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Pink Floyd may have said the wrong thing - we definitely need general education on the LGBT spectrum, regardless of how opposed so many of society seem to be.
Thus far a huge amount of prejudice has been thrown at the LGB part of the orientation spectrum. Right now, though, I think we need to be focusing on the T. Homophobia – the kind of homophobia that makes people go out and attack anyone who isn’t almost stereotypically straight – is declining. It happens, and certainly verbal homophobia is a huge issue that needs to be addressed, but transphobia is something that I can only see increasing.
Look at history, if you don’t believe me. Increased awareness of homosexuality led to an increase in homophobic crimes and attacks. As soon as a minority stands up and asks for equal rights, you can be damn sure that the majority will stand and oppose it.
Thus far a huge amount of prejudice has been thrown at the LGB part of the orientation spectrum. Right now, though, I think we need to be focusing on the T. Homophobia – the kind of homophobia that makes people go out and attack anyone who isn’t almost stereotypically straight – is declining. It happens, and certainly verbal homophobia is a huge issue that needs to be addressed, but transphobia is something that I can only see increasing.
Look at history, if you don’t believe me. Increased awareness of homosexuality led to an increase in homophobic crimes and attacks. As soon as a minority stands up and asks for equal rights, you can be damn sure that the majority will stand and oppose it.
So why make history’s mistake twice?
Gender variation is a topic that can cause rifts in society – very recently was the outcry over Jenna Talackova, the beauty queen who's assigned at birth gender was male, and barred from competing at first because of this. American readers may remember the outcry quite a few years ago, after Thomas Beatie gave birth; British readers can be directed towards the more recent case that caused outcry in the Telegraph and the Daily Mail. That particular article came out just before I joined Freedom Requires Wings, and was going to be the basis of my first blog post. Not because of the articles themselves – they do a good enough job of invalidating their own argument with their “experts” – but because of the responses.
Some of the responses were normal, liberal statements. Some of them carried the more amusing “about time men did some of the work” line. Then there were the rest. These seemed to switch between “it’s against nature” and “it’s a woman, ok? It was a woman at birth and it’s a woman now”.
Needless to say, either line of thinking is complete rubbish. All it serves to prove is that there is a severe understanding gap going on here. Educating the younger generation is the simplest way to generating understanding. If we educated about LGB, it’s highly probable that homophobia would be a lot less prevalent.
And yes, educating about LGB is massively important, and I would love it if it could be taught in a sane, rational manner without conservative parents interrupting with the whole “you’re trying to teach my children to be homosexual” argument. Asexuality, as well, would be something to educate about.
But homophobia is much more verbal these days, as opposed to the 80s, say, and unfortunately it seems that asexuality will not be in the public eye for years, and it will never cause such as stir because of the ease with which people can say “it doesn’t exist”. Gender variation – now that’s a topic that’s vastly misunderstood. And there is a serious chance here that it will turn more violent than it already is.
A report sponsored by ILGA-Europe and Press for Change said that in the European Union, transsexuals are three times more likely to experience harassment of one sort or another than their homosexual counterparts. The worst part of that survey, I feel, is page 36 to 39. In those pages, it lists several pieces of information about transphobic murders – including the victim’s name and the cause of death. Some may argue that it’s getting better. I’m sorry, but I don’t think that it is.
So now back to the original point of the blog post. A petition needs 100,000 signatures to be considered in Parliament. So please, British readers sign this petition. Non-British readers, petition your head of state. Do everything you can to start educating about transphobia – and for those who don’t think it’s their issue, how long do you think it’ll pass on from the “must act straight, regardless of whether I am or not” to “must act within my sex stereotype to avoid being attacked”? Because very soon it will be the norm to act incredibly transphobic to protect yourself from transphobia, in the same way that homophobia protects you from being viewed as homosexual.
Gender variation is a topic that can cause rifts in society – very recently was the outcry over Jenna Talackova, the beauty queen who's assigned at birth gender was male, and barred from competing at first because of this. American readers may remember the outcry quite a few years ago, after Thomas Beatie gave birth; British readers can be directed towards the more recent case that caused outcry in the Telegraph and the Daily Mail. That particular article came out just before I joined Freedom Requires Wings, and was going to be the basis of my first blog post. Not because of the articles themselves – they do a good enough job of invalidating their own argument with their “experts” – but because of the responses.
Some of the responses were normal, liberal statements. Some of them carried the more amusing “about time men did some of the work” line. Then there were the rest. These seemed to switch between “it’s against nature” and “it’s a woman, ok? It was a woman at birth and it’s a woman now”.
Needless to say, either line of thinking is complete rubbish. All it serves to prove is that there is a severe understanding gap going on here. Educating the younger generation is the simplest way to generating understanding. If we educated about LGB, it’s highly probable that homophobia would be a lot less prevalent.
And yes, educating about LGB is massively important, and I would love it if it could be taught in a sane, rational manner without conservative parents interrupting with the whole “you’re trying to teach my children to be homosexual” argument. Asexuality, as well, would be something to educate about.
But homophobia is much more verbal these days, as opposed to the 80s, say, and unfortunately it seems that asexuality will not be in the public eye for years, and it will never cause such as stir because of the ease with which people can say “it doesn’t exist”. Gender variation – now that’s a topic that’s vastly misunderstood. And there is a serious chance here that it will turn more violent than it already is.
A report sponsored by ILGA-Europe and Press for Change said that in the European Union, transsexuals are three times more likely to experience harassment of one sort or another than their homosexual counterparts. The worst part of that survey, I feel, is page 36 to 39. In those pages, it lists several pieces of information about transphobic murders – including the victim’s name and the cause of death. Some may argue that it’s getting better. I’m sorry, but I don’t think that it is.
So now back to the original point of the blog post. A petition needs 100,000 signatures to be considered in Parliament. So please, British readers sign this petition. Non-British readers, petition your head of state. Do everything you can to start educating about transphobia – and for those who don’t think it’s their issue, how long do you think it’ll pass on from the “must act straight, regardless of whether I am or not” to “must act within my sex stereotype to avoid being attacked”? Because very soon it will be the norm to act incredibly transphobic to protect yourself from transphobia, in the same way that homophobia protects you from being viewed as homosexual.
As a last thought, to anyone that also wants to promote general LGBT education in Britain, this petition is for you. I'm sorry this post is so UK-centric, but it's difficult to find petitions for other nations that would actually be taken seriously.
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