The point is that people go from places where they were kicked out of home for being gay to LGBTQ friendly places like San Fransisco. So though you're entirely wrong about homophobia in the coastal US, this is largely irrelevant in any case.

Also, you yourself are expressing a number of homophobic ideas in this thread. Could you please stop? It sucks that every HN thread that mentions LGBTQ people even in passing seems always to have to attract homophobic comments.

Finally, you should read the comment that DoreenMichele linked to to see what she was getting at.

Screaming "homophobia" the very second someone opposes your mental model of the world, is deliberate victimisation. I have no phobia of homosexuality.

And I did read the comment.

You seem to have missed the flow of events here. I mentioned homophobia before you commented, not as some kind of characterization of you in specific.

Other people chiming in to suggest you are homophobic or your comments are homophobic is not something I have control over. Acting like I am playing the victim card based on that is ridiculous.

I'm mentioning homophobia because you've suggested that being LGBTQ is often caused by an underlying mental illness (doubling down on this claim here: https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=4gotunameagain), and because you've suggested that anyone who claims that homophobia is prevalent (in the 'coastal US', at least) is acting in bad faith and 'deliberately victimizing' themselves. Now you seem to be playing semantic games regarding the meaning of 'homophobia'. I won't try to change your mind here, but I think the majority of HNers will easily be able to see what I'm referring to.

On top of all that, this whole discussion resulted from one bullet point in a comment on an article that literally has nothing to do with LGBTQ people or homophobia. And yet you feel the need to argue all of these points here.

I disagree on this point. The idea that being gay or trans is a form of (or consequence of) mental illness is inherently homophobic. So is the idea that LGBTQ people 'deliberately victimize' themselves.

There is no bad faith here. Remember that you my also be exposed to points of view that you don't like – such as the one I just expressed.

Edit: I'd ask one question in response to your comment. You say that due to limitations of current scientific knowledge, 'one cannot claim without any certainty that LGBTQ is not caused by mental illness'. Ok, then can we be certain that being straight is not caused by mental illness? Which scientific studies could one cite to support or refute that claim?