Dealing with family members who hold different political beliefs can be challenging, but it is not insurmountable. Argument experts suggest four steps to talking with family members who disagree with them on politics: fostering open communication, setting boundaries, and maintaining healthy family bonds.
One helpful strategy is to talk with relatives one-on-one, especially with gladiators who are riled up by an audience. If your family’s politics make you unsafe or make you feel unsafe, don’t have to show up for dinner. Instead, you owe it to your friends and community members to speak up when a family member harbors harmful beliefs about marginalized groups. Each participant should approach the conversation with curiosity, a willingness to leave room for nuance, and grace, in the “goodwill” sense of the word.
To deal with extremely conservative parents, set your own goals, set limits, make a plan, practice clear communication, and maintain healthy boundaries. If they cannot respect those boundaries, say it’s time for me to go and we can try another day. If they don’t, leave them alone and do not interact, argue, debate, or be rude. Just smile and walk away.
Be curious about what your relative really believes and paraphrase what you think they believe as accurately as possible. Don’t shade them. Get educated about what you’re talking about, find support in your family, take a deep breath, accept, and focus on similar interests, values, and things you have in common. Remember that your relationship is more important than your deeply held beliefs.
In a bruising political season, many Americans are dropping friends and family members who have different political views. One way to do that is to raise the subject of potential.
| Article | Description | Site |
|---|---|---|
| How do you “deal” with conservative/right wing family … | You need to create and make known clear boundaries. You will not tolerate hateful and racist comments. If you wish to keep having a relationship … | reddit.com |
| What is the best way to deal with ultra-conservative family … | Do not talk politics. · Tell family you’re neutral and like it that way. · Keep your own political thoughts quiet. · Thank them for the chance … | quora.com |
| How Do You Cope With An All Conservative Family? | My advice is to just be better and smarter than them. Don’t fight at their level. Be calm and respond intelligently with facts. | reddit.com |
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Vaush is super right here. I was a mechanic for awhile, obviously the only trans woman there. It was kinda hell for awhile. They were rude, transphobic, asked invasive questions, and it genuinely sucked. But overtime, they did come around. They eventually even defended me from sexism/transphobia from customers because they saw I learned fast, wasn’t scared to get dirty and worked hard. Our master mechanic, who i worked with alot. He was one of the worse of the bunch, but even he eventually came around. He was no ally, but it was a definite improvement from him calling me, ” bro”, every chance he got. We once had a customer bitching that I had used the womens bathroom and demanded, ” only REAL women use the womens bathroom.” We all knew it was a lie. Its against the rules to use the customer bathroom and the employee bathroom is waaaay better for getting car stuff off you. I remember one time we stayed after to barbecue once and theyd seen me like without my work shirt and were all like, ” wow, ya know, if i didn’t know you i wouldve assumed you were a woman!” ” Looking better!” I remember early on, one of them tried to report me for wearing makeup to work and the boss was literally like, ” are you fucking serious? You interrupt me to report this? Who fucking cares, so long as they do their job, it doesn’t matter. ” Coworker walks out and my boss says to me, ” idk what this is, but I really don’t care. Just do your job like everyone else and it doesn’t matter. ” ” If a customer has issue with it, thats their problem.
I grew up in a super conservative Christian house. We were taught anything lgbtq was wrong, especially at first. I always thought it was wrong and disgusting. Then I ended up going to an arts school for high school that had more gay people than I’d ever met in my entire life. They were literally the same as me. Exposure works.
With the uncle who says something cruel, you can pre-empt him with a “I know you don’t mean…” “I’m sure you don’t think/believe xyz, but saying that made it look like you were someone who believes really hateful things” Portraying you know and accept them and believe they have stumbled without realizing can be disarming
Being ideologically and morally isolated from my family is what drove me to Vaush in the first place. And I even recently had one of my biggest conversations with the parents ever (5 hrs) and handled their diatribe much better than I ever have before. I give full credit to you Vaush, as your level headed analysis and methodology came at a time when I needed it most. While I am still unable to convince my parents to change their positions, I was able to point out the absurdities of what they argue and feel confident more than ever that I am in the correct position. (as an example: When asking for a source to an absurd “fact” from my mother, she cited “science”. Literally just the word “science”. When I asked her to elaborate, she scoffed and told me to do my own research. Which means she has done zero real research herself.)
Vaush is right that sometimes the only thing you can do is just give up on convincing them. The despair and loneliness of being an athiest leftie in a family of christian conservatives can be really hard. It’s sad when you feel like you don’t belong and will never be taken seriously by the people who are supposed to love you and to have watched them transform over the years and become more hateful and angry because of it. My parents and siblings have become unrecognizable and any attempts to reach them leave me feeling stupid and alone. I feel like the only thing to do is walk away and give up.
im stuck between a rock and a hard place right now, my dad and step mom are both quite transphobic and i moved out a couple months ago, mostly because i couldnt deal with the pressure. my step mom tries when in public but my dad actively doesnt, and both have tried “correcting” loved ones when im gendered correctly. i told myself that when i see them next that i wont be visiting until they both start trying to respect me, which i was going to stick with until very recently. my step brother came out as trans (transmasc), and is going to move in with them soon. i was told he was trans like 2 years ago, but this christmas was told that he was detranitioning because he wasnt trans anymore. i talked to him, and turns out that he never started detransitioning and still identifies as a guy. i want to be there for him and support him, but i need to put my foot down because maybe this push could help my parents accept him too hes started growing out his hair and wearing womens clothes again to appease his mom, and i want to be there to help him stand up to her, to give him a couple of my spare binders, to help him cut his hair, but i cant put myself through my parents, its why i moved out. my dad watches crowder, jp, all the bad ones that want me and my step brother dead. im typing this before i watched the article, maybe my worries can be addressed
I feel like I really lucked out. My dad had some pretty homophobic biases since he and his sister were both molested by a man when they were younger. My step mom had a brother who was gay and after he visited them for a week, all of those biases just went away. When I came out as trans, he ended up being so much more accepting than I expected. Positive exposure really can make a huge difference in how people view and treat those they consider to be other.
