Looking back, the overall increase in LGBTQ hate has been measurably escalating since 2016.
2016 is when the tide sharply began to turn against many minority groups in America.
The hate of LGBQ people arises in large part from fear of “The Other,” people who are different in a way that seems important, often for odd and irrational reasons. However, the increase in hate of Trans people is more virulent, and it results from even greater ignorance than the ignorance triggering much of the hate of LGBQ people.
Literally, I have never read or heard any anti-Trans comment(s) that did not include blatant ignorance of truth or fact.
My second point relates to the extraordinary surge of LGBTQ hate and legislation in the US during the last year.
During the first half of 2023, US legislators created more than 500 anti L, or G, or B, or T, or Q bills in more than 40 states. More than 500 bills.
This represents an explosion of legislation on a single topic area, at a speed and quantity we have never seen before. We have NEVER had more than 500 bills proposed on a single topic, much less 500+ bills all intended to harm, remove equal rights of, control, or try to make invisible one of the smallest small minority segments of American society.
Why? I have a hunch. The organizations of people who create these bills send the drafts from from state to state, so a bill in one state becomes a model for a similar bill in another state. That is part of how these bills propagated so quickly.
But that doesn’t explain the reason why the perceived need for such legislation has exploded in less than the last year.
My theory to explain that: The most LGBTQ-hating segment of society has been focusing on its first priority for decades: “getting SCOTUS to make abortion illegal by overturning Roe v Wade.”
In June 2022 that group achieved that goal.
Checking off the “SCOTUS overturns Roe” goal moved “normalizing LGBTQ hate and taking legal action against LGBTQ people” into the number-one priority position.
Looking ahead, 2024 is going to be one of the most consequential years in American history.