There is a common reaction among people with progressive views to deem anyone who disagrees with them “hateful” for simply expressing a different opinion. Particularly when it comes to the topics of sexuality and gender.
Let me tell you, I get it. Believe it or not, I used to be a devoted leftist. And I know from experience that when you’re on the left and you’re surrounding yourself with other people on the left, you are told repeatedly and affirmed in your belief that people who are conservative are hateful and ignorant. That you need to “educate” them and it is justified, even meritorious, to belittle and shame them. A big part of the reason why this happens especially when people hold different views on sexuality and gender is because people in leftists circles are constantly pushing and internalizing the narrative that those who have different views on the subject are literally harming and endangering the supposedly marginalized LGBT+ community.
I can only speak to the way things are in America because I am an American but firstly, in this day and age it seems a stretch to say that the LGBT+ community is marginalized when it makes up a fraction of society and yet it is loudly celebrated and championed by the federal government, most state governments, all of academia and all of the media except for a very small hand full of conservative media outlets.
Additionally, the majority of people are completely fine with people who are gay, the main issue causing strife in our society right now is transgenderism. And that is for good reason. Any questioning or push back on the narrative of affirmation and celebration of transgenderism is met with complete vitriol from progressives because they have accepted the idea that anyone who doesn’t toe the line and agree wholeheartedly with them on the topic is perpetrating violence against trans people. They are told in leftist echo chambers that there is a genocide of trans people happening and anyone who disagrees with them is a hateful bigot. The entire thought process is built around nothing but seeking to accommodate the feelings of trans people at all costs. It is a misguided form of empathy that I used to engage in myself.
The thing is, now that I have exited the leftist echo chamber and actually allowed myself to think critically about it after listening to both sides of the argument, I am against transgender ideology. I do not hate people who feel that they are transgender. I bear them no ill will at all. I feel sympathy for people who experience genuine gender dysphoria, just as I feel sympathy for anyone experiencing mental health struggles that are causing them mental and emotional distress. That doesn’t mean I have to agree with the notion that your feelings change material reality.
While I do support traditional gender roles personally, I also understand and accept that not everyone fits into them or identifies with them. I don’t have any issue with people who like to present themselves in a way that is associated with the opposite sex. If a man wants to wear a dress and makeup or a woman wants to wear baggy basketball shorts and get a buzz cut, that’s their right. I don’t have to like it in order to respect their freedom of expression.
What I do take issue with is the idea that if you present yourself in a way that is associated with the opposite sex, that actually makes you the opposite sex. I take issue with the idea that we have to change our foundational conceptions of the observable reality of binary biological sex to cater to people’s self-perceptions. I take issue with people thinking that it is their right, if not their duty, to push these factually incorrect, confusing and potentially damaging beliefs on to other people’s children. I take issue with the notion that the science is “settled” around transgenderism when it is far from it. I take issue with the lefts disregard, and even disdain, for detransitioners and the apparent lack of concern for the very real, often permanent and severe, medical problems they face as a result of HRT and “gender affirming surgeries”. I take issue with the way people on the left refuse to engage with any of the issues that are unfolding since the push for society to accept transgender ideology has begun in the last 10 years or so— from men who claim to be trans women taking away opportunities and accolades from actual women to women being endangered in rightfully sex segregated spaces such as women’s prisons to women having their rights to privacy and security ignored and infringed in bathrooms and locker rooms. And I take issue with the belief that if anyone dares to express any of these concerns, we are somehow violent, hateful and ignorant, and therefore it is justified to degrade us and attempt to silence us by shame or by force. I have no malice in my heart, but I will not concede.
