discussion What do you think has influenced the rise in anti-LGBT rhetoric?

[Mordecai]

Why are people in here acting like saying trans rights/pronouns/gender discourse being a hot topic is leaving trans people behind or victim blaming 

 

The reality is that these things are topical in our current social and political climate and so are being discussed and within the public consciousness. As these people advocate for their rights you're inevitably going to be met with backlash to it, and thanks to the rise of Trump and conservatism in general the bigots have a bigger platform and are more emboldened than ever to express them. There wouldn't be this kind of rhetoric in the first place if nobody cared enough to talk about it

[shyboi]

54 minutes ago, raisetheroof said:

 All the people blaming Trump in the comments

 

This phenomenon of increasing hatred of the LGBT+ movement has been widespread throughout the Western world, and not something limited to the US

 

To put it very simply: the increase in anti-LGBT rhetoric can be understood as a predictable counterreaction to the significant advancements in visibility, tolerance, and rights that the LGBT community has experienced over the past decade. This phenomenon is not unique to the LGBT movement but is a recurring pattern throughout history, where progressivism and the empowerment of marginalized groups often provoke a backlash from those who feel threatened by these changes.

 

FR 

 

 

some users here think the USA is the center of the universe 

[Gesamtkunstwerk]

It was like there was a lot of "progress" in the mainstream until the mid-2010's, where straight/white backlash started to be very noticeable because it became more accepted to be hateful towards other people

 

People who aren't part of the LGBT+ started to feel threatened by a world that didn't cater to them exclusively, and felt that "it was pushed down their throat", hence the backlash

 

I think when you fight to change something, you will be met with resistance 

[Communion]

56 minutes ago, JanStan said:

I don't find your question to be a sincere one so I won't bother answering it. I'm sure you are just WAITING to call me every phobic term there is. However, when I wished you a good day I did mean it. I'll leave it at that.

I mean,  you're quite literally suggesting trans people are at fault for some claimed rise in transphobia or "backlash".

So I'm asking you what you find deplorable about trans people that justifies this backlash you're defending?

 

This is Gwen Araujo. In 2002, at just the age of 17, four men who knew her murdered her because they viewed her as a man. They repeatedly beat her unconscious and then strangled her to death. They wrapped her body up in a comforter, took her out into the desert, and buried her in a shallow grave, before heading to have breakfast.

 

 

This in Brianna Ghey. Last year, in 2023, at just the age of 16, two classmates murdered her because they viewed her as a man. They lured her to hang out and then stabbed her over 28 times, leaving her to die in the middle of a wooded park, having been found later by people walking their dog already too late.

 

 

What exactly should trans people do in order to not be murdered? What could Gwen or Brianna have done to contextualize their murders?

 

Edited June 17 by Communion

[Stimulus]

1 hour ago, JanStan said:

I dont think its one specific thing as much as it is the current LBGT ideology. When gay marriage was the hot button issue, it was gay people who were wanting nothing more than to exist in society without the threat of violence and the ability to live productive lives like everyone else. There was no rational or legal basis to deny that, and ultimately the bigots lost. These days, the far left has taken on this idea that they don't just want equality, they hate white people, police, everyone is racist, homophobic, transphobic, gender can be a 'feeling' and there is no difference between trans and biological gender etc etc. There is disdain for societal norms. Far left ideology is the reason for the pushback just as the far right was the cause of trumps loss in 2020. These groups are BEYOND obnoxious to everyone else but because the country is literally divided 50/50 between left and right they're votes carry a lot of weight. 

The phrase "LGBT ideology" was created by social conservatives in the 2010s as a slogan to attack the LGBT community by falsely portraying LGBT people as political extremists. Right-wing authoritarian politicians constantly try to discredit the LGBT community by making baseless accusations like claiming that LGBT people "don't just want equality" or that they "hate white people".

 

There is nothing wrong with "disdain for societal norms" when there is plenty of room for improvement on LGBT acceptance and when LGBT people are still routinely subject to violent hate crimes, including murders motivated by transphobia. Supporting LGBT rights is not a far-left political position, even though many right-wing politicians would like you to believe it is to red-scare you into voting for them.

