Every member of the LGBT+ community has been fighting against the discrimination flung at them since day one. You might be asking yourself, "Gay marriage was legalized in the US, so are they still oppressed?" According to the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association, 72 countries have anti-LGBT laws and in 12, queerness is punishable by death. On June 12, 2016, 49 people were killed in Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. On August 12, 2016, trans rights activist, Hande Kader, was raped then burned to death. In a MIC article written by Sarah Harvard, it was said that Kader wanted to bring awareness to discrimination against the LGBT+ community in Turkey.
The answer is yes. So how come LGBT characters such
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Walter Thompson Innovation Group, only 48% percent of the teens asked to identify on the Kinsey scale identified as heterosexual. This means that the majority of teens are same gender attracted. They need to be educated on how they are being or will be treated because of homophobia, and what better way to do so than to be represented in TV shows and books? Even if they are the ones who are part of the LGBT+ community and have probably experienced homophobia first hand, it is still important to prepare them for the cruelty that will eventually come at them. They need to be the ones to adjust. After all, being cisgender and heterosexual is the "default setting."
First, this might scare them, especially the ones who aren 't out of the closet. This is a good thing, especially for the people around them. If they don 't come out, who will know that they aren 't straight? Who will mistreat them? If a closeted person were to be mistreated, it surely wouldn 't be because of their sexuality. Cishets are uncomfortable with the LGBT community because they can 't understand them. I 'm not trying to justify their abuse, but if some of the queer people just stayed in the closet, cishets would be able to treat them like normal