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It is time to challenge the rise in anti-LGBTQ+ bias amongst the younger generations around the worldChris Tompkins is an LGBTQ-affirming therapist and author of Raising LGBTQ Allies: A Parent’s Guide to Changing the Messages from the Playground
On June 28, 2019, we celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, which are considered a catalyst for the modern LGBTQ+ movement in the United States and around the world. While 50 years is a long time, it’s also not a very long time.
An article Time Magazine published three days before the 50th anniversary, “Young Americans Are Increasingly ‘Uncomfortable’ with LGBTQ+ Community, GLAAD Study Shows,” highlighted how legal equality is not the same as social acceptance.
Rich Ferraro, GLAAD’s chief communications officer, told Time, “Acceptance cannot be legislated.” GLAAD, an LGBTQ+ media advocacy organization, has taken a survey for the past five years called the Accelerating Acceptance Index. The survey reports the average American’s beliefs toward LGBTQ+ people and tracks how they shift.
The Time article reported that GLAAD’s fifth annual survey results showed a sharp drop in acceptance among Americans, specifically among millennials and Gen Z.
In 2023, there have been more than 725 anti-LGBTQ+ bills introduced in state legislatures across the U.S. Many LGBTQ+ advocacy and legal organizations are calling it a “Secularism Attack” with more than 75 bills getting passed in over 20 states this year alone.
The anti-LGBTQ+ bills address everything from healthcare and civil rights to free speech and education. Many of the bills, such as the “Don’t Say Gay” law that was passed in Florida, are being copied and expanded among other states.
The political climate in the United States and across the globe is swinging toward more conservatism. For example, I recently heard an interview on the radio about how the younger generation in Japan is becoming more conservative than their parents.
There is much talk about the rise in conservatism among millennials and Gen Zs. In an article, “Generation Z and the Rise of Conservatism,” author Laura Reiff refers to it as “counterculture dynamic in action.” A sort of cultural pendulum swinging back.
Reiff says, “Sure, if you’re 10 years old, you don’t really know what’s going on. But you can intuit a tenseness and a fear. If you’re 10, you can still pick up on the notion of adult fear and that leaves a fairly penetrating, indelible mark.”
While the LGBTQ+ community has made tremendous progress, there’s still deeper healing work for us to do around the effects of external homophobia and transphobia unconsciously seared into our psyches. Most LGBTQ+ youth, even when they have affirming parents, aren’t aware of what it’s like to grow up with an inner sense of self-acceptance for who they are as a queer person.
I’ve met many parents who resist acknowledging their own anti-LGBTQ+ bias. They think that if they do, it means they’re a bad parent. It’s important for us to hold in our hearts two truths: we’ve made tremendous progress, and there’s still work to do. Acknowledging our own queerphobia, or misguided beliefs about LGBTQ+ people, is the very answer to healing it.
At a recent educational event I attended, a parent in the audience raised their hand and asked me, “What does LGBTQ+ equality look like for you?”
I told her, “LGBTQ+ equality is when we not only have the same rights, but we’re seen as deserving and worthy of the same rights. It’s when we can celebrate the lives of LGBTQ+ youth.”
It’s said that in nature, “the antidote grows next to the poison.” Challenging outdated paradigms and questioning our beliefs is what will help us prevent queerphobia. It will also help us raise allies and change the narrative the next generation will tell.
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