Let's stop 'tolerating' or 'accepting' difference, as if we're so much better for not being different in the first place. Instead, let's celebrate difference, because in this world it takes a lot of guts to be different.
Interpretation
Embracing differences is essential for personal and societal growth, rather than simply tolerating them.
Kate Bornstein's quote emphasizes the importance of not just accepting or tolerating differences among individuals, but actively celebrating them. In a world where conformity is often favored, recognizing the courage it takes to be different can foster a more inclusive and vibrant society, ultimately contributing to our collective growth and understanding.
In practice
In a speech promoting diversity at a workplace event.
I know I'm not a man-about that much I'm very clear, and I've come to the conclusion that I'm probably not a woman either, at least not according to a lot of people's rules on this sort of thing. The trouble is, we're living in a world that insists we be one or the other-a world that doesn't bother to tell us exactly what one or the other is.
…gender is not sane. It's not sane to call a rainbow black and white.
There's a simple way to look at gender: Once upon a time, someone drew a line in the sans of culture and proclaimed with great self-importance, 'On this site, you are a man; on the other side, you are a woman.' It's time for the winds of change to blow that line away. Simple.
O Lord, you have been our refuge in all generations.
Those who call for censorship in the name of the oppressed ought to recognize it is never the oppressed who determine the bounds of censorship.
Understand then all of you, especially the young, that to want to impose an imaginary state of government on others by violence is not only a vulgar superstition, but even a criminal work. Understand that this work, far from assuring the well-being of humanity is only a lie, a more or less unconscious hypocrisy, camouflaging the lowest passions we posses.
I've seen attack ships on fire on the shoulder of Orion, I've seen moon beams glisten at the Ten hauser gate, all those memories, lost like tears in the rain.
I have not seen much dignity in the process by which we die. The quest to achieve true dignity fails when our bodies fail.
There's only one day at a time here, then it's tonight and then tomorrow will be today again.
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