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Comment by kayodelycaon | Hacker News Reader

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This is, quite literally, the best and safest time in the history of the US to be openly LGBT. This sounds like a reddit comment. I suggest getting offline for a bit and actually spending time with other people in real life.

> This is, quite literally, the best and safest time in the history of the US to be openly LGBT.

You haven't been following legislative efforts in recent years. Safety peaked several years ago, and has been rapidly declining since then.

This is a common sentiment that misses the point. Human happiness isn't based on how good or bad things are in absolute terms, it's based on whether things are getting better or worse.

Also, there's no need to insult other users.

As a trans person, I have to disagree in the strongest terms.

It's not so great if you're a lesbian, unfortunately. Female-only dating and social spaces have been almost entirely eradicated, and women who complain about this get endlessly harassed.

You've got a good point, but HN doesn't want to hear it (demonstrating your point.)

Same-sex marriage wasn't nationally legal until 2015. How can you say that social conditions for LBGT people in America are worse in the present than in the past? Maybe if you're only looking in the past few years, but zoom out to view a few decades and it doesn't make sense. What qualifies as extreme anti-LGBT rhetoric today was very mainstream 20 years ago.

It is just a symptom of youth and social media addiction.

I forget what the stat was in 1999 but it is something absurd. Like 90% of the US was against gay marriage. In 2022, 71% were pro gay marriage.

I am gay and when someone says bullshit like this is just drives me crazy. As if a gay person in high school today can possibly relate to my experience of being gay in high school in the 90s. It is such an ignorant statement and view.

I came out online in the mid 90s and in rural MI in 2000. I also find this maddening and frankly it feels kind of like gaslighting. Corrective rape/assault and violent reactions to my sexuality were things I had to seriously consider every time I met new people/was in a new place/in a new situation. Now I generally don't have to worry that if I tell someone I'm gay they'll beat me up or try to 'fix' me. They might make comments or give me a look, but I don't have that fear of people finding out like I had growing up.

If someone was born post-AIDS (so roughly age 40 and below), they'd have gotten to see things slowly improve until 2016, when they started sliding back.

> until 2016, when they started sliding back.

I really doubt there are statistics to back this up. More likely, the number of people consuming rage-bait (drawing attention to the worst) on social media such as reddit has done up.

Without such social media, an asshole yells abuse in a store and it ruins the day of 20 people in earshot. With social media, it gets uploaded and viewed by 20,000 people.

2015 had such social media. And LGBT and related people I know talk about laws, mass media, armed protests. Not an asshole yells abuse in a store.

> armed protests

How many have you seen? How many have you 'seen' on social media?

As for laws, I really think you're missing the bigger picture. Anti-LGBT people had the law on their side a few years ago much more than today (and accordingly, they had less reason to protest.)

What’s happening to them?

I am not based in the US, so i might lack context.

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