tools of oppression

gd was just insulted on social media by a bunch of ignorant kids, and i thought i'd share my response here:

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wow, you guys aren't just ignorant and illiterate, but really insulting and rude. and the fact that finds your responses amusing is very telling.

let me break it down for you virtue signallers.

1. your sexual orientation and identity is your business, your right, 100%. it's cool that those rights are being protected over religious rights, about time.

2. justin trudeau's so far demonstrated that he's more interested in making buddies with canadian muslims than with protecting those gay rights you feel are so important. to the point where canada's letting that particular religion run free in spite of canada's wonderful-in-theory laws. you're cool with gay rights on paper, does that make you cool with trudeau letting honour killings and homophobic aggression continue within that one particular community? he'll listen to them before he cares about lgbtq++!#$%. ari was pointing out why it's not a good idea to get excited about him, he's a trendy new face on old politics.

3. we live in a society that's badly damaged, and instead of trying to heal the damage we're just pushing as hard as we can on the other side of the see-saw to an opposite kind of oppression.

4. identity politics is a big part of this, when you start playing that game you're literally doing precisely what gay rights was initially fighting against, which is labelling and treating minority communities differently. we should all be respectful towards one another, regardless of sexual orientation or identity, regardless of minority status. encode THAT into law. you want to fix shit, fix it. you're lgbtq+ whatever? whatever works for you.

5. your gender identity and sexual orientation do not define you. you're bigger than that. you're your culture, your values, infinitely more than those two simple, should-be-irrelevant axes. they're only relevant as tools of oppression, so instead of pandering to those who would oppress you, leave the labels and fight for human rights for everyone.

6. you might hold all the power over your little feed, flame wars and fighting soft targets like people who actually try to have a conversation with you, but in the big picture you're little people with little impact. hurling accusations? check yourself, little people. let's see you talk like this face to face. don't name-and-shame allies because you're angry with the people who really oppress you but don't have the power to deal with them directly.