(Originally posted May 6, 2016) I read a Slate blog yesterday titled The Cultural Alienation of Anti-Trans Americans. The blog’s gist is that, while some Christian conservatives would like you to believe that we are in the middle of an important ideological war over the validity of the trans identity, the war in fact has come and gone. Christian conservatives lost, and anti-trans Americans are destined to fall further out of the cultural mainstream, onto the fringes of society.
That blog got me thinking about fringes, and if there might a “proper” role they play in society. Certainly reasonable people would agree that the likes of neo-Nazis, white supremacists, anti-Semites, those adhering to the corruption of Islam that is ISIL, and others belong as far as possible from the mainstream. We might even hope for a special category beyond fringe. Their “ideas” are abhorrent and dangerous, and within the context of free speech, such expression should be quickly, resoundingly, vehemently and universally condemned. At best these might become teachable moments. Others earning fringe status include anti-miscegenationists and, more recently, those outspoken against marriage equality. And while the latter may not (yet) inhabit the outer fringes, that’s their ultimate destination.
Aside:
I remember an incident at my first job out of college – it was the 1970s, for some cultural reference – working in a warehouse with a rather bitter older man. He was an Archie Bunker type, quick with derogatory comments towards almost anything modern or foreign. (An example: he blamed the government for manufacturing the gas crisis, and then for coercing him buy a fuel-efficient Chevy Vega with an aluminum engine block, which he was sure was designed to fail days after the warranty expired. Which of course it did.) Soon, the warehouse hired an administrator, a woman from Kenya, which prompted my work Archie to more-frequent-than-usual sprinklings of the N-word. During lunch one day I had heard enough, so gave him a piece of my (well-rehearsed, I’m sure) mind. I can’t remember his exact response, but he basically said that he had been using that term for his entire life, and nobody was going to tell him what he could and couldn’t say. (Today, he’d take a stronger stance, emboldened by Trump to scoff at my political correctness.) My boss took me aside and suggested I refrain from instigating trouble, as the solution to the problem was simply to wait it out and let Archie retire quietly. The lesson I learned is that hateful speech and abhorrent ideas can take generations to reach true fringe status, although I’m not sure how that cycle is broken generation to generation.
Back to those against marriage equality, for just a brief moment (because that’s not what this is about). (You can call them supporters of traditional marriage if you like, but the label spin encourages lowering the level of discourse to a twist of the schoolyard taunt “I know you are, but what am I?”) Are these people on the fringe? A generation has not yet passed since that battle has been won; how fast will these ideas decay? Maybe Dante’s rings apply here, and there are in fact many circles of fringe. There remains enough fading anti-marriage noise to prove there are still circles where such ideas are still more than tolerated; let’s call it Limbo, the outer ring. The good news is that it is becoming increasingly easy to ignore that noise, which in a sense is one benefit of fringe status.
But I also mentioned anti-miscegenation; is that still a thing? Apparently it is, judging from some recent reaction to an Old Navy ad campaign. Thanks to Facebook and Twitter, it’s dishearteningly simple to crawl into shitholes where such ignorance is actually displayed as a badge of honor. And surprisingly, it’s not often the veil of anonymity that gives courage to cowards, as most comments come from real profiles; I’ll suggest Trumpism is partially at fault for encouraging such bigotry to crawl out of the slime. Yesterday’s news mentioned a response to these critics of the Old Navy ad, from John McCain’s son. While I defer to his greater right to comment, I also wonder why it’s even necessary. Won’t mainstream comments lend a modicum of credence to such ignorance? (But then I remember what I said earlier about denouncing abhorrent ideas, so maybe I’m conflicted.)
What’s next? Will Trump’s son announce that he supports women’s suffrage? Will Ted Cruz’s wife announce she advocates interracial drinking fountains and bathrooms? Will John Kasich – wait, who is John Kasich again?
The mention of bathrooms brings me back to the original topic, spurred by the Slate article predicting that anti-trans thought, ideas, and speech (and, it seems, laws) are on their way to fringe status. It will be a grand role reversal, with trans people vacating the ring they’ve inhabited to swap places with their detractors. And what’s wrong with that? Acceptance of an individual’s essential humanity is a universal virtue that transcends religious laws and the facile corruptions men impose for power and control.
In the end, it seems to me that the crux of the problem, the challenge we face, is rooted in how one perceives the world. Is everything black and white? Good or evil? Fundamentalists and extremists tend to apply such rigid judgements to ideas and actions, discouraging critical thought using hierarchical structures to dictate right and wrong, often down to the minutiae of one’s personal life. Some Christian denominations fall into this category, but many are much more progressive. Those more open-minded and curious about the world see the glory of diversity, of a god’s creation if you like, not only in four dozen plus two shades of grey, but in yet to be imagined colors.