The Human Condition: Tolerance

By Daniel Schnee on November 30, 2022.

“It has been an incredible pleasure to be part of fighting the good fight on the right side. That is about respecting people; can we move beyond ‘tolerate’ and start embracing and loving and accepting and learning from and being challenged by? That’s how you build a resilient society … that’s what we’re trying to do in Canada, and we have a lot of work still to do.”

With these words uttered by Justin Trudeau on Canada’s Drag Race TV show, the prime minister has completely alienated centrist conservatives like myself. On the surface his statement would seem to be inclusive and right-minded, but in reality betrays his intent: to deliver an ultimatum. To explain further I will use hockey as an example.

Recently the NHL publicly supported the Team Trans Draft Tournament in Middleton, Wisc., a two-day hockey tournament featuring the world’s first all-transgender hockey team, as well as non-binary players … and predictably the event was controversial. But it never should have been, for one clear reason. Any resistance to transgender athletes in sports should always be centred on common sense, i.e. the advantages given by male puberty. It is not fair for certain people to play sports against certain other people, thus we have weight divisions within a single gender, separate men’s and women’s competitions, junior and senior categories, etc. It is sensible and safer that way.

But the Team Draft Tournament, which players voluntarily chose to enter, is exactly what we need. Players having the freedom to willingly enter such a competition removes forcible competition and encourages participation and/or categorization based on skill. Thus, as it would be tyrannical to say transgendered athletes can’t participate in any sports at all, this new tournament is a great option. Hockey teaches valuable skills, builds health and friendships, raises self-esteem and all the other things that trans people deserve to enjoy. We can then all share this great sport (embrace fair competition) without anyone having to change their personal or socio-political views to fit the “right” narrative.

But what Trudeau is saying is we must move beyond tolerance and “embrace” drag, i.e. love it without question. This formulation is the entire problem, as embracing things is by definition to willingly support them enthusiastically. Tolerance is not enough, we must love all that drag stands for to be on the right side of history, to have the “right” views. Thus Trudeau suggests that if we do not love every single aspect of drag we ipso facto hate drag queens.

Drag has its place but it is adult entertainment that is inappropriate for children, due to its focus on stereotypes of hyper-femininity and sexuality. So it is perfectly acceptable to ideologically reject the aspects we see as having a negative influence on society while living alongside drag life.

Trudeau asks us to start “learning from and being challenged by” things like drag, so it is completely reasonable that he and his ilk are challenged right back by those of us who think children need not be encouraged by drag queens at elementary school to “play” with gender and sexual norms.

And if this is too challenging for Trudeau to accept then he should immediately start embracing a job other than prime minister.

Dr. Daniel Schnee is an anthropologist and jazz/rock drummer

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