What is something you’d like to change about the world, our community, or Uni High? Why would you like to make this change?

What is something you’d like to change about the world, our community, or Uni High? Why would you like to make this change?

By Thomas Southey

Willful Ignorance

   I would like to change a million things about the world. However, if I had to choose one it would be people's willful ignorance. Everyone in the world can have such close-minded and stigmatized views about so many topics and I find it to be one of humanity's worst flaws. Humans are naturally inclined to want to learn and adapt for the great or good. One of the biggest things I see that affect the community and world everyone lives in is the willful ignorance about the LGBTQ+ community. It is genuinely one of the worst things to hear when people's families and friends disown and disassociate themselves with that person just because they came out about their sexuality or gender. Or the fact that someone is killed or attacked on the streets for the sole fact they like the same gender. People need to wake up to see that it is unforgivably wrong to be so ignorant to such a simple concept. Why is it so hard to understand that, a boy can like a boy, a girl can like a girl, or a boy/girl could like both sexes or maybe even the fact that someone doesn't conform to being a boy or a girl and more in between?

    First I want to discuss the idea of gender vs sex; as well as sexuality and what it means. To keep things simple I will only discuss the LGBT, however, there are several more variants of this eg, asexuals, qeer/questioning, intersex, etc. I would like to start with a fundamental, something you learned/talked about as a kid and probably never really understood. The idea of sex vs gender. Sex is primarily used to describe your biological disposition and is normally used on things like your IDs, passports, driver's license, etc, however, you may have wondered why it never said gender. Well, this is because gender refers to these socially constructed roles, behaviors, expressions, and identities. These don't necessarily matter on your legal information, because they have little effect and are not as easily pinpointable and definable. The word gender was used in place of the term "sex" in conversation from person to person. Gender was used as a substitute for the term "sex" in casual conversation, which is a terrible synonym for the word. People just assumed and started to say that gender means the same thing as sex; boy, girl, and nothing else. However, some started to realize that gender is not a black and white thing. Gender is a spectrum just like most things in the world. If you think of being male and female, all with specific traits, they will be on opposite sides of this spectrum (there are infinite points on this spectrum), someone can say that they don't feel like they are fully a male and will gravitate more to the middle. Some feel that they don't even belong on the spectrum at all which is referred to as being nonbinary, as in they don't feel they fit with the given binaries. To be fully realistic, this has zero effect on the quality of human being you are, it does not lower your standing as a person to just be more specific about your gender. That makes me wonder why people are kicked out of their homes for simply identifying this in themself.

  One of the most surprising statistics is the percentage of homeless children that are homeless for the reason that they are part of the LGBT+ or choose to identify as something that doesn't match what people think of them. Research shows that a disproportionate number of homeless youth in the United States identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender, or LGBT+. According to a 2004 study by the University of Nebraska - Lincoln found that 25%-40% of homeless youth identified as LGBT+ and were outed for this reason. Mainly things like religion are quoted to justify this terrible act, however, I don't think God or Jesus, ones who based their entire lively hoods off being unbelievably kind and generous would be ones to support the assault/killing and disowning of your children. It is simply just a wrong and vile act to see in life. People need to understand the fact that you can not condemn what you don't understand.

  Sadly in today's day, willful ignorance is present in an innumerable amount of things in the world. However one of the most infuriating and common instances of ignorance is about the LGBT+. It's always necessary to understand that how you were raised and how you are educated can play a huge role in this. However, if you refuse to at least try to learn or do inform yourself about changing things in the world or on a topic that is just so infuriating. It's not like people can't learn if they wilfully disregard a rampant issue in the world that is so infuriating to me. Especially on simple topics like this one. The fact that people will discriminate on the fact that someone is attracted to the same or multiple genders is insane. These are things that have little to no effect on the world or shouldn't. The reason there is so much turmoil in the world is founded on this idea that the world cant change and shouldn't. I do recommend that people should try to spread knowledge over ignorance it is for the great or good of everyone.