I agree with this! My dad was babbling about how the overturning of roe v. Wade being overturned was just about the government shouldn’t have to pay for abortions and I just nonchalantly said “that’s not true, there’s already laws against that” and just kept doing what I was doing till he initiated conversation more and I actually changed his mind
The most powerful response I ever gave to a parent acting bigoted in front of me was, “I think someone convinced you that you should care about this topic when it very clearly impacts your life in no way whatsoever.” They were defensive, but also changed the subject instantly due to being made uncomfortable and they also have yet to bring it up ever again in my presence. Care less than they do and always question why they care so much. Act like they’re the weird ones for caring so much about it, and they’ll at least talk about the subject with you less. It may not change their mind, but it definitely spares your relationship with them and makes it clear you won’t be a listening ear for such topics.
Actually so much truth. My overtly “libertarian” friend has made consistent concession. I jokingly called him trans because he used a trans slur? Made him quiet for a long time. I call myself trans even though I’m nonbinary? They refuses to catagorize me as trans. They are very uncomfortable with the idea that I – constantly characterized as an intelligient, funny, and self-aware by people around me – am a minority. A minority that they want to make fun of & make inhuman.
i agree with most of Vaush’s ideas here, with one (partial) caveat. regarding engaging positively with hateful people (e.g. a trans person engaging in a positive way with a transphobe) it can backfire. i’ve personally tried this tactic and had pretty good ‘success’ in that the person in question clearly responded positively over time – but it HAS happened where at some point they sort of “snap back” and lash out when they, presumably, either realize that they were “cavorting with the enemy” or realize that their (also hateful) peers have seen this and become extremely defensive. i still think it can work, but just be careful and wary.
As someone who shuts down bad when people are transphobic and trying to have an argument, I wish I wasn’t as emotionally vulnerable but that’s just who I am; I can’t help that my body shakes like crazy the moment my anxiety kicks in, I’ve been seeing a doctor for years and I still haven’t gotten help to the extent that it has stopped.. It’s exhausting
I actually suffered through this for years I lived with a narcissistic family member and i made it my point to try and deradicalize her from right wing politics and republican rhetoric but I eventually had to realize I need to fight for myself and not try and fight for people who won’t change My dad is simular but more chaotic because he severely mentally ill bit he has the whole “since i have high IQ automatically means i can do whatever i want and say whatever, not matter how illogical it ends up being” He litterally the person I learned Marxism from and now he thinks the Rothschild family are trans 500 trillionares And hes mentally abusive to everyone around him Its fucking sad and tbh I don’t even know how to be around him
My parents are South African Catholic portuguese who moved our whole family to Ireland (i hate it here) because my mom legitimately believed in the Tucker Carlson-spread Nazi conspiracy theory of white farmer genocide (debunked by vaush as 8/20 000 murders in a year). My dad also has half thought out post talk ideas of racial science. My extended family is a bit better but some dinners with them are an any% speedrun to hating black people, selling timeshares and saying it was better back in the day. Their opinions on lgbt people are predictably not good. (though they are surprisingly boomer orange man bad “liberals”) I wanna transition really badly but im so fucking black-pilled on my parents so im iust waiting for my chance to leave them, witb respect to Vaush for making this article, i dont think it applies to me and hell no im not gonna risk it.
One of the reason why asking someone to explain their casual racist remarks (for instance) gets them to clam up is that often people say things like that expecting communal approval, and when you’re putting them in a position where you’re A) clearly disapproving of what they said and B) putting them on the spot to explain it, it’s automatically uncomfortable.
The reason why bigots in particular are obsessed with the concept that being “cancelled” is such a bad immoral thing is because it is constantly a threat to their bigoted beliefs. There has never been another time in history where casual beliefs of bigotry can be so easily exposed with the thing in your pocket. And that terrifies them.
I have been saying this for years: most casual racism can be utterly defeated by employing the tactics of a toddler. If you keep asking “why” to make them clarify their point, it always, ALWAYS comes down to 2 options; either this thing is how it is because of external forces that can pretty easily be described as systemic oppression, or it’s because there’s something…genetic, at the root of why “those people” find themselves in that position. And we have a word for that thing – we call people who think that way racists.
This is EXACTLY the thing I’ve learned to do after getting in arguments with so many people or even relationships for example. Like outside of politics I had a friend who ghosted me all the time and instead of being all clingy and trying to maintain the friendship like I’d always do I was like “Alright we’re done” and left there. Because you gotta remember that people look back retrospectively and feel bad about stuff they did just as much as you and I do. You aren’t the only one who’s up at night thinking about that embarrassing thing you did or what you could’ve done or said better. You gotta remember that sometimes and use that to your advantage even if they don’t come crawling back.
November last year I moved into a sharehouse with someone who had some fairly right wing views. This is very much the way I’ve treated our political discussions and ive really sparked her interest in learning more about left leaning views and to be much more critical when taking in information from media and other sources. Still a work in progress but we have some really interesting and mature conversations on social issues lately
its so hard to keep a level head with my family, because they purposefully say things that they know i disagree with because they WANT to start an argument. prime example happened yesterday.. i was seeing the cure with a few family members and we were talking about how cool it was that there were so many different kinds of people there. then my aunt just says “yeah but i havent seen any blacks. interestinggg”,, LIKE WHAT DO I EVEN SAY TO THAT? 😭😭 we were also literally next to a black family as well smfh
Yo exposure therapy is truly amazing. I was a massive right winger until one of my friends came out as non-binary. At first I was like “no, I refuse to call a singular person a plural pronoun just in principle 😡” but when I realized like “yo this is still the friend I’ve known for so long, they just smile when I call them “they” then suddenly my grammatical principles didn’t matter anymore. I realized they were just a person like me that just wanted to be happy and that changed everything for me
I am living in the most rancid home situation at the moment, I’m closeted non-binary and queer, and over the last few years my already “crunchy” antii-vaxx mother has gone from regular, run of the mill conspiracy theorist to a hateful, transphobic, racist, ableist POS conservative, and part of RFK jr.’s core fundraising team. I am so glad to be moving out for college in a year, and have completely given up on having any sort of civil conversations with her or my (clone of JP) father.
People with problematic positions are often polarized. It’s much more instrumental for (shallow) identity than an argument. Also: polarized people impose a polarized frame on the interaction. They have a position and you are the opposite of that, which might have nothing to do with reality. They can hardly compute a centristy, neutral, objective, transcendent position you can take. It is forced into the imposed frame. When you notice this there is a lot of work to do.
