Something you may not have known about me...

So, there's something I've been wanting to tell you guys for a long, long time now. I mean, I guess I knew it all my life, but I was really to scared to tell people... So here I go now.
My eyes are hazel. Yep, I swear, it's 100% true! Don't hate please, but I just wanted to get this important detail off my chest.

READ THIS BEFORE COMMENTING ANGRILY. THIS IS NOT A DRAMA THREAD, NOR IS IT MEANT TO PROVOKE DRAMA. I MEAN, IF YOU TREAT IT AS DRAMA, FINE, WHATEVER, BUT THIS ISN'T TARGETED AT THE STAFF.

Okay, so I've been noticing a lot of coming out threads. And you know what? I'm actually very supportive of the LGBT cause. Homosexual marriage, homosexual rights, yes, these are all things that should be allowed and recognized. I am friends with homosexuals and bisexuals, and I don't care about their sexuality, only their character.
But this website as a whole sometimes acts differently towards the LGBT community. Often, they are put on a pedestal, glorified, even. And believe it or not, doing this is detrimental to the very cause that they claim they believe in.
Society works on a see-saw perspective. You start with two opposite viewpoints. Through the years, the view points will switch back and forth, just like two people riding on a see-saw. It doesn't stop at the center, because what kind of boring-ass see-saw is that? So it cycles between two views. The see-saw method is erratic and ineffective, and usually leads to problems.
In Ancient Greece, homosexuality was actually looked upon as the perfect and truest form of love. Heterosexuality was a simple necessity for childbearing, and nothing more. Millennia later, a hatred of homosexuality began to foster. Both of these viewpoints are, for obvious reasons, wrong.
It should be the goal of society to get to that middle ground of the see-saw. However, the see-saw is starting to go back into the other direction, or so I've noticed. Threads about one's sexuality suddenly become spots of interest, receiving scores of likes and bounties of attention. Now let's say I made this thread about my eye color. No one would care, right? Yeah, that's because my eye color is a random detail about me. Let's say I made a thread about how I'm a guy? No one would care, because that is, again, a random detail about me. It's a characteristic.
Sexuality is something that is (very likely so) in our genes. We're born with it. Just like eye color, hair color, and so on. It's a detail about us. And yet people glorify it, giving the LGBT community undeserved (that's right, undeserved) praise about something that they're born with. And no, LGBT people are hardly oppressed in today's society, so please don't try to argue that card. On this website, which is where these threads are made, the general opinion is overwhelmingly pro-homosexual. In other words, people shouldn't have to care about coming out threads.

People who participate in this unnecessary glorification are ruining what the LGBT community stands for: equality. The LGBT community desires equality. They fight for having equal recognition among other sexualities, a detail that is decided at birth. They fight for the cause that one day, sexuality will be unnoticed. In other words, they fight for a world where one's sexuality is as relevant as one's eye color. And this is an admirable cause, one that I too would be willing to dedicate myself towards achieving. But glorifying the LGBT community? This is not the way to do it. Martin Luther King Jr. said something that most Americans should know; "I have a dream that one day, my children will be judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." The same applies for sexuality.
Someone is not a better person because they are LGBT.
Someone is not a worse person because they are LGBT.
All that matters is how good of a person they really are.
In the end of the day, sexuality is a factor that should matter, and I'll say it again, as much as eye color. So by putting the LGBT community up on a pedestal, you are ruining the equality that they so strive for.
By the way, there's a Minecraft forum out there called "QueerCraft." It's meant for all sorts of people, not just the LGBT Mimecraft players. And you know what? No one mentions their sexuality there. It's a society that looks past sexuality, regardless of what it may be.

So please, people. Keep your sexualities off of exclusive threads. There's no reason to put them there. If you're doing it to seek praise, then you're ruining the LGBT cause. And honestly, at that point it's more so just for attention.

(An additional note: if someone is mentioning their sexuality because they need help with an IRL problem that has to do with it, or in a "What's your sexuality?" thread, then that's 100% fine. But putting a thread about your sexuality for no reason? No, that's not okay.)

 

I agree with this.

Its like, I do not care if you are gay.
I do not care if you are bi.
I do not care if you are straight.
Sexuality does not change a person, so honestly, stop treating it so.
That means even treating them nicer.
Cool, you are different. Well, I am straight so nice to meet you.

You should not degrade a person for being different, but don't glorify.

 

I completely agree, I was contemplating on making a thread regarding this, but it seems you addressed it perfectly.

 

I like your wall of text :P
But seriously, I completely agree with your views. I don't know where the topic of LGBT sprouted from on IJAH, but it really should stop, per se. I remember when I first joined, the only thing close to LGBT was being genderfluid and there was absolutely no mention of LGBT. (By genderfluid, I mean referring to people using the pronouns "they" or "them.") The reason some people claim to be bisexual or lesbian or gay might just be because these things. The desire to be desirable and likable overrides sexuality to a point where people will openly claim to be bisexual just to please the crowd. I mean, if you wanna say you're gay or bisexual, just post it as your status or put it in your info page. Someone's bound to notice and find out if people view your info page a lot. I gotta state this as my opinion, but we should move away from LGBT as a whole and towards things that made this community what it used to be.
Now that I think about it, off-topic, but this community may be on a see-saw as well, like how you homosexuality teetered from being loved to hated to loved. Oh my lord I need to work on my arguments

I didn't know your eyes are hazel :D

 

Finally, someone said it.

 

It makes sense, okay.

 

I wanted to say something like this (not exactly like this, but in the same venue) but was too afraid that my views would make me "transphobic" or "homophobic" and that I'd be shunned. I've shared how I feel with a few friends, but I never would have dared to say it in public.

