Ask Lemmy

Mostly people miss it... Unless you were gay. Then you probably have some unhappy memories about that time. Of course there's nostalgia for other stuff, but civil rights were way worse for lgbtq.

I'm surprised no one brought this up yet. Being gay in the 90s would be about as controversial as being trans now, and it would not be okay to walk around holding hands with your same sex partner unless you were in a known gay area. it might not be illegal, but it would've attracted attention, probably people would've said slurs at least. The f slur was used in television and movies until around the 90s. People just used it like "nerd" or "dweeb". Cocksucker was a pretty bad insult, insinuating someone was gay being pretty damn insulting at the time.

Things were significantly worse for lgbtq people, and there was the fear of HIV being basically a death sentence, and it wouldn't have been long after people called it the "gay disease". Some people were very uneducated about that stuff. My mom, who believed that gay men were our equals and should have equal rights, told me not to touch my gay teacher or shake his hand or anything because he might have "a disease". Thankfully my father was more medically knowledgeable and told her it doesn't spread like that, even if he had it.

It wasn't until around after the 2000s at least that gay people were proudly saying, "HIV is no longer a death sentence". It used to be a disease running rampant that no one gave a shit about because of homophobia basically. Fucking Reagan.