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Every once in a while you'll see someone some where complaining about a wave of woke culture. Matt Taibbi did so in response to the controversy surrounding Dave Chappelle's latest Netflix special, where he wrote on Twitter that Chappelle is "subject to social rules he had no hand in writing." You'll also see it tied to things like the Virginia race, where TV pundits go off about how the Democrats devotion to "woke" policies cost them the election. What's missing from any of this is any definition of what "woke" even means, let alone why it's such a bad thing to be concerned about.
Of course, there's always some idiot who takes things too far. There's always someone, usually white, tripping over themselves to throw all the terms they've learned about white privilege and centering the narrative yadda yadda yadda. Basically, the stereotype of a kid using too many words they learned in college without any wisdom,experience, or self-reflection to make those words meaningful. I'm not arguing that those people don't exist because of course they do. What's more important in this broader conversation is that when people talk about things getting too "woke," what they usually mean is that they have to give basic respect to people they flat out don't want to.
Let's take the nonsense over pronouns as an example. So many people throw an absolute fit over using "they/them" pronouns. They usually make some argument that it mangles the English language, that it's exclusively for plural use only. Except, we use "they" as a singular all the damn time. How many times have you asked your friend after they go to the doctor "Oh, well, what did they tell you?" That's a perfectly reasonable, understandable sentence. Everyone knows who we're talking about, who we're referring to, no problem. The best part is, the first recorded instance of us doing this goes as far back as 1375. Given the fact that if the usage of a singular "they" was common enough to find use in a poem, there's good reason to believe that it was in common usage for years beforehand. Far from being a new trend to bend the language to a small minority, the singular 'they' then is something that's been part of our linguistic framework for almost a thousand years.
But you know what? Who fucking cares about any of that. Why would I need to go digging around the dictionary websites researching the use of a single word in the English language to prove that non-binary people fit comfortably into our linguistic traditions? Why would their identity only be valid if it could be backed up by scholarship? Why is the fact that they exist and wish to express their identity in those terms not enough?
This also brings up another aspect to this argument in that the so-called academic reasons for opposing it are so lazy it should embarrass everyone who lets such idiotic statements fall out of their mouths. You know how long it took me to find out these things? Ten minutes, including the reading time. That's how easy it is to dismiss this attitude, how flimsy it is, how it isn't supported by even the faintest hint of facts or legitimacy? It's almost as if it's just a smoke screen so people who don't want to respect something they don't understand can tell themselves that they just have a logical hangup about it, yeah, they're not keeping themselves ignorant or judgemental, nope.
The laziness of these arguments is ultimately what gets me the most. Framing the issue "Trans people want to control our thoughts" instead "Trans people want to be referred to by their names," hypes up the reaction of people who can't get with the program and treats them as if they have as legitimate a claim on trans or non-binary people's identities as they do. Can you imagine if we did this in any other situation? Can you imagine your reaction if you introduced yourself only for the other person to go "I don't agree with that, so instead of Manny I'm gonna call you Hilary," then refused to alter their behavior. Who, when called on it, defended themselves by saying that "It's just their opinion" and they have a right to express it has much as anyone else does. So they just kept doing that, all the time. Would you feel respected by them? Or would you feel belittled, just that something that stings in the back of your mind because every time he does that he reminds you that he doesn't have to treat you like a human being and there ain't shit you can do about it.
That's ultimately what this fight is about. There are elements of society who, for a variety of reasons, don't want to have respect trans and non-binary people, and they're upset that they get punished if they don't. Well, punished is a relative term here. Yes, some lose their job, some, like J.K Rowling, have people say mean things about online which they equate to real-life harassment and bigotry. These people usually complain that they have lost their freedom or their freedom of expression is being unfairly curtailed, you know the drill. It's true that they've lost something, but it isn't their freedom, it's their power.
What they've lost is the power to denigrate, to dismiss, to demonize without consequence. This is a real struggle for people used to doing so because the ability to ruin other people's lives without penalty is, sadly, a strong emotional metric for how people value themselves. If there's nobody beneath us, we don't feel quite as good because that means we're the ones everyone gets to treat like shit. There's no reason to cry about this loss, because this sort of power is toxic, it corrodes the soul of the people who rely on it until they become nothing more than dried up husks- instead of vibrant, they're brittle, scattered into the wind where all the trappings of their position become moot should anyone even think to question them.
