Column: Millennials impact the LGBTQ movement in many ways

The fight for equal rights is not a new one. Throughout history humanity, and certainly Americans, have had a constant struggle to be viewed and treated equally. In the late 19th century there was women’s suffrage, in the 1950s there was the Civil Rights movement and presently in the 2000s there is the LGBTQ movement.

Each generation is defined by their actions, their social practices and most importantly their role in these types of movements. We learn social stigmas from our parents’ generation and as we become parents ourselves we consciously and unconsciously impart our own social stigmas on our children.

The millennial generation is made up of those between the ages of 18 to 35, those of us who reached young adulthood around the year 2000. At 26 myself, I can say that our generation has been witness to many changes in technology and society.

In part the millennial generation has played a large role in these changes. The social media platform Facebook has become common in the lives of people of all ages and was even created by a millennial, Mark Zuckerberg.

In the same respect the millennial generation has also impacted the LGBTQ movement in drastic ways. I don’t just mean in the increased number of voters, or millennials who were in favor of the law that President Obama signed protecting LGBTQ marriage rights, but we were also instrumental in helping the LGBTQ community become better integrated into society.

Millennial Rebecca Sugar is 29 years old and is the creator of a Cartoon Network series called “Steven Universe.” This series has themes showing same-sex characters in relationships and even non-traditional families, like multiple women raising a little boy.

The show also portrays traditional nuclear families, with a mother and father raising a little girl. It shows that being accepting of one family structure does not mean you must eliminate another. Both of these structures can exist within the same society, and both of these children from two different families can still be friends.

Themes like this in a children’s show not only help future generations to prevent past stigmas being passed on. It also shows previous generations that movements like the LGBTQ movement are positive, and taking away social stigmas from those who are part of the LGBTQ community proves that they have been part of society all along.

Sugar started out working on the popular “Adventure Time,” another show that consistently attempts to break stigmas. “Adventure Time” also gained popularity first through YouTube, another site that has not only gained popularity in the last five to 10 years but has also acted as a platform for many millennials to be heard politically as well as through entertainment.

There will always be social stigmas that need to be fought. History has shown that equality isn’t always a reality, no matter how much a nation claims that it is.

Yet that does not mean that fighting these social stigmas is not worth doing. Millennials of all ages, ranging from popular musicians like Lady Gaga (age 30) to creators of television shows like “Steven Universe,” show that there is more than one way to fight what might be viewed as the societal norm.

Sometimes the world just needs to be shown that giving equal rights to those who are oppressed does not take away rights from those who already have them. Rather, it shows that members of these communities have been part of society the entire time.