Supporting One Doesn’t Mean Hating The Other
I’ve written multiple times about how our country and our culture have become extremely polarized. It has become the greatest barrier to progress in the modern world. Religion, guns, abortion, sex, education, politics. Dividing lines between beliefs have existed for as far back as written history can recall. Sometimes those lines grew into walls, both figuratively and literally, creating deep divides that were almost unrecoverable.
Do we have some of those lines today? Sure we do. Do we have some walls right now? Yes. Are many of those things approaching unrecoverable? I am concerned that they are.
What is more concerning is that we are creating these lines based on the false premise that if you support one thing, you must hate the opposite. In most cases that just isn’t true. Let’s talk about an example.
Jennifer Sey is a former executive at Levi’s corporation and was an international level gymnast competing on the US Gymnastics Team for a number of years. She left Levi’s and began XX-XY clothing brand that is aiming to protect women’s sports. Her position is trans athletes should not be competing against women based on biological differences, thus the reference to X and Y chromosomes in the branding.
Since her time at Levi’s where she was very public about her position on transgender athletes in women’s sports, she has been harassed and attacked. I won’t go so far as to say she lost her job at Levi’s solely because of this, but I promise it was a contributing factor. Why?
When someone is trying to protect something important to them, why are they immediately labeled? Jennifer Sey was labeled as “anti-trans” because she didn’t support them competing against women, in women’s sports, where she feels they have an unfair advantage. Her position is she is protecting women and women’s sports.
In my research of Jennifer Sey, I have never read or heard of her attacking transgender people, the LGBTQ community, or transgender athletes. She solely does not support them competing against women because she feels it is unfair TO WOMEN. There is the potential for physical injury, loss of accolades, and loss of financial benefit based on SCIENTIFIC differences between female and transgender athletes.
She has never said that I can find, transgender athletes should be banned from competing or from competing in another class or capacity. But that is NOT the message of the transgender athlete world and those who support them competing against women. The message is “support us or you’re a bigot” and “if you don’t believe what we believe, you’re anti-trans”.
Those are some pretty assumptive statements, which often turn out to be false. They also make it virtually impossible to have adult, grown-up discussions that would allow both sides to express their positions and come to some sort of “agree to disagree” ending.
Because right now, we don’t do that. About almost anything. And it is irrational. And it will be the end of our country and our culture.
Jennifer Sey and XX-XY brand isn’t the only example, but it is relevant, current, and poignant. It isn’t difficult to find other arguments such as this across the news spectrum. You can easily find examples in the arguments for and against guns or abortion. There are arguments about race in and out of sports. There are arguments about religious beliefs. It’s all out there.
We’ve just added “hate” to all of them. If you don’t agree with me, you hate me. If you don’t think the way I do, you hate me. If you don’t support these people, you hate them.
Oddly enough, the converse isn’t as prevalent. “I love you, but you clearly don’t agree with me, so we must hate each other.” What? There are families being torn apart by this mentality. There are even newspeople who advocated to shut out family members during the holidays over different political beliefs! Seriously?! They told you to CUT FAMILY out of your LIFE over politics!!
This is where we are folks. We need to get back to discussion, discourse, and agreeing to disagree.
It’s not always hate.
Supporting One Doesn’t Mean Hating The Other.