Hey all, this article was loaded with great info, and very useful and relevant to me, so I took notes on it. I thought some of you might find use for a summary as well. *Make them feel like they have to prove themself to you* Don’t be more invested in the conversation than they are, because it gives them power. Be casual. Acting consistently less interested in a conversation causes others to feel as if they have to defend their position. *When people make casually bigoted remarks, ask them what they mean* Very casual, just ask innocently ask them, “Well what do you mean by that?”, supposedly this puts them in a bad position where they would have to explicate the prejudice in the remark they made were they to answer your question, so they often just shut down (shut up). 1 of 2 typical responses: Doubling down along the lines of “Ah haha well what did I mean by that aren’t we just joking around” or backtracking and apologising. Maybe wait before commenting on someone’s comment, for example with “ahh nah i didn’t really like that” retrospectively. Key idea: react with “I’m not mad, just disappointed” sentiment. *Whatever image they have of someone who holds your political beliefs, be the opposite of that* >Example: ‘Big Red’, the red-haired SJW feminist, is seen as preachy, unhappy, unintelligent, loud and overly invasive. Act as if you are happy, disinterested and that you have your life in order, and others will be more willing to associate with you, will have less angles of attack (=stereotypes) and will have less authority over you.
It’s really hard to not be mad/emotional when the people you argue with don’t understand that general consensus and policy affect you directly. It’s more that you’re mad that they won’t simply try to put themselves in your shoes. That’s how I’ve undone a lot of my preprogrammed negative beliefs just by thinking about how what you think affects the person it’s targeted at. Everyone is human and just trying to live their lives, it’s not your job to govern them.
The beginning about people not wanting to be convinced resonated strongly with me. Just yesterday I was talking with my father and he said the usual “I don’t mind transgenders or whatever you call *it*, I just don’t want to have it shoved down my face” I asked him to define what determines if something is shoved in his face, because there are plenty of things we see on a daily basis. He replied “Visibility. If I can see it.” I said “Okay, how do you feel about billboards? Are you against those? I’ve never heard you complain about them.” He sighed and asked to change the subject because I “wasn’t listening” to him. Like…what can I even do about that, lol.
I’ve always got good outcomes by simply responding with”k” To racist or bigoted comments Because it shows the absolute lowest amount of care about the comment but shows that no one cares or thinks it’s funny and no one thinks their smart and overall people just disagree and think it’s cringe as fuck.
A friend of mines been going down the weird reactionary gay/trans “agenda” pipeline. Ive been like “why do you care?” “How many times has this personally affected you?” “How many trans people do you actually know?”. Its strange because he can also compartmentalize that he loves and respects his gay coworker, but he also thinks anything pride related in public is an “agenda”z
They need an anchor to reality. Help them touch grass. Be present with them. Go golfing, go camping, go on a walk – be with them in environments where politics are irrelevant. Isolation will lead to rabbit holes especially when you get older. If the relationship is toxic, consider less contact. But try to reach out on a human level
If people want to know how to have prejudice reduction conversations there is specific training for that taking place by some activists. Developed by Dave Fleisher and implemented by at least 2 groups. Los Angeles Leadership LGBT LAB in California and SAVE DADE in Miami. I believe Dave has a TED talk about it. The technique has been tested with a control group and studied by (somebody I can’t remember). Even now they are going door to door every so often to have prejudice reduction conversations.
50:51 – This is called the ‘Mere-exposure’ effect or the familiarity principle. Basically, we like things more if we are more familiar with them. It’s kind of like exposure therapy for bigots, the more time they spend around the things they hate (say black people) and not end up hating them (because they bonded over a sports team they both like), the less they hate those things. Edit: lmao, hits pause button, Vaush basically says what I typed straight after
Ooof. My friends husband is super right wing and she says she holds Republican “values” and when she was about to give birth she was like “I could get X sucked out of me right now if I wanted.” I just try not to pay attention or engage with her when it comes to politics. She’s also moving to Florida soon so…I imagine it will get worse. I also calmed down a lot from getting too passionate about politics which basically devolved to virtue signaling and then I realized that that’s not going to make people think differently or research on their own and it just made me look like and act like an insufferable person that I didn’t want to be. So now I’m either like cool story bro or I disagree because xyz but it’s fine if you disagree and we can keep talking about it but know that I am a leftist and that’s where my points are coming from. (I’m also in a privileged position to be able to do this tho). My husbands father is also a MAGA. Luckily no one in the family pays attention to him when it comes to politics but he is the type who watches only Fox and just yells at the tv. As much as I wish I could help him, I know he’s not going to budge and he’s been listening to right wing media for DECADES. Sometimes you just gotta leave people where they are.
My brother has strong connections with the oath keepers even though he doesn’t care about their ideology, he is fine with them. He doesn’t want people to know about his connection with oath keepers because other people will be afraid of him and his family as he hates rejections, especially how his wife has told him to shut up about their connections with the oath keepers after he has been bragging about it to other people. He was able to connect one of my cousins and her family to the oath keepers.
I use evidence to try to convince people because that’s what convinces me. I live my life obsessively trying to be as introspective as possible, engaging in logical discussions with everyone who disagrees with me so they can prove me wrong. I try to get myself proven wrong, if someone gave me evidence during a passionate argument about why I shouldn’t do a thing, I’d consider it depending on how credible the evidence is. I reflexively try to avoid being stuck in my ways because to do so would be to trap myself in an echo chamber of my own mind where I can never truly know if I’m correct because I haven’t taken in the opposing evidence.
If an uncle said something inappropriate… I’d make a beeline to his kids. I’d explain to them WHY he said those things. WHY they are wrong. HOW it is unbelievable that people who are responsible for their position have the nerve to criticize anybody on earth… after living off of the demise of others & laughing about it at parties!
Yeah, this feels pretty on-point. I always get too invested and I try to bring up actual facts and prod people for questions and stuff, calling out what they’re doing, and it’s like… they don’t care. It doesn’t matter how many good jokes or zingers I work in, they’re not going to read that shit. I need to get them on my side by being more apathetic or skeptical of their side first, and then move into the heavier stuff afterwards. Like give proof if they start talking about it, you know? Otherwise, I’m just wasting time and effort on nothing.
