Being uncomfortable does not make you oppressed

I grew up going to Sunday School, Vacation Bible School and church services, mostly at General Baptist churches. I would hear things that, even at a young age, I disagreed with or that made me uncomfortable. I asked a lot of questions and made Sunday School teachers in particular very uncomfortable. When, as a teen, I finally realized I was not a Christian, I quit going to church as a congregant – I’d go to events here and there, for a marriage, for a funeral, or just for the music. But I quit participating in the prayers or communion. Even then, sometimes I wasn’t just uncomfortable at what I heard – I was horrified. It took work sometimes to make it all the way through a service without standing up and saying, “This is crap and you are monstrous.” But I didn’t. I withdrew my support by walking away or by not participating. I am quite vocal enough in my opposition to church policy via other avenues.

When I went to university, I would often hear things that challenged me, that I disagreed with or that made me uncomfortable. I asked a lot of questions, but unlike Sunday School teachers, university professors seemed to welcome questions and opposing opinions, though they made me produce a lot of facts and reasoning for my disagreements. I remember one girl being outraged in a history class over the fact that Roman Catholic Popes sired children, and I remember wondering if she thought it was a lie created to degrade her religion or if she knew it was true but just thought it shouldn’t be mentioned – she as unclear on those points.

When I disagree with someone – a friend, a neighbor, a co-worker, a university profession – there are four of options I can take:

1. I can decide it’s such a degrading comment or point of view about me or such a threat to my existence, my freedom and my dignity, or the existence, freedom and dignity of others, that I can no longer be around the person. I may need to walk out of that meeting or event. I may feel that I need to talk to their employer, if it happened in a work environment.
2. I can decide that, while I absolutely disagree with their opinion, it’s not going to affect the freedom or dignity of myself or others, and I’m okay, from the perspective of my safety and my ethics, with continuing our friendship, our working relationship, staying in the class, staying in the job, etc.
3. I can decide that they are uninformed and, at this stage, harmless, and can be brought to a more enlightened point of view if they are provided facts in an ongoing and non-threatening manner (but whether I’m the one that’s going to take on that challenge is another discussion altogether), and therefore I’m okay, from the perspective of my safety and my ethics, with continuing our friendship, our working relationship, staying in the class, staying in the job, etc.
4. I can decide that they have no power to influence anything that will actually threaten anyone and probably just need a nap and some time to really consider what they are saying.

I choose number two and number three a LOT. And not just for actual relationships: I’ve also had it in mind as I watch a movie or read a book by someone who has said something reprehensible. If I were to purge every book or movie or song from my library by someone who has said sexist or racist things, who has said degrading things, or who has spread medical misinformation, I’d probably have just a few books, CDs and DVDs left. Our works often become things far greater than ourselves.

I would probably disappoint many of my left-leaning friends if we did a litmus test for on absolutely every issue under the sun, because I have no doubt there are some things we would strongly disagree on. I do not “like” every post my friends make on Facebook, not only because I often never see their posts thanks to Facebook algorithms, but also because I don’t always agree with them. I’m sure it’s the same for them with the things I post. That’s okay. But to unfriend someone takes a lot more than disagreeing – it takes crossing a line. It has to be a clear, unambiguous insult or threat to my existence, freedom and dignity, or to the existence, freedom and dignity of others.

My diatribe here has been brought on by the events that have been spawned by a video from a Texas A&M University classroom. The class was ENGL 360: Literature for Children, and the class subject was the book Jude Saves the World, a novel that features a 12-year-old protagonist who navigates coming out as nonbinary. In the lecture, the professor shared a graphic of a purple “gender unicorn,” often used to teach the differences between gender identity, expression and sexuality. In the video, a student questions the legality of the teachings, saying, “I’m not entirely sure this is legal to be teaching because according to our president, there’s only two genders and he said he would be freezing agencies’ funding programs that promote gender ideology. And this also very much goes against, not only myself but a lot of people’s religious beliefs.” The student has an agenda in making this speech and recording herself making it: to stop the teacher from teaching, period. She’s not just disagreeing with the professor – she’s trying to say that what the professor is teaching, in a children’s literature class, is illegal. And sadly, for now, the student has won: the teacher has been fired.

There is nothing that was being taught in ENGL 360 at Texas A&M University that threatened the existence of the outraged student. Merely talking about people who identify as nonbinary is NOT a clear, unambiguous insult to those who don’t believe people can be nonbinary. Just as saying you aren’t sure people who go through male puberty should be allowed on women’s university and professional sports leagues is NOT a clear, unambiguous insult to those who think they should.

Literature, in particular, is full of expressions of opinion and descriptions of circumstances that will inevitably make people uncomfortable. Is this or that author endorsing whatever it is that is making you uncomfortable? Maybe. Maybe not. LET’S DISCUSS. That’s what a literature class is SUPPOSED to do.

I love Jules Verne books – even as I know that he was a misogynist. Even as I see his misogyny in the literature I am reading. I loathe the book Lord of the Flies. I passionately disagree with its assertions, and still resent that I got a B on my high school English exam about it merely because I disagreed with those assertions. I hate Mel Gibson, but The Year of Living Dangerously is one of my very favorite movies of all time.

I will never pass your ideological purity test, just as you won’t pass mine.

If you haven’t been made uncomfortable today, the rock you are living under must be especially cozy.

And do not even try to compare my defense of this teacher to your defense of the monstrous, demeaning, degrading Charlie Kirk, who was absolutely a threat to my freedom and existence. I can be staunchly against murder and also think the person murdered was deplorable.