 

What's really obnoxious is the fact that some people in the LGBT community are being tricked by these social conservatives into attacking other LGBT people in hopes of gaining the "respect" of bigots, instead of recognizing anti-LGBT bigotry as the real problem.

Edited June 17 by Stimulus

[Communion]

46 minutes ago, Mordecai said:

Why are people in here acting like saying trans rights/pronouns/gender discourse being a hot topic is leaving trans people behind or victim blaming 

 

The reality is that these things are topical in our current social and political climate and so are being discussed and within the public consciousness. As these people advocate for their rights you're inevitably going to be met with backlash to it, and thanks to the rise of Trump and conservatism in general the bigots have a bigger platform and are more emboldened than ever to express them. There wouldn't be this kind of rhetoric in the first place if nobody cared enough to talk about it

Because there's never been a time in recent history where trans people weren't victims to disproportional violence. Thus the suggestion that there could be some discourse in any form that could be the cause of transphobic hate or "backlash" pretends as though this violence is somehow measurably done only in reaction to "unreasonable" trans people.

 

In 2002, trans people were being murdered. In 2022, trans people were being murdered.

Why are trans people continually murdered no matter how queer people call for trans rights?

Edited June 17 by Communion

[Lana Banana]

The full on media access to anyone with a smartphone (especially TikTok during Covid) to express their radical ideas and opinions has not helped. Also includes if you get a phone - Facebook is already installed, for example. 
 

I've known for a long time that people are idiots and I naively thought that governments are above that rationale but I was wrong. Governments will only go for whatever is better for them to stay in the office etc. Money flow. 

Edited June 17 by Lana Banana

[bliaz]

5 hours ago, BrokenMachine said:

Social media is to blame. It creates multiple echo chambers so everyone can feel ok with their own trashy views 

It is disgusting what you see in social media, sometimes they make you lose hope that someday people will accept us as people instead of looking at us as repulsive beings, sick, etc. Recently in my country some people tore a giant LGBT flag and when reading the comments everyone was against us, attacking us, the good comments were lost in a sea of negativity, and this happens in everything related to the LGBT+ community (recently Peru classified trans people as mentally ill and everyone was praising that country in the videos of those news). And to top it off YouTube has channels like this https://youtube.com/@agustinlajeok?si=qCg9nZYPES6vXjDZ where this Argentinian man with over 2 million followers constantly attacks the community and makes us look mentally ill, etc. and verbally destroys trans people with his arguments. It is very frustrating.

[JanStan]

41 minutes ago, Stimulus said:

The phrase "LGBT ideology" was created by social conservatives in the 2010s as a slogan to attack the LGBT community by falsely portraying LGBT people as political extremists. Right-wing authoritarian politicians constantly try to discredit the LGBT community by making baseless accusations like claiming that LGBT people "don't just want equality" or that they "hate white people".

 

There is nothing wrong with "disdain for societal norms" when there is plenty of room for improvement on LGBT acceptance and when LGBT people are still routinely subject to violent hate crimes, including murders motivated by transphobia. Supporting LGBT rights is not a far-left political position, even though many right-wing politicians would like you to believe it is to red-scare you into voting for them.

 

What's really obnoxious is the fact that some people in the LGBT community are being tricked by these social conservatives into attacking other LGBT people in hopes of gaining the "respect" of bigots, instead of recognizing anti-LGBT bigotry as the real problem.

I agree that there is room for improvement for LGBT acceptance. However, when what you're doing isnt working and making things WORSE, then maybe your methods and weaknesses in your arguments are the problem? Controversial I know. 

 

Also, it is such a glaring weakness in a discussion to claim that disagreeing with someone is due to being 'tricked' by conservatives. Ain't no one being tricked. Again, the disagreements come from the lack of validity and weakness of what is being said. I'll leave it at that and wish you well. Take care. 

[woohoo]

Religion and ignorance, which goes hand in hand to me. Religious people grossly lack critical thinking skills past that of a potato or say a dead rodent. Story book good you bad. Where's my sister need more babies blah blah blah is their zombie like sentiment towards most things. 

[Communion]

10 minutes ago, JanStan said:

Also, it is such a glaring weakness in a discussion to claim that disagreeing with someone is due to being 'tricked' by conservatives.

No one thinks you're being tricked by conservatives. We know you're the far-right conservative. 

