When Noise Becomes a Strategy Targeting LGBTQ+ People

On the usefulness of vulnerable targets

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There is a persistent illusion in contemporary public life: the belief that constant debate equals vigilance. That as long as society is arguing loudly, something important must be happening.

This illusion is comforting — and deeply misleading.

For years now, public discourse has been saturated with culture wars. Identity, gender, sexuality, bodies, language. These topics dominate headlines, political speeches, and social media cycles. They are framed as existential threats, moral emergencies, issues that require immediate and emotional reaction.

LGTBIQ+ people have been placed at the center of this permanent debate. Their existence is scrutinized, questioned, regulated, and repeatedly framed as controversial. They are asked to justify themselves in ways that no majority ever is.

This fixation is not accidental.
It serves a structural purpose.

The Usefulness of Vulnerable Targets

Small, visible, and politically weak groups are ideal focal points for public anxiety. They are present enough to provoke reaction, yet lack the institutional power to meaningfully push back. Attacking them carries little cost and often brings social or political rewards.

By keeping public attention fixed on these groups, society creates a constant sense of moral activity. People feel engaged, righteous, and alert. They argue, take sides, and perform their values publicly.

What they do not do is look upward.

While symbolic conflicts consume collective attention, other realities remain largely untouched: networks of wealth, influence, protection, and silence. Forms of harm that are systemic, organized, and long-standing rarely receive sustained focus. When they briefly surface, they are treated as uncomfortable interruptions rather than central issues.

The noise resumes quickly.

Moral Energy Without Direction

One of the defining traits of the current moment is not moral indifference, but moral misdirection.

There is outrage — plenty of it — but it is unevenly distributed. Symbolic issues generate endless reaction. Structural issues generate hesitation, fragmentation, and silence. The difference lies not in severity, but in risk.

Criticizing vulnerable groups is safe. Questioning entrenched power is not.

As a result, moral energy is expended where it changes nothing, while issues that would require accountability are quietly sidelined. This produces a paradoxical society: morally loud, politically ineffective.

The Language of “Protection”

Much of the hostility directed at LGTBIQ+ communities is framed in the language of protection, particularly the protection of children. This framing is emotionally potent and difficult to challenge without appearing insensitive or defensive.

Yet this concern proves remarkably fragile.

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When information emerges pointing to real, documented harm — harm that is systemic, prolonged, and shielded by wealth and influence — the protective impulse often dissolves. The conversation shifts. Attention drifts. Doubt is emphasized. Fatigue is invoked.

Protection, it turns out, is conditional.

This selectivity exposes a troubling hierarchy: some dangers mobilize society, others are quietly tolerated. Some victims provoke outrage, others provoke discomfort. And discomfort, more often than not, wins.

Culture Wars as Political Technology

Culture wars are frequently described as spontaneous clashes of values. In reality, they function as a form of political technology.

They divide society horizontally, group against group, while leaving vertical power structures intact. They keep public attention focused on identity, visibility, and personal behavior rather than on institutions, accountability, and long-term damage.

They also create a useful rhythm: outrage, exhaustion, distraction, repetition. Serious issues appear briefly, stripped of context, then dissolve into background noise.

This is not because the information is unclear. It is because sustained attention would have consequences.

Silence Is Not Neutral

When serious information fails to generate sustained public response, the issue is not lack of awareness. It is unwillingness to confront what that information implies.

Silence, in these cases, is not absence. It is presence of restraint. A collective decision — explicit or implicit — that certain questions are better not pursued too far.

The ability to generate silence is one of the clearest indicators of power.

The Cost of Looking Away

The consequences of this dynamic are profound. LGTBIQ+ communities become permanent objects of suspicion, distraction, and hostility, while real structures of harm remain protected. Society learns to confuse moral performance with responsibility, and noise with action.

Over time, this erodes moral coherence. It becomes harder to distinguish between symbolic conflict and material damage, between imagined threats and documented ones.

And when the smoke finally clears — as it eventually does — it will no longer be credible to claim ignorance. The patterns were visible. The silences were telling.

Less Noise, More Courage

This is not a call for louder outrage or more debate. It is a call for sustained attention.

Protecting vulnerable people does not mean turning them into permanent suspects. It means being willing to look where power concentrates, where silence is enforced, and where harm has been systematically normalized.

Until that happens, culture wars will continue to function exactly as they do now: as a way to appear morally active while avoiding the discomfort of real accountability.

Noise is easy. Focus is not.

And that difference matters.