In what decade do you think the lifestyle would become fully accepted? Personally, the 2050's.
I'm more curious as to what needs to happen for it to be accepted. Like I think the first step would be mainstream movies/tv shows that shed light in a positive way will be screened like Beauty and The Beast, but with more oomph ?
I am more interested in the short-term goals that we can realistically reach.
First, we need to affirm that we do have the political freedom to express our point-of-view and to defend our own natural interests. This is harder than most people think. You would be shocked at how many people, including people in positions of authority, would piss on the Constitution just because they don't like you. In reality, there is no real substitute for proving that you know how to stand up for yourself in those kinds of situations. We're working on bringing together a strong enough organization to make good on such a bluff, but there is a lot of boring work involved. If you are not the kind of person that would enjoy making out a budget or helping to settle stupid quarrels between trustees, then you wouldn't like it. If you care enough in order to help with that kind of shit, then stay involved, and keep making friends: you might get your chance.
As far as "full acceptance," I say, the better nearer-term goal would be to get accepted within key niche communities, and it would also be very useful to develop good relations with authorities in certain cities. Think about it realistically: would you rather spend half a century saying "It would be great if the whole world accepted us!" or would you rather have a non-zero chance of being able to move to, for a totally random example, Adams, Massachusetts, knowing that if you tell your doctor that you had sex with your dog, they would have a realistic idea of how this affected your health because they already had other zoos in their care, and the supervisor at your place of work openly wore a zeta pendant? What matters to you, in your world that you interact with every day, is that you have a good quality of life and feel comfortable stepping out your door holding your head up high. That is stuff you can and should aspire to working on not only within your own lifetime but with a sense of urgency. You have the capacity to be a very good person, and having a good life, where you can hold your head up high, is something that you should fight for.
This is all stuff that takes time, patience, tact, and finesse. I earnestly suggest getting to know zoos that have already made some small amount of progress on these kinds of goals, and follow their lead. If you find out about a community where you can be open about your zoo pride, then what you do is find the other zoos in that community, and do exactly what they do. Listen to the advice of their leaders, and if you run into any situation where you don't know what to do, ask for help. Damn right, we're getting organized.
I wouldn't be talking about a realistic portrait of our intermediate goals--and the degree of difficulty in reaching those intermediate goals--if I didn't genuinely believe it was all worth doing. Yes, I think it would be wonderful to be able to travel and to work anywhere in the whole entire world, without exception, as someone who was openly zooey. I would love to be in a situation where the human rights committee at the UN talked occasionally about ways to make our lives better. When human beings expand their presence into space, I want us to leave this creepy voodoo-dancing tribal taboo shit on the planet where we evolved ourselves out of it. Let's leave anti-zoo persecution in the same place where we left smashing a woman's head with a rock for being a victim of rape. We're eventually going to get there, and the path there is going to be watering the seedlings that are already taking root.
Just keep one thing in mind: if you are a zoo prider, then you are going to get just as much hate from your fellow zoos as you get from anybody else. I know this sounds strange, but you have to understand that zoos are human beings. Human beings, whether they are zoos or not, can sometimes be troublesome. You will run into zoos that try to judge you for your zoo pride. They might judge you for the fact that you think that the human race is good enough to eventually see that we belong. Some of them might make fun of you. You will get heckling from your fellow zoos, and for the same reasons why they are a little bit like you, they will also know the places on you that hurt the most. The problem is that you are right: zoos are normal people, and that comes with all of the concomitant problems. If you are a zoo prider, then you still have to fight for acceptance among zoos, and that is really not any easier than fighting for acceptance among any other kinds of people.
Well, the way you fight for acceptance among zoos is still the same. You find places where people that think like you are already winning, and you invest your efforts there. You find people that are doing something like what you want to do, and you follow their lead. Be willing to accept mentoring, and learn how to take feedback from people that want you to succeed. Zoo pride is happening, and we are getting stronger every day.
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