What do high immigration levels mean to LGBTI people in Australia?
LGBTI people have had a hard struggle for decades demanding recognition, respect and acceptance. Slowly, laws have been changed. These hard-won achievements took many years. Social attitudes have changed a lot and we now live in an altogther more understanding and tolerant society... or do we? Laws have changed, but attitudes lag behind. These attitudes are still somewhat tenuous. LGBTI people still have higher rates of youth suicide, etc..
High immigration levels and population growth impact LGBTI people in similar ways to anyone else; crowding, loss of amenity, higher property prices, environmental degradation, etc., on the one hand, a somewhat greater variety and larger volume of people, ideas and culture in their backyard on the other. The stressors affect the local population who experience a gradual worsening in their quality of life. Do they adapt? To some extent, especially if they are young and know no other environment, which is generational adaptation. But it goes a good way toward explaining the older generations' disenchantment, who remember the better times. More likely these stressors explain the continuing rates of mental illness and civilisational diseases such as cancer and obesity, crime, drug use, assaults and domestic abuse. Do these pressures mean people have less time and compassion for others, particularly minorities?
Compounding these impacts is the cultural mix of the population influx. How do I feel about newcomers arriving with norms and customs that are indisputably homophobic? How do I feel about the social conservatism these new voters give support to in public forums? What can I reasonably expect of my fellow Australians who are now grappling with ever more complex social problems, on top of even greater existential threats such as climate change and the squeeze by the rich?
IS THE AGE OF OPPORUNITY OVER?
Given the limits to growth on Earth, and the numerous threats to the survival of the human species, are opportunities for personal gain diminshing? Is population growth, climate change, soil degradation, increasing toxicity, diminishing nutritional levels in food, military conflict, security issues, species and biodiversity loss and energy restriction making a difference to migration options?
Is it time for opportunistic migration to end?
Is it reasonable to argue that in such a world, where our species is spreading and colonizing ever more space and resources, people who do not resist the temptation to seek greener pastures and instead do what they can to remediate their current location, are contributing to an ever more grave future for all?
And yet migration is becoming ever more the norm in our world. More and more, opportunism is being transformed into desperation and survival, as the deleterious effects of past opportunism on Earth's capacity to provide for us puts the screws on us.