This is what I’ve continued to tell people in relation to these discussions- a person is more likely to double-down on their beliefs and shutdown if you’re yelling at them. It’s the same in both directions. I feel a lot of people these days don’t understand what is needed to be diplomatic and how important diplomacy is to get your point across, especially the tact and patience of doing so. There’s a saying where I’m from: “You get more flies with sugar than with vineagar.” Be willing to listen. Be willing to try to understand what led the person to the thoughts that they have. You can’t have peace when throwing hate and festering fear. The Yoda quote is essential for us to remember: “”Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”
9:33 there was this one server I was in with friends, and one of them was making some very uncomfortable racist jokes. I left without really saying anything. In the end, the friend came to me for the conversation, and they eventually apologized and stopped making the racist jokes. I doubt I would have had the same effect if I was preachy to them in the server
I posit that disgust IS a fear-based response. We have so many words to nuance emotions and color them with context, but at the end of the day we have two types of emotions: those that encourage/reward behavior, and those that dissuade/punish it. From a pure utility perspective, “disgust” and “fear” serve the same use: stay away from / don’t allow that thing. I think this is useful framing because we can get past trying to identify emotion and understand simply that people have aversions to things. I would lump all negative emotions into that of fear, as fear is the English word we most easily associate with one’s automatic response (fight or flight). I think fear comes primarily from a single source: the loss of control. When our organism feels that it can no longer accurate predict outcomes and/or does not have the power to shape the environment into our expectations, we feel really bad. This response manifests itself as anxiety, which is then expressed through whichever emotions our hardwiring / experience determines is most likely to get us to avoid the stimuli. When someone is reacting to something with negative emotion, the question we can ask ourselves is “What does this person feel like they’re losing control of?” For instance, homophobia might be a result of someone’s religious beliefs. The same religious beliefs that say homosexuality is bad come from the same sources that give the person a sense of purpose and meaning and quells their existential dread. Accepting that their religious texts and/or upbringing is not be an accurate model of their life is part and parcel to accepting homosexuality.
I am such a carefully crafted two-faced bitch with my family. I say the most mild middle of the road things when contentious topics come up to protect myself and built my boundaries just so I can walk away when necessary. It’s really helpful to avoid issues since I live with them… Your personal safety comes first! Nothing I say will convince them. It is isolating but I do try to be the one sane person for another family member who’s also going through similar shit. Depending on your situation do what you gotta do to be able to get out sane enough to function.
I feel falling insleep, so I come t before I forget. But it also important to realise that changing an opinion take some time. In my case it always happens after the conversation. It like some paths had to be changed in my head. And then some days later I suddenly seems to have change mind. And I agree it’s the other person. I’m 70, and sometimes you need an update on my age. 😊
I was raised christian and conservative, I’d watch Fox with my parents every night and sometimes Fox and friends in the morning. I had a couple of queer friends but I often ignored that part of them or distanced myself from them after finding out. A friend I’ve known since 1st grade (she was bi but I didn’t know) had a surprise for me after school. She tricked me into going to our high school’s GSA. I had to listen to a bunch of queer people tell their stories for an hour and that changed me lol. Now I am engaged to a woman and a leftist lmao. I felt really vulnerable and uncomfortable in that situation, but everyone there talked about how they felt and how it’s hard that their friends and family don’t accept them and I’m like, shit that’s me.. it was a wake up call too that I had a bunch of friends in that club that I didn’t know were queer.
I don’t believe my dad is evil but I can gauruntee with 100% certaintity he would instantly fight me if I told him I was voting Biden. But to be fair, my family and myself included are horrendously insane drug addicts and products of their upbringing. It’s a miracle there’s any room for good in this cesspool of abuse. EDIT: I should mention, he’s suprisingly not bigoted.
We moved in with my mother, her husband, and their youngest back in 2021 when things with the economy started getting really bad. They are hard-core Trumpist, Christian Nationalist authoritarians who legitimately believed that my fiance and I had zero constitutional rights under their roof, and while we were living with them we weren’t even given the basic respect of having our own voices. They also conned my fiance into letting them “””hold on to””” our savings, charging us $700 a month (admittedly not horrible but for a single bedroom?) and taking 200 of it to put aside for when we moved out. This was verbally agreed on before we even moved in. The day we move in, they flip the script, whitewashing the agreement like they do all of U.S. history, and say that we need to try to “match” what they’re putting aside “for us”. Another 2 months, and they yet again change the details of our agreement which we didn’t even really get a choice in, claiming that the agreement was that “if we weren’t matching the $200, that savings money wasn’t ours” and that they’d give us back whatever we had managed to match at the point in time that we went to them to collect.. Another month later, they change it YET AGAIN. When I present them with $800, which was how much they were allegedly saving for us, they state “no, you don’t have savings. You were supposed to be putting aside $200 EACH MONTH. It doesn’t matter if you have all of the money NOW, you didn’t have it each month, so all of that money is ours”.
Despite basicly my entire imediate family being cool leftists, my dad is a socialist and mostly understands queer issues, somehow my younger brother has fallen down the alt right pipeline. Hes specificly hung up on being a christain, despite my parents being atheist and not introducing anything like that to us when we were younger. Its a very tough situation, he fights with us, mainly my mom, constantly. You can tell this mindset isnt doing him well because he talks about emotions not mattering, and despite previous interest in things like princesses he now insists gay people sin and men need to be masuline and whatnot. Once he even started crying while insisting being gay is bad. I have a horrible feeling that he might be queer but hates himself. It feels like theres no hope in convincing him, hes always been hard to get through to. we try our best though, with conversation, being visibly accepting, and subtly pushing positive influences on him. It just feels so hopeless, this article has helped me think through my interactions with him though.
There was a time when I was genuinely an extremely bigoted person. It was the classics of homophobia and transphobia and casual racism. The way that I started to get out of it was actually the exposure method that Vaush was talking about. However, I’ve noticed that me getting pulled out wasn’t from making friends with gay people or trans people or more black students moving to our school when the area for those allowed to attend was expanded, no it was none of those. It was when I was in the CallMeCarson discord server and I joined a furry server in order to raid it and harass the furries and then one of them said something that piqued my interest. After that, I actually stayed in that and just lurked there. I read everything that was said and looked at all of the art. I joined some voice chats and listened to some of these peoples’ stories and jokes. When I eventually left the server after a very long period of inactivity on discord, I started to look into other avenues of what was out there. I got really into online art culture, I joined the Steven Universe fandom, I watched tons of Undertale content, I even stayed active in the Slimecicle discord until it eventually shutdown and met some of my closest friends there that I still hang out with till this day. I started out as a bigoted little white boy that knew nothing outside of his little southern town, and I’ve ended up as a confident, wise young woman with amazing friends and a world of opportunity ahead of me. There is no way I can express how much I don’t want things to end with my parents in the way that they look like they’re going to, and this article gives me hope that I can maybe, just maybe, push the relationship that have with my parents into the right direction.
