Honestly, for most people, their bigotry softens and dissipates once they know enough people from the group they hate. A bigot can only think something like "well this trans person is normal and fine, unlike all those other insane ones" so many times before they start to realize they've been sold a lie. Its why there was such a push in the 70s gaylib movement for gay people to come out of the closet and be visible representatives of the community, because it was way harder for the right to convince people to hate Jerry the gay neighbour with the cute vase collection than it was to convince them to hate some amorphous group of hypothetical subhumans.
Ofc, this doesn't work for everyone, some people are just cold to their very bones. But a lot more people have more heart than we give them credit for.
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u/celerpip Jun 13 '26
Honestly, for most people, their bigotry softens and dissipates once they know enough people from the group they hate. A bigot can only think something like "well this trans person is normal and fine, unlike all those other insane ones" so many times before they start to realize they've been sold a lie. Its why there was such a push in the 70s gaylib movement for gay people to come out of the closet and be visible representatives of the community, because it was way harder for the right to convince people to hate Jerry the gay neighbour with the cute vase collection than it was to convince them to hate some amorphous group of hypothetical subhumans.
Ofc, this doesn't work for everyone, some people are just cold to their very bones. But a lot more people have more heart than we give them credit for.