{"id":926,"date":"2013-05-17T00:00:01","date_gmt":"2013-05-16T22:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zahraowens.com\/?p=926"},"modified":"2013-05-14T22:24:50","modified_gmt":"2013-05-14T20:24:50","slug":"hop-against-homophobia-and-transphobia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zahraowens.com\/?p=926","title":{"rendered":"Hop Against Homophobia and Transphobia"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hi and welcome to this year’s Hop Against Homophobia and Transphobia.
\n

\"2013<\/a>
2013 Hop Against Homophobia and Transphobia<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

Last year I posted about the increased name calling and violence<\/a> on the streets despite living in a country where same sex marriage has been legal for 10 years.<\/p>\n

This year I’d like to talk about seeing public opinion shift across the world, but especially in the US. <\/p>\n

May 17th is International Day against Homophobia and Transphobia. Want to learn how this is celebrated around the world? Check out their website<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Like I mentioned earlier, I live in a country where same sex marriage has been legal for 10 years. It’s never really been an issue so I look at what’s happening in the US with quite some interest. <\/p>\n

A few years ago all we heard was people trying to win elections on their position against <\/strong>gay marriage. These were all people calling themselves Christians, but I saw very little evidence of that. They claim to uphold “Traditional Christian Values” but clearly something got lost in translation. Where is the “Respect all people” when you are preaching to “cure” people who happen to love someone of their own gender? Or the “Forgive others” when you ban or wish all sorts of evil on those who don’t live up to your<\/strong> “Christian Values”?
\nAnd for that matter, let’s not forget “though shalt not kill”.<\/p>\n

I was raised an atheist in a predominantly Catholic country, so I never had a problem understanding the difference between the hateful Christians and the tolerant ones, and knowing which side I’d be on if given the need to choose, but I’ll never understand where so much hate is born. I get that it’s human nature to be weary of anything you don’t know, but educate yourself!
\nI never understood being transgender until I met a transwoman and had a real, open conversation with her. Since then I’ve met transmen and -women online and experienced quite a few eye-opening moments.
\nOne of the most helpful ones to me is a youtube channel by a transman who documented his transition so eloquently, he’s now a public speaker. Please check out Skylarkeleven<\/a>! <\/p>\n

I am now happy to see that the tide seems to be turning in the US. More and more states are adopting same sex marriage and the Tea Party and other Right Wing Conservatives seem to be a little more quiet these days (or at least they no longer make international news). To me (and I may be wrong, since we get the US news filtered at best) the pivotal point was President Obama’s unequivocal support of gay marriage. For him to stand up for this, in the middle of a reelection campaign no less, took political courage. Glad to see more people (read state legislatures) are following in his footsteps.
\nThey are seeing that you can’t wait for public opinion to sway on this! They have to be in the vanguard themselves!
\n

<\/CENTER>
\nProceeds of the sale of my story You Can Choose Your Friends<\/a> still go to ItGetsBetter.org<\/a> ($1.20 for every copy sold). Until this world becomes a better place, please add your support.
\n
<\/CENTER>
\nAnd for those who’ve read this far down the post: please comment and one lucky person will win their choice of my back catalogue (one novel or short story of their choice deposited in their Dreamspinner Bookshelf).
\n
<\/CENTER>
\nAnd last but not least: please continue visiting the other blog posts!
\n

\n <\/a>
\n<\/CENTER><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi and welcome to this year’s Hop Against Homophobia and Transphobia. Last year I posted about the increased name calling and violence on the streets despite living in a country where same sex marriage has been legal for 10 years. This year I’d like to talk about seeing public opinion shift across the world, but…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[39],"class_list":["post-926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-homophobia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zahraowens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zahraowens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zahraowens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zahraowens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zahraowens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=926"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/zahraowens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/926\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":940,"href":"https:\/\/zahraowens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/926\/revisions\/940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zahraowens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zahraowens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zahraowens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}