Our generation, or Gen Z, has mostly been labeled as the “woke” generation by our elders. Especially conversations of gay and queer people. Our opinions often are seen as ‘too progressive’, or they use phrases like, ‘back in my day…’
We’ve all heard these things before. But what does this really mean?
Are we snowflakes, or are we just tired of the way the world treats certain people?
To start, why is the main topic they’re focused on about who other people love? Who someone else loves does not automatically concern you. For the most part, it has a lot of ties in deep rooted religious views. A lot of older people tend to be religious, and for those reasons and ways they interpret their scriptures, they don’t tend to like people of the LGBTQ+ community.
What tends to happen is they feel threatened by teenagers and expression. They think that the adults who are also queer are “poisoning the minds of the youth.” Numerous companies and shows are getting more comfortable with displays of queer representation in their media. Companies like Target and Mattel and shows like Heartstopper and Euphoria.
These are all very popular things that we see advertised all around, and many people are now stating that they are ‘shoving it down our throats’. Some are worried about the “normalization” of LGBTQ+ representation and how it may affect kids of younger age groups.
This to many of the younger generation seems like a weird point to make since only around 9.3% of America’s adult population identifies as something other than straight. So accusing a marginalized group of people for supposedly poisoning the minds of your children is not only wrong but also harmful to that group.
These types of people have even gone as far as to say that queer people are mentally ill, which until 1973, was true. It is more of a recent coming to Jesus that homosexuality is not a valid “illness” and that diagnosis was a huge step for queer people as a whole.
Funny enough, homosexuality is seen so much throughout nature. Therefore making it a natural thing. It is seen in over 1500 species in the animal kingdom, including penguins and birds. It is also seen to be very common in mammals, sounds familiar?
So has our question been answered?
Are we really the woke generation?
The answer is yes and no. In the eyes of disapproving people, our progressive takes can oppose too much of their traditional views that can make them question themselves. But all we are really looking for is acceptance of all people even if they are different.
