Merit is nothing without opportunity.
Some time ago, I overheard part of a conversation that I find relevant to the recent events. A couple was talking about equality, diversity, and inclusion:
He: “Yes, you’re very pro-equality and inclusion. Until you have to share a bathroom with a trans person and you’ll die of anguish.”
She couldn’t answer him, probably because she conceded that in such a situation she would feel extremely uncomfortable.
I believe I understand the feeling that captured the woman. Who hasn’t felt discomfort when encountering someone different? Someone who is difficult to understand. Someone who society has demonized. I’m sure that at the moment her husband told her “the truth,” it was inevitable for the woman that her brain would show her a person with the worst characteristics of a stereotype. I’m sure she thought of a rough, dirty, exhibitionist, rude person who wouldn’t respect her, who might say something rude to her, someone whose physical appearance might not be the most orderly, who might not have well-defined traditional gender features. Because unfortunately, if I remember correctly, that was the image that many have insisted on selling us.
That image of “the other” being terrible is so deeply ingrained. We don’t think of the people we would share bathrooms with as being like the dozens of people we encounter every day. People who aren’t happy to use a public bathroom. People who would also prefer not to run into other people in the bathroom, who wash their hands like everyone else, who might smile silently at us, who might not make eye contact and continue their lives without remembering us and vice versa.
We also don’t think about the people we already share the bathroom with who are also rude, dirty, and disrespectful. Because there are people who have all the undesirable characteristics who already share the bathroom with the woman in the story. They share the bathroom with me. Many of them have made me feel bad.
Yesterday with the news of the TSE approving the name change for gender identity, I can’t help but think, until when? How long will we deny fundamental rights to people? How long will we viciously attack and exclude them because of our fears? How long will we automatically add other harmful characteristics to an individual based on physical characteristics or sexual preferences? How long will we let our brains create images without questioning them, that we see a woman and believe her to be less capable, that we don’t praise intelligence as the first quality in a female, that we believe being homosexual immediately makes one promiscuous, that it makes one want everyone to be homosexual, that being a man immediately makes one a chauvinist and a sportsman, that going to church makes us better…
No matter how we classify humans: men, women, trans, homosexuals, rich, poor, educated, illiterate, atheists, religious, single, housewives, engineers, doctors, gardeners, sports fans, we find the best and worst kinds of people in all of them. In all of them, there are murderers, thieves, con artists, rapists. In all of them, there are honest, hard-working, generous, respectful people.
So no, giving more rights to people does not generate abusers, rapists, con artists, thieves, murderers, usurers, promiscuous people, adulterers. They already exist, they already make fun of existing systems, and they exist among religious, heterosexual, and “traditional families” who defend them so much. And they exist among homosexuals and trans people to whom new rights will be given. But precisely because, despite the existence of abusers, murderers, and con artists, I still have the right to teach teenagers, despite unscrupulous people who abuse identities and other systems, I can still travel and still get married if I want to. For people who want to do things for the right reasons, there must be a process for them to live their lives as they deserve.
Especially considering that in places where such “crazy acts” have taken place, systems have not collapsed, the world has not ended, and there have even been reductions in adolescent suicides.
As people, we have the right to decide who we want in our lives and who we don’t. We can choose our close friends. It would be wonderful if we didn’t dismiss people outright for a physical characteristic, it would be wonderful if we didn’t treat each other badly because of prejudices. It would be wonderful if we questioned the decisions we make regarding a person. It is essential that until proven otherwise, a person deserves my respect and courtesy.
But as a country, it is a duty to give people the rights that make us human, to ensure that everyone has the opportunity for a dignified life. At this moment, a pedophile can marry whoever they want as long as it is of the opposite sex. Meanwhile, a healthy, productive, respectful person who maintains consensual relationships with another adult cannot have the same rights. The ability to make a better world, to contribute to the country, to move forward is nothing without the opportunity for a dignified life.