Rethinking Interactions
Throughout my life, my identity has constantly been seen as something to be debated. Being a non-binary lesbian living in Pennsylvania and attending an all-girls school has been no easy feat. I’ve heard everything you can imagine; that I can’t use they/them pronouns, that I “have parts”, and that I am a girl, all comments made with complete disregard for my feelings and my sense of worth as a human being. I’ve heard debates about same-sex marriage while sitting on a chair in the corner feeling sick to my stomach, and have felt my heart drop every time that a piece of my identity has been outed because someone else felt that it was their place to share their opinion on it. From somebody who has heard a constant debate about their identity, I can personally attest to the harm done to one’s well-being and sense of self when living life and being told that something they have no control over is wrong.
There are levels to interpersonal interactions and using tact and grace when expressing how one feels is vital. Openly expressing how you feel about an ice cream flavor or a TV show is one thing. It is a different thing entirely when it comes to something such as gender or sexuality. These are heavily layered, complex things that concern people’s entire ways of life. Jumping into a conversation without proper understanding or comprehension in regards to someone’s identity can be extremely damaging. In many instances, there isn’t a need to jump in at all, especially if you aren’t a part of the communities in question. Someone else’s relationship or way of living may not affect you but expressing an uninformed thought about those things could be (and often is) detrimental to the person in question.
It’s completely normal, of course, to have biases and personal feelings towards certain things. When commenting on groups that individuals belong to, Christopher Federico, a political psychologist at the Center for the Study of Political Psychology at the University of Minnesota said: “You like members of that group more than others. You want things to reflect favorably upon your group. You are biased toward believing things that reflect positively on your group. Once you are a member of a group, all kinds of group processes related to social identity kick in.” We are more likely to help those who we believe are similar to ourselves. People whose lives and situations we can understand, we feel an obligation to help them. It’s behavior that is constantly being researched and studied so we can fully understand how humans behave, and why we do what we do.
We also live in a partisan world, with two major belief systems (left and right) making up the binary that most public discourse is entrenched in. These systems make us more accepting of information that supports our political beliefs and more critical of information that contradicts them. Political psychologists have continued to explore why we are drawn to the views and values of one party over another, wanting to embrace new political and social solutions: “Instead of just trying to understand phenomena like motivated reasoning, we can ask how we can build bridges and create collaboration between people who hate each other. If political and social psychology embrace that, we can transform ugliness into solutions,” explains social psychologist Peter Ditto.
All of this is to say that conflicts are bound to happen when it comes to human interaction. Differences will inevitably crop up. The point, however, is to examine where your differences might come from and how they affect those around you. Sociologists generally believe that most people's political opinions come into focus during their "formative age," from around 18 to 24. Major political, social, and economic events that occur during this time may have strong effects, shaping world views that are likely to stay with someone for the rest of their lives. Individuals are also influenced by broad trends that shape society as a whole; these are understood as “period effects”. For example, opinions regarding homosexuality and same-sex marriage became more favorable across generations in the last 30 years. Opinions that were once the norm become out of touch, especially for older generations. The world is constantly evolving as the world changes, opinions from one’s time as a young adult become outdated. This cycle forms the negative attitudes and issues that lead to homophobia, transphobia, racism, and xenophobia. People who are unwilling to move with the world around them become pillars against progress, often to the detriment of marginalized groups who seek change.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinions. However, throwing one’s opinion around without thinking first is how people get hurt. Numerous factors may contribute to that opinion being out of date, built on misunderstandings, or not rooted in any truth. Deconstructing why we feel the way we do about things is at the core of progressing as a person. If you reach the core of your feelings and find everything still intact? If your feelings have stood the test of time, science, and trends because they’re solid at the center? Fantastic. However, that will not always be the case and the way we react when we find that we are the ones who need to change defines who we are as people. Holding on to antiquated feelings out of comfort may benefit you, but other people’s opinions have tremendous value. We, as people, care about what other people think about us, therefore everyone will be affected by another person’s views. The question then becomes if your comfort is worth the cost to other groups of people and how they can maneuver in the world.
Finally, if you need to do so, please remind yourself that another person’s old opinion isn’t actual knowledge about who you are, and it does not mean that you have to change yourself for someone else.
There’s plenty more to talk about, plenty more dots to connect, plenty more context to give. We’ll continue doing so next week at 2 PM.
