Struggles within the LGBT Community

In my previous blog, I was tackling many issues revolving people in general, and how many media outlets and influencers have an undeniable impact in terms of how those outlets and influencers are affecting their own self-esteem, which is very destructive indeed.

However, in this article is going to take another look on the LGBT and not only am I discussing problems that are occurring generally, but also things I have personally experienced over the years, specifically because I’m a gay man from another ethnicity, and I’ll basically explain what these major issues are and why many gay men struggle to find authentic love.

Perspectives

By being a gay individual you’re most likely going to experience some inconvenient situations when it’s revolving your daily life, since we’ve always been judged our entire lives which makes it difficult to be a liberated human being.

When plenty of people are still in disagreement in terms of our ways of living and that it should be condemned entirely.

In some cases you actually have the luxury to broadcast your identity and the person you actually are without having to masquerade your personality or sexuality when your family endorses your decisions in life and what you’re striving to be and want.

Privileges

Not everyone has the luxury of being a free-spirited human being, especially when you’re from a certain ethnicity that restricts homosexuality or even any kind of LGBT affiliated subjects due to their conservative and strict regulations.

This prevents them from showcasing any type of homosexual or LGBT related behavior since cultural people are instantly judgmental due to their beliefs, and they have the opinion that every individual who happens to originate from that culture needs to maintain their practices to even be valuable in their communities.

These individuals usually have to emulate the life of a straight man to continue on with their daily lives to not be endangered since there is a high chance that these people could be assassinated for who they authentically are.

This is devastatingly upsetting, but unfortunately disguising themselves is the only way they can live safely without encountering any conflicts or endangering consequences that could lead to fatality.

In the Western World, there also are people who tend to disagree with the homosexual lifestyle.

However, the government firmly agrees with the fact that people deserve to have equal rights regardless of their sexuality or race, but what many people don’t know is that these people still experience many sorts of unpleasant incidents that make them feel unsafe or in some cases unable to live in the environment they currently live in.

Especially due to the fact that some people appear to have this ancient mentality that everything is supposed to be how “god wanted it to be”, but they never acknowledge the fact that these human feelings cannot be changed and are basically natural and in no way developed at a certain time in life.

Because of these various opinions, it’s hard to imagine that even in the countries that LGBT rights have been approved still have homophobic problems taking place in their nations, but because of misinformation and horrendously incorrect assumptions people will easily hold on to the thought that everything revolving the LGBT community should be forbidden.

It's obviously not as intense as the conservative nations that we have highlighted before, but they are still experiencing different problems like receiving homophobic slurs and in the worst instances even getting blackmailed or threatening letters, or are even getting assaulted.

They do not experience the same kind of torture compared to more conservative nations, where people unfortunately go through the worst circumstances. Not only are they being shamed, some of them are not even entitled to live, and are at risk of being either violently assaulted, or murdered. This is an important distinction between the experiences from people in Western countries, and more conservative/religious countries.

Disregarding the fact that we all have privileges

When we are conversing about privileges it’s usually targeting the topic of what kind of privileges white people are benefiting of and which opportunities black people are usually being restrained from only because they possess a certain skin color.

These issues are sadly enough also taking place in the LGBT community on a regular basis, and many people love to disregard that fact. Privileged gays have always been broadcasted around the world and are perceived as the “elite” personalities within the gay community since they receive the most acclaim, the most recognition, and the most praise.

Society tries to hide away the fact that there are also people of different colors and ethnicities who are also homosexual, lesbian, transsexual or even bisexual.

Unfortunately, this is not really being showcased to the world and even people in the LGBT community do not even perceive them as an important part of their society, which makes them the outcast in within the community.

Obviously they are aware that these people are being separated and they are aware that they are being verified as the “superiors” among their community and that is exactly what their privilege is but they love to deny it and pretend that everyone has the same abilities in an equal way but matter it’s totally the opposite.

Not only as a person of African descent on my own but also many of my friends who happen to have different ethnicities tend to relate to feeling pressured or being underestimated in this community, but also as a human being in general.

They frequently tell me that they have been rejected or have even been humiliated in correlation with their skin color or even ethnicity since those appear to be less worthy or “unappealing” while white gays always have the luxury of dating a person without any particular questions or restrictions regarding their cultures.

With that being summarized this basically indicates on how they do not recognize the fact that they do hold a certain status and that they have the privilege of being accepted within their community and commonly their families and friends while the ethnically originated gays have to hide their true selves to be respected while also not being accepted within their community.

That’s exactly what privilege embodies, having certain possibilities and options which others are not permitted to practice or even being unable to do so, because while people in their own circle are not justifying them as a person which privilege exactly entails.

A fetish and not a human being

Another problem that many ethnic gays encounter is being sexualized in terms of their origin and generally even their skin tone which technically is the definition of fetishizing meaning complimenting individuals on their race and how you desire them sexually specifically in that matter alone.

Personally I know that many of you guys have experienced this especially when you are a person of color, you’ll easily start to receive comments as “chocolate” or “black boy” because you have a skin color and you are ethnically distinctive.

Sometimes there are also typical stereotypical remarks that create these unacceptable perceptions that people of color are only sexual objects to satisfy their sexual needs with terms like previously mentioned but also terms like “BBC meaning big black cock” are making it seem that black men only have to offer sexual services and nothing more than that which is truly upsetting and saddening, to say the least.

Because of the constant sexual labeling, it’s also very challenging for ethnical gay men to date without inappropriate encounters (not in all occasions but this happens quite regularly) which avoids them to date white men, together since this only aggravates our insecurities but also makes it difficult for us to be vulnerable towards men since we are frequently seen as sexual objects and not individuals to connect with.

Should we educate others on what they need to be aware of?

In all honesty, it’s always great to spread awareness to a situation that practically has any type of attention or even is getting any type of exposure so it’s not a bad thing to broadcast your message across platforms and outlets even when you don’t have a large amount of followers.

However it’s not our accountability to inform people on what they are unconsciously not realizing, and that they are lacking common knowledge about race and origin related problems in general, but however, we as a community can tell other people what we do not approve and we do have the opportunity to speak against something if we’re not standing behind it.

And last but not least, it’s very upsetting that we as a gay community already divide each other in these ways when we are already being oppressed by other groups in general.

So my actual motive behind this article is to tell others why oppression is such a big problem, especially when it’s regarding our own kind of people since we can rely on each other in so many ways, but since there is this rivalry taking place I believe it’s nearly impossible to completely resolve our issues.

If you attempt to acknowledge your privilege and you’re actually using it to provide help towards others that shows that you have accountability and that you’re willing to resolve this ongoing problem.

This might be unrelated to the LGBT subjects but I’d like to make a random confession as well.. please sign as many petitions regarding police brutality to be against police violence and exchange these as frequently as you can! These can be found on my homepage under the category “petitions”.

Hoping everyone is keeping themselves wholesome during this horrifying time and I hope that we soon can live our lives as we always have done, thanks for reading!