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Alusine Kabba
Professor Rodrick
QS 115
25 September 2016
Social Media Helps the LGBTQ Community
The LGBT community has struggled throughout history to become accepted and
receive the equality that they deserve. Generation after generation society begins to
have different feelings and views toward the LGBT community. Though we the
community don't get all of the respect that we deserve, with time things are becoming
more equal with the occurrences such and approval of same-sex marriage in every
state. I believe that we are all beginning to become all people rather than items that are
labeled as something or someone. Social media has a big part on helping and guiding
the LGBT community through guidance, support, love, and the most hardest part of
being categorized in the community from others, acceptance.
Salzburg Academy on Media and Global Change pointed out the idea that media
is actually a great way to represent different social groups such as the LGBTQ
community. Throughout the article they speak of how the queer community has been
putting use to certain social medias such as Twitter. With twitter you have a much wider
range of reaching out to people, they explain, and it makes whoevers situation much
more easier to deal with when they notice that they are not the only person out there;
begin to gain support throughout these groups. Even President Obama and Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton have posted videos and actual posts on social media on how the
use of social media isnt a bad thing once it begins to bring people together.

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Social media has become a gateway for anyone to meet others and the LGBT
community in particular has been using it and a great way. Social media is used to
represent different groups and the LGBT community uses it and a great way to support
all. They bring in and accept everyone to their inner circle and since social media has
such a wide range there's a greater chance to reach out to everyone. The "It gets Better
Project" was a social media campaign that reached out to any kid in need. It was very
successful in helping anyone who needed it. It was created to prevent incidents such as
the two suicides committed by two young teenagers who were treated terribly and
bullied because they were gay (Salzburg Academy) which proves how many kids and
teenagers are struggling without proper help or support groups. "With the surge of
support from LGBT rights, there is been a surge in the LGBT social media campaigns"
(Salzburg Academy) and because of the surge of social media campaigns more people
are beginning to get the help that they are seeking. Social media is not always a good
thing with bullying and cyber bullying being a factor of it, but when it comes to helping
people and guiding them with support and acceptance, it is great and gets the job done
by bringing people together.
Greeting and Dating in the LGBT community has also been assisted by social
media and has created a way for people to meet, socialize and possibly even create
relationships as well. Dating apps such as Tinder; which is opened to everyone
regardless of sexual orientation or even Grindr; which is mainly opened to Gay or
transgendered people, has helped relationships grow and keep people happy. These
apps catered to the LGBT community has created a way for queer people to feel

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accepted and normalize the queer identity into our society. Social media has opened
up a gateway for love to guide people in the right direction and for relationships to grow
even greater. Its already kind of difficult for people for the LGBT community to
communicate with others and build relationships, but dating apps provided for the LGBT
community has helped the community find easier cases of love and relationships.
Once President Obama came into office and stated how he supports same sex
marriage and outburst of support and guidance opened up through social media. Social
media helps those who might not necessarily receive help from anyone of their
surroundings. According to Christina Silva from IBT social media has made it easier for
people to be socially accepted. Through her studies she has learned that the LGBT
community has become a lot more comfortable with expressing themselves through
social media, either with it being able to show their friends their significant other or
partner or to being able to come out as a member of the LGBT community publicly.

Seeing photographs of families in timelines, hearing about milestones in each others

families and seeing the hardship faced by loving and committed couples has an
incredible impact on how people think about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender
people, Osborn (2012) NPQ this why I believe things are changing because now
people have a direct view from social media of how living in the LGBT community really
is and that its not much different from any other life style and give direct proof that we
are all just people and nothing should really define us. The social media program called
Facebook has had an outburst of LGBT supporters who came out through their
accounts publicly, "Roughly six million of Facebook's United States users identified as
LGBT and 800,000 came out last year" IBT(2015). Facebook statistics on coming out

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has really increased once the legalization on same sex marriage was approved. The
fact that Facebook really accepts and supports the LGBT community helps more people
to begin to accept themselves and and encourages them to come out to their friends on
Facebook. John Hoffman from NPO says that social media was originally made for
story telling, so basically explaining how your day was or what was the highlight of
lowness of your day. The LGBTQ community made that statement of use; all of our lives
are big huge stories waiting to be told and the one outstanding storing for the Queer
Community would be your coming out story. He explains how society has began to
change as we are now able to express our selves through social media. With Obama
supporting the LGBT community and the legalization of same-sex marriage in every
state, it has made a lot more queer categorize people comfortable with who they are.

Throughout the past few years society has began to grow and accept all kinds of
people. Social media has definitely helped all different social groups including the LGBT
community to reach out to a lot more people and receive all the acceptance and support
that anyone struggling with any type of situation would need. The Photo above shows
the true meaning of being a part of the LGBT community. Everyone in the photo is

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happy to be who they are and arent afraid to express who they are. With Social media
we are able to showcase who we are through our account like the event in the photo
PRIDE. It has made it a lot more easier and safer to meet up with people or just have a
conversation with someone. Coming out could no longer be a thing anymore because
social media is beginning to make people more comfortable to be who they are and it
could be the norm now and it should be. Now that society is learning that we are all
people, things are beginning to change especially with the help of social media.

Works Cited

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"Social Media and the LGBT Community." Salzburg Academy on Media & Global
Change. Salzburg Academy on Media & Global Change, n.d. Web. 16
Sept. 2016.
Hoffman, John. "Sharing Our Way toward Equality: Social Media and Gay Rights."
NPQ. N.p., 14 May 2012. Web. 16 Sept. 2016.
Silva, Cristina. "Facebook Gay Pride: How LGBT People Are Using Social Media To
Come Out." International Business Times. N.p., 15 Oct. 2015. Web. 16
2016.

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