Unity
We're more divided now than we've ever been before. Some people will claim that we should push towards unity, that we would be stronger together than we are apart. Those people are selling you something. You cannot have unity without something to unify around, and often what those people want you to unify around is either a lack of change or a specific person/idea. However, the beauty in chaos and conflict is that it's inherently competitive. If you hold a position in an argument, there are people out there that will disagree with you and will let you know it. Contradicting positions will be argued over until one proves to be the other's better. This is how we grow as a culture, and to ask us to be unified for the sake of unity is to ask for stagnation. So, to illustrate my point, I'm going to go over my perspective on a bunch of divisive issues!
Islamophobia, as a word, is too broad. It's often used to reframe criticism of Islam as an attack on Muslims, and while I cannot condone unjustified violence, Islam has just as many problems as any other religion and should not be above reproach. If we could use something that focuses on the people being hurt (something like Muslimphobia) or go broad (like religism or racism) that'd be great.
Tone policing is a tactic where someone tries to invalidate a person's argument by attacking the tone they used. It's often used by privileged people to ignore the problems disadvantaged people raise. However, arguing that someone is using tone policing is itself tone policing; Telling someone they can't express themselves a certain way because you want to be able to express yourself however you want is super hypocritical. Yes, dismissing the plights of disadvantaged people is really messed up, and how people feel about their situation is incredibly important to their arguments, but it's still a weird precedent to set.
We should be more open about sex. Many people feel uncomfortable talking about sex and sexual situations because our culture defines sex as something shameful, even as it turns around and praises men for doing it. This shyness about sex is what causes our sex-ed classes to be unhelpful, and on a more serious note, it's what pushes people to keep quiet about sexual assault. Shoving sex into the public discourse would also normalize discussing the negative effects of certain sexual proclivities outside of just saying they're "icky" because they're not the prefab straight cis white missionary "ideal." For example, race play is a horrifying mishmash of intersectional prejudices and bigotry, and basically nobody is talking about it.
Otherkin are people who identify with things other than "themselves." Many identify with animals, like wolves or iguanas, while others identify with fictional/historical/fantastical characters/species, like dragons, Benjamin Franklin, or Hermione Granger. If that sounds weird to you, then you're not alone. However, you are a jerk if you make fun or bully them, because otherkin are often neurodivergent people who use these identities as coping mechanisms for their mental illnesses. Furthermore, it probably doesn't actually affect you to any extent beyond "knowing they exist," so why get so worked up about it in the first place?
Race and ethnicity are both social constructs. That's easy to see for ethnicity, since that's based on shared culture and nationality, both of which are social constructs. However, you could conceivably make a case that race isn't a social construct, since it's based on shared physical characteristics. However, the distinctions between those characteristics are murky, and can often bleed together or be confused with each other. Ultimately, it's society that determines what characteristics constitute a race, and thus it's just as much a social construct as every other part of a person's identity. However, that doesn't stop these things from being super important. The government isn't a real, tangible thing, but holds incredible power over our lives. So does race and ethnicity.
Gender, though it's often confused with biological sex, is a changing social construct, which justifies transgender and nonbinary people's gender expressions. It's that (constructed) connection between gender and sex that makes people believe that a trans woman is female or a genderfluid person doesn't have a sex. But biological sexes are a part of your genes that can't (yet) be changed, and those genes have an actual tangible effect on your mind and body that scientists need to be able to study without people getting up in arms about political correctness. I will never be female, and that's fine, because it doesn't preclude or invalidate me from being a woman. That being said, many trans people will be deeply uncomfortable with my perspective because their "biological sex" is often used by transphobes to try to invalidate their gender, so if you're talking to/about a trans person make sure to ask them if they're OK with this distinction before calling them something that'll open up old trauma.
A lot of "body positive" ideas are kind of horrible? By implying that you have to be happy with how you look it subtly discredits trans people's feelings of dysphoria, pushes away the possibility of self-betterment, and implies that your worth is in some ways tied to how beautiful/handsome you are. This hits double hard on women, because society in general bases our worth on how good we look, so hearing that parroted back from the people who are supposed to be our reprieve is not cool.
Sometimes being palatable is more important than being right. That's incredibly cynical, and it's not something I'm sure I'm going to be able to pull off myself, but if we're going to make any kind of positive social change we can't have only a small group of friends agree with a claim. You need to go broad, you need to take in multiple perspectives and try to compromise between as many of them as you can. Incrementalism sucks, but it's just how the world works, how real change happens.
A lot of people will say that making an effort to be respectful towards people you hold privilege over is the "bare minimum." That privileged people shouldn't feel good about themselves just because they've decided to treat someone as a human being, because that should be the default. Sadly, that's not the default right now, and the last time I checked we should feel happy with ourselves when we do the right thing. If you save a kid from an abusive house, you should feel good about the fact that you did that, not beat yourself up because it's what anyone should do in that situation. People with privilege have everything to gain from continuing the systems that oppress those without privilege. Happiness motivates people to repeat an action, and I want people to keep respecting marginalized groups!
We all have different perspectives on the world, different ideas and philosophies. I could be wrong about a lot of these, but there's no way for me to know that if I just pretend everything's fine for the sake of uniformity. As adults, we're going to be the guiding power of our society, and it's our responsibility to show humility, understanding, and a willingness to change, especially when we're approached by people we don't agree with. If we're mature enough to understand that we can be fallible, then arguing over these issues will lead to a better world. Otherwise our division will not be a strength, but a weakness.
