How socially accepted is the LGBT community in your area?

I live thirty minutes from San Francisco. Sooooo on a scale from 1 being least accepting ten being the most: Rainbowsparklesglitterunicorns.

 

The closest city to me that most people know of is Columbus and its about an hour and a half away. People here are more accepting once you get into where the college is but around where my school is people aren't really accepting but it's slowly getting better.

 

LGBTs are very hidden here, not because of fear of being attacked, but rather the social stigma attached to it. People will actually treat someone being gay as some sort of scandal, and gossip about you behind your back or give you the silent treatment.

Like anywhere else, levels of acceptance depends on where you are. Poorer, working class neighbourhoods tends to be less accepting of gay people.

 

I live quite near Brighton in the UK, which is known as the gay hotspot of the UK, so it's very socially acceptable and there's a big gay pride festival every year there to.

 

It's pretty much accepted here, we do have some people who are hateful, but a majority of the people here don't really care.

 

Generally accepted, with a few hateful.

 

I simply assume no-one has a problem with gay people and as far as I'm aware, no-one does...

 

Well, I live just about an hour away from Seattle. It's actually pretty accepting, the population ranging from full on prideful to not really caring. There's still some who don't like it, but they're aren't that many of them.

 

It's split. I live near Toronto, which makes most other world cities look like backwards hick towns. Toronto has a dying LGBT community because gay people can live anywhere where I live and have no problem, so there is no need to all live in one area. But my town is a little backwards compared to everywhere else.

Religion isn't involved, I think lack of exposure is. I live in the one part of the GTA that is still mainly rural, with very few people. That makes for a lonely place to be gay. I can't think of many visibly gay people in my town, and never see gay people out; however I see it everywhere else.

People here are from everywhere so opinions differ, I think it is accepted but not wanted, my town seems to have a problem with anything that's not wealthy and white. We fight immigration even though I live in the number one immigrant destination in North America;per capita. We fight low-income housing, so that should tell you how our town cares about diversity. Again gays are accepted because it's federal law, and socially unacceptable to be a homophobe, but there is slight underlying homophobia, and general xenophobia in my town.

My town has a high italian population too, so the older population most likely doesn't accept it.

 

I live in a English town. UK equality laws are pretty good - it's illegal to discriminate for LGB in the workplace, either to customers or staff or whoever. Last time I checked T was included in the Equality Act, but gender and sex were listed separately which was a step in the right direction. I teach and we're supposed to actively promote equality issues to students - it's part of the education policy. If a teacher were to say something homophobic they would be in serious trouble and students too. Gay marriage is legal... first it was civil partnership a few years ago and now it's marriage.

That said, I have still come across homophobia regularly, even in teenagers, who usually blame their upbringing (literally - they say it that way)... some instances of bullying... on the other hand, for every one homophobic kid there are three who are actively pro-equality and fifty who never say anything either way... there's racism and religion-ism too, equal or more, it's just ignorance and bad parenting imo.

I never see gay couples being openly together, it's quite a rough town and I can imagine people worrying about being beaten up but don't know of any incidents. I don't think there's any awareness of transgender at all, I only found out about the reality of it myself a couple of years ago!

But on the other hand, we always have a gay bar - although even in there I haven't seen any gay PDA aside from dancing - and we have a Pride event too - bit of hand-holding, but that was it... not that I'm obsessed with PDA, just figuring out how open people feel they can be. Within my social scene the vast majority of people are accepting and wouldn't accept homophobia. We've got it quite good in England, but there's more to go...

 

The "Community" is me here

And maybe some other closeted people, but its still a ridiculously small community.

 

Living in a small Alabama town, if you asked most people how they feel, they'll probably give you a negative response, but in day to day life, I've never seen any random hate from anyone toward any of the openly gay people here.

 

It consists of........let me think.....Uhhh....

(Crickets.)

 

I have never had any problem.

 

As a side note, I really hate the use of the word 'community' because to me it implies ghettoisation / gay people are somehow separated from the 'mainstream straight community'.

Maybe in 50 years ago but not anymore, at least here!

 

You wouldn't think a central Pennsylvanian town would be so hateful, but I'm half afraid of people lynching me if I came out :/

 

Pretty good in the Raleigh-Durham area. Even though my boyfriend and I are clearly a same sex couple whenever we go places, I've encountered nothing but positive attitudes. You'd hardly know we were living in a crummy southeastern state.

That said, I'm sure there are some bigots out there. They tend to keep to themselves. They know they're outnumbered here.

 

Pretty accepted. Small area so haven't seen too many resources but I've met a lot of trans* and LGB people inadvertly.

There's gender identity protection laws in place so law's on my side. Lucky as hell to live in an area like this but all the big trans support networks are based in bigger, nearby cities.