A time I felt a strong reaction to someone is when someone in my communication class was making a presentation for why transgender athletes should not be able to compete with the gender in which they transitioned too. It happened during our persuasive speech unit, which we were required to choose a topic and make an argument for or against the topic.
As simply a listener of the speech there wasn’t much I could do besides sit there and listen to their argument. Even though I didn’t know the person presenting, I instantly felt a sense of dislike towards them. I am a firm believer that everyone is intitled to their own opinion but when it comes to LGBTQ issues, which are issues that affect me and my friends directly, I don’t think that they should be an “opinion”.
I could feel myself getting tense as they were speaking because it bothered me that someone who isn’t transgender and probably doesn’t know anyone who is, feels like they can speak on an issue that doesn’t concern them, especially when that issue can be so harmful to someone else. I’m sure I’m not the only person who felt this way considering the majority of my class was filled with liberal minded people.
There were many people of different races and genders in the classroom. I knew there was a least one person in the room who was non binary. I think what really brought this feeling is the reality hitting me that a lot of people still feel this way about the issue and that they all use the same ignorant arguments.
