The erasure of LGBTQ+ people in the United States of America is an extremely upsetting phenomenon for many. Recently, the number of laws and incidents against the LGBTQ+ community has been rising. Now, America is hardly safe for these individuals.
Casey Wehrmeister, a transgender student who attends LVA, claims, “It’s a very, very complicated subject. It really depends on how the future is going to play out, and I feel like a lot of it is a lack of understanding” said Wehrmeister.
“One side doesn’t understand LGBTQ, and LGBTQ wants to be understood, and it just can’t happen. For some reason, there’s just a lot of different factors going into it” said Wehrmeister.
“I feel like, if anything, if there’s anything that we could do, we could start by helping people that don’t understand, and that’s the first step to prevent preventing these laws that stop LGBTQ from being made, I feel like there’s also this notion that LGBTQ across the United States are they’re very stereotyped negatively, and it leads to a lot of uneducated people believing that they’re demons or they’re hell spawn or they’re just wrong” said Wehrmeister.
Homophobia isn’t something new, either. In the 1960s, LGBTQ+ individuals were not allowed to hold hands, kiss, hug, or engage in any kind of PDA in public in countries like Poland. Now, in 2025, while it is a kind of taboo, LGBTQ+ people are allowed much more PDA than before; despite the fact that LGBTQ+ people are allowed more PDA, it doesn’t mean there aren’t other difficulties.
On May 27, 2025, the Stonewall Monument’s website removed the word “Bisexual” and any traces of bisexuality. On February 14, 2025, the same thing was done with the word “Transgender”.
2025 has a record amount of transphobic laws passed. One of the most well-known laws is the Bathroom Bill, which restricts transgender people from entering the bathroom of their chosen gender identity. This is hurting transgender people, because now, places such as locker rooms and bathrooms will only go by sex instead of gender. While this was claimed to stop men from entering women’s restrooms, it’s only encouraging Transgender discrimination.
Texas has been known to be a Conservative state. They were almost always against LGBTQ+ rights and often attempted to pass laws to attack them and their rights. Especially now, with such a Conservative President, Texas has much more ability to attack the rights of LGBTQ+ people. According to Texas Observer, as of 2024, there have been 61 anti-LGBTQ+ incidents, and even more that haven’t been counted.
As a result of these laws, according to the Trevor Project, 39% of LGBTQ+ youth have considered or contemplated suicide in the last year. 12% of LGBTQ+ youth have attempted suicide in the past year, and these statistics go up even more when you realize not every incident or thought gets reported.
Recently, in states such as Ohio and Indiana, they require schools to alert parents if a student chooses to go by a different name and pronouns. These policies further harm transgender students, as their home life may be unsafe or unwelcoming of LGBTQ+ identities.
“As it stands right now, I don’t think that America is very safe for LGBTQ youth, even adults, actually, recently, and I say recently, but it was some four to six months ago, a hate crime committed against a gay couple. I’m not going to say exactly where, because I don’t remember, but what happened was one of their neighbors killed their dog and stuffed it into their mailbox. And then I believe, I believe one of the people in the gay marriage was killed” said Wehrmeister.
“But I feel like, as it stands right now, America is not a safe place for youth, especially, but also for adults. In the LGBTQ community, just because of how hostile it seems, there are so many different standards that are forced against people” said Wehrmeister.
Laws against LGBTQ+ individuals can leak into schools and create a harmful environment for these children. While the Las Vegas Academy of the Arts is recognized for its high number of LGBTQ+ students, schools implementing these laws are starting to become unsafe for LGBTQ+ students, and eventually, if nothing is done, they may get worse.
