It usually bemuses me when people volunteer the words or phrases that irritate them. Common sayings, conversational habits or filler words that annoy us. It bemuses me because, in my experience, the one way to guarantee that people will use those phrases more often is to let everyone know they irritate you. Maybe it’s the company I keep. Now of course, I’m not talking about vulgar, rude or offensive phrases, just everyday phrases such as “I was about to say” or “Going forward”. Maybe one or two of such phrases might rankle me a bit, but I don’t usually volunteer this information. There is, however, one phrase that’s been doing the rounds lately that I find to be something beyond just irritating.
“Facts don’t care about your feelings.”
It’s being thrown about quite a lot lately, usually by anonymous trolls online or certain individuals engaging in what they believe is just a debate, when really their intentions are motivated by bigotry and hatred.
It comes in a few variations, such as “facts over feelings”, or “facts > feelings”, but it is always uttered with an undercurrent of contempt for the people it is directed at. It is meant to belittle and, ultimately, to dehumanise. To put a group of people firmly in their place and dismiss their concerns as irrelevant. It is a phrase I abhor.
Let us imagine (grim though it may be) taking this phrase as a universal truth. Facts over feelings. From a writer’s perspective, taking this approach is going to make for some pretty boring novels. Do we imagine, for one moment, that the greatest writers of history were so dismissive of the importance of feeling? Poets, novelists and playwrights have plunged into the very depths of their emotions for centuries to produce works that reflect what it means to be human. More often than not, those who champion the phrase “facts don’t care about your feelings” are also proponents of “bottling it up” and “not talking about it”. A distinctly unhealthy approach to life, quite frankly, and it doesn’t exactly help produce anything beyond a rather strained bowel movement.
Our emotions, our feelings, are what make us human. They’re what make life worth living. Look an animal in the eyes and you’ll see just how it’s feeling. Yet, the proponents of this nasty little catchphrase consider themselves so above such things that they would dismiss the emotions of those they dislike so vehemently, robbing themselves and others of the essence of humanity. When they say “Facts don’t care about your feelings”, what they are really saying is “I don’t care about your feelings.” I cannot fathom living with such a lack of empathy, such callous disinterest in the lives of others.
It particularly saddens me when I see this phrase aimed at members of the LGBTQ community, particularly when it comes from cis gay men and lesbians, aimed at transgender people. The dismissal of gender because it’s “just a feeling”, whereas sexual attraction can apparently be considered a fact. Well, it wasn’t that long ago that we were being told that our attraction to those of the same sex was “just a feeling” and that “it would pass”. We were being told by a great many people in positions of power that how we felt didn’t matter, because the fact that men and women come together to produce children was considered important enough to override how we felt. A fact that mattered more than our feelings.
The dismissal of gender as just a feeling makes no sense to me. What is attraction, if not a feeling? How do we know if we’re attracted to someone? We feel it. How do I know I am a man? How do I know I am cis? I was born male, and I have never felt that I might not be. I have always felt attracted to other men. Therefore, through my instincts (another word for feelings), I know that I am a gay, cis man. I didn’t come with a manual when I was born. I had to discern who and what I am based on how I felt, and how I continue to feel. This, again, is the very essence of being alive. To dismiss transgender people and belittle their “feelings” is a repulsive thing to do. Their feelings exist, just as everyone else’s do, and that is a fact.
There will always be those who say “But I’m just stating facts!” as though the things they’re saying are just a casual contribution to an academic debate. Whatever the sphere of discussion, they’ll say “I don’t have a problem with (blank), but this is a fact”. Yes, I know sex is real. So is gender. It’s as real as sexual attraction, which is what unites the LGBTQ community. Whether cis and gay or transgender, both groups have at some time or another been told that facts override how they feel about themselves. We were told we had to conform because it was a ‘fact’ that everyone was meant to be a certain way. That was the thinking behind Section 28, and it was flawed thinking at best. Those who pipe up with certain facts as though they’re making a profound point that nobody’s ever considered before are usually just revealing their intense discomfort and sometimes outright hatred of a group that is ‘different’ to them.
As I said, sex is real. I know that. I don’t feel the need to go pointing it out to everyone because, frankly, to do so is unnecessary. Sex is real. Gender is real. Both heterosexuality and homosexuality are real, as are bisexuality, asexuality, pansexuality. Being transgender is real. Being gender fluid or non binary is real. All these things, and so many more, are real. They are facts. Those who employ my most hated of phrases wish to ignore the complexity of life and hammer through their own narrow view of what is real and valid. Those who use that phrase are almost never just looking to engage in debate. They’re looking to invalidate entire groups of people based on nothing but their own prejudice.
I can accept a great many facts and acknowledge the feelings of others, because those feelings exist. They are a fact. The dismissal of people’s feelings as invalid is not a path any of us wish to go down. Once you can invalidate one group, you can justify acts of unspeakable cruelty towards them, and they never stop at just one group.
Facts matter, but so do feelings.
David R Lord 