Study finds young people would support transgender friends

boing
1

Originally published at: Study finds young people would support transgender friends | Boing Boing

…

8 Likes
2

:: Looks up definition of “friend” in dictionary::

Yep, that checks out.

Maybe the kids are all right after all.

20 Likes
3

This has been my experience. The kids are very supportive of each other. It’s pretty cool.

I have this secret hope in my heart of hearts that maybe we’ve accidentally raised a generation of good human beings.

14 Likes
4

I don’t know what this number looks like historically, but that’s pretty damn significant. You rarely see 76% support of anything, let alone a civil rights issue that doesn’t directly impact the demographic being questioned (of course, hate impacts all of us negatively, just not as directly as those who are the targets).

They certainly are! The internet has been not so great for a lot of things, but it has definitely given people, especially the youth who are plugged in, a sense that maybe there’s more nuance than what they’ve been raised to see. As Dr King famously stated, “the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice” and that initial bend comes from the youth almost every time. Take down the veils that intentionally blind them to their natural empathy and that arc bends more and more.

12 Likes
5

Good. We’re slowly getting towards where we should have been all along.

16 Likes
6

This has been my experience. My wife and I are both trans, and younger people tend to take it in stride. Caveat: We are in the Pacific Northwest, in a large city, and that makes a difference.

I find when you get to baby boomer age, it’s like shrodinger’s bigot. You don’t know if they are a bigot until they find out you are trans. I am FTM, and nobody ever knows I am trans until it comes up, and I have had the most liberal granola folks give me whiplash with how fast they turned, and the most conservative good 'ol boys shirt. You literally cannot tell how anyone is going to react based on political, religious, or racial lines.

17 Likes
7

It’s literally rolling the dice with every new encounter with none of the fun of gambling.

15 Likes
8

This is wonderful news about the youth of the UK, but I still have my doubt about how a similar study would fare here in the US. There’s still a lot of casual hate present in the more conservative areas of the US and I’m afraid that the youth in those parts of the US aren’t quite as alright as the youth of the UK.

9

I don’t know without the numbers, but the youth I deal with have been remarkably open and welcoming to the trans kids in their lives, here in Ohio. The adults have been less welcoming, but better than I would have guessed. I wouldn’t automatically assume this is one of the issues that the US is going to be worse at, just because the UK press has been on a heavy transphobic blitz for a while now.

5 Likes
10

Study or not, this isn’t surprising.

Bigotry is taught and learned; tolerance and acceptance come much more naturally when kids are not being indoctrinated with hate and fear.

11 Likes
11

Or the possibility to get fat loot.

8 Likes
12

That’s true, the wins can be big :grin:

ETA: You know, if they turn out to be nice people.

10 Likes
13

Is this statistic actually in the study? I didn’t see anywhere in the article that 39% of the group identified as LGBTQ. I just ask because that seems much higher than any societal percentages I’ve seen before.

1 Like
14

I work with youth in a conservative area of Wisconsin, and my experience mirrors yours. LGBTQ+ folks are just an accepted part of the kids’ lives, in a way that helps me stay hopeful about the future.

3 Likes
15

This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.