> mandatory acknowledgments
Who mandates that?
> shielded from a lot of criticism
By whom? From where I stand, a lot of folks have stated calling me and mine “groomers,” which is pretty critical in my book. They seem free enough to criticize to me?
> while another subset is constantly being ridiculed, mocked and villified
Each side mocks the other; so it seems to be a moot point to me.
> Pride month would be fair if we also had, let's say, Fathers' month
> Or housewives' month
> But no, the media has decided that all these things are not important
The media certainly has not decided as much. This is still what we, as a society, glorify. What would you say shows that the media has decided these things are no longer important?
> one's sexual orientation, a very private thing that makes many people uncomfortable and has zero relation with actual business, needs to be broadcasted on every corner.
The world broadcasts heterosexuality on every corner. What’s the difference?
> So the whole idea of a politics-free workspace is that we keep these things to our private lives.
I would disagree. My experience has been that “politics-free” spaces in fact allow the dominant politics to be expressed, while silencing other groups.
> And giving one subset of people different rights from another one (even if it's non-monetary tokenism) makes a workplace toxic and increases tension.
You can’t say that one group is being given “different rights” and then in the next breath say that it’s actually “non-monetary tokenism.” Rhetorically, that’s nonsensical. It uses the gravitas of a “right” to make a point but then immediately admits that the point was false all along.
So let’s drop the nonsense about “special rights” - this is about acknowledgement, or “tokenism”.