[JanStan]

10 minutes ago, Communion said:

No one thinks you're being tricked by conservatives. We know you're the far-right conservative. 

And you're literally the embodiment of everything wrong with the left. 

[Stimulus]

2 hours ago, Mordecai said:

Why are people in here acting like saying trans rights/pronouns/gender discourse being a hot topic is leaving trans people behind or victim blaming 

 

The reality is that these things are topical in our current social and political climate and so are being discussed and within the public consciousness. As these people advocate for their rights you're inevitably going to be met with backlash to it, and thanks to the rise of Trump and conservatism in general the bigots have a bigger platform and are more emboldened than ever to express them. There wouldn't be this kind of rhetoric in the first place if nobody cared enough to talk about it

Pointing out that social conservatives are targeting trans or non-binary people isn't victim blaming. I'm pointing this out too, since it's very obvious this is happening.

 

On the other hand, accusing trans or non-binary people of being at fault for anti-LGBT sentiment is victim blaming, when these members of the LGBT community just want to freely express their gender identity the same way all queer people deserve to be able to freely express their sexual orientation. I'm only taking issue with people who blame trans and non-binary people for discrimination targeted at them and at other LGBT people.

 

 

1 hour ago, JanStan said:

I agree that there is room for improvement for LGBT acceptance. However, when what you're doing isnt working and making things WORSE, then maybe your methods and weaknesses in your arguments are the problem? Controversial I know. 

 

Also, it is such a glaring weakness in a discussion to claim that disagreeing with someone is due to being 'tricked' by conservatives. Ain't no one being tricked. Again, the disagreements come from the lack of validity and weakness of what is being said. I'll leave it at that and wish you well. Take care. 

What exactly is the "weakness" in saying that LGBT people should not capitulate to the demands of anti-LGBT bigots? LGBT acceptance has generally increased worldwide for the past few decades because the LGBT community stood strong and held their ground when social conservatives tried to suppress their rights. If the LGBT community threw a part of the community under the bus every time social conservatives complained, LGBT acceptance would not be as widespread as it is today.

 

When someone repeats right-wing propaganda slogans such as "LGBT ideology", there are two explanations for what can be happening. The first explanation is that the person may be misled by social conservatives into thinking that supporting LGBT rights is an abnormal ideology, rather than a normal expression of support for human rights. The second explanation is that the person may be intentionally repeating right-wing propaganda while understanding that the term "LGBT ideology" is expressly anti-LGBT. I say "tricked" because there is a chance that the person is in the first group.

Edited June 17 by Stimulus

[Gesamtkunstwerk]

18 minutes ago, JanStan said:

And you're literally the embodiment of everything wrong with the left. 

This whole user gives Reddit account 

[JanStan]

40 minutes ago, Stimulus said:

Pointing out that social conservatives are targeting trans or non-binary people isn't victim blaming. I'm pointing this out too, since it's very obvious this is happening.

 

On the other hand, accusing trans or non-binary people of being at fault for anti-LGBT sentiment is victim blaming, when these members of the LGBT community just want to freely express their gender identity the same way all queer people deserve to be able to freely express their sexual orientation. I'm only taking issue with people who blame trans and non-binary people for discrimination targeted at them and at other LGBT people.

 

 

What exactly is the "weakness" in saying that LGBT people should not capitulate to the demands of anti-LGBT bigots? LGBT acceptance has generally increased worldwide for the past few decades because the LGBT community stood strong and held their ground when social conservatives tried to suppress their rights. If the LGBT community threw a part of the community under the bus every time social conservatives complained, LGBT acceptance would not be as widespread as it is today.

 

When someone repeats right-wing propaganda slogans such as "LGBT ideology", there are two explanations for what can be happening. The first explanation is that the person may be misled by social conservatives into thinking that supporting LGBT rights is an abnormal ideology, rather than a normal expression of support for human rights. The second explanation is that the person may be intentionally repeating right-wing propaganda while understanding that the term "LGBT ideology" is expressly anti-LGBT. I say "tricked" because there is a chance that the person is in the first group.

