Tuesday, December 19, in response to the announcement that the Moana creators are in thoughts to make an LGBT+ Disney princess, user @og_herbo tweeted in response to the announcement: “in no way am i homophobic , but i really think y’all are trying to force this LGBT shit in everybody lifestyle.”
https://twitter.com/og__herbo/status/943330275987279872
These comments are often made about LGBT+ people but are normally ignored on a big scale, but the difference for this comment is: it received over 70,000 retweets and 200,000 favorites. All that support for something so blatantly homophobic in 2017.
Let’s break this down.
LGBT+ people aren’t pushing their lifestyle down your throat, you’re just insecure and homophobic. It’s that simple.
Unless you (straight people) aren’t aware, LGBT+ people are real, and they are everywhere. You will work with them, go to school with them, a family member of yours could be LGBT+, so why do you constantly want to strike down their voice?
I’ve seen endless comments from queer people, talking about how they didn’t even know gay people existed until they went through puberty. When a child isn’t being taught about gay people, but are learning about war, death, racism and other atrocities, another way to learn about LGBT+ people can be through media aimed to kids with LGBT+ characters. The past year has been very good for the LGBT+ community, with wins from Moonlight, an all-black cast movie about a black gay man winning the Oscar for best picture, to the 2017 elections all over America, including trans women as winners, to countries legalizing same-sex marriage. A lesbian Disney princess would be revolutionary, teaching children that different people exist, and to celebrate that, not push it away, and would be another win for the LGBT+ community. There are 11 Disney princesses in the Disney franchise, and all of them have been (seemed to be) straight, so how is only one that doesn’t even exist yet pushing a “lifestyle” down your throat?
Straight people are scared to see LGBT+ folk in the spotlight. When straight people say these types of statements or agree with them, it’s because they have a superiority complex against LGBT+ people, thinking the LGBT+ community are inferior and not normal, because if it was normal to them, why would everyone be so defensive and anti some representation?
They’re homophobic. Maybe you haven’t even realized yet, maybe it’s internalized, but if you agree, you are putting down the LGBT+ community.
It’s disheartening and frightening to see people act so indifferent to LGBT+ folk and want to shun their voices where it matters most. Wasn’t everyone just screaming love is love? Or is that just another bandwagon? Probably. But to make this easy, queer people are real and deserve the same amount of representation straight people receive. Let LGBT+ live.
