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

[JanStan]

12 hours ago, Stimulus said:

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 These zones slowly disappeared after the EU threatened to withhold funding and the Polish supreme court finally repealed the last zone this February.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.

Thanks for the perspective. I will say that I don't believe that the historic uses of the term that you described are how the use of the term is used in 2024 (in the U.S. at least). But I do have a better understanding of what you are saying so thanks for that. I think I've said what I wanted to say and hopefully you have as well:) Have a great day and I sincerely wish you the best.