In January I retired from a job where I was surrounded by mostly MAGA people. Some of them are still my friends. For awhile I tried to confront them about things they were saying- especially stuff that’s easily debunked. When I pointed out that something that was untrue they would say “well it’s still funny.” I saw it as a lost cause and I pretty much just avoided political conversation with most of them
In regards to homphobia i have given some thought on how to respond. I was at my cousins house and he said he wouod vote for desantis….i didnt respond then but now i know that i would ask some leading questions like “do you feel bad about teen suicide?” “Do you think we should have acessible mental health care?” “Do you know a gay person?” “Do you know if you are a descendant of an immigrant?” I feel like this is a good rhetorical strategu to open up dialogue with someone on the right. 9/10 they actually havent thought through how their positions wouod be different if the policies negatively affected them or someone they care about
Ok i have a story to tell, i was at my sister’s house and helping her with the kids and my dad was there and i mentioned the strange tradition (or something) of people that usually live in cold places do, its the “hot sauna and cold plunge” i think it was referred as, and as soon as I mentioned that thing that people do just because it came out of my mouth im wrong or get made fun of because i know something that no one else knows about, heres another one did you know the hawaiian name for a reef triggerfish, it’s called a “humuhumunukunukuapua’a” my sister certainly didn’t and for the Proseeding day i was made fun of for knowing that thing.
my gf is a convert to Judaism & she comes from a family of Evangelical Christians in the American South. they are almost always making comments about it whether it’s refusing to use her chosen name (very similar to deadnaming a trans person) or making general antisemitic comments. it often exhausts her to deal with it, so what i do is ask them what they meant by it. i do it after the fact, & always 1 on 1 so when they ask me why i’m bringing it up now, i can say i didn’t want to start at argument in front of everybody. i feel this part is key. then, because they ultimately do care about their daughter/cousin/niece/etc they will be much more inclined to listen. if your going to do this on someone else’s behalf, always get that person’s permission first. but i feel like it’s a great way to help out a loved one or a friend.
My Dad is so weird as in he’s from a working class background and hates the Conservative party but has been brainwashed by the Alt right into thinking everything is woke. Like when I talk to him he doesn’t even hate gay people or even trans people but he hates the “woke mob”. Its like he gets a winter soldier episode as soon as he hears woke
My personal challenge is that in most cases, for some reason I end up creating a situation where the person in question who has issues and or problems with the way I live my life or what I believe, ends up with them being very angry and yelling in saying ridiculous things and making themselves look really really bad. I have no intention of doing this but this seems to be the end result. I look great!… But they end up looking very bad and people have talked to me about this.
This is incredible, thank you for this. How about religious people? Lost cause? I have a group of friends that are otherwise quite liberal but their book says no to LGBTQ+. I get a lot of “it’s fine but I don’t want them around my kids, and why do they have to shove it down our throats?” (they think it’s a social contagion, and it’s bad because their god says so). I try to hit back with “yes but also there’s a lot of shit in that book that we don’t follow anymore like women being property, slavery, killing disbelievers, etc” and that they’re just normal people trying to exist. (I’m a cishet man btw)
My issue is my friend group. When I was a teenager I didn’t really care about politics but I became extremely political in college/my twenties. I describe myself as a socialist, and all my friends are those that say “I don’t care about politics” — basically right wingers. Some have even legitimately screamed at me for defending the pride section in Target. I don’t want to cut them off and have no friends/start all over again, but I basically have to be someone different around them
Two things: 1. It’s okay to cultivate your environment to wean out people who are immovably hostile toward aspects of you. If a friend doesn’t accept you, just… don’t invite them to things you organize, treat them with respect at events you attend, but also let your other friends know about the problems you’ve been having with regard to this person. In the best case scenario, the additional social pressure increases the chance that they move from their position, and in the worst case, you lose access to most of that friend group because your efforts backfire at you. It’s okay, there are other people. Your friends are a garden in which you can plant seeds and uproot weeds. 2. I’ve had to learn the hard way that statistical arguments aren’t very effective, mainly because I’m one of those rare people who has zero mental inertia. If I’m presented with a strong argument or evidence against my belief, I change on the spot, and I’ve mistakenly assumed others are the same way. For those like myself… yeah, we’re a minority. I’ve cultivated people like myself within my friend group, and it’s helped me a lot, but not everyone in my friend group is like that, and it’s fine because their perspectives are non-hostile toward me. I just accept that I’m not the best person at my current level of experience and knowledge to change their minds when I disagree with them. That’s okay.
The exposure thing worked on me too. I wasn’t out and about hate-posting on the internet or anything, but i WAS casually transphobic in that i thought it was pretty weird and ‘unnatural’. then i existed with trans people in one of the discords i was in and. Huh. Theyre just people, huh. Now Im actively giving goodwill arguments to people in other servers im in if they bring the topic up in casual convo. Keeping things calm and casual and letting them know that theyre not bad people and that theyre still your friend despite their beliefs has been pretty effective so far
Can confirm this rhetoric works Source: Me, who used to make unfunny attack helicopter jokes until someone who was working backstage with me in theater asked why I thought it was funny Obviously it took some time for me to come around but I’m glad I did b/c I’d rather accept my brother for the man he is now instead of being stuck in that whole reactionary mindset
Unironically this… kinda worked for me. Like don’t get me wrong, the specific family member I’m thinking of still holds homophobic and transphobic beliefs, but he’ll also show moments of like “hmmm maybe not as much?” Like at the very least he’ll hold his tongue when he sees lgbt representation in media, and at the best he’ll actually make an r/AccidentalAlly comment irl. A few other family members and I think me being a bit more open with who I am maybe humanized lgbt folks a bit for him. Like, they are “the intolerant other people,” they’re me.
