[devenblake]

My sexuality isn't public but I can say that none of my friends have ever mentioned encounters with implicit homophobia, and that my local school administration (while not being the best) would put an end to that very quickly. However, in Maine it's ground-up: I learned about queer struggles as a kid and I learned about how to protect oneself from any sexually transmissible diseases from a teacher that didn't use gendered pronouns for either party engaging in intercourse. It's very normalized here. If I recall, the University of Maine too runs television advertisements about how accepting it is of queer students.

Implicit transphobia is still a thing (it wouldn't be unheard of for someone who's trans here to have an experience similar to yours) but fortunately that's changing too.

Note: I should add that this social progress only really applies to the city I'm in and maybe the two other big ones here. There are some rural areas that are sanctuaries (to the point of sounding like legends though they're 100% real) but most of the state geographically speaking is still as far in the past as the deep south in America.

[taurath]

It was explicit for me as late as 2004! I am still rather shocked at the progress. I’ve also noticed a huge distinction between lgbt people of different generations, gen y is practically prudish comparatively. “Sex positive” is far less of a thing it seems.

[eirini1]

I find it interesting that you mention this offhand because I've been very seriously noticing this type of prudishness in a lot of gen z and younger gen y people and its begining to manifest as old style homophobia

[devenblake]

Gen Z is weird. Most young people are very accepting of LGBT peoples but stuff is starting to turn around back to homophobia now that transphobia is Hip And Cool again (thanks J.K. Rowling[0]), because many feminists are invalidating transgender women in the name of equal rights. Transphobia breeds homophobia. I worry sometimes what will happen if young people too become trans-exclusionary feminists but thankfully it's unlikely such a thing could occur. Young people are more open-minded now and discovering they're transgender themselves.

I should add that I'm not quite sure exactly how the trend of homophobia that you speak of is hitting younger people. I haven't noticed a shift backwards in real life or on-line. If you're referring to social media homophobia you should realize that "zoomer humor" is radically different from typical humor and many kids will sound like a deranged homophobes/racists/sexists until you realize that they themselves are gay/black/female and are making jokes at their own expense. That being said, ask before assuming they are or aren't joking.

[0] - I'm not sure about the legitimacy of Slate as a publication but a brief skim of this article makes me think it hits on everything relevant in the controversy (if you don't already know about it; it's semi-common knowledge nowadays): https://slate.com/human-interest/2020/06/jk-rowling-trans-me...