It 100% isn’t and I’d like to personally give a throat punch to every asshole who tries to convince you, any straight person, or any birth-to-death binary-gendered person that they should somehow like themselves less or not be comfortable or accepting of who they are from birth by nature. That is the absolute inverse of the Pride movement and attitude.
Unfortunately, some people in the LGBT+ community (mostly really ignorant, overexcited middle school, high school, and early college students) take pride and confidence in their identity and activism well past the necessary point of self-support that provides comfort, confidence, and a sense of equality and community. They instead choose to crank it up to a level of narcissism and discrimination against straight and binary gender conforming people, overdosing on pride and identification solidarity to the degree of spiteful tribalism.
And I’ll let you in on a secret: when they do this, it’s not about Their Community vs. Society, no matter how much they scream about how they’re a crusader and fighting an unjust society that NEEDS to be screamed at… it’s really about them vs. other people in a tug-of-war for their own ego.
LGBT+ people who are comfortable with themselves and genuinely good, mentally sound people don’t feel a need to publicly and frequently condemn others for who they are, especially because they know how it feels to be the condemned.
This isn’t so much a community symptom as it is a problem of extremely loud, attention-inducing individuals who have a lot of personal issues holding onto hate, defensiveness, deep insecurity, and resentment for prior wounding by the general populace. Instead of working through what’s happened to them and growing as a person because of what they’ve been through, they retract into negative mentalities and use their unique identity markers as weapons and armor, then group up to bolster each others’ unhealthy mental and behavioral attitudes. These people, who seriously need to see a therapist and work on their issues, decide to be overly vocal on behalf of their communities as a way of exerting their aggression and giving their bad impulses room to act. Their community, essentially, is the scapegoat for their own angry, vengeful behavior and attitudes, and we do see a lot of that today.
Mostly online.
On social media websites.
Like Tumblr.
(And, let’s face it, YouTube comments sections. You want to see a gang-up of negative people taking out their anger on people who don’t deserve it and showing their true colors? Look at a comments section.)
And yet, discrimination against people for their sexual orientation and gender identity or lack thereof is what LGBT+ people have been fighting against from the beginning… so why take the ill of society that hurt you after finally making yourself free of it and then use it on others when you know how awful that is? Why push past the point of acceptance and equality and strive instead for a pedestal from which to throw rocks at people who used to stand above you when you knew they were wrong for it? When we turn 18, do we automatically gain exemption from the lesson our parents taught us about how two wrongs don’t make a right?
Usually, the only kind of person who would do this is the type who would exhibit elitist and tribalist behavior in any community–the root of their behavior and attitude lies in the individual’s psychological and emotional issues, not in the community or whatever identity aspect brought that person to the community.
The apple tree is not to blame for rotten apples, the individual apples that went bad are atrocious and an affront to the entire tree. But you spot enough rotten, nasty apples hanging from any healthy tree, and it’s enough to turn you away from looking at its branches, right?
The behavior of rotten apples isn’t right, it’s not okay, and it’s sad to say this happens to literally every group; every community, everywhere, at some point breeds a crazy offshoot of extreme people who damage the community and its perception by others due to their overzealous and even hypocritical actions, scapegoating their peers and the causes upheld to get away with their own vengeful, ignorant, and selfish impulses.
LGBT+ pride isn’t about being “special” or “better than straight”–it’s about knowing that, maybe in a few years, you really can walk around the mall holding hands with your boyfriend and not be afraid someone is going to insult you two or make you anticipate a confrontation, and that if you’re, say, a transgirl shopping in a female clothing store, you get the same smile and service from the women behind the counter and buy feminine clothing without a second of doubt or fear.
That’s all we want. That’s all the community wants–to simply live equally, unafraid, and know that we aren’t going to be hated or attacked for our benign differences when we didn’t even choose our nature. People just want to live and be free to exist as themselves without causing pain or having pain caused to them. Vocal LGBT+ people who make straight or gender conforming people feel like enemies or criminals make that dream harder to obtain.
Equality, safety, and pride to the point of knowing you are seen to be just as human, capable, and respectable as everyone is at birth, no matter their race, birthplace, gender, sexual orientation, creed, and manner of dressing is what pride is about. Equal grounds, not eye-for-an-eye vengeance, especially in such a hypocritical manner.
TL;DR – Tribalism is a negative human trait that finds a way to infect every community, from social equality groups to cartoon fandoms. This is usually caused by people within the community who have psychological issues scapegoating the community and its movements to exhibit selfish, unhealthy behavior.
Sheesh I wrote a whole lot.
Mégane à trois 