I’ve spent so much of my life trying to learn how to stop being disregarded as overreacting all the time and yet I’ve literally never heard this explained this way. I guess all along I should have reallocated some of my mental health treatment fund towards paying for a rhetoric class or maybe even just a superchat to Vaush asking how to not come off as hysterical whenever I talk about any of the serious issues I care about.
I have an adult oriented comment to make, 40 years old and came out at 15 years old. One thing I’ve never understood is the absolute obsession straight homophobic men have, with butt sex. For one, I don’t sit around thinking about straight sex for really even a moment in my life. There might be times when taking to straight friends where I might talk about it, but for the most part I really don’t think about straight sex. Two, this might shock even some people in this audience to learn, but it is true. There are gay men who don’t do butt stuff, seriously I’ve dated some. There are gay men that will not top or bottom, they usually only engage in mutual masterbation, dry humping and oral sex. I don’t think they do this because of a sort of “straight peer pressure.” The guys I’ve met that do this genuinely seem to really not be interested in butt sex. There actually used to be group, probably still exists, the point is that has a name and they call it frot homosexuality. Now, the guys I’ve dated in my life that didn’t do butt stuff knew nothing of this mind you. They just really weren’t turned on by this idea. There’s also non-sexual or as some might call it A-sexual gay men. These gay men won’t do any sex stuff, but they’re still gay. See that’s the thing homosexuality is almost an inaccurate term. It almost implies a purely sexual explanation. Homosexuality is not just about sex, there’s love, romance, pair bonding, the first kiss and all that good stuff. By making it solely about sex, I think that’s where these really weird people that are obsessed with butt sex come from; but not limited to obviously if they’re that obsessed with thinking about butt sex there’s more going on there most of the time.
The thing that’s hard for me is that my friends who are conservative often talk about their political action and what they’re doing to affect politics and so, to me, since im the most seasoned debater in my friend group- I feel a sort of obligation to convince them that their opinions are shite, but the most i’ve been able to do is simply get my lefty friends to do political action of some sort that cancels out theirs
I remember a line from Naruto of all things where Gaara says in a big speech to all the ninja “Between those who have felt the same pain, there can be no hatred.” It sounds so hippy-dippy and naive, but I think there’s some genuine truth to it. It’s why so much propaganda is about convincing you that other people don’t share the same pain as you. You’ve worked hard and struggled while they’ve had it easy, or if they haven’t then it’s only because they’re too lazy to fix their problems. Even the supposedly benevolent transphobia of talking about how we have to discriminate against them for their own good because of trans suicide does this. How often have you seen trans people portrayed as wealthy elites creating their own demons to wrestle because they have no real problems?
I find that people like to have their fears heard and ideally explained. The right are more than happy to do so in ways that help their agenda. The left often meet fears with talking down or agression and people go elsewhere. I can’t say I’ve turned anyone going right to the left. But I have helped de radicalise a few family members to being more ‘unengaged centre right’ which I count as a win. Simply by hearing their fears. Empathising with them. And giving my reasons why things are the way they are or why their fears aren’t fears. Not trying to do it in one big hit. More a series of small course corrections over time and chats until they are moving in the direction you want but haven’t realised it. People are far more likely to believe someone they are family with in real life than people online. And help them course correct on things and they stop engaging with the far right facebook boomer posts and the like. Also, use your insider knowledge ie had a family member who was very pro union and pro animals but voted right and doesn’t believe in climate change. So I talked about how big companies and the people they lobby attack unions. I talk about how chemicals in the water are turning the freaking frogs gay. I go around the insintual ‘nos’ that right wing media and memes put in his head. I say this as someone who has the privilege of not being emotionally invested. In most topics I am an ally more than someone on the receiving end of hate. But I think these are the small battles allies need to fight for the larger war.
26:59 : “If you’re calling them degenerates, you don’t need to argue that they’re also unhappy.” The percieved unhappiness serves as “proof” of degeneracy. The concept of “degeneracy” is absolute moral bad, there cannot be a single positive thing about it. The degeneracy is the reason for unhappiness, and unhappiness is proof that degeneracy is going on. That’s the logic here. Also, 32:40 “If just caring about you was enough, you wouldn’t have these problems”. Sometimes, people care about you yet don’t trust you to choose what’s best for yourself. There’s a whole lotta bagage in this kind of attitude, and it’s a complicated mess to entangle, just pointing out that it’s a case that exist, and it’s often one of the worst.
I’ve really seen my family members go from being mainstream neo-con Bush republicans who are aesthetically reasonable to being extremely reactionary trump and desantis supporters. They don’t feel like they need to hide their white supremacist beliefs, and they don’t shy away from blatant sexism, and queerphobia. The only exception is my mother, who is more open to accepting people who are different than her. Everyone else is in an echo chamber of Fox News and they feel self-righteous about it because we live in a blue state. The liberal culture here has actually made them smug and more forceful in their beliefs, and they feel like social martyrs if they’re ostracized at all for it. My sibling is LGBTQ and feels afraid to come out to my extended family, but I almost hope he does so if they don’t accept him we have more leverage and reason to cut them out. Personally I think that’s a lot of power, but it’s of course not my decision
I always get reminded of a small comic strip. Where a guy starts with a lot of nazi symbols being displayed as decorations on his house, then he travels, meets other cultures, expands his horizons. And when he arrives home, he replaces all of the nazi symbols with a gift given by a local from the place he visited (a katana, to be exact) And honestly, i am convinced that there is where the whole issue lies. Most of these people are the way they are because they simply don’t know any better. They already had their very limited fill of the world and feel like they’ve seen everything. You can ask anyone who has grown out of such a mindset and chances are, they had a similar experience.
7:41 this is a tactic I’ve used for people who tell sexist/homophobic/etc jokes. I pretend I don’t get it (when in fact I just find it offensive and/or not funny), and ask them to explain it to me. I’ve actually watched people’s facial expressions change quite dramatically as they’re explaining it, and realize in real-time how awful it sounds when you break it down into its constituent parts . It doesn’t always work, but sometimes it does, and it can incrementally change someone’s mind slowly but surely. *14:19 ah, I should’ve waited until this part of the article. Glad I’m not the only one who does this though. It can be effective. So many people don’t think before they speak, and you have to force them to use their brain sometimes
my dad is very christian and very conservative. Whenever him and my sister get into arguments he always points to his religion for his excuse of homophobia, and I’m not sure how to combat that argument. Trying to drive him away from religion won’t work, and I’m not really interested in doing that, but I want him to be more progressive. But with one of my cousins recently coming out as queer, and one day coming out to him, I hope he makes an effort to be a less bigoted person.
