You might be watching the news these days and it doesn’t look so great. But have you ever thought about how each of those stories or issues affect our community? Since it’s the job of those in LGBT media to look at the issues and see how they relate to our community, let’s take a deep dive into some of them. These are in no particular order.
Afghanistan is in a particularly sad state. As the Taliban take control of that country, the LGBT community is underground and on the run. We have already heard that the Taliban are literally hunting for LGBT people. There are reported rapes, beatings and jailing. There are efforts by brave people attempting to help members of our community escape.
Biden’s big multi-trillion dollar infrastructure package is another big issue. That legislation not only will fix bridges, airports, and roads, but it will also build a society that will care for our children, build LGBT friendly housing, assist LGBT medical clinics and HIV/AIDS programs, help historically ignored LGBT youth in danger, and assist a host of programs that help our community in new ways.
Another LGBT issue is the immigration situation at the Texas border. The mainstream usually shows pictures of people running from poverty and drug violence and natural disasters. But there’s another group of people attempting to escape: those from the LGBT community who are threatened with violence or death simply because they are LGBT.
Covid-19: there are many reasons that have been listed on why some LGBT people don’t go for the vaccine. It’s similar to the Black community: we don’t trust a medical community who continue to stigmatize us by refusing to allow us to donate blood, or a simpler reason, many in the closet don’t seek medical attention since they do not want their family doctor or others to discover they are LGBT.
These are historic times, and the Biden Administration is being inclusive of our community as it deals with the issues I described above and even more. We should use all our efforts to help them.