“I guess it is and have voted for contraception, although I don’t think it works. I think it’s harmful to women. I think it’s harmful to our society to have a society that says that sex outside of marriage is something that should be encouraged or tolerated …, particularly among the young and it has I think we’ve seen very, very harmful long-term consequences to the society. Birth control to me enables that and I don’t think it’s a healthy thing for our country.”
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Rick Santorum
There is a lot of danger in ignorance. Lack of sex education and the spread of misinformation about HIV/AIDS causes more people to die. Promoting misguided policies like abstinence and allowing states to ban contraception ruins women's lives. This just compounds the problems I wrote about yesterday, namely that homophobia and transphobia both destroy our communities and turn families against each other and cause immense pain to anyone affected by those ills. Campaigns that actively spread homophobia and transphobia do so much more than anyone anticipates in the short term:
Their terrorism especially affected regions like mine: rural, southern regions where everyone is already inclined to feel hatred toward minorities. It is one thing to spread fear and hatred in areas that are liberal, in areas where people think about things. It's another to hurt the most vulnerable members of society in an isolated place where they can't do anything and they don't have anyone and nothing will ever change for the better. We're always written off: no need to fight there because this is just how things are in the south, and that's really too bad, but bigotry happens. So we allow these things to flourish and it hurts people. It kills people.
And it kills people near where I am. Right in my backyard. Can you imagine how that might feel to someone like me? I'm always scared here. When someone who is gay (or black, for that matter) and is killed for that reason, it is never just about them. It isn't an isolated case. They are not killed as individuals. They're tortured and killed because it sends a message to others in our community: you're not safe. Don't come out. Be afraid. Always. And, you know, it works. People are terrified.
Lives are lost and families are ruined and this is deliberate. The people organizing these campaigns to silence LGBT voices aren't getting these results accidentally. This is their purpose. When a politician gets a platform to spread hatred and that politician believes what he's saying, that person is actively trying to hurt, to silence. to terrorize LGBT people. We can't pretend that this is just politics. That it's an unfortunate byproduct. It sure works out for those politicians. They get more votes and more support because more LGBT people are terrified to come out. Why would we tell our stories to people who might kill us? Why would we tell our stories to families who might disown us? I can't even express the depths of depression I felt every time someone who was anti-gay came on TV and spouted these things openly and my mom or someone else in my family said "yes! I agree! Those fags are sick..." And yet, this is who has always received the biggest platform. We can't even seem to get news organizations to let their viewers know that the commentators they often choose as "the other side" of a political debate are members of actual designated hate groups. They have the loudest voices and the biggest platforms and they hurt us and ruin our lives.
When you're in the closet you don't learn a lot of things and no one learns much about you. How could they? How could you? It's important to just keep your head down, to stay alive when you're in that situation. A lot of the time it isn't even about what might happen when you leave your home. It's about what happens inside your home. For me, I was scared of my orientation being discovered by my conservative religious, homophobic parents. And when my mom did, she wanted to send me away, the first time I came out.
But I mostly had it easy. From the NGL Task Force:
Why do LGBT youth become homeless? In one study, 26 percent of gay teens who came out to their parents/guardians were told they must leave home; LGBT youth also leave home due to physical, sexual and emotional abuse. Homeless LGBT youth are more likely to: use drugs, participate in sex work, and attempt suicide. Also, LGBT youth report they are threatened, belittled and abused at shelters by staff as well as other residents.
Imagine some kid listening to a conservative candidate who really believes his anti-LGBT rhetoric and imagine how that kid feels when they hear their parents agreeing. If you can, you're seeing things the way I saw them. The kid was me and this is what happened to me. This is how I grew up. Scared and alone and defenseless and I'd never wish that on anyone. I would never push that sentiment any further after I experienced it.
Imagine the confusing, and imagine wanting to tell your family so badly. Wanting them to understand. Wanting them to accept you. And think of what it's like to know they never will and to know what drives them. And imagine seeing someone who made them that way receive a bigger platform. How would you feel? I feel angry. Because it's about never being able to educate. It's about never being able to explain you're a real person and you're normal and it's about knowing your family and your community will never get to be enlightened because this culture of fear is promoted.
But this is about the other things this culture of fear and terrorism and the closet, promoted by the conservative ideology that is given a huge platform, brings about well. This is about the fact that if we weren't so terrified, so stigmatized, if this were not promoted in our communities (ones which are already suffering from the plague of homophobia and transphobia) we would be better. We would die less often:
But according to Mustanski's study, published Tuesday in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, LGBT youths who have strong support from parents, other family members and friends are less likely to consider suicide if they're bullied.
"How parents respond when kids first come out sets the tone regarding what they'll continue to share later," said Mustanski, an associate professor of medical social sciences at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. "And what LGBT youth share helps parents act as a resource for their kids."
This all may sound intuitive, but the study, called Project Q2, is particularly poignant when you consider that LGBT youth are at least twice as likely as other youth to make a suicide attempt or hurt themselves in other ways.
But how they respond is often based on obvious factors like how they were raised, the environment in which they live, the things they are subjected to in their culture and daily lives. This is where it becomes a horrible idea to inject homophobia even more deeply into these types of environments. As the scientific evidence shows, hate crimes go up during antigay campaigns. I'm certain even without looking for proof that teen suicides probably increase during those times as well, because we are subjected to these ideas that are then repeated by our families and churches and people we thought were our friends. Giving a platform to increased homophobia makes these ideas even more entrenched and it turns parents against their children. I am not only speaking to the scientific evidence - I lived through this. I am telling you, human being to human being, this happens. I'm telling you that it wrecked me and that I'll do everything I can to keep it from wrecking anyone else.
And studies show that homophobia and transphobia increase the spread of HIV:
People in poorer countries and in poorer areas of the US have the worst situations in terms of HIV prevention. Usually there is so much social stigma and fear of being beaten on the streets or murdered or worse that people in poorer or rural areas often hide in the closet. Some can't even come out to family members because they often participate in the bashing. Same with cops and other law enforcement people. Even doctors and other health care professionals are guilty of this. From the report, again:
From a health systems’ perspective, MSM and transgender people may delay or avoid seeking health, STI or HIV-related information, care and services as a result of perceived homophobia, transphobia, ignorance and insensitivity. MSM and transgender people may be less inclined to disclose their sexual orientation and other health-related behaviours in health settings that may otherwise encourage discussions between the provider and patient to inform subsequent clinical decision-making. Providers are likely to feel biased when their own cultural, moral or religious leanings are incongruent with a patient’s reported sexual orientation, behaviours or gender identity. Additionally, enquiry into the level of knowledge among physicians, nurses and other health care providers on MSM and transgender-related health issues has shown that the clinical curriculum, particularly in low- and middle-income countries, do not address these knowledge gaps.
LGBTs are so scared to talk to health care providers about HIV because that could very well be yet another situation in which they are treated with disrespect and hatred. The fact that LGBTs reflexively react this way seems to me to suggest this is a form of abuse by our society. We as LGBTs have gotten so used to just staying quiet and out of the way and being forced into our little closets for the good of heteronormative society that even when presented with major health risks, nothing can make us feel safe or determined enough to confront homophobia and bigotry face to face again. We forgo information on our health just to keep ourselves safe.
Rick Santorum's views are terrorism. And terrorism is what many of us still deal with a lot of the time. The views he expresses have always been expressed by the worst people and they've affected my actual daily life since I was a child. These views scare and kill human beings.They contribute to the spread of HIV/AIDS and they keep parents from accepting their children.