I think you have to keep in mind there are going to be people that aren’t super right-wing with bad takes, but also know how to argue. My mom is like this and knows that she would not permit any of these types of arguments. She would never permit me to get any type of leverage over her in any because she hates those kinds of arguments, but she doesn’t police her own behavior in the same way and dismisses me when I point her out because she is “the logical one”. If you think you’re arguing with someone who thinks they are the “logical one” you cannot win. They have already privileged themselves to freely make arguments without policing while scrutinizing you. They are never going to listen to you because they think they are already right. They are not going to question themselves because that would betray their position. If you ever find yourself making this argument, please stop. You will never be able to dig yourself out of your position.
The reason that people will close off when confronted directly, but reach out to explain themselves or make things right when casually shamed is self evident if you’ve ever been confronted, especially in a heated manner. When confronted that way, you are certain that the person confronting you is not going to consider anything you say, but will energetically brush aside any defense or explanation you offer with vitriol, while getting angrier and insulting you more with every attempt you make to do so. If someone stays calm and detached, then you can feel confident that they will remain calm and detached through the conversation, and that you could probably back out at any moment you like. You feel like you actually have a chance to make things right with out being shamed and insulted further. It isn’t like this for everyone, I’m sure, but I feel like this represents many of the people with whom there was ever hope of a desirable outcome with any sort of confrontation.
I have a co-worker who I softened up on Dylan Mulvane and other trans people. I simply said two words when she started saying some transphobic stuff. I simply said: “I disagree.” When she asked why, and I would explain my opinions without attacking hers. I knew from previous conversations, that she values personal freedoms, so I framed my disagreement as me supporting trans peoples right to do what they want to do. Eventually, my co-worker had kinda realized that her transphobia was in conflict with her value of individual freedom and began to ease off the transphobia, and her transphobia has begun to disapate. Simply by saying that I disagreed with her, and that, in my opinion, Dylan and other trans people can do what they want to do. With some people, it’s not what you say, but how you say it.
The seeing happiness as a virtue or hallmark of morality makes a lot of sense. Because even die hard atheists who hate religion can’t help but smile at a happy Mormon family. That was one thing I noticed when first leaving Christianity. The disgusting religious people around me made me angry, but I’d see a nice Mormon family or Protestant equivalent and remember that they aren’t all bad people.
This! Something I’ve been saying a lot is that lefties aren’t reading the room. We have to tailor our speech and arguments for who we are talking to. I’d also say don’t make them feel too stupid. Your not correcting a dog your talking to a person. Pushing people too far leads to them just ignoring everything and ending up going the opposite way.
I’m autistic, and my younger self was even less socially wise than I am today, so sorry if I’m saying something obvious but I know for a fact that it isn’t obvious to everyone: about the uncle scenario, yes approaching them later is important so that they are less defensive about something they said earlier, but I believe the most important part is it must not be in public. anyone gets defensive if you, with any tone in any way, criticize something they have done while many other people are listening. you don’t need to take them somewhere private, in fact doig that would betray that you actually care about the issue enough to go out of your way, but if you’re at a social gathering of some kind just wait for when they’re sort of out of the way of everyone and calmly speak your mind. the fact that you’re not completely alone also puts some fear in them because they wouldn’t want to overreact or make a small scene, because at that point they won’t only have to explain themselves to you but to everyone else too. cherry on top: this might even feel like a favor from you, you expressing your disappointment only to them, reducing the shame only to yourself rather than the whole group, you let it be between you, nobody else knows. I feel they would end up even more ashamed and at fault and consider what you’ve said even more to summarize with something I find way funnier than it actually is: don’t be a social justice warrior, be a social justice rogue 🙂
Exposure is exactly how I came to a better understanding about gender identity. I was always on the fence about they/them pronouns. It seemed so arbitrary and made no sense to me. Then I went to college and met people who used it and I’m not one to disrespect others so I obliged when asked to use said pronouns for classmates. Nowadays I don’t blink an eye if someone has they/them pronouns. In another life I probably would have used the pronouns myself considering I like to joke that I wasn’t a lady or a dude, just me. But I find no reason to refer to myself as they/them. I am completely comfortable being referred to my assigned gender but I totally understand people who feel that it doesn’t quite fit. If not for college, I may have never met those people who helped give me more empathy and understanding just by simply existing.
‘hate the sin, love the sinner’. While this can be used poorly, for instance, when hating something that isn’t a ‘sin’, such as s*x stuffs, or by hating on people over petty things, or actively harming people in an effort to ‘hate the sin’, the notion is fairly sound and potentially quite powerfully effective. Hating the ‘sin’ of, say, murder, and not the murderer, entails the capacity to differentiate between the actions someone(s) does, and who they are as a person. The capacity to see them as a real live human, rather than a summation of some actions. The notion is far more bout overcoming the emotionally charged reactionary stances that people take when they or someone they love are harmed, rather than a call to action against them. To put it in fully spiritualized terms, to see their soul, to see them as they are, or ought to be, and not merely as how one’s emotive response to them might be at any given point. Considered such things as ‘criminal reformation’ and ‘restorative justice’, or programs that are intended to help formerly incarcerated people, and so forth. I’d strongly suggest to folks in this crowd that they consider that their experiences whereby people have, hm, poorly used the notion, not thereby entirely dismiss the concept. People misuse or poorly use notions all the time. Interestingly enough, and relevant to this article, explaining this aspect of the concept to more conservative people is at least plausibly a good tack to take. Pointing out that there are plenty of interpretations well founded in the relevant lit that hold ‘hate the sin, love the sinner’ doesn’t work or apply the way they are utilizing it can, and I’d say has been effective at least with folks I’ve spoken with at length over the years.
i have a habit of showing my emotions on my face so it’s quite difficult not to show my annoyance/disgust at the gross comments/sentiments. One of my tactics to disarm someone like that is to very obviously fake laugh and change subjects. Usually helps in the moment, gives me or them the chance to bring it up later
I think mentioning Narcissistic personality types is really important here. Ofc not everyone who disagrees with leftist ideology is a full-blown narcissist. But plenty of them are and Narc traits are encouraged on the right and in the US in general. If you suspect someone may be a Narc, or insists on behaving with Narc traits, DO NOT ENGAGE. Keep the conversation shallow. They WILL not take accountability for anything they say and will instead turn anything you say against you. If you have the option of holding strict boundaries against them, do so. Don’t give them any piece of you life if you can help it. Just be happy and ignore them. ♡ It will save you a lot of lost energy. They are so not worth it!!
