My take on Civil Discourse

      One of the most important educational, political, and social issues of today is how to best have a civil conversation in a democratic society. Our past, present, and future depend on this essential process: citizens gathering, listening to each other, debating, and making up their minds to determine the course of an action. 

      Polarization of opinions, coupled with the speed and access of the digital age, have made it increasingly difficult to keep our conversations civil in America today. From shouting matches, to opinionated blog posts, to rhetoric- filled political debates, we are  confronted everyday with uncivil conversation. 

      To me, civil discourse is truthful, productive, audience-based, about listening and talking, and each speaker's own responsibility. Civil discourse is not mere politeness, about telling people who they are, or purley performative. So what happens when civil discourse works? And when it does not?

      In order for civil discourse to actually work, people need to have certain attributes; such as patience, responsibility, and open-mindedness. Let’s take debating for example. In our democratic society there is a certain way things are done; mostly through debate. You will often see our Congress, Senate, or House of Representatives get together to discuss policies and laws they think would be of benefit to our country.

      In order to have a successful debate, everyone has to be able to listen to each other's views and take on the situation. There can’t be any biased opinions, only facts. They’d have to take into consideration how it would benefit everybody and not just themselves. The speaker has to be careful with his/her words, and make sure their opinions won't affect anyone in a negative way. And the end result has to be productive and for the betterment of all the people involved. 

      And when civil discourse doesn't work? Well, it leads to fights and war. When people don't have the patience to listen to others, make radical statements, and stick to their “old ways”, things tend to get out of hand. We all have to remember that as human beings, we will disagree on almost everything; so it's important to take everyone's opinion into consideration. That’s why we vote.  

      There were many times in class where me and my classmates had to discuss and understand something. The particular situation I remember vaguely is when we were discussing weather transgender students should be able to play on the sports team of the gender they say they are. We watched a video where two black transgender males were playing on an all girls track team. Obviously, since they were male, they ran a whole lot faster than any female they came up against. A white non-transgender female had noticed this and tried suing them claiming that it wasn’t right for them to run on the girls track team because they were biological miles and thus, it would put the females at a disadvantage. 

      My classmates and I were asked by our teacher to give our input on the situation. There was no real conclusion but many good points were brought up. One of my classmates said that it was unfair because of the fact that even though the boys were girls, their DNA was still that of a boy. So no matter what, they would still run faster than girls. If I am correct, they also pointed out in the video that the males had to take some hormone inducing drug for a year in order to be allowed to play with the girls. But what about when that drug wears off?

     I personally agree with the girl that complained. It’s unfair because of their DNA. There would have to be a serious biological evolution in the female body for us to even come close to a serious male runner. Assuming they allow the transgender males run on the female track team, they would allow other, non-transgender, males to think they could just slap a wig on, give themselves a girl name, and go run with the girls. 

      My idea was that all transgender boys could form their own team. This way, there would be no unfair advantage. But the problem was that there may not be enough transgender males interested in track. Or, there may not be enough teams to play against. 

      In the end we really didn't find a permanent solution to the problem but a lot of good ideas and thoughts had been brought up. We listened to what each person had to say, and no one had any biased or radical ideas that may have offended the next person. 

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