Acceptance is not Enough

Hello, everyone!

With everything going on in the world today, I wanted to stress to you all that the fight for acceptance is far from over. Now more than ever, black LGBTQ people, and the Black Community as a whole, need support from those both inside and outside of the LGBTQ+ Community.

The Pew Research Center recently posted an article titled"The Global Divide on Homosexuality Persists", but stresses that trends are showing as positive. This means that the world is becoming more accepting of the LGBT Community, but we are not there yet.

The below photo from their article shows the percentage of individuals in different parts of the world who believe that homosexuality should be accepted.

Jacob Poushter and Nicholas Kent of the Pew Research Center state in the article that levels of acceptance are often based on qualities such as age, education level, income, gender, and political ideology.

"In many nations, there has been an increasing acceptance of homosexuality, including in the United States, where 72% say it should be accepted, compared with just 49% as recently as 2007." ~Pew Research Center

Despite the trend toward acceptance, we have a very long way to go. After all, 72% in America means there is still 28% of the country that does not accept homosexuality, and that is a lot. This specific statistic also does not take into account the acceptance rates regarding transgender, bisexual, asexual, etc. persons.

Acceptance, however, is also not enough. Equity and Human Rights are still required.

As I said before, black LGBTQ+ people need our support. Tiq Milan wrote this on the NBC News website:

"We also have to be vulnerable enough to confront the ways in which transphobia within Black community sets the stage for violence and trauma. Too often transgender people have been silenced when it comes to conversations about our lived experience with state-sanctioned violence, policing and racism. The time to approach social justice in broader, more honest, terms is now."

While I am so glad about the positive trends toward acceptance, I am saddened still and I know times are still very hard for so many people. The LGBTQ+ Community needs to support each other, take care of each other, and fight for each other. I know that recent events can be horrifying, scary, and hard on your mental health, but please know that you are not alone during these times.

Stand up for each other, stick together, and take care of yourself and others. We won't be accepted until we are all accepted individually, no matter what the trends say. And I am hopeful that we will reach that point someday!