Sometimes I like to turn the stats thing back on them by saying like do you have stats on that? or like Where did you get this specific bit of information from? It usually helps to undermine their confidence in whatever position they are trying to justify to you because most of the time they don’t and are forced to cite some anecdote or justify it on the level of vibes. But yeah that only works when they are already in the defensive position like Vaush said, where you are the one asking them questions about why they think what they think and they are forced to improvise a rational justification for an irrational belief on the spot. At worst you are going to end up at an ‘agree to disagree’ which is an okay outcome in most interpersonal cases, it’s deescalation basically
I will say, a logical consecration can work specifically if the person you’re talking to holds a level of legitimate respect for you. I’m a cis straight guy so the arguments I make unfortunately work a little with people who maybe are not fully on board with the whole trans thing. My mom and my great grandmother was a good examples in my life. My mom is generally pretty liberal so that argument was pretty easy and my great grandmother is somewhat conservative. The main commonality between both of them that made moving them over pretty simple is that in spite of my age, both acknowledge the possibility that I can know stuff they don’t (not to mention I just have a good relationship with both of them). So this made it very easy for me to make my point. My mom is pretty strongly pro trans now and my great grandmother, while not being strongly pro trans, understands them and holds no ill will towards them, she takes a libertarian “let them do what they want” sort of deal. This doesn’t work if the friends or family members in question doesn’t respect you at all or doesn’t believe you can know anything they don’t and definitely doesn’t work in a debate with a rando, but it’s worth understanding this part.
During father’s day my uncles were perusal our equivalent of Fox News (Willax TV) during dinner while they were peddling the whole “Soros is financing fake news that’s trying to ruin us” (how the hell has anti-semitism arrived to Peru 😭) and I’m afraid that it seems that some cousins that I respect are partial to Willax while others, thankfully at least, indiferent. It’s suffering. I haven’t yet listened to this but going to.
In my conversations online I have had right-wingers do the “what do you mean by that” question.😂 They assume that because of the propaganda they have been fed, I have not thought through my positions on whatever subject it was. About half the time I will shut them up when I respond with my thought out arguments. Sometimes they never respond to me again.😂
Not bad advice. I feel like since 2020 I’ve really polished my argumentative skills and a lot of what you’ve said even half way through the article is pretty spot on. I didn’t realize this was the sort of thing I’ve slowly been evolving to do after debating so many people about all these controversial topics of late. I’ve definitely found calling people out in long paragraphs wasn’t working and going for the shorter more psychological responds to be just as effective. I do still enjoy the page long typed out debates though but with my more Trumpy/ right wing reactionary family members I’ve switched to just about what you’ve been suggesting. I’ve noticed some shifts in their attitudes but there are topics that they just can’t be convinced of. I’ve gotten my Grandma to vote more progressive but she still insists gay people are faking it and hates them for it. At least she’s voted progressive since like 2016.
Im christian, but hear me out I will give you a shield if your lgbt. Tell them how Mark 7:6 tells about worldy traditions, and how they are meaningless compared to accepting God, and explain if there is hate is driving you from God. Or how Jesus said its more important what goes out of your mouth instead of going in. It doesnt matter if your lgbt, if you want a connection with God, NEVER let anyone take you from that. Just because they are Christian doesnt mean they cant be wrong in Gods word.
One of my best friends (guy) was pretty homophobic but about 10 years ago we made a new friend (also guy) who is happily married to a woman came out as bi and was pretty overt about it, and eventually friend 1 kinda never says anything negative about gay people. Exposure therapy is definitely a thing.
My honest opinion is try your best to leave the USA. Face it, nearly every other western nation is better. I left the US for Australia nearly 16 years ago now and I’ve, never once, felt homesick. Yeah, you’ll have to rebuild, gain friends, and/start over but it’s better than the hellscape that America is becoming. I know this is coming from a place of personal privilege but, for those who can brave this option, it is very worth it.
This could not have come at a better time. My dad just said some really bigoted shit about black people since I brought up it was juneteenth, and… it just made me worry about how he thinks about the fact I’m trans. Cause, you know, it says something about the stuff he’s getting news from. He’s said some icky stuff on transitioning in the past. This really helped me process this info.
My only worry with the “could you explain, please? I don’t get it” is they’d be like “it’s just a joke bro, chill.” Like instead of trying to explain it they just think you’re stupid, sometimes that tactic does work but not always, another one that works sometimes on the type of people who might respond like that is saying something like “lOl oH woW sO fuNnY brO 🙄””I’ve never heard that one before..””What is so funny about this?” I did that with someone who was showing a right winger get kicked out of a museum or something because they were dressed like a butterfly and we’re saying in a very small weak sounding voice something like “I’m a butterfly I wanna go in the butterfly room” or something like that I honestly don’t know the context but I was just like “what is he even doing? Like this shit makes people look so stupid, no one seriously does this but them and they get kicked out, which is what they want, but like what’s the joke? They’re the only ones who act like this, is this supposed to be like trans people? Because that’s not what trans people do, they just make themselves look like idiots for other dumb fucks online” etc etc. I made sure not to target him for being the one showing it but I made it look like people who think that stuff is funny are stupid and cringe. That worked in that instance, he was also kind of a friend of mine
Like with the dogwhistles, if people make bigoted jokes you can use a similar tactic! Just as them to explain the joke. Remain deadpan, but act like you’re genuinely unaware and curious. Most people suddenly scramble to say theyre not actually racist, but some will try to explain why the racism is funny…so just keep asking questions. Act like you don’t get it, and eventually it’ll take the wind our of their sails. If you can’t change a bigot’s mind, then you can at least show that they can’t make bigoted comments or jokes around you. Use consequences! Leave the room. End the phone call. Tell them you’re going home, amd follow through. If you’d prefer, you can first tell them “I don’t like when you make xyz comments. In the future, if you say that, i will leave.” But then you have to actually follow through. Either they will make changes to how they behave, or you’ll stop spending time with them. It’s a win-win.