LGBTQIA+ Rights

LGBTQ, or rather, LGBTQIA+, is the umbrella term for everyone who isn't hetero or cis. Anyone who feels different from society's set barriers has a term to explain who they are, and what they would like to be referred to as should they choose to label themselves. A lot of progress has been made from when people first started to come out. But for all of that, a lot of people still do not have a safe and open space to be themselves. In a lot of places, they are treated as less than human, just because they aren't "normal". They are forced to hide who they are, and who they love. There are still people who think it is a "choice" and a "disease", and that they have to "forget about it". LGBT people were more likely to have a lower annual income, lack money for food or healthcare, and be unemployed. They were also more likely to experience health problems, suffering from more mental health and substance abuse issues than their heterosexual peers, just because people refuse to be open-minded. Some kids are even kicked out of their homes for not being who their families wanted them to be. This has to stop. Everyone is on this earth for a purpose, and no one deserves to be shunned, especially when it comes down to who they are and who they love. There have been many riots and marches in favor of their rights, one of the most popular being the Stonewall riots on June 28, 1969. It was a response to the police raid that was happening and is widely considered to be one of the turning points that transformed the gay liberation movement and the twentieth-century fight for LGBT rights in the United States. Awareness has to be brought to the fact that they are not a minority and that they are no different than any of us, that they deserve to have the most basic of rights that the rest of us do.