A Queer Kid Survival Guide: to the haters
A message to the people who do not understand us, or, perhaps, refuse to try.
Being a student, you hear things, in corridors, in classrooms, on Facebook and on Snapchat. Too often you hear the blatant disregard for the feelings of others. You hear ignorance and an unwillingness to learn. Sadly, this ignorance and this ill will is directed at us, the LGBTQ+ community.
So, here’s a lesson for you.
We are not wrong. We are not defective or doing this for kicks. We are not attention seekers. We have existed before the rise of social media and ‘social justice’.
There is clear evidence of gay, trans and nonbinary people’s existence as far back as history has been documented. Ancient cultures that survive today, such as those of Native Americans and Aboriginal Australians, recognise the existence of more than two genders. There is evidence of gay people on the walls of Ancient Egyptian tombs, and in the poetry of the Ancient Greeks. We are not some new concept, not something to be critiqued and claimed as some new fad. We are real and we are human, and we deserve your respect.
Transphobia and homophobia are not acceptable, nor are they something to base your humour on, under the guise of it being ‘just a joke’. To joke that ‘there are only two genders’ and that ‘bisexuals are just greedy’ is to normalise extremely damaging attitudes - the very ones that have created a western society which fosters the mistreatment, attack and violent murder of LGBTQ+ people. That’s a fact. If you say something enough, even if it’s in jest, something about that statement becomes true, it becomes ‘funny’ and it trivialises the issue in its entirety. Trivialisation leads to disrespect. Disrespect leads to hate, and that hatred puts us, the Queer community, in danger.
I’ve heard people claim that we live in a society where these problems of homophobia and transphobia do not exist; that it’s fine to joke, because gay people aren’t really oppressed anymore, are they?
With that, I ask you to turn your eyes to the Chechen region of Russia, where gay people are being sent to concentration camps. Where they are tortured and killed for their sexuality.
Where we are reminded, as queer people, that there are those who want us to die, who claim that these crimes against humanity are not taking place because, and I quote ‘[gay] people do not exist’- Chechen Leader Ramzan Kadyrov.
These are people who are replicating the work of the Nazi Regime for a minority that Hitler was not able to destroy.
If you use homophobic and transphobic language, you are aligning yourself with them, with their ideologies and their beliefs- that being LGBT is wrong, and that we as humans do not deserve humane treatment.
Your words are more than just words. They are a message to us about who you are, and which side of morality you lean on.
Louis King-Cox. Year 13.
So, here’s a lesson for you.
We are not wrong. We are not defective or doing this for kicks. We are not attention seekers. We have existed before the rise of social media and ‘social justice’.
There is clear evidence of gay, trans and nonbinary people’s existence as far back as history has been documented. Ancient cultures that survive today, such as those of Native Americans and Aboriginal Australians, recognise the existence of more than two genders. There is evidence of gay people on the walls of Ancient Egyptian tombs, and in the poetry of the Ancient Greeks. We are not some new concept, not something to be critiqued and claimed as some new fad. We are real and we are human, and we deserve your respect.
Transphobia and homophobia are not acceptable, nor are they something to base your humour on, under the guise of it being ‘just a joke’. To joke that ‘there are only two genders’ and that ‘bisexuals are just greedy’ is to normalise extremely damaging attitudes - the very ones that have created a western society which fosters the mistreatment, attack and violent murder of LGBTQ+ people. That’s a fact. If you say something enough, even if it’s in jest, something about that statement becomes true, it becomes ‘funny’ and it trivialises the issue in its entirety. Trivialisation leads to disrespect. Disrespect leads to hate, and that hatred puts us, the Queer community, in danger.
I’ve heard people claim that we live in a society where these problems of homophobia and transphobia do not exist; that it’s fine to joke, because gay people aren’t really oppressed anymore, are they?
With that, I ask you to turn your eyes to the Chechen region of Russia, where gay people are being sent to concentration camps. Where they are tortured and killed for their sexuality.
Where we are reminded, as queer people, that there are those who want us to die, who claim that these crimes against humanity are not taking place because, and I quote ‘[gay] people do not exist’- Chechen Leader Ramzan Kadyrov.
These are people who are replicating the work of the Nazi Regime for a minority that Hitler was not able to destroy.
If you use homophobic and transphobic language, you are aligning yourself with them, with their ideologies and their beliefs- that being LGBT is wrong, and that we as humans do not deserve humane treatment.
Your words are more than just words. They are a message to us about who you are, and which side of morality you lean on.
Louis King-Cox. Year 13.