First of all thanks for the thoughtful reply. Those are rare here. I think it's naive to say that LGBT ideology is a right wing concept. It exists. It's evidenced explicitly in this thread. Doesn't mean it's good or bad or wrong or right, but it's real imo. When you don't fall 100% in line with this ideology you are called right wing, a Reddit user (wth does that even mean I've never posted on Reddit in my life), or phobic everything. The ideology says that you can't believe for example that trans violence is unacceptable AND that trans women should not play in women's sports. If there wasn't an ideology then why couldn't those be mutually exclusive without being called far right? Or why couldn't any belief be held without automatically being cause to assert that someone is right or left wing with TOTAL disregard to the totality of what they believe? I think the only explanation is because of the existence of LGBT ideology. 
 

Adding: I didn't feel I needed to defend to what I was saying previously but I wanted to point out that I'm gay, atheist, POC, whose best friends are trans. I don't know what portion of the far right wing I would be a part of but the assertions from some here are WILD. 

Edited June 17 by JanStan
Added

[Communion]

20 minutes ago, JanStan said:

First of all thanks for the thoughtful reply. Those are rare here. I think it's naive to say that LGBT ideology is a right wing concept. It exists. It's evidenced explicitly in this thread. Doesn't mean it's good or bad or wrong or right, but it's real imo. When you don't fall 100% in line with this ideology you are called right wing, a Reddit user (wth does that even mean I've never posted on Reddit in my life), or phobic everything. The ideology says that you can't believe for example that trans violence is unacceptable AND that trans women should not play in women's sports. If there wasn't an ideology then why couldn't those be mutually exclusive without being called far right? Or why couldn't any belief be held without automatically being cause to assert that someone is right or left wing with TOTAL disregard to the totality of what they believe? I think the only explanation is because of the existence of LGBT ideology. 
 

Adding: I didn't feel I needed to defend to what I was saying previously but I wanted to point out that I'm gay, atheist, POC, whose best friends are trans. I don't know what portion of the far right wing I would be a part of but the assertions from some here are WILD. 

As opposed to some existence of some LGBT ideology, one might simply find the bold to be - again - an example of you holding a reactionary and right-wing (read: essentialist) view of trans people, especially when you've quite literally posted that you don't care about whether science shows it is fine in cases for trans women to play in sports against cis women, because you "rather trust your own eyes instead of science". 

 

 

[Lüwís]

I don't think Trump had a huge  effect on this outside the USA (even right wingers in my country looked at him as if he was mad, seriously what an embarrassment to the USA), but in my country I really do feel like this sudden rise of anti-LGBT hate is partly down to the Trans and Non-binary stuff, not just the rise of the far right.

 

A lot of people, I'd guess a slight majority, had just about come to terms with two men or two women being together. In that slight majority I'd imagine there were a mix of people who

 

1) were happily and openly supportive of gay men / women.

2) people who were apathetic to gay men / women (meaning they don't hate gay people and they don't see it as an issue to talk about).

3) people who were still somewhat against gay people privately but they were tolerant publicly and knew gays existing didn't really affect them.

 

I think a lot of heterosexual people in my country had come to see same sex couples as fairly simple to comprehend and something they could either support or simply tolerate.

 

Then the last few years, there's been a bigger debate about transgender people which has eclipsed debates about 'just' gay people. Then throw in all of these new (I think it's safe to say 'new' to the ears of most) words like 'cishet, non-binary, heteronormative, heteropatriarchy', and a bombardment of so many other words has just come too fast too quick for a lot of people. And the pronouns stuff over the last few years, that definitely put people off, especially the ones who were tolerating 'just' gays. 

 

And we've all been put under this ever-growing collection of categories based on gender and sexuality and we all get treated the same because of it. 

 

There's a lot more I could say on the above, but the rise of the far right hasn't helped either. E*on M*sk allowing vile hate on Twitter, right wing / authoritarian states spreading disinformation, rising religion, etc. 

 

What a world. Hate it.

[HonourableVomit]

4 hours ago, Stimulus said:

The phrase "LGBT ideology" was created by social conservatives in the 2010s as a slogan to attack the LGBT community by falsely portraying LGBT people as political extremists. Right-wing authoritarian politicians constantly try to discredit the LGBT community by making baseless accusations like claiming that LGBT people "don't just want equality" or that they "hate white people".

