These people obsessed with “free speech” who want “all ideas to be debated” are never the kinds of people who have to spend a considerable amount of their life “debating” that they deserve a life and equal rights.

I am so exhausted having to “debate” debunked 1950s pseudoscience that says I should be electrocuted and castrated. I wish these people with their mansions and their trust funds just once had to face down the existential terror of being denied healthcare.

Why the fuck do these people think bigots are entitled to my time? Not all ideas are created equal, and some of us are stuck “debating” decades-old bigotry that isn’t founded on logic you can debate.

You can’t debate “I hate you and think you should die.” It’s an impossible proposition and just engaging with it puts you in a losing position.

I’m done. If you think that bigotry should be allowed until it’s been properly vetted and debated, you’re one of two things:

1) A fucking dipshit with zero understanding of history

2) A bigot who lacks the conviction to stand up for your bigotry directly

Period.

I want to make art. I want to make a better world. But because of people like the signatories of that letter, I’m stuck having to explain that, no, science DOESN’T actually say my very identity is a mental disorder just because renowned newspapers hired bigots to say it.

The very idea of “free speech absolutism” is mired in a willful ignorance of power dynamics. Free speech doesn’t exist without true egalitarianism. If you think we have that, you’re so deeply entrenched in the power you hold over others.

I can say what I want. But my words won’t carry the weight of the prominent transphobe the Atlantic keeps hiring to write with authority on trans issues. Period. He’s given more, free speech than I am. So the “debate” is inherently imbalanced from moment one.

And the “debate” presumes equal footing. The transphobe who signed that letter invests NOTHING to attack people like me. And we’re then forced to defend ourselves. Which requires reason, logic, and evidence. All he has to do is lie. It takes us infinitely more work.

Imagine it like this:

Bob can punch me any time he wants.

I can defend myself, but that requires a permit, proper equipment, a warm-up, and I need to make sure there are witnesses to show I didn’t start it.

Bob can just keep hitting because I’m busy arranging the defense.

It isn’t a debate. It’s attack and defense, and the attacker ALWAYS has the advantage in these cases. There’s nothing to stop the attacker from just launching another low-investment attack.

Debate doesn’t solve bigotry. We didn’t stop the Nazis in debate club. Stonewall wasn’t a rhetorical meeting of ideas. You can’t debate bigotry because it’s low-investment and not based on logic. Any “evidence” for bigotry is based on lies.

If you could just debate away bigotry, if we could just point out the logical fallacies behind hate, we would have gotten rid of racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and ableism centuries ago. But they persist. Because we give them quarter.

Bigots should be afraid to express bigotry. Period. They should not think it’s safe to hurt and marginalize innocent people. They’re not rational actors. We can’t keep acting like they’re just missing the right rhetorical flourish to wash away their hate.

It’s so exhausting because it’s not like the free speech absolutists are putting their own asses on the line to debate away bigotry. Noam Chomsky isn’t going to argue with Singal that trans people deserve human rights.

If you take that position, that all ideas must be vetted and debated over and over and over and given equal credence, you’re comfortable. You have no stakes in this. You can wade in and walk away at your leisure.

And I swear to fuck, the next time I have to hold in my piss until I get a UTI because I’m terrified someone will fucking murder me for using a public bathroom, if you tell me that it’s just because I haven’t debated hard enough, you’d BETTER do it from the safety of anonymity.

Thought experiment. Imagine I said that people who look like you have a part in their brain that makes them child rapists. Now imagine millions of people agree. Imagine major news networks publish my statement and have panels of made-up “experts” to agree with me.

Now, you’ve come up with your counter argument. You’ve collected peer reviewed studies. You’ve collected experts in the field with flawless testimony. You put forth your debate.

You spent years collating all this evidence. I counter your science, facts, and reason by making something even more inflammatory up. I say that you’re wrong. Millions of people insist that I “owned” you with “facts and reason.”

Now, of course that’s false. But these millions of people have decided you are a child rapist. They’re now passing laws to keep you away from children. You can pose more science, but they ignore it. After all, why would they listen to a proven child rapist?

Welcome to life as a trans person trying to “debate” their humanity.

“Free speech absolutism” is just another way of saying that you want people with power and privilege to be able to silence and crush the downtrodden. Because that’s exactly what it’s used for, every single time.