Comment by BorRagnarok | Hacker News Reader

Comment by BorRagnarok | Hacker News Reader

That must be because of the over promotion of LGBT then.

Also look at this: https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/06/24/lgbtq-a...

"Young people are growing less tolerant of LGBTQ individuals, ... , a survey released Monday shows."

Because the promotion and attention seeking is everywhere, people think it's everywhere. That's why we're starting to see it backfiring now. And, lots of parents just don't want that message broadcasted to their kids all the time, at least not until they're a certain age. Parents realize the whole 'having a weewee doesn't make you a boy' story can be extremely harmful to young children. And so they teach their children to ignore those influences when they encounter them. That starts to reflect now in polls and attitudes.

I bet on the LGBT community to start fighting even harder for tolerance again though, because the activists (who do all the speaking) seem to be quite incapable of self reflection and self examination.

As a gay person I don't see that at all. My sexuality has always been a major hot button such that as a boring, tech-obsessed geek who mostly keeps to himself my presence has been a major source of gossip in my home town, at school, at the places I have worked, and in the urban neighborhoods where I have lived.

As far as I can tell this is mostly related to the psychological mechanism of Altruistic Punishment. Calling someone out on their perceived flaws generates an immediate boost in social status and provides opportunities for bonding. Whether this is the mechanism or not, it is an undeniable fact that my being gay has been a major issue for me in essentially every social context.

When I march in Pride Parades or insist on equal insurance coverage at work this is not me promoting myself or my homosexuality at all. This is me attempting defend myself from the crushing an inescapable force of homophobia in this culture. If people would stop promoting their issues with homosexuality then none of this would be necessary. I am just a person with the same issues and needs as everyone else. It is rampant homophobia that does the most to promote homosexuality as an issue and subject for discussion.

> Calling someone out on their perceived flaws generates an immediate boost in social status and provides opportunities for bonding.

The important part here is 'perceived flaws'. The whole dynamic you're pointing at is one where people will virtue-signal and pretend to be "altruistic punishers", in order to abuse/bully someone that they hate for other, concealed reasons - often, this is an inflated sense of self-worth or status that the targeted person is threatening in some way. The abuse is just as likely to involve allegations of, e.g. homophobia as homosexuality! These things are simply immaterial to the deeper facts of what's going on. Most often, others will go along with the thinly-veiled bullying simply out of habit, or as a ploy to engage in their own signaling and raise their status in the surrounding community.

Yes, it's interesting that the overestimate seems to be occurring on both sides. If more people realized just how small the whole LGBTQQetc. minority is, attitudes around these issues would be a lot more relaxed.

How does the percentage of LGBT folks change whether I should have equal rights? How does the percentage of LGBT folks change whether I could be fired because my boss hates gay people?

"more relaxed"? What does that even mean? What is uptight exactly?

> How does the percentage of LGBT folks change whether I should have equal rights?

I'm not making this argument at all, but apparently some people are; they seem to be saying that we should be extremely careful not to underestimate LGBT percentages, or they might be mistakenly regarded as "too small" of a minority to have legitimate "rights".

Which strikes me as deeply weird, given that this whole range of notions of "rights", "agency" and so on and so forth are meant to apply to the individual first and foremost; who is, by definition, the smallest and most vulnerable - and, all too often, the most heavily oppressed minority of them all!

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