 

There is nothing wrong with "disdain for societal norms" when there is plenty of room for improvement on LGBT acceptance and when LGBT people are still routinely subject to violent hate crimes, including murders motivated by transphobia. Supporting LGBT rights is not a far-left political position, even though many right-wing politicians would like you to believe it is to red-scare you into voting for them.

 

What's really obnoxious is the fact that some people in the LGBT community are being tricked by these social conservatives into attacking other LGBT people in hopes of gaining the "respect" of bigots, instead of recognizing anti-LGBT bigotry as the real problem.

[Stimulus]

3 hours ago, JanStan said:

First of all thanks for the thoughtful reply. Those are rare here. I think it's naive to say that LGBT ideology is a right wing concept. It exists. It's evidenced explicitly in this thread. Doesn't mean it's good or bad or wrong or right, but it's real imo. When you don't fall 100% in line with this ideology you are called right wing, a Reddit user (wth does that even mean I've never posted on Reddit in my life), or phobic everything. The ideology says that you can't believe for example that trans violence is unacceptable AND that trans women should not play in women's sports. If there wasn't an ideology then why couldn't those be mutually exclusive without being called far right? Or why couldn't any belief be held without automatically being cause to assert that someone is right or left wing with TOTAL disregard to the totality of what they believe? I think the only explanation is because of the existence of LGBT ideology. 
 

Adding: I didn't feel I needed to defend to what I was saying previously but I wanted to point out that I'm gay, atheist, POC, whose best friends are trans. I don't know what portion of the far right wing I would be a part of but the assertions from some here are WILD. 

Let me focus on just the phrase for this post. I call the phrase "LGBT ideology" right-wing propaganda because of where it came from and how it's been used.

 

The first use of the term "LGBT ideology" that I can find online is this anti-LGBT article titled "Sex, Lies, and ObamaCare" by the "ex-gay bisexual" and "former homosexual" (his own words) writer Robert Oscar Lopez that was published on the right-wing blog American Thinker in 2013. Here, he wrote that "LGBT ideology was based on the whims of a tiny number of people" who he nicknamed "ligbitists" and accused of being "purveyors of sexual radicalism". He claimed that LGBT people only wanted equal rights "Because this small population could not have sex without some inconveniences (a police raid on a gay bar, ostracism, a guilt trip in church on Sunday, etc.)". And here's the worst part: "As it turns out, gay people who have been promised children will engage in human trafficking and bring back chattel slavery in the form of artificial procreation to get what they want, and no, they don't have a magical ethical trigger to stop them from going too far."

 

Yikes! If that's not enough to consider this right-wing propaganda, him blaming the world's problems on "The Sexual Revolution, no-fault divorce, artificial reproductive technology, commercialized adoption, aggressive abortion funding, egg harvesting, sexual education in schools, transgender locker room access, *****graphy, and over-reliance on condoms" should seal the deal.

 

The most well-known use of the term "LGBT ideology" happened in Poland starting in 2019. The right-wing populist Law and Justice party campaigned on opposing "LGBT ideology". They won their 2019 election and then turned one-third of Poland into "LGBT ideology free zones" that banned events such as LGBT equality marches within just one year. These zones slowly disappeared after the EU threatened to withhold funding and the Polish supreme court finally repealed the last zone this February. That's over 4 years of repression caused by a right-wing party using the term "LGBT ideology" as a weapon against LGBT people.

 

For anyone who doesn't know about the history of the phrase "LGBT ideology", the term "gay agenda" might be more familiar. Being openly LGBT isn't an "agenda" or "ideology", it's just a part of everyone's right to express themselves. Because the phrase "LGBT ideology" came from the right-wing and is mostly used by the right-wing to disparage LGBT people, I'm confident in my decision to call it what it is: right-wing propaganda.

[Harrier]

My hot take is that gay rights and acceptance gained the most traction through gay people being framed as 'normal like the rest of us'. Through people coming out, and humanising us. Everyone knows someone gay and we, for a while there, werent being deemed a threat to straight society. Especially outside the US, this was the case.

 

The movement has sort of moved towards embracing and elevating everything and anything queer, especially gender, which I support. But straight society has never been accepting of true, unabashed queerness, even in liberal Eurooean countries, and isnt ready for the way we undermine gender. What we are seeing is a backlash against that - conservatives are reactionary after all - rather than people just changing their minds because Trump won an election. 

