Decades ago, people used to say that they were neutral like Switzerland, without irony. I used to say it myself, declaring that I was Switzerland when I did not want to take a stand. Then, we found out, truly, that Switzerland was not neutral, and, indeed, they were aiding the Germans in looting the Jewish treasures. To be grossly reductive.
So now, no one says they’re neutral like Switzerland except with a knowing wink. It’s a way of saying you’re taking sides without actually explicitly saying it. I’ve been thinking of it lately because there have been times in the RKG Discord when the subject of trans rights have come up (in relation to the Hogwarts game), and a few people have been…not transphobic, but not NOT ttransphobic, either.
One, we’ll call him C, was being a JKR apologist. Basically saying that she was misunderstood. She wasn’t REALLY transphobic. She was just friends with really transphobic women and retweeted their hateful comments, sending her millions of followers on a witch hunt! But she wasn’t transphobic herself, no, no, no.
The other one is a woman, I’ll call her N, who really confuses me. She’s very anti-sexism, and yet, she’s soft on transphobia. Which, maybe that means she’s a TERF herself. Oh dear. I hadn’t thought of that. She was defending the game devs (she’s one herself), which is fair. But then she said the trans woman in the group, the one who brought up reservations about the game, was biased because it affected her personally.
Which was such a shitty thing to say. Also, that’s the same for everyone. Of course you are going to be more passionate about something that affected you personally. That doesn’t make you biased. Well, it does, but not in the way we usually use biased. It just means you have more knowledge about the topic, which other people tend to ignore or downplay.
If I was a nasty person, I would point out to B that she was the same about sexism in general. And about veganism. She pushed them hard, which was natural, because they were big aspects of her identity. It’s always fascinating to me when people who are minorities in one way and are passionate about it, but then are dismissive of other people’s issues.
I know this is human nature. We are always going to look at things from your own point of view. That’s unavoidable. But why can’t people go, “Hm. I hate sexism. So I can understand why someone else might hate transphobia.”? Again, to be grossly reductive.