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by vladTheInhaler 1984 days ago
A big part of the confusion is that you seem to treat this like an abstract matter of philosophical debate, because frankly, you don't really have a personal stake in it. That's not meant as an insult, just a statement of fact. As a straight, white male, neither do I. But it's not reasonable to expect someone to engage in dispassionate discourse about their own safety and their right to be treated like a human being. It's easy to forget because of how rapid and sweeping the change in public opinion was in the US, but in many other countries (and quite a few places in this one) LGBTQ rights are still a matter of life and death.

And this is the problem with so many debates - the people who are largely comfortable with the status quo are confused because people in marginalized groups are screaming at them, when they didn't really do anything to those people. In fact they may, in some abstract way, be supportive of their struggle. But the people are screaming because a third party has a gun (literally or figuratively) to their heads. So in order for there to be a real conversation, first we need to get that guy to put the gun down. Nothing else can happen until then.