RE: Representation Matters: Why kids need LGBT characters
I do think that people are moving towards it. Growing up my school would have been the same as yours. Being gay was always a slur and nobody even really knew the depth behind it. In the past 5 years I have seen a huge swing in public thinking.
From my parents generation where is was actually illegal to be engage in a homosexual act up until 1993, we were then actually the first country in the world to vote in legal same sex marriage in 2015. Now that is a huge swing in a short time. While there are obviously still people who are biased and hold different views, i like to think that it is a sign of more openness in the country.
Since July 2015, transgender people in Ireland can self-declare their gender for the purpose of updating passports, driving licences, obtaining new birth certificates, and getting married.
Hopefully there will come a time when it is not even talked about any more as kids will understand these relationships in the same way as we looked at our parents marriages and didn't need to think about it, they just were what they were.
It's crazy to me that I'm the same age as homosexuality being legal here in Ireland. The 2015 referendum was amazing though. I'm originally from England and not an Irish citizen, so I had no vote. It was hard to sit back and trust in people and hope the outcome would be positive. My cynical thinking at the time was "It's a lovely idea but it just won't work in Ireland", and I've never been happier to be proven wrong!
As for your last comment, that's my hope exactly. With how quickly things are progressing, I do have faith that we'll get there.
The whole thing kind of took on a life of its own. It really was amazing to be in the middle of it and hear how people felt. I've had plenty of lgtb friends over the years and the whole concept had never really occurred to me or bothered me before this. I hadn't even though of it as an issue. But when the campaign caught momentum and people told their stories it put a realness to the whole thing....
There were so many people whom it did effect and when people realised how they felt it swung the whole thing around and became very one sided. Even the older generation who we though would put up huge opposition due to there religious upbringing realized that there were no good reasons to oppose it. Legalising it would not harm anybody and just allow people in love to make it an official marriage. For me watching thousands of irish fly home from all over the world was what made it.
No matter where in the world you are, you know that the irish will always look after their own and this was the greatest example of it that I have seen.
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