You know it really sucks when another member of the lgbtq+ community defends and stands with racist, homophobic, and transphobic people like Donald Trump and Charlie Kirk. Because it then gives the white straight people an excuse to go "Well these few gay people like them and say they aren't homophobic". The key word there is few. There will always be outliers in every community, but when the vast majority of people are telling you that the words and actions of these men are hateful and violent, I urge you to listen to them. To at least take a step back and go "Huh, maybe my perception of these men is wrong". Especially when it's someone that you personally know and claim to care about, telling you that these men were not good people.
This goes double for the members of the community who don't acknowledge or wish to protect the lives of trans people. And if you are one of those people who say or think that it should be "lgb" and not lgbtq+, then you need to look at the history of our community and the values we all actually have.
That being said, I want to make it abundently clear. I wish no hate or ill will on people like this. It is just so incredibly disheartening to see.
I was thinking about this a little more last night, and I think I came up with a pretty good analogy for this.
If you put your hand into a fire, it will be painful and burn your hand. However if someone with Channelopathy-associated congenital insensitivity (the inability to feel pain) puts their hand into a fire, they will tell you that it is not painful. This does not take away from the fact that it is still burning their hand and causing damage. While there are different variations within the CIP umbrella, overall it's a very rare disorder that affects about one in one million of people worldwide.
Now logically, if you had never stuck your hand in a fire and someone with CIP told you the fire was not painful, you still wouldn't put your own hand in due to the vast majority of people telling you that it is indeed painful.
So why then, when the vast majority of people are telling you that the rhetoric of these two men is hateful and violent, do you only listen to the outliers?
