "what is a woman?" was very popular amongst the boys when it came out
- still a general tilt towards conservatism and by extension homophobia & transphobia
- but everyone in the student org for republicans was and is cringe so most of them are quiet about it.

thoughts:
- no clue wtf ppl are getting mad about here
- im pretty sure the angry ppl are ppl larping as parents
- part of the outrage is definitely manufactured - both by conservative news sources bringing "concerned parents" (that work for them) to mald and liberal news sources for pretending "concerned parent" doesnt work for fox & friends
- edit: i have no clue what happens in elementary and middle school. have heard of similar changes to health class in the middle school tho

edits: me remembering random shit

hope this helped
 
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I don't know what exactly is going on in American high schools (mostly because I'm Canadian and graduated 8 years ago), but I can tell you what's going on in the meetings of people larping as "concerned parents," because we're seeing this American influence in universities and school board elections up here (including American groups actually recruiting people here). Wherever they do end up recruiting enough people, they get up to heavily coordinated stunts (like letters to local papers) pretending to be concerned parents. There's a substantial amount of dishonesty in these campaigns and are almost entirely dedicated to removing LGBT2S content and anything against the far-right's narratives about race and racism from schools. Right now I'm looking into a school board candidate who just faked an insane statement from a supposed supporter yesterday, because she needs to make up examples of elementary school-age Black kids not wanting to play with white kids because of unspecified lessons. Said candidate is part of that American organisation, too.

It's all bullshit meant to strip the community in America of their legal rights.
 

Choice Specs Heracross

Banned deucer.
I’m a woman trapped in a man’s body. But idk sometimes I like feeling like a man too. I’m bisexual but then I think I might be asexual /demisexual. Basically I would never have to be physically intimate with anyone but it wouldn’t necessarily mean I wouldn’t. Also, I basically won the Jackpot in life because let’s say I have a crush on someone and they’re already taken. Just spending time with that person as friends is basically the same thing as being in a relationship because of the nature of my asexuality. Does that make sense to anyone? It doesn’t mean I would wreck peoples relationships though obviously.
 
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Sabelette

from the river to the sea
is a Site Content Manageris a Community Contributoris a Top Contributoris a Forum Moderator Alumnus
I never really write in threads like this but I’ve experienced a lot of harassment and belittling recently, so hi, I’m queer as fuck and happy about it and nobody will ever make me feel bad about it. I hope everyone here finds pride and joy in being LGBTQ+ wherever your identity falls on that spectrum and no matter how many people try to take your joy away.
 

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