How To Fight Cultural War

On Education And Culture Fights

What is the right way to respond to deeply concerning but obviously untrue allegations?

I haven’t exactly hid the fact that I oppose what Blaine Higgs is doing in New Brunswick with Policy 713, but I understand why my position that parents can get fucked on issues of sexuality, expression, and identity are minority views. There are legitimate issues of public policy and public interest in getting issues around sex, sexuality, and identity right, and there are absolutely zealots on my side of politics whose tolerance for what is appropriate is not exactly sensible.

We live in a society where kids are faced with big issues and crises at a fairly young age – I was in Grade 5 when I realized I was gay and I was in Grade 6 the first time I attempted to act on the self loathing that that came with the isolation of it. Had there been some form of acknowledgement in the 5 years from realizing I was gay to coming out that I wasn’t an abnormal freak, would that time have been lessened? Of course, but it’s also fair to say that a profound explanation of homosexuality at 11 in schools would probably confuse more people than it would help.

It's a difficult set of questions without an obvious answer, and the truth is that anyone who claims there is an easy answer is lying. As much as it would be easy to get into a defensive posture and argue (and genuinely believe, even) that any argument about best practices is actually a homophobic or transphobic attack, there’s a real issue for the left and for people who care about marginalized communities in not defending the indefensible just because they’re on Our Side.

We’ve seen a cultural revolution in the last twenty years – it was June 2003 when the last 13 states that still had laws on the book banning homosexual sex came off the books in the US, and we’ve celebrated the 20^th anniversary of the first gay marriages in Canada this year. Fixing an education system that has too many remnants from the old is always going to be contentious, and I think it’s imperative for those on the left to meet those with (I cannot believe I’m about to use this phrase) legitimate concerns at a place of compassion.

But that doesn’t mean that people who are using those legitimate concerns as an excuse to lie about gay and trans people or erase our existence shouldn’t be called out.

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What we have in Canada is a scenario where we have a lot of different school boards and a lot of different education departments and a lot of people trying to find the balance on what parents have a right to know and how best to protect kids. Will every single one of those boards interpret provincial doctrine right? Probably not, and the errors will go both ways. But the thing is, there isn’t a conspiracy here to indoctrinate our kids, it’s people trying to muddle through a complicated issue set without fucking up.

Anyone who claims there are hard and fast answers to questions about any of this are lying to themselves, and to the public. What we thought we knew a decade ago about the safety and efficacy of gender-affirming care for trans people is completely different now, and we’ve made extreme gains in knowledge about the effects of care on children. It’s an evolving target, because the more we find out, the better we’ll able to do this shit.

We have no idea what the right age for the introduction of complicated concepts are, but at some point the burden has to be on those who think that any acknowledgement that gay and trans people exist is pedophilia to acknowledge that they’re living in a land of delusion too. There may be zealots on the side of angels, but I’d rather a zealot overreaching to protect 11 year old Evan than those pretending to protect kids by isolating some from others.

If there is proof of the sort of excessive teaching at a structural level then everyone should be opposed to it, but the totally weird and not at all predictable thing is that for all the claims of wide spread failure, nobody can actually give any examples. If there were any evidence of systemic failure then I’ll use my not-inconsiderable platform to call for changes from the provinces, and if a few schools are going too far, we should all oppose it. What we want is an education that helps kids.

What those who find crisis in the fact that gay and trans kids are less suicidal and more open about their lives now can’t reckon with is the idea that nobody would never choose this. None of us would ever choose to be gay or choose to be trans, and the history of humanity is that of people pretending to be things they’re not in the name of not acknowledging their inherent traits. People won’t pretend to be gay, they’ll pretend to be straight.

The water torture of the closet is real, and it is suffocating. Being gay isn’t something that I chose, and it’s not something that I would wish on my worst enemy. I’ve found my peace with it, but the idea that it is something to actively want, as opposed to being a fact of life best accepted, is as ludicrous as it is offensive. And this is why as much as I want the left to not stoop to the level of these people, it’s hard.

We have a cultural war that is entirely divorced from reality, a group entirely gripped by the belief that people hold views that nobody does, a caricature of belief dipped in a vat of bad faith. Common cause can be found from those who engage in good faith, but the vast majority of people who think that there’s an agenda to turn the kids gay in the same way Alex Jones once shouted about frogs cannot be described as good faith actors.

When I was on Charles Adler’s show last week I lamented the need for takes and not for conversations in both sports and politics. It’s something I think about a lot in the context of my 2020 – far too many pieces with an incendiary headline written to attract eyeballs and build a profile, fully assured of my brilliance. Now, I’m trying to do something more productive, because even when the takes are right, it’s not the best way to do this.

What we need is more people willing to engage in good faith – more leftwingers willing to acknowledge that we don’t know everything there is to know about how best to deal with difficult, and intensely personal, conversations in a public school system, but we also need people willing to acknowledge that pretending gay and trans people don’t exist isn’t a viable answer either.

Can we get that? I have limits to my optimism, but that has to be the goal. Denying there are people with concerns won’t work as either a policy or a political answer, but neither will throwing vulnerable communities under the bus. If the left wants to win the battle for hearts and minds, defending the indefensible in the name of not giving an inch won’t work. If we want to ensure that the centre does not start to believe lies and disinformation, we must be willing to acknowledge when there’s actual proof of overreach, both because it’s right and because it’s smart. But if they come with lies and smears, we must fight it with everything.