Why People Don't Listen to Silence

IDAHOBIT involves a minute of noise rather than silence (S)

IDAHO (also known as IDAHAT and IDAHOBIT) is the International Day Against Homophobia. It is set on May 17th every year, and its main aim is to raise awareness of bigotry that is often experienced by QUILTBAG people all around the globe. May 17th was the date that the World Health Organisation declassified homosexuality as a disease.

After raising awareness, the objective is to open a dialogue with the media and government, as well as the general public. Organisations in over seventy countries now include IDAHOBIT (that's the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia) in their yearly activism plans. Considering over eighty countries still criminalise homosexuality, and almost all countries have transphobic laws that limit the freedom of people on the trans* spectrum to identify as anything other than their assigned gender, there's no question that IDAHOBIT needs to involve a lot more people on the QUILTBAG spectrum - and more allies. 

In Sheffield, where I currently am, there are organised IDAHOBIT celebrations in the centre of the city. These include a minute of noise - a concept that occasionally is met with confusion and the question "isn't that meant to be a minute of silence?" 

My answer is the answer that someone once gave me when I asked that question - a minute of silence is something reserved for an event where everyone (or at least a significant number of people) wishes to take a minute to remember some historical significant event.

In the case of QUILTBAG history, however, it is not so easy to justify a minute of silence. Yes, there were many terrible acts committed against QUILTBAG people in history, definitely more than could be remembered in a single minute of silence. The difference between a minute of silence and a minute of noise comes from the fact that there are still terrible acts being committed against QUILTBAG people - the minute of noise comes from the fact that, every day in many different countries, people are attacked and the crime goes unreported, or is not classed as a hate crime, or is otherwise not fairly treated. It comes from the fact that, while LGBT teens make up under ten percent of the total teenage population, the percentage of homeless LGBT youth is over forty percent of the total number of homeless young people in certain countries. It comes from the fact that Moscow banned Pride marches for a hundred years, from a national British newspaper hounding a transwoman until she committed suicide, from the way that French protesters threw petrol bombs at police in protest to the newly passed marriage equality bill, from the Westboro Baptist Church from the United States claiming that the US' "tolerance of homosexuality" is the reason for all disasters in the country, from such terrible things as the murder of LGBT activists to such comparatively trivial events as people saying "I completely support gay people, but I don't think they should have marriage." 

The minute of noise comes from the fact that these things happen, right now, in every country on earth, but every single time I mention them to supposed allies I hear "oh, but that doesn't happen here", or "I thought that kind of thing didn't happen nowadays", or "it's not that bad, you're exaggerating", or even (and I'm not sure how they make this logic work in their heads) "this sort of thing happens to straight people too". 

That's the root of the minute of noise, that's the reason QUILTBAG people need to shout rather than keep quiet - because people seemingly just don't know the issues are still very much in the forefront of society, and because the minute of silence only works if people are listening. 

And I have occasionally read or been told that "gays are looking for preferential treatment" or "you personally have it pretty good, so I'm going to assume all LGBT people have similar circumstances", and considering that homosexuality was only removed from the WHO's International Classification of Diseases twenty three years ago today there have been some incredibly fast changes to policies and opinions, but I still don't think it's enough. Call me selfish, but until all forms of bigotry (both direct and indirect, both major and trivial) are gone then I will be as loud as I can be. 

Giving QUILTBAG people the same basic rights as heterosexual cisgender people is obvious, and asking everyone to not use casually homophobic language (whether it's intentionally homophobic or not) is just politeness. Why should we settle for anything less than equality? Why does any marginalised group have to be told by a government, the population, or an individual: "well, you've got a few rights now, so that's enough. What's that, you want equal rights? Now you're just asking us to treat you better than everyone else, and that's not fair". (For those of you who are particularly thick skinned and also believe this is never said, I invite you to read this blog post and also almost any article on Conservapedia, such as this one for example).

Gosh, look at us QUILTBAG people, by asking for special treatment. What kind of horrible people would disagree with giving certain parts of the population equal rights purely because of their orientation? Think about it...