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sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 1 week agoI’ll try explaining with a different example that’s less emotionally charged: gambling.
I think gambling is terrible and nobody should do it. It’s addictive and has ruined tons of lives, and I absolutely refuse to do anything related to it for fear that I’ll get hooked.
So I should be in favor of gambling bans, right? No, quite the opposite, and I genuinely get excited for my coworkers and friends that do gamble when they do well. They know my personal opinion on it, but still share their ups and downs with me because they know I won’t judge or lecture them.
The same is true for a variety of policies, I generally believe in fewer restrictions on individuals. For example:
- I don’t drink but support looser liquor laws
- I believe prostitution should be legal, and also that it’s bad
- I don’t use drugs, but believe that all recreational drugs should be legal if they can be used safety (i.e. under medical supervision)
As long as it doesn’t restrict those who don’t want to participate, I’m in favor of more options for people.
I believe everyone should be able to live the way they choose, and I can be happy for someone who makes different choices than me. I don’t have to understand why someone values something to feel happy when they achieve it.
My view of homosexuality applies to me, not you. Me preventing you from doing something I consider to be a sin is worse than you doing the sin. You have every right to decide how to live your life, and I can feel happy for you finding happiness even if I believe it’s the wrong choice.
I don’t think that’s at all comparable to your creationism example, which is about accepting two opposing views simultaneously. If you accept science that conflicts with your religious views, you need to adjust your religious views so they’re compatible. Likewise, society and law don’t need to match your religious views, they just need to be compatible (e.g. religious institutions shouldn’t be forced to perform or accept same sex marriage for religious rites).
I hope this makes sense.
cygnus@lemmy.ca 1 week ago
Thanks for taking the time to explain - that does make a lot of sense, if you coisider being trans or gay a learned/chosen behaviour. That hadn’t crossed my mind, which is why the premise seemed impossible to me. The difference, of course, between being gay and being a gambler is that nobody is born a gambler, therefore the comparison doesn’t really hold up. That’s why I used the creationism example: Carbon-14 is what it is. LGBT people are who they are. They didn’t choose to be that way any more that C-14 chose its decay rate. I suppose that doesn’t matter all that much in practice - if more people thought like you rather than being homo- or transphobic, the world would undoubtedly be a better place than it is.
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 1 week ago
I disagree. You can have two people from the same upbringing and one becomes addicted to gambling and the other doesn’t. So there’s absolutely a predisposition toward addictions, which is why some people struggle a lot more than others at breaking bad habits.
My views on transexuality are a bit different though. I don’t think the issue is necessarily that some AFAB person is actually a man and biology/God got it wrong, I think the issue is that people feel more comfortable with a given set of social norms that may not match the social norms of their sex. This doesn’t have to be a conscious decision either, they can just feel uneasy with things and blame their sex, but really the issue is society not matching their mental model of themselves. For those people, sex changes and/or hormone therapy can be the most effective solution, because changing society is much more difficult than changing how you present. I’ve even heard some people can change how they present from day to day because they’re feeling like they align more to one or the other extreme that day.
Agreed 100%. Whether non-binary genders (or genders at all) are an actual thing or a social construct doesn’t really matter, what matters is love and acceptance.
Does calling someone by their preferred gender cost you anything? No. Does arguing semantics about whether what they’re experiencing is innate or a subconscious processing of societal norms help? No. Just accept people for who they claim to be if it doesn’t harm anyone.
And yeah, I think homo- and trans- phobias are stupid. We’re all just people, so treat each other with respect and fight for each other to get whatever they need go feel loved and accepted.