I just reblogged a post that was basically about people respecting trans folks even if you don't understand being trans, and I noticed some pushback about how respecting isn't good enough and that they should be trying to understand and I just want to say that... Actually, respecting IS good enough, especially if it is done consistently, and especially if you're in charge of doing so around children (which in the post it was teachers).
Both of my parents have bigotry issues, but I didn't find that out until later in life, because when they interacted with me as a kid, they respected the people around them that were different. I distinctly remember being very, very young and my mom explaining to me that one of the men at her work loved a man instead of a woman, and I remember being given the express impression that this was something my mother expected me to respect and treat normally. If she felt any other way about it, I never would have guessed because she respected him in practice, consistently enough that I can truthfully say that as a young child, I was raised by my very Catholic, highly conservative, vehemently Republican parents to respect non-straight individuals. Regardless of my own sexuality (which ended up being non-straight) or their own beliefs or understanding.
I know my mom doesn't really get or condone it, because we've talked about it since, but that's kind of my point. I grew up with that respect as an expectation, that was the example they set regardless of whether they understood it, which allowed me to interact and learn more easily with this group/community, and were I to have children of my own (which I won't), they would be able to start from a point of having me both respect AND understand. And hopefully that would mean that they would have an even greater capacity for acceptance and love of folks different to themselves (or the same, if it turned out that way).
That's how societal change works, that's how large scale change works. It's generational. I don't need people to understand, I need them to respect me. The generation that learns respect up front will be ready to learn to understand, but right now trans people are getting harassed and murdered and shit. I don't care if someone understands why they shouldn't harass someone, as long as they have the basic civility to not fucking do it. Respect is even a step above basic civility that I will happily take.
Understanding can come after everyone is safe.
