This past week there has been a lot of hating going on in the genre, in and around social media. It seemed to be something new every day, from blog posts comment drama, to gender, to name calling. I can’t look at Facebook without seeing something. I’m not going to use my blog to take sides on any of it, but I do want to address the hate.
As a genre and in a broader sense as the LGBT+ community, we have dealt with hate and oppression for so long. We work our asses off to make the world a better place for us and it really makes me sad to see it happening inside the community. By no means am I condoning anything anyone did, nor defending choices they made, but I don’t think the proper response to any of it is to sling mud or call names. Even if there is a valid reason to ‘call someone out,’ cyberbullying is still cyberbullying. There is a way to have a healthy debate without getting nasty.
Debate can be amazing, they promote learning and differing viewpoints, but there has to be respect. No one is going to agree on every issue all the time. There are so many different experience being a human that color our world view. It’s easy to get heated and to take words without context the wrong way. Without tone of voice and speech pattern it’s hard to discern meaning. I’ve done it myself. It’s important to err on the side of respect in a debate even when it involves ignorant and hateful people. Comment, defend yourself, support your friends but ride the fine line.
Some peoples views will never change no matter how many times things are gone over. I was raised with Roman Catholics believe me I’ve debated religion day in and day out. In those cases it’s best to agree to disagree and walk away. Nothing is gained by screaming at each other.
Even on a small scale, it’s hard to be in the public eye where people pay attention and read into everything an author says. We can’t get it right all the time. We are human. We are fallible. As a genre we are promoting tolerance, inclusion, and love. Too many queer people commit suicide every year, at alarming rates. We need to err on the side of kindness and be less quick to react and call each other out.
I am a firm believer that it’s impossible to know the burden someone else carries daily. Everyone makes mistakes, myself included. Not a single one of us can claim to be perfect. Half of my blog posts have started off as rants, in fact, but I took a step back and rewrote them until I felt they were coming from a good place because I want to be a solution not a problem. We get enough hate from the outside world, can we go back to being a nice and happy accepting genre?
Damn it, do the love thing or there will be consequences! Sorry, I couldn’t help myself.