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• 1 2022-08-12T08:24:54-07:00 Why visibility is so important 8 plain 2022-08-17T08:48:45-07:00 One of the recurrent themes of queer history is that when queer people become visible to broader society, they simultaneously become more organized and gain access to support networks and accessibility, but they also become significantly more targeted for discrimination and harassment.
  In the case of gay men, oftentimes a suppression of visibility is used as a tool for oppression. During the AIDS epidemic politicians actively refused to acknowledge the existence of the crisis or make any move to fight it, joking at the deaths of millions of gay men who they viewed as unworthy of life, all while evangelical Christian’s celebrated what they saw as God's wrath on the gays.
  People with AIDS were seen as lepers and pariahs and  often died alone in agony as stigma and ignorance made people afraid to even touch them. The only treatments for HIV were obscenely expensive when they were discovered. Due to lack of legal protections for queer couples, when people died, they would be banned from even attending their partners funerals, trans people were buried under names they didn't use. Even today as HIV (The virus that leads to AIDS) is not only treatable but medications exist to effectively make it invisible and untransmissible, people are often lead to see HIV/AIDS as a death sentence and the people who carry them as ticking biological time bombs. This propaganda effectively works to scare gay men away from coming out as it presents the act of gay love as a death sentence.
  Additionally, by stigmatizing gayness and treating it as other, many queer youth don't experience the same basic guidance of what makes for a healthy relationship. By forcing people to hide in the closet and treating their identities as fundamentally wrong, they become incapable of reporting or seeking help after instances of assault, abuse, or trauma.
  Visibility is only as effective as the people it reaches, making it absolutely essential to raise awareness for as many people as possible. If a person is cis and straight, this content might make them a better ally and have a better understanding of what queer friends are going through. If a person is queer and has no access to anything but misinformation up to this point, visibility can mean the difference between life and death.
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