Acceptance vs. Respect

What is the difference between respecting someone and accepting someone?

Acceptance is taking someone as they are. Respecting someone is leaving them as they are.

At least that's how I've come to understand it.

Throughout my experience as an LGBTQ+ writer, I have met many people who have respected and accepted me. I have also met many people who did neither. I have also known a small number of people who have done one but not the other - respected me but didn't accept me.

To start, I want to state that the most helpful of the three was always acceptance and respect. People who did both were always the ones to lift me up and boost my morale the most.

But I will also settle for respect without acceptance. It was a dear friend who taught me the difference between these things, as well as that I was willing to settle for one if not both.

You see, during 2021, I have run into more homophobia and transphobia than I had ever run into before: from my family, from my friends, and from strangers. I found my mental health wearing down, month by month. Around then, I kept hearing things like "love the sinner, hate the sin." Something about it always sat wrong with me. How could my family love me when they were trying to change me? They actively prayed for the gays and trans people to disappear from existence. How could some of my friends look me in the eye and say they respected me yet turn around and post PragerU articles against me on their FaceBook page?

It was around this time I had a long talk with my friend. It started with a discussion on neopronouns. My friend is a supporter of the LGBTQ+ community, but things like neopronouns confuse her. She doesn't like them. However, I sometimes use neopronouns. We had a very respectful conversation. There was no argument. Even though my friend does not like neopronouns, she never questioned or thought she shouldn't use them. I was surprised that even though she didn't like them, she would still use them.

Then she told me about how she saw respect vs. acceptance. She said that her standpoint should take a backseat to my needs because neopronouns were important to me. If they were important to me, then her own opinion shouldn't matter.

It took me a day or so to examine this. Was this what I wanted? In everything else, I had acceptance and respect from her. But in this, I only had respect.

To my surprise, this was fine. Not the best - but acceptable. Respect was all I needed.

It redefined how I looked at my family, friends, and acquaintances. Despite professing respect, I didn't have it. From them, I had neither respect nor acceptance because they were trying to change me. I was not an independent person with ideas deserving of time. Instead, they pray to God to change me or supported "universities" that wanted to limit my existence.

That wasn't respect, that wasn't love, and it was certainly not acceptance.

My friend helped me to redefine what I was willing to accept too. Had the transphobic and homophobic people in my life treated me with respect, my year would have gone very differently.

But they didn't.

Do not settle for less than respect. Regardless of friend, family, or acquaintance, it is the least you should ever receive. The right to existence is the right to live as you see fit, without interference. Loving the sinner isn't possible when you are trying to change the sinner. Respect is not possible when you do not treat the other person as an individual with the same right to happiness as you.

And you cannot pray the sin away without taking away your love of the sinner.

I won't settle for anything less than respect.