 

[dumbsparce]

Sometimes I wonder if there ever was any progress and therefore backlash to begin with. All these back and forths only exist on the internet. Irl, LGBT people have always been attacked and always will. It's just the way it is, our very existence is simply bothersome for some reason. All we can do is fight for equal rights on a state level, but I don't expect hate crimes to go away anytime soon.

Edited June 17 by dumbsparce

[Marianah Adkins]

Unfortunately the trans debate has become the brick wall that reignited the anti-LGBT rhetoric. 

It doesnt help that since the end of the pandemic, there has been some sort of nostalgia towards heteronormative ideals (the masculinity thing pushed by influencers, white corporate feminism pushed by certain individuals) which has led to progressive ideals to be pushed behind the sidelines.

You know its bad when you have women being against gays when they have always been allies. 

[Anthinos]

14 hours ago, Maxxxine said:

From what I hear from my straight counterparts who have been supportive of the LGBT community for a long time, the tipping point for them has been 1) the gender madness and 2) kids being involved in it. 

The point about children in particular simply shows that they don't accept homosexual people the way they think. We want to get married and many of us also want to have children. And of course these children will come into contact with LGBT people, as they will grow up in a rainbow family. What's wrong with that if you supposedly have no problem with homosexuals? We all know what the core idea here is. The reality is that the majority of society still has a problem with us and doesn't accept us and many don't even manage to tolerate us. 

 

In my opinion, we should fight, live openly and support each other. There is no LGBT ideology as the conservative user writes above but maybe there should be one. One that stands up for freedom, human rights and a culture and spirituality that is not heterosexual male centric.

[Pepo]

16 hours ago, Digitalism said:

The anti lgbt never dissapeared. They were just silenced. They got angry and came back stronger with more people that supported them because they were silenced. 

 

The only right answer.

 

Sadly we're suffering the consequences related to this.

[Thuggin]

4 hours ago, Harrier said:

My hot take is that gay rights and acceptance gained the most traction through gay people being framed as 'normal like the rest of us'. Through people coming out, and humanising us. Everyone knows someone gay and we, for a while there, werent being deemed a threat to straight society. Especially outside the US, this was the case.

 

The movement has sort of moved towards embracing and elevating everything and anything queer, especially gender, which I support. But straight society has never been accepting of true, unabashed queerness, even in liberal Eurooean countries, and isnt ready for the way we undermine gender. What we are seeing is a backlash against that - conservatives are reactionary after all - rather than people just changing their minds because Trump won an election. 

 

Yeah as much as people like to think of themselves as coming to their views based on rational thinking, this is absolutely NOT true for the vast majority of people. Most people's views are entirely feelings/vibes based. Shows like Will & Grace and Modern Family showed gay people could be "normal" and seamlessly blend in with the rest of society. Gay people started living more openly in real life. Suddenly everyone knew a gay person, and "they aren't so bad".

 

Trans people (or other flavors of queer) are a lot easier to demonize because fewer people know them or have close relationships to them. They can feel less bad disparaging them. Why do right wing influencers like Libs Of TikTok highlight the "wackiest" or "weirdest" queer people they can find? Because it works. You can try to reason with reactionary minded people like "Hey, you wouldn't have a problem with this video if this were a cishet woman in a bikini rather than a 6 ft queer man dressed that way" but then you only make it worse by bogging them down with unfamiliar terms and forcing them to question everything they know.

 

And this is coming from someone who agrees with the left obviously, but I think we need to sort of accept that we can't change the world overnight. Especially when religion remains such a pervasive force in society in almost every country in the world, and we will ALWAYS be at odds with that. It can be a tough pill to swallow, but as queer people we really need to just focus on surrounding ourselves with people who accept us in our own lives and not take the progress we have made as something that will always be there. Just as quickly as gay rights progressed, it can regress. There are a lot of Gen Zers who don't even remember a time before gay marriage was largely accepted, and so they can't even imagine it returning. Likewise, there are a lot of conservative Gen Zers who don't remember a time before "crazy queer ideology everywhere" and the idea of a return to the past where everyone is more like them wherever they look, at least publicly, is appealing to them. People will always have nostalgia for the past and believe "maybe life would be good again like when I was a kid or like the world my parents lived in before [insert newest cultural issue]".