Why would you want this? Why would you want a life so meaningless, so pitiful that the only thing you could do to find any semblance of relevance is permanently press a boot onto someone's neck?
Anyone selling you a version of freedom that depends on your ability to crush someone else under your heel doesn't care about your freedom. They don't care about anyone's, really. All they care about is selling you the idea that it is right and natural for you exploit those below you so will accept your exploitation in turn.
It's interesting to examine too why this culture fight is reaching such a flashpoint over trans rights. This isn't to say that the fight over gay rights was easy or that cis gay people don't face discrimination anymore, it wasn't and they still do.
What cis gay couples have though is a way for straight people to paper over the differences their queer identities presented. By misunderstanding things like tops, bottoms, femmes, and butches, straight people found a way to imagine gay relationships in the same men/women gender norms as they were comfortable with. Again, this isn't how any of that works, but it gave people the ability to paper over the differences enough to let it go.
Trans and non-binary people however, don't really have this option. Their very existence forces people to acknowledge that there's more to sex and gender than false binaries. Trans people also present a policy problem in that, if the point of government is to enable its citizens to live their lives with dignity, what then are they supposed to about trans people therapy? Should the government fund their transition treatments, up to and including their gender affirming surgeries? Obviously the answer is yes, but for governments like ours or the Tories in the U.K., this presents a problem because letting people live their lives with dignity is anathema to both. After all, if trans people are able to get their medical needs addressed by the government, why shouldn't everyone?
There are some people on the Left too that take issue with focusing on these issues, seeing as unnecessary culture war distractions to economic policy. This is another false dichotomy however, because the same policy goals of ending racial discrimination, enacting single payer healthcare, enacting a jobs guarantee program, all of these have direct consequences on the quality of life of everyone, trans and non-binary people included.
When these arguments get made, one of their cornerstones is that the world is irrevocably changing, that something tangible is being lost, never to return. As always there's some truth to that but consider, what's so worth protecting about the world that's getting lost? Why is it that when people say "No, you don't get to treat me that way," that the reaction is such spite, such anger? What entitles any of us to have those lesser than ourselves be available so we can pile the scorn and bitterness of our lives on them?
Clichéd as it is, we're all just people. Rather than thinking of the phrase flattening us all into a blob of sameness, we need to see it as everyone, no matter how different, is entitled to the same level of respect the we treat ourselves. Humanity is a diamond, all one element but with so many facets that catch the light in its own unique way. Our differences shouldn't divide us, they should enlighten us, because each one shows us a different way our world is experienced.
Funny thing is, this sentiment gets treated as if it's some radical practice of empathy close to godliness when it gets taught in religions and philosophy. Except, it's not that at all, not even a little bit. Ask anyone that knows me to describe in three words and if any of them says "empathy" I'll give you $200. I can comfortably make that bet even though I'm broke because none of the people I know are liar enough to say so. So if I figure this out with my garbage sense of empathy, it's honestly not that hard.
Because honestly, thinking this way is just the baseline. Artificial differences like skin color, sexual orientation, gender identity, nationality, have become the most important thing to us. In order to free ourselves from these things, we have to acknowledge the world obsessing over these things has built and tear it down brick by brick.
The world is choking on these limitations, I'm sure you can feel it. Everything feels much more tense, more paralyzed, like we're all sinking into a tar pit. Because the internet has made it possible to see into the intimate details of other people's daily lives, the illusions that we're all fundamentally different have started cracking, along with the power structures built up to maintain those illusions. The mad dash top keep everything as it was even as the justifications for them crumble around us is why the world feels like existing in a tangible sickness.
Will working to solve those problems get us out of the mess we're in? I don't know. More likely than not, it'll solve some problems, bring up unexpected complications in others, and generate entirely unforeseen problems of its own.
But if the choice is between doing what we've been doing or building a world where every one gets to live their lives in whatever manner they see fit then, well, I'd rather down swimming for shore than drown on clinging to a sinking ship.
