I've always hoped that if people read the right books it could open their minds and help the world for the better. I guess I'm a writer and a reader so of course I would hope that this would be true. Do you think if homophobes read books showing LGBTQ+s perspectives it would help create acceptance?
Of course. People acquire knowledge from the books, and knowledge changes the world. Sometimes I think homophobia is like preference. Some people like red, some don’t. Some people like homosexuality , some hate that. It doesn’t mean they lack in knowledge or misunderstand homosexuality.
I think it depends on how homophobic they are. If they are hard core, gays are going to hell types, the ones who protest pride parades and such, then probably not. When people have very strong beliefs they are often more likely to write off anything that says they are wrong as fake. These kind if people would just write off those books as gay propoganda or something, and probably want to burn them. Thier mids are set and they aren't going to change, because changing would mean accepting that one of thier major beliefs is wrong, something most people are unwilling to do. But I do think that books (or other midia for that matter) could help sway less extreme people. I think that a lot of people are homophobic because they don't really know better. I think they just don't have many good references, so when they are told that we are immoral, wrong, or sinners, they have no reason to doubt that. I do think books could help there. It could help these people get references, and see that we aren't the horrible monsters that many churches and politicians make us out to be. They might see thar, big suprise, we are people just like them. I'm not saying this could work in all cases, but I could see it working in some. I also think that when they are exposed to these books could matter a lot. Many adults are pretty set in thier ways, and unlikely to change, but younger people, especially kids and teens, are really flexible. I think that if we exposed kids to more queer people in books and other midia earlier on, it would help a lot. It would teach them that LGBTQ+ people are just people, and could help prevent them from picking up societies homophobic themes as they age. It would also help kids who are LGBTQ+, since it would give them characters they can see thier own queerness in which could help them accept themselves easier.
Yes I think books can change the world via some people's perspectives. Then again I have specifically not read some books because of the subject matter.
Oh, god, I feel like you're right about the "gay propaganda thing". I hate how homophobia is so strong that any attempt for acceptance is usually taken as "propaganda". I just wish people would understand how damaging it is when gay people grow up thinking gay people don't exist or that "it's a choice" and how that can give people a lot of mental health issues and make things hard for them. You're right. Kids are way more changeable. The next generation is our only hope I guess.
Yes! I absolutely believe books or any writing can change the world. John Green did a great talk about how paper (writing) can affect our actual world, but here is a snippet. "Agloe, New York, is very famous to cartographers, because it’s a paper town. It’s also known as a copyright trap. Because my map of New York and your map of New York are going to look very similar, on account of the shape of New York. Often, map makers will insert fake places onto their maps, in order to protect their copyright, because then, if my fake place shows up on your map, I can be well and truly sure that you have robbed me. Agloe is a scrabblization of the initials of the two guys who made this map: Ernest G. Alpers and Otto Lindberg, and they released this map in 1937. Decades later, Rand McNally releases a map with Agloe, New York, on it, at the same exact intersection of two dirt roads in the middle of nowhere. Well, you can imagine the delight over at General Drafting. They immediately called Rand McNally, and they say, “We’ve caught you! We made Agloe, New York, up. It is a fake place. It’s a paper town. We’re going to sue your pants off!” And Rand McNally says, “No, no, no, no, Agloe is real.” Because people kept going to that intersection of two dirt roads in the middle of nowhere, expecting there to be a place called Agloe, someone built a place called Agloe, New York. It had a gas station, a general store, two houses at its peak. And this is of course a completely irresistible metaphor to a novelist, because we would all like to believe that the stuff that we write down on paper can change the actual world in which we’re actually living.. It’s easy enough to say that the world shapes our maps of the world, right? Like the overall shape of the world is obviously going to affect our maps. But what I find a lot more interesting is the way that the manner in which we map the world changes the world. " ~Love
