June 1st marks the beginning of Pride month for the LGBT+ community. It is a time of happiness, acceptance, joy, and well… pride. The pride parade was originally a movement meant to commemorate the Stonewall riots, a set of riots that started on June 28, 1969 when New York police raided the Stonewall Inn, a LGBT+ club, and started forcibly removing people off the premises. This triggered a riot that continued for the rest of the week after that. This set of riots still remains as one of the first major historic events regarding the LGBT+ community.
It’s been almost forty-seven years since then and it’s fair to say that the LGBT+ community has been able make great advances since then. Advancements such as legal marriage between same-sex couples in the U.S., same-sex couple adoption, etc. All of these have been small trophies obtained during the great fight for equality that has been raging on even before 1969. So, with such great opportunities… What more could they possibly want?
It’s the question that has been flying out of conservatives and religious fanatics everywhere. Every single time this enormous minority faces a small step towards their goal of achieving equality, a tsunami height ripple effect is triggered everywhere. Because “they can get married now, what else do they want?” and “If they can ruin the sanctity of marriage, then why should they be allowed to “ruin something else”. It’s both sad and infuriating. At some point in history, the greater part of humanity was brainwashed into considering that not everyone was deserving of the same rights. Those in power deemed themselves more worthy of basic rights such as marriage, love, respect, and dignity. Because to them, the fact that they outnumbered those different minorities, made them deserving, worthy, perfect even. Thus forgetting in the process that we are an entire race. We are one. All parts and groups deserving of the same rights, not one group more deserving than the other.
These hateful ideals slowly seeped into our own cores. Showing and growing exponentially today through the use of media. Trends such as #BuryYourGays, #GaysBreakTheInternet, #LoveIsLove, and #WeDeserveBetter have been running around the internet serving as an outcry from the community. Serving as a statement to remind the world that we are here and aren’t going anywhere because we are worthy of equality.
Those in power only respond and feed into the frenzy with remarks such as “you don’t have to be in everything” and “You just want to feed us your lifestyles”. As though this were a lifestyle and not nature. As though the LGBT+ community actively chooses to be beaten down, abused, and ridiculed. Claiming in the process that “times have changed” and that all the community wants to achieve is “superiority over them”, but turning the blind eye to the glaring evidence that states otherwise.
Evidence such as the fact that nearly 50% of the LGBT+ youth is homeless solely because of their sexuality and gender identity, nearly a fifth of the student population is physically assaulted because of their sexual orientation and over a tenth because of their sexual expression. The LGBT+ youth lives in constant fear of being themselves because they might get beaten, or worse, murdered for it. Yet the world proceeds to turn a blind-eye towards all this hate because those in power have given said community an inch of what they deserve. An inch of basic human rights.
Stop trying to feed us the idea that we are all equal now; that we’re somehow on the same level because we can get married. Because it’s wrong. Millions of same-sex couples can’t get married. Millions of people are persecuted and legally killed because of their sexuality, their orientation, and their gender identity. To rephrase the previous statement: Millions are legally murdered because of who they are.
What more could we possibly want? What more could we possibly need? Instead of shooting us down with your dripping-in-privilege speeches, drunk-on-power attitudes, and actual bullets… how about taking a step back, considering the current situation we are facing and actually letting us live for a change?
Here are ways to help and support the victims of the Orlando Pulse Mass Shooting:
donate to this campaign to help cover the victim’s expenses: https://www.gofundme.com/2942a444
To find a donation center or Big Red Bus near you: https://www.oneblood.org/
Ban civilian access to AR-15 : https://petitions.whitehouse.gov//petition/ban-ar-15-civilian-ownership
contact your elected representative about Gun Control: https://medium.com/@nicolesilverberg/it-s-on-us-too-an-easy-guide-to-contacting-your-elected-representatives-about-gun-control-2e2d8eb20e3f#.s1ouevu3x
Tweet your Congressperson: http://everytown.org/tweet-at-congress/?source=etno_ETActPage&utm_source=et_n_&utm_medium=_o&utm_campaign=ETActPage
The Trevor Project is always available 24/7 at : 866-488-7386 or find resources at TheTrevorProject.org
We need your support. Any sort of donation or action helps.
