What's The Problem?
Unjust laws and unfriendly attitudes mean that gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people don’t always get a fair go.
Homophobia and transphobia are hostility, prejudice, hatred, or fear of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.
Homophobia affects people in lots of different ways. Some discrimination is obvious, like unequal laws, verbal abuse or violent physical attacks. Other discrimination is more subtle, like being made to feel invisible or abnormal.
In Australia, although we’ve come a long way, same sex couples still can’t get married and can’t adopt children. Some churches, schools and institutions still discriminate against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) people. In addition, most GLBT people have experienced homophobic harassment or verbal abuse and many have been physically attacked just for being who they are.
Discrimination like this has profound negative effects on GLBT people - and young GLBT people are even more at risk.
But we can resist homophobia in all kinds of ways every day – by being proud to be who we are or by being a proud supporter of GLBT equality.
Stopping homophobia starts with you. Whether you’re standing up for your beliefs when someone makes a homophobic joke, signing petitions for same sex adoption or simply not assuming that everyone is heterosexual, you are making our country more inclusive.
Find out more about resisting homophobia and GLBT rights:
Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby
Web: http://glrl.org.au/
ACON’s Lesbian and Gay Anti-Violence Project
Web: www.acon.org.au/anti-violence
Other interesting anti-homophobia links:
Think b4 you speak
Web: www.thinkb4youspeak.com
Homophobia in sport
Web: www.playbytherules.net.au/got-an-issue/unfair-treatment/homophobia
A cool MTV Public Service Announcement
Web: www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkgACMUOHzs