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Tolerating intolerance
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You're starting out with intolerance as the baseline. It's one thing to not want to date a trans person because you're not sexually ATTRACTED to trans people. That's perfectly fine. To not want to because it's "against your ideals" implies that you disapprove of ANYONE dating a trans person, which can only be a result of bigotry.
Nobody's talking about legislating against TERFS existing or that anyone who has bigoted views on trans people being predatory, so that's not a valid comparison either.
You can ABSOLUTELY be intolerant towards intolerance without trying to legislate it away or otherwise unfairly persecuting the bigots like they persecute others. In fact, that's the default and correct reaction of tolerant people encountering bigotry.
I'm likely starting from a position of not being clear first thing in the morning, though the accusation was not welcome. As a side note, attraction is based on our ideals: I can see the most beautiful person in the world and have no attraction towards them because of the views the hold, or the actions they've undertaken - though here the ideals one holds for one's own partner and the partners of others are different matters entirely (I very much doubt a straight man would approve of his gay friend's choice of lover for his own!).
I am not arguing against such intolerance against intolerance, I am presenting the point that it's a tricky subject. Legislation often follows public outcry, and over in the UK being trans is a protected characteristic (i.e. such legislation already exists). My personal view is that we SHOULD be working against trans-phobic people existing, both via well considered legislation and education. Though, that will involve deciding where a line should be drawn, why it should be drawn there, and won't be accomplished via trying to stamp out the symptom rather than the disease.
No, that's what it implies to you. Not to everyone else. And idk why.
It's simple. "I wouldn't date a trans person because it's against my ideals" implies nothing about the rest of the world. It just exposes that the speaker's ideal sexual preference does not include trans people. Now, if you're choosing to take "ideals" as "ideals about how society should work", that's on you. If you're choosing to take "I wouldn't date" as "nobody should date", that's also on you.
The phrase is simple and already explains sexual preference, not view on society. It's actually really goddamn interesting, because OP was illustrating how hard it is to draw a line in the sand, because someone will cross it and say you're not allowed to draw the line there, and you did that exact fucking thing. You likened drawing that line in the sand with drawing EVERYONE's line for them, and swiftly crossed it, expressing how wrong it is to draw the line there, and where everyone else's line should be, because you know better and are reading into the implications.
You're either wrong about their intention or about their (lack of) clarity.
"Ideals" and "preferences" are NOT synonyms and since I can't read their mind, I'm gonna assume that what they say is what they mean. Silly in these post-truth times, I know, but I'm old-fashioned like that.
You literally misinterpreted what they said to suit your own agenda. Silly in any times, but yes - also old-fashioned.
Nope, I literally took them at their word and then you came riding to the rescue with a hypothetical interpretation.