Humanism gets framed like a philosophy, but it’s really just choosing to stay present with one another. It’s checking in on the neighbour who keeps odd hours. It’s standing up for LGBT rights because nobody should have to shrink themselves to feel safe. It’s honouring Indigenous rights because the land remembers what people try to forget. It’s the quiet work of making sure the community includes the people who don’t always get invited in.
That same instinct not to look away is what pulled me into the conversation about sexual identity. These topics get called controversial, but most of the heat comes from people talking past each other. My own understanding didn’t start with politics. It started with learning about intersex people and how biological sex isn’t as tidy as we pretend. Intersex people are born that way. They have no control over how their bodies develop, yet they’re often treated like they owe the world an explanation. Some grow up with a clear sense of who they are. Others need time and space to sort through their identity because the world rarely gives them room to do that without pressure or scrutiny. And many end up wrestling with sexual identity not because something is uncertain inside them, but because the world keeps insisting they shouldn’t exist outside a simple binary.
Learning about intersex people opened my eyes to how much pressure we put on anyone who doesn’t fit the categories we expect. And once you start noticing that pattern, you see it in other places too. The same instinct to force people into a simple story shows up in how some talk about homosexual relationships. In my early adult life, I heard people say things like “Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve,” the kind of slogan repeated as if it settles something. What it really does is let people look away. It turns a complicated, human conversation into a rhyme so nobody has to sit with the reality of someone else’s life.
I had a friend who lived under that weight for years. The pressure and misunderstanding pushed them to a place so dark they tried to end their life. When they were in the hospital afterward, nobody from their family came. That kind of silence leaves a mark. It teaches you that the world can look away from you even when you’re fighting to stay alive. That moment changed how I see all of this. It stopped being a debate and became a reminder that real people live inside these labels, trying to make sense of themselves while the rest of us decide how loudly to judge.
Humanism, at least the way I see it, means meeting people where they are instead of where we think they should be. It means letting someone tell you who they are before you decide what you think about it. And it means remembering that dignity isn’t something we hand out. It’s something we recognize.