mariezer said:Â
Growing support (be it minimal or massive) is exactly what changes homophobesâ minds - Iâd rather a bunch of people (even passively!) support LGBT rights by changing their icons than ignoring the entire conversation.
Homophobes aren't the ones whose minds are being changed-- yes, you do hear the occasional story about a person renouncing his or her previous beliefs, but for the most part, people against gay marriage intend to stay that way.
The reason the support for gay marriage has skyrocketed so drastically in the last decade is that people who are neutral on the subject assume everyone else supports it from incessant media exposure (especially the influx of celebrity coming-out stories)
These people aren't necessarily homophobes-- they don't care about gay rights one way or another. They just go along with the acceptable thing to do at the time, which at the moment is supporting gay marriage. This is generally good for gay marriage supporters.
The problem, however, comes in when these neutrals (and even a lot of supporters) focus on gay marriage and only gay marriage. The HRC (Human Rights Campaign), if you're unfamiliar, has had a long history of trans discrimination, even while claiming to want equality for everyone.
While it is necessary to make compromises with society to boost acceptance, the exclusion of trans people from their campaigns (about you know, trying to illegalize harassment) simply advocates the idea that there's something wrong with trans people. This is problematic for a number of reasons: One, it still enables society to view the current gender binary as superior (which, in turn, leads to a variety of other sexist/patriarchal/gender role issues that I don't have time to get into here); two, it tells society that it's okay to treat trans people like they're not people, or to send them away to get "fixed." This is the opposite of human rights. Treating people like second-class citizens for their identities is, and never will be, right.
To blindly follow societal virtues is idiotic at best, destructive at worst. If you truly want to make a difference, you can sign one of the hundreds of online petitions (that the government could actually see) that are out there. Simply changing your icon does nothing, because, as previously mentioned, the number of gay marriage "supporters" are, for the most part, neutral. Their reasons for gay marriage support vary from social acceptance to "several million people can't be wrong." They're not going to go out of their way to sign a petition if no one else is there to see them do it or they don't even know it exists (this is why most petitions have that handy 'share' button, by the way). The fight for equality has been, and will likely continue to be, driven by the intense supporters; changing your icon is fine, but to change government policy is a job for those who actively tell the government that's what the country wants.
