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Identity

Simple ways to support your trans friends when they come out.

If someone trusts you with news that they're trans, there are a few key do's and don'ts you should follow.

Some tools to help us stand beside people we love and support.

For many gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender people, one of the most personal (and sometimes scary) experiences they'll go through is the "coming out" process.

Coming out means telling others of your status as an LGBTQ person. As society is becoming more accepting of people's sexual orientation and gender identity, coming out is getting easier all the time. Even so, for many, it's still a carefully calculated process that involves planning who, how, and when to tell people in their lives.

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via Vietnam Mobiography / Flickr

Jang Yeong-Jin, 62, has had a perilous journey to find true love. Growing up in totalitarian North Korea, he had no idea there was any such thing as being homosexual. He thought that he had a medical problem because he wasn't attracted to his wife.

He got married at 27 and when it came time to consummate the relationship he felt terribly uncomfortable.

"I couldn't lay a finger on my wife," he told the BBC. "I went to so many hospitals in North Korea because we thought that I had some sort of physical problem."

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via Pexels

A new Gallup poll found a significant increase in the number of Americans who identify as LGBT since the last time it conducted a similar poll in 2017.

The poll found that 5.6% of U.S. adults identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender. That's a large increase from the 2017 poll that had the number at 4.5%.

"More than half of LGBT adults (54.6%) identify as bisexual. About a quarter (24.5%) say they are gay, with 11.7% identifying as lesbian and 11.3% as transgender. An additional 3.3% volunteer another non-heterosexual preference or term to describe their sexual orientation, such as queer or same-gender-loving," the poll says.

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via KEEM / Twitter

Catcalling should stop being explained away as a compliment or some type of innocuous flirtation. It's a serious problem that makes women and members of the LGBT community feel unsafe in public spaces.

Catcalling can also lead to more dangerous street harassment such as inappropriate touching or sexual assault.

Actor-comedian Sklyer Stone is getting love on social media for how he responded to a disgusting YouTuber catcalling his 15-year-old daughter on the street in Los Angeles.

Stone is a stand-up comedian who has appeared on "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," "2 Broke Girls", and starred in his own Comedy Central series, "Con" in 2005.

YouTuber King Aladdin was live-streaming himself with a selfie stick on Cahuenga Boulevard when Stone and his daughter, Kylie, walked past. "Come here, come here. Where you going? Come here little Blondie. Little Taylor Swift-looking ass bitch," Aladdin called out to the teenager.

via KEEM / Twitter

Stone turned around and confronted Aladdin.

"She's 15 dude," Stone said.

"Hey bro, then why she out this late, bro? Why she out this late? This isn't Hollywood, bro," Aladdin responded.

"Why is she out this late? Because we just went on a father-daughter date, had dinner," Stone said.

Then, Aladdin started to drop his tough guy act and apologized.

"That's great," Aladdin said. "I apologize bro, I'm not trying to disrespect you in any way possible. I totally apologize."

"If I were you I would just shut the fuck up," Stone replied.

"No problem, sir. No problem. I didn't know she was 15," Aladdin said, as if it was okay to cat call women over the age of 15.

"Stop catcalling after women. Grow the fuck up," Stone responded.

After Stone walked away, Aladdin put on his tough guy persona again, trashing Stone for hanging out with his daughter and implying it was inappropriate. "She 15. Why's he hanging out with a 15-year-old girl. What a weirdo," Aladdin said.

Aladdin later deleted the video, but it was flagged and posted to Twitter.

Stone's reaction received praise on Twitter from people who respected the way he handled the interaction and stood up to catcalling.

After the video went viral, Aladdin posted an apology on YouTube.

"In the video I want to apologize to Skyler Stone," said Aladdin.

"I'm sorry for what I did to you the other night. It was embarrassing watching on my side. I'm sorry if I had ruined the night out with your daughter, I do apologize. More than likely I would have reacted the same way, whether it was my sister, daughter, whatever, I would have reacted the same way," he added.

But Stone hasn't accepted the apology because it was directed at him, not his daughter.

"It's super fake. He doesn't even address my daughter. It's directed at me...Make sure you talk to my daughter at some point. Because that's who you offended," Stone told Newsweek.

"Now my daughter's been really upset today because she saw the apology and she was crying earlier...she said 'I feel like as a woman I'm never going to be treated the same as a man,' he added.

If more people like Stone stand up to catcalling then one day women like Kylie could feel equal to men because they can walk down a public street without being harassed.