Not affirming is not doing harm

The idea is now everywhere: whoever does not affirm a transgender person in their identity does them harm. Whoever doubts does wrong. Whoever thinks aloud otherwise is attacking. It sounds caring and right-minded, it is repeated in policy papers, at schools, in consulting rooms and on social media. But it is not true, and it is time someone simply said so — not out of harshness, but out of honesty.

An opinion is not an attack

Doing harm means concretely disadvantaging someone. Taking something away. Inflicting something. Having an opinion does not fall under that. Nor does asking a question. And honestly saying “I see it differently” certainly does not. Yet those things are increasingly lumped together with harm, as if there were no difference between hitting someone and not echoing them.

Behind this conflation lies a striking assumption: that every person has a right to the full, unconditional agreement of everyone around them. That right does not exist. It never has. No one has it — not the believer, not the atheist, not the politician, not the neighbour. We live with people who think differently, and that is how it should be. Whoever demands that others share their conviction on pain of the reproach “you are harming me” is asking not for respect but for submission.

And note what that demand does in practice. It reverses the burden of proof. Not the one making a far-reaching claim has to substantiate it, but the one who doubts has to justify themselves. Not the claim is up for discussion, but the person who does not immediately embrace it. Thus a substantive disagreement is quietly rebuilt into a moral accusation — and whoever is accused often prefers to stay silent rather than risk being written off as a bad person.

Whoever is not for is against

There lies the core of the reasoning, and that is exactly where it comes apart. No room remains for nuance, for doubt, for an honest different angle. Whoever does not immediately affirm is automatically placed in the opponent's camp. No middle ground, no conversation, no question — only agreement or enmity.

But that is a false dilemma. You can fully accept someone as a person and still think differently. You can love someone and thoroughly disagree with them. You can treat someone with respect without adopting their worldview. That is no contradiction. It is exactly how grown-up people have dealt with one another for centuries. Whoever erases that distinction turns every disagreement into a moral war — and ultimately loses the ability to talk to anyone who has not already been proved right in advance.

Moreover, this knife cuts both ways. Whoever applies the rule that “not affirming is harm” ought consistently to acknowledge the opposite position too: that forcing affirmation can be harm for the one who sincerely thinks differently. But in practice it never works that way. The reproach always goes one way. One party may feel hurt and derive moral power from it; the other party must keep quiet and swallow. That is no conversation between equals. That is a power relationship disguised as compassion.

Not affirming is not the same as rejecting

Not affirming and actively rejecting are constantly confused, but they are two different things. A parent who asks questions before their child takes an irreversible step. A doctor who investigates instead of following blindly. A friend who honestly says they disagree. A teacher who does not immediately go along with every new term. That is not hatred. Those are people dealing in their own way with something that is new, far-reaching or hard to understand for them. They do not turn against the person. They think differently about it — and that is allowed.

More than that: asking questions is often precisely a form of involvement. Whoever cares about no one nods along easily. It costs nothing to move with what is popular. Whoever does care about someone sometimes dares to speak against them, precisely because the consequences matter. Dismissing that involvement as “harm” is not only dishonest, it is downright perverse — it punishes precisely the people most willing to think, and rewards those who go along uncritically.

That is all the sharper where children and young people are concerned. An adult who soberly holds an irreversible decision up to the light does exactly what an adult should do. It would only be truly worrying if no one dared ask questions any more — if doubt itself were forbidden. A culture in which adults are afraid to say “no, wait a moment” does not protect children. It abandons them.

Transgender people often experience the absence of affirmation as rejection, as an attack on who they are. That pain is real and must not be waved away. Someone who does not feel seen truly suffers from it, and that deserves acknowledgement. But pain is no proof of guilt. The fact that something hurts does not mean the other has done something wrong. Otherwise every honest word, every dissenting opinion, every boundary would become a form of violence — and then no society is possible any more, only a contest over who feels most hurt.

We accept that distinction, incidentally, without difficulty in almost every other area. A child who does not get their way suffers pain — but the parent who says no does no wrong. A job applicant who is turned down feels hurt — but the employer has committed no injustice. A person in love who is not loved back has sorrow — but the other may say no. Everywhere we understand that pain and injustice are not the same. Only on this one topic is that difference suddenly wiped away, and pain must automatically prove guilt.

In closing

A grown-up society can make that distinction: between rejecting and not echoing, between hatred and doubt, between pain and injustice. It can meet someone with warmth and disagree with them at the same time. It can listen to sorrow without turning every sorrow immediately into an accusation.

A society that gives up that distinction ultimately abolishes conversation itself. What remains is not understanding but fear — fear of saying something wrong, fear of asking a question, fear of being honest. And a society that has become afraid to speak has not achieved compassion. It has only silenced it. Without honest conversation nothing is left with which to truly reach one another — only the appearance of harmony, bought with the silence of everyone who no longer dares to say it.