> I'm sure you can find plenty of people in the west who believe stupid things. Does that mean that western countries are "removing pieces of reality"?

Yes. The past 20 years or so the media ecosystems have been trying to do exactly that, at least in the US where I live. Remove the bits they don't like, and invent out of whole cloth replacement bits.

I have heard the same statement several times too. I think the point was in relation to the context of censorship of LGBTQ content.

I've heard this from Chinese lesbians too. They aren't out in China, but other people are completely incapable of noticing they're gay, and other women won't admit they're gay to them even if eg they have just had sex.