Trans debates are just one battleground in the Culture Wars. Learning fromthe Buddha, how can we make peace?

Andrew,’ I said. ‘You look … different.’ My old friend was wearing a dress and makeup and his hair had grown. ‘I am different,’ he replied. ‘And I’m Helen.’ One part of me accepted Helen just as she was, but another part was thinking, ‘Why is Andrew dressed as a woman?’ Yes, that was intolerant, but, mostly, I felt confused. If my friend was Andrew the bloke, then who was Helen, and was she my friend? 

I sometimes recall that confusion when I hear the latest trans controversy. This week it was a disagreement at Oxford University, but there’s always something, and the discussion gets both complicated and heated. 

Trans debates have become disagreements over free speech, personal liberty, gender identity and much more. These are important issues, but what strikes me most is the strength of feeling. Alongside the civilised debate, for some, battle lines are drawn and trust’s lost. Some people start yelling, and we have a culture war. 

Here’s a story about war in the Fifth Century BCE. The Buddha is standing in the middle of a river. On one side is the army of his father’s clan, on the other, the army of his mother’s. They both need the water for irrigation, but it’s dried up and they’re about to fight.  

The Buddha speaks. ‘Violence breeds only misery.’ The issue, for him, isn’t the water, it’s the fighting; and he wants to get to the root of why people fight. ‘When I lived among you I felt insecure. So I looked in my heart and saw a thorn, right here. Everyone has a thorn in their heart and it drives us mad.’ The thorn is fear. It’s our need for security and certainty. Real security, the Buddha says, only comes when we overcome fear and pull it out. 

For me, that’s an invitation to recognise that, when an issue makes me defensive or dogmatic, the real problem is defensiveness. Underneath my confusion on seeing Helen, I was afraid. Of course, the issues are important, but when we become so polarised that war is a viable metaphor for cultural conflict, something important has been lost. 

‘It is wrong,’ said the Buddha, ‘that precious lives are destroyed for the sake of a little water.’

If we can pull out the thorn, and get beyond the sense that others’ views threaten us, we might begin to understand each other better.