Thank you, Yomc.

 

???????

 

I like how you use the same argument twice.

 

I had a feeling you would be the one to talk about this.
Anyways I completely agree with you. Literally, you stated everything possible.
Its just your sex, it really doesn't matter. You might be gay, bi, lesbian, honestly Its not like it affects your personality.
But to be honest, I think the main reason people are scared to admit the fact that they are gay or something like that is because people make such a big deal out of it just because they are different from them, which apparently makes them "weird". So I mean it takes guts to admit that in front of public/

 

I feel like the only reason people are glorifying LGBT is to combat those against it. It's basically a statement that says, "We're here, and you can't smack us down anymore." Remember that until ~1-2 months ago, the whole LGBT community was legally allowed to be pushed down and told "You can't be together". But now that no one can legally tell them that, and it gives them hope, and the feeling that someone is actually listening to them.

So, yeah. It's repetitive. It's annoying, and kinda stupid that these threads keep popping up, but as far as I can tell: This is the LGBT community making a statement, and we should respect it, just as we would respect someone for for being a blonde, Arab, or having hazel eyes.

 

I agree that people might be scared to admit it, which is why we must strive towards a world of equality. We must strive towards a world where my sexuality is as important as my eye color and where "straight" and "gay" don't determine how a person is viewed.
I agree that in real life, going out there and saying "hey, I'm gay" is actually really hard. There's still a lot of discrimination out there, and that's a bad thing.
However, we also need to establish that glorification is not the way to do it :3
I don't deny that the LGBT community has undergone mass discrimination, but glorification is not the answer. One cannot fix a mistake with another one, after all.
(Also, you guessed it was me? Do I really make threads like this so often? :p )

 

It's not glorification.
Hetero pride is representation in the media, assuming someone's sexuality until they say otherwards, as being straight or how they identify as cis. Like @Perceisha said, until a few months ago, it was illegal to marry someone you truly love, because of the simple fact they were the same gender. That's what makes it different than your eye color because eye color is genetic, and you don't have to worry about receiving hate due to the color of your eye. You don't have to worry about being kicked out of your own home and disowned by your family and friends because of the color of your eye. Some people have died because they are gay or trans or whatnot. Not because of their eye color. Being in the LGBTQ+ community doesn't define you as a person though, it is one of your many characteristics, but the thing was, society shamed, and some still do shame a person regardless of who that person was due to their gender or sexuality if it wasn't the 'normal' cishet identity.

In my opinion, I'd rather have people be able to come out and embrace and be proud of something about them rather than them being scared, and even ashamed of themselves and hating themselves for their sexuality.

Also, some of the people above said others 'claim' or 'fake' their sexuality. No. Stop. Invalidating. A. Person's. Identity. Is it really that hard to believe and accept that someone isn't straight or isn't cisgendered??

Edit: About hetero/cis representation, the majority of a cast in a show normally are hetero characters. Sticking a gay white male in one out of 100 characters and then dressing him 'gay' and enforcing gay stereotypes is not representation.

 

Alright, here's what I have to say for this, paraphrasing your rhetoric.

1. These threads are annoying and unnecessary; they are used to grab attention and gain likes. Agreed. We as a community already respect LGBTQ+, so there's no need to make a big stink about it.
2. People don't need to glorify the threads. Partial agreement. Right, we don't need to glorify someone for being LGBTQ+, but if you read between the lines of the responses to these threads, you will notice that people like and respond to the threads with praise for the person's COURAGE, not their identity, also adding that they "don't judge them any differently, they're still awesome." Probably because the responders have already verified that the thread creators are good people.

TL;DR: the threads are unnecessary, however the praise shown in this community is not in the wrong that you speak of.

 

I honestly think its amazing that people are becoming more comfortable coming out. Nothing wrong with it at all. LGBT+ members only want to feel accepted and by making these threads, we gain the acceptance we can't get irl. Maybe due to homophobic or transphobic family/friends. I will agree to the fact that your sexuality is not important as your gender identity on a game. I fully support telling people your sexuality but if you go by a different gender, you should be encouraged to make thread about what pronouns you want and etc. We all want to be accepted for who we are. Even if that means making another coming out thread.

 

The point is not that you can't come out about it, it's that the threads are unnecessary; it's attention seeking. No one said you couldn't put something in your profile, status, title, etc.

 

I have to disagree. People who make coming out threads are not doing it for attention. They are doing it for acceptance. On a side note, maybe some of them are to seem 'cool' as if it is a trend. But some of us, legitimately just want to be respected for our sexuality. And there isn't exactly a thread where everyone can come out; that is why people make their own.

 

The reason we see 1 or 2 out of all the characters is due to the fact that 96% of the human population is heterosexual, making the average clique or group of people having maybe 1 or even no homosexual people within them, assuming a group of people forms mostly out of friendships or shared interest, which most television shows are based around in the West. Plus, your making a strawman fallacy out of him, he never said he couldn't accept people aren't straight.

I mostly agree with what Yomc says, we need to get to the point where we don't honor people for their sexuality. More and more people are coming out, everywhere, so it's not something confined to J&H. That's something we need to just say cool and move on, much like you would do to a heterosexual person. However, I see what Yomc means when he says honoring people for trivial things is bad, I don't agree, I feel like, now, only a few months after America legalized Marriage Equality, its fine, but by Spring and Summer when people want to get married, we need to congratulate them and move on. It's just become to the point of attention seeking and people are just too scared to say anything, mainly due to the fact you don't know if they are just doing it for attention, as that happens a little too much here.

 

Even if they are not doing it for attention, they don't have to post a thread to gain acceptance.

It's simply unnecessary.

And it gets annoying seeing all the threads in my alerts box.