We have always been exposed to certain gender signifiers regarding colors, piercings, hair length, body building and the list goes on. We tend to always assign a color to femininity and masculinity, namely pink and blue. How often you come across people gifting dolls to little boys? These created norms the society has bound us with since a very early stage seem to have made us reluctant to accept the people that we see not following them. In terms of awareness we may appear to be ascending but in terms of practical approach, we descend. While giving the LGBTQ+ community legal rights we push them forward but rise in hate crime rate push them down. Protests, rallies for dignity in society seems to uplift them but rigidity in terms of feminine and masculine plunges it down. Willingness to post about LGBTQ awareness shows open-mindedness but reluctance to allow them part of your social group proves the intolerance. Accepting everyone has freedom to express themselves in the way that they want is aflame but to be weirded out by cross dressing is shame.
Every person regardless of the fact to which religion they belong, what ideals the believe in, what choice they prefer, what section of the society they belong to and which ever gender/race/sexuality they belong to have the right to be treated human but still honor killings, prejudice, bullying, rapes, marginalization, social exclusion still prevail in our society with the ratio in rural areas being more than in urban areas, people tend to look down upon them as they are not "normal" but how can someone define normal as being normal is highly subjective. What you consider normal may not be normal to someone else and everyone should respect that but not harass them for being different. People consider being part of LGBTQ community as socially and biological unacceptable, a mental disorder ,a disease, a 'phase' that one will eventually get over but it's high time we realize that these conventional and orthodox views are long gone and that it is toxic and highly erroneous to still support them.
All of us in some ways make efforts no matter how small can help increase LGBTQ+ dignity and awareness. To stop bullying, to speak against homophobia, to not use offensive slurs against them, to educate the uneducated and try to change the boundaries of the conventional society can be of great impact. How others treat someone is who they are but how we react is who we are and we must act on what is right no matter if the majority follow the wrong. Being aware regarding the genders, pronouns and sexualities is in welfare of us as a whole. To do the least, let's accept everyone and respect them. How difficult can it be to treat people with kindness or just not to look upon them as a disgrace? Let us all give in our effort to create a society where nobody needs coming out videos to show who they are.
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