Being LGBT in this heteronormative society

Imagine waking up every day as a child and reminding yourself that; you need to walk straight, you need to talk properly, you need to be careful with your hand moments, and you need to try to suppress yourself so that you don’t attract any attention. These are few of the many thought’s LGBT kids keep reminding themselves every morning, so that they could be accepted by society. Our ancestors have defined certain gender norms and assigned a duty to each gender, for eg. Men are providers and Women are caretakers, but time has proven that it is farther from the truth. In today’s world, all the gender roles have proven that they are equally capable of handling any task given to them. As women can be the provider of a family while a man nurtures the household. But gender is not restricted to just that, different individuals identify themselves using different gender terms.

By now, we all know the full forms of all the LGBTQ+ abbreviations, but very few of us know what being a part of the community feels like. Since childhood, despite no personal fault of our their own, kids who show early signs of gender dysphoria are brought to shame and are treated differently by people who consider themselves normal, just because they are attracted to the opposite gender and behave according to the gender norms set by the society. Accepting sexual orientation and gender dysphoria is tough for any individual, as basically since childhood the society has made us believe that whatever the LGBTQ+ Community does is wrong, degrading, filthy and corrupting the society; and even though these individuals understand it’s not a choice, it starts to break their confidence and trust in themselves. Some individuals are shamed, abused verbally and physically, killed and forced to commit suicide just because the majority of our society seems to feel a different way.

(If you wish to make the situation better, you need to be observant and If you see someone getting harassed because of gender or sexual orientation related factors, it’s essential to take a stand and stop the violence. If you know someone a little different from what’s considered normal according to our society, your support, acceptance and presence in their life can help them become a strong and confident person.)