Stereotypes In True Blood

Burning Down The Box, Getting Burnt, and Stepping Out Of The Ashes
The Harms of Social Pressure On The Young Queer Mind

As a unit, the human race is notorious for only looking at the clean, reflective side of a coin, and ignoring the rust to be found on the other side. Society's avoidance of difficult or unpleasant topics is made painfully obvious by entertainment and news media, and the lack of brutally honest information. With the rise of the millennial generation, the LGBTQIA (Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and asexual) rights movements begun in the sixties and seventies are pushed on with fervor, but only behind closed doors and through text on a screen. Though the LGBTQIA community has recently achieved marriage
With drama-series like The Fosters, Orange Is The New Black, Game of Thrones, Glee, True Blood, The Modern Family, and Sense8, among others, queer characters have begun to slowly gain prominence outside the borders of the stereotypical white gay male. Slowly, representation is being found, and the blanket hiding difficult subjects from sight is carefully being pulled back. In True Blood, gay cook and man of color Lafayette Reynolds confronts a white man when the man declines to eat his burger, claiming it might have aids. In Sense8, Amanita, a queer woman of color, defends her trans girlfriend from the rude remarks made by transphobic friends. Shows like these are providing characters that queer people can relate to on some level, and they are knocking on the ice wall of the heterosexual, cisgender binary. Documentaries like I Am Jazz, I Am Cait, and The T Word showcase lives of transgender individuals and what it is like to be trans, providing both a source of information and a real-life look at what goes on in the world around a transgender
Suicide is the third leading cause of death in youth, according to the Suicide Prevention Center, and with higher rates of suicide among queer youth, it is safe to say that it is on the rise. Queer youth are coming out younger, and society is not ready for them. Before they come out, youth have spent years internalizing the negativity about who they are that they absorb from the media and their home life, and when they come out, that negativity is often manifested into something blatant and physical. With bullying in schools, workplaces, and in the homes itself, queer youth are alone and find it difficult to reach out in fear of being ostracized further. Without mass media painting their identities in a positive light, straight supremacy continues strongly, and it is oppressive. The cry for equality is not only for equality in marriage, but in all factors of life as well. Afraid of being tosses aside, queer youth don’t speak out for themselves, and with the misinformation, prejudice, and misunderstandings internalized by the vast majority of society, youth are often left hanging from the edge of a cliff alone, their grip on life slipping from between their fingers. If media were to bring more queer representation to the spotlight, society would be pushed to accept queer youth and to begin to understand, and perhaps help them, in their struggle of rising against the ideas perpetuated by media and