Homophobic attacks rise in the UK

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I would really have thought the UK would be more accepting of differences. Yet the numbers of homophobic attacks have been rising in a country generally seen as tolerant:



https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-54470077


Is the world in general becoming LESS tolerant, or is this some kind of backlash? No one should be afraid of being themselves and everyone has the right to feel safe and not victimized.

Things like this happen because, unfortunately, there are and always will be bad people doing bad things in this world.

What we are having is a surge of reactionary conservatives who are afraid of losing the culture war and seeing the world change, and wannabe fascist governments who have either forgotten the failed states of past, or have taken notes from North Korea and Russia in how the work people into accepting illusions of strong man leaders. That homosexual people can be easy targets to blame an imagined decay of society.

Is tolerance in general, losing the ground it gained in your opinion?

I think the lockdowns in many countries have also made the situation worse as bad, intolerant people seek scapegoats for their boredom and frustration. Fortunately many people have made the best of a bad situation and not allowed it to cloud their thinking but to challenge them to better things.

These figures predate lockdown. I think lockdown will probably have greatly reduced the number of strangers attacking each other because we’re all spending much more time in our homes. There were no pride parades this year for example.

I don’t know enough to give a cause. I think some of the increase is probably people being more inclined to report, but I don’t think that can credibly explain even half of it.

I don't think homophobes came out of nowhere, people didn't all of a sudden become homophobic. They have always been around, my question is what made them decide to start attacking gay people?

The general feel of the world around us seems to be more confrontational and divisive at the moment. People have become extremely tribal and angry and defensive about it. Even if you try and take a neutral road and keep your head down and stay out of arguments you get told "silence is violence".

Social media is being used to create tribes. The media sees this and whips it up even more for views.

I'm in my late 30s. People had views in the 90s, but it wasn't this extreme. People weren't at each others throats like they are now. Things feel different. People are scared on all sides and lashing out.

This is precisely why I was not feeling that optimistic when all of a sudden being gay became more 'accepted'. I knew that at its core society will always hate homosexuals.

Don't say always, we can bring change by continuing to push back.

I dunno, I really wish I could believe that. But it feels like every progress we make for equality is always one step forward and two steps backwards.

There are some steps back, but in general equality is winning out. Granted some people have fallen down more, I have heard that Poland is doing really bad with things like LGBT free zones, and other places with effective dictators that use LGBT as scapegoats. But in general I think we are winning the culture war.

A particular YouTube channel I have enjoyed is one called Matt Baum, where he looks at tv shows and or movies that have marked moves of acceptance for LGBT people, I think he also has a playlist of debriefs where he would go over good and bad news for LGBT people and equality, which although sometimes it slips back more, I don't think is futile. And you can find a lot of other stuff that just go to show how far things have come, down from being illegal to it becoming increasingly accepted that kids being told that being queer is fine.

Less tolerant? Compared to when. I tried to use the link, but I'm on an old and crappy tablet (I might start calling it my craplet) and it wouldn't load. I'm guessing there are ads on the page. I dunno. My technology sucks.

Anyway, I'd say there seems to be less tolerance now than there was say five or six years ago. But there's still a whole lot more than there was twenty five or twenty six years ago.