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I’m a gay guy who who’s quite “woke”. I value my identity politics because it’s all based on the idea that people are people and bigots who try to divide people are bad. You make that sound bad… 🤨

Mike Brock 2y ago

What I would say to this, is you should want to make people who oppose your lifestyle to empathize with you. You should want to change their mind, and persuade them. Forcing them further into your outgroup is counterproductive for you and society.

This is why campaigns like "Love is Love" was so powerful at moving public sentiment in the first two decades of the 21st century. It spoke to a relatable sense of fundamental fairness.

Trying to draw a dividing line between yourself and your enemies, may at some level be ethically justifiable, given someone may not respect your rights. However, game theory would suggest, using approaches that makes said someone change their mind and respect your rights is the more strategic path.

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Discussion

s3x_jay 2y ago

You’re clearly not LGBT. That’s fine. Let me explain…

I grew up gay in a fundamentalist Christian home. For a time Jerry Falwell was my pastor.

After I came out I tried for years to get my parents to truly accept me. But it didn’t happen. So I walked away. I let them be them, but it was too painful and damaging to be part of their world.

What I learned in that process is that it’s not my job to make people accept me. It’s not my fault if they don’t. That’s not my responsibility. It’s not my purpose.

If people can’t see me as their equal, that’s their fault, not mine. They’re the problem, not me.

Intolerance of intolerance is not intolerance.

Mike Brock 2y ago

It is true that I am not LGBT. It is true however, than many of my close family are. It's also true, that I was highly politically active in Canada twenty years ago for legalizing same-sex marriage. I debated Michael Coren about it on TV. I also volunteered for years at the Pride Remembrance Run in Toronto at the beginning of Pride Week.

It may not be my lived experience personally, but as someone who has previously been politically active in pro-LGBT politics, I have certainly been under attack and experienced the bigotry. You really don't have to convince me.

I totally understand how unfair it is to have to fight for your rights and fight to exist. There's nothing fair about it.

But if you give up on trying to change people's minds, you're just ceding the playing field to the people who are willing to change people's minds against your own interests.

s3x_jay 2y ago

I haven’t given up. I’ve changed focus. I now work to help my community. My starting an explicitly sex-friendly relay - the first LGBT relay - is part of that. My working with Rabble to push forward on content moderation (needed by the LGBT community) despite significant opposition is part of that.

Bigots are a waste of my time.

Great bio, BTW!