I believe Alex Ross expressed his feelings and told his story with great passion. I learned a lot about how gay men questioned the gayness of other gay men according to their outlook on how to be gay and the ideals of what it is to be gay as seen by others. Ross included in his writings a passage from David Halperin (an English professor at the University of Michigan) who in part of a statement said that from which he believed ‘From my youthful perspective, which aspired fervently to qualify as ‘liberated,’ those old queens were sad remnants from a bygone era of sexual repression’victims of self-hatred, internalized homophobia, social isolation, and state terror.’ Halperin’s feelings in this statement belittles the gay man to a self hating victim and seems to be projecting his feelings of self onto the male gay community as a whole; although he admits this at the ending of his statement. I found it hurtful that society was and in many ways is still responsible for the self-loathing of gays and lesbians. We are in a so called ‘Free’ land where individuality is supposed to be accepted and respected; however church and state still implants the ideals of what is right, wrong and acceptable with no care for the individual. Being gay or lesbian is as much a wrong as being Black or an Immigrant in this land of the free! The stigma of being part of the LGBT community creates such an internal fight on self-acceptance as it does on societal acceptance. In a 2014 CDC report, it was reported that ‘LGBTQ youth are also at increased risk for suicidal thoughts and behaviors, suicide attempts, and suicide. A nationally representative study of adolescents in grades 7’12 found that lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth were more than twice as likely to have attempted suicide as their heterosexual peers.3 More studies are needed to better understand the risks for suicide among transgender youth. However, one study with 55 transgender youth found that about 25% reported suicide attempts.’ http://www.cdc.gov/lgbthealth/youth.htm. This report is just one unfortunate part of the experience that LGBT youth have been battling for many decades. The rate of violence towards this community is shameful and the violence that is committed by youth in the LGBT youth is unacceptable. LGBT bashing is a learned behavior that society has taught for many decades and has become hypocritical in its current so-called ‘acceptance’ of their lifestyle. The LGBT community has suffered great atrocities from homosexuals being described Communists and sexual psychopaths, having to undergo experiments in electric and pharmacological shock treatment, hormone injection, castration, and lobotomy, to their lifestyle being considered a sexual perversion. And, still today the LGBT youth are threatened or injured with weapons on school property, 19% to 29% of gay and lesbian students and 18% to 28% of bisexual students experienced dating violence in the prior year.14% to 31% of gay and lesbian students and 17% to 32% of bisexual students had been forced to have sexual intercourse at some point in their lives. These actions have got to come to a stop, and again this is called the ‘Land of the Free.’
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