Honestly that could actually be interesting. Would probably be able to discuss some nuances and make the mainstream a bit more comfortable with some currently uncomfortable conversations. People can remember complicated things if they’re invested in the narrative.

I’m a cis-het potato. If any of this sounds insensitive, I can fix it:

Guy who doesn’t meet the stereotype of a “drug guy” has to cook up drugs to make ends meet. makes him start making for , which turns out to also be used by for . At first he sees them as nothing more than the users he was profiting from in an hour of desperation, people who twist their sad lives around acquiring and consuming a substance, but over time as he gets further down this path he begins to understand them in a way that he (and most people) has never had to. “Upstanding-man-who-is-a-secret-chemical-man ally” can go in so many directions.

With all its many many faults, I remember seeing Dallas Buyers Club as a judgmental kid, and it was successfully able to split “queer identity” from “sexual perversion” for me. I think this understanding was beginning to spread before a tipping point in the past decade. Personally I think people saw a lot of (Western) companies really go all in on rainbow marketing, going directly from “queer identities exist” to “these are being celebrated openly” without the critical middle “this isn’t a sex thing”.

If you think it’s bad in the US or Europe (and it’s not always great, it’s not a competition) let me assure you the heightened negative attention has also made people who were able to be themselves under the radar here in the Middle East face more bullshit. The average person around me has gone from “This person gives me the ick but it has no effect on my life really, just stay away from me and my kids, it’s between them and God” to “This person should be fixed immediately before they shove their perversion down everyone’s throats.” The former is abysmal, but at that point they weren’t really seen as an active, growing threat. Unfortunately it’s not just “this isn’t a sex thing” that’s missing here, historically most people have thought “queer” = “perversion” = “pedophilia”, and this was fading slowly before being supercharged by all this torrent of negative attention.