The celebrations for "Pride Month" began on 1 June, ie the month in which the LGBTQ + community celebrates pride in their sexual orientation.
The story of Pride Month begins in the 1960s in the United States. On the night between 27 and 28 June 1969 a group of policemen broke into the Stonewall Inn in New York, a Greenwich Village meeting point for the homosexual community of the Big Apple.
It wasn't the first time this happened.
In those days, in fact, the raids of the police in gay clubs were frequent. People were beaten, threatened and arrested solely for being homosexual or for being part of a community that society did not want to recognize. However, the day after that raid, the homosexual and LGBTQ + community of New York decided to stop watching and hundreds of people - about 500 protesters - took to the streets starting from the Stonewall Inn, starting the first LGBTQ + march. The slogan used was clear: “Say it clear, say it loud. Gay is good, gay is proud ".
53 years have passed since then ... so many things have changed and so much progress has been made. But the LGBTQ + community is still far from being respected.
Our society, especially the most bigoted and obtuse one, insists on repressing the homosexual orientation, despite being an absolutely normal aspect of human nature. It has been historically demonstrated that homosexuality has been present in the human species since ancient times, moreover very widespread in several cultures and also seen as an improvement for society. Unfortunately, someone wanted to emphasize its "negativity", thus giving rise to the plague called Homophobia.
But what negativity?
We are talking about people who are attracted to individuals of the same sex, not criminals who sell drugs or who kidnap children.
Being gay or lesbian or whatever you feel like you are is in no way a mistake, a phase or a disease. It's just a different kind of attraction, that's all.
The social attitude towards homosexual behaviors has experienced moments of relative tolerance, during which society admitted a certain degree of discussion and public display of the theme, alternating them, however, with moments of very harsh repression, as in the Italy of the fourteenth century, or in the ' Europe of the Protestant Reformation and Catholic Counter-Reformation or in the period at the turn of the Second World War, during which several tens of thousands of people lost their lives.
For those people who realize they are gay, "coming out" is not an easy step.
Having arrived at the realization of emerging as a person open to relationships with people of the same sex it can be an Epiphany, but at the same time a problem to confide it to other people, for example family, friends and / or colleagues for fear of their possible negative reactions. More than natural, since many individuals decide to disinherit or deny their children, rather than accepting them for who they are.
In Italy, as in the rest of the more developed nations, people often come out during high school or university. At these ages, they do not see the need for help when their orientation is not accepted in their society, resulting in risks of violence or bullying as they reveal themselves. Unfortunately, the news has often shown us this reality.
On the other hand, on a more positive note, we have thousands of associations that are open to support the LGBTQ + community and people willing to help and support its members. The battles they are fighting are not only based on stopping the violence of homophobia, there is also talk of drafting fairer laws and ensuring that institutions give the same rights.
All citizens of the European Union have the right to be treated fairly.
76% of Europeans surveyed in 2019 agreed that gay, lesbian or bisexual people should have the same rights as heterosexual people, compared to 71% in 2015. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people can however being discriminated against in many areas of life, for example when looking for work or applying for social security benefits, at school or when they need health care. They may also be targets of hate speech and victims of violence, and may not feel safe in the workplace, school or public places.
The EU works to combat homophobia and discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity and sexual characteristics, and aims to ensure that the rights of LGBTI people are protected across the EU.
As part of its efforts to combat discrimination, in 2015 the European Commission presented a list of actions concerning, for example, education, employment, health, free movement, asylum and crime generated by hate.
To bring about change in this area, the European Union works closely with EU countries, which are responsible for promoting and enforcing the rights of LGBTI people, such as the legal recognition of same-sex couples and rules on legal recognition. *
These interventions give hope that one day we will arrive at the desired parity, but there is still a lot of work to be done and in some countries it is even tougher. In America above all, living openly as an LGBT person becomes difficult when the so-called "support groups" who want to heal them from their illness get in the way.
We are not talking about fanatics, but religious people or psychologists who work for the community and who (unfortunately) collaborate together in trying to convert homosexuals to normality by following their scientific notions or because their God denies their sinful nature. It is the most wrong thing you can hear. What makes the action of these groups even more serious and that behind the joviality of their re-education course or their sunny support summer camps, is that they do not hesitate to resort to the use of physical and psychological violence to achieve their goals. And then they say that the others are the problem.
Major professional and scientific organizations consider attempts to change sexual orientation as potentially harmful.
The Australian Psychological Society states that "Homosexual orientation is not a mental illness and there are no scientific reasons for attempting a lesbian or gay conversion to a heterosexual orientation. The Australian Psychological Society acknowledges the paucity of scientific evidence regarding it. the usefulness of conversion therapy, and subscribes that it could, in fact, be harmful to the individual. Changing a person's sexual orientation is not simply a matter of changing one's sexual behavior. emotional, romantic and sexual feelings of the person and the reconstruction of one's own conception of self and social identity. "
I conclude the article with a speech that Bill Nye has on the concept of the gender and sexual spectrum:
“One thing's clear about sexuality: there's is a lot more going on than meets the eyes.
Female or male, gay or straight, pink or blue, we were taught to see these as binary. Now we're realizing it's more like a kaleidoscope. And this stuff isn't just for adults. Parents know this already. Kids explore gender, expressions, attraction, before they've ever heard of a spectrum. Take sex. We used to think it was pretty straighforward: X and Y chromosomes for males, two Xs for females. But we see more combinations than that in real life and even for people with just two sex chromosomes, hormones can vary wildly. So can anatomy. What makes someone male or female isn't so clear-cut. What about attraction? Some people argue the natural thing is to only be attracted to the opposite sex. But in practice it ain't so simple, kids: some people are gay, some are bi, some are asexual, and some will take whatever they can get.
It's another sexy slidind scale.
When you throw in gender, it gets even more colorful.
By age 3 or 4, most kids identify with a gender and it doesn't always match the sex they were assigned at birth and a person's gender identity may change over their lifetime. And culture is getting us new ways to express all of this. How you clothes, how you act and talk, how you present yourself to the world… it should be up to you. Sure, this might make things confusing for those who insist everyone pick an M or an F… but people, we have to listen to the science. And the science says there we're all on a spectrum. Our labels, our fashion, even our washrooms are still catching up to that truth. I think you'll find, when we look at sexuality this way, it is more complicated, but it is also a lot more honest. And it's more interesting.
I learned a lot tonight.
I mean, I'm this cis-male guy who's been living in this world, but this stuff, to me, from a scientific standpoint, is just cool. Science is the process by which we understand nature, by which we understand our place in the world, how we all fit in.
And so, everyone of these insights is just so exciting to me. We, working together, can, dare i say it, save the world. "
[Bill Nye - Saves the World]
Scrivi commento