The “X isn’t Y” fallacy
My “truth isn’t hate” T-shirt has people asking a lot of questions already answered by my shirt.
There’s a whole family of tedious responses that you see from bigots and trolls when someone calls them out. They all follow the same “X isn’t Y” pattern:
- “Truth isn’t hate”
- #TruthIsNotAHateCrime
- “Facts aren’t racist”
- “Disagreement isn’t harassment”
- “Opinions aren’t prejudice”
- “Biology isn’t bigotry”
- “Tough love isn’t abuse”
- “Protecting children isn’t