Homophobia is the fear, hatred, discomfort with, or mistrust of people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, etc. Transphobia is the fear, hatred, discomfort with, or mistrust of people who are transgender, gender queer, or other orientations that fall out of the gender norms. I fall into both categories; I am lesbian and gender fluid. At Rich Central, they aren’t apparent. You look around and see different people with different interests. Most of my friends are a part of the LGBTQ+ community, and so far after about two and a half years of this school, we know that no one here is openly homophobic or transphobic. I personally have not met a person who found it disgusting that I prefer females, or that I feel like a different gender every day. To be honest, these days the only “homophobia” you get is the constant voice of a person making fun of gay people and same for the transgenders.

My friends and I walk down the hallway and listen to guys fighting and we can hear, “Dude, that was SO gay!” – Just because one of the guys touched them in a way that wasn’t even them being gay. What exactly makes people think the fact that a person touched them wrong or touched them in a way that wasn’t even meant to be sexual, they are gay, or when you hear people accusing someone for being transgender because they’re body conscious or some ridiculous reason like that? Constantly, we must keep our mouth shut about situations like this, because if we try to speak our minds, we are yelled at for getting in another people’s business, or just for talking. It’s not fair that we listen to our own community being put down. The matters people joke about aren’t even funny, not even to someone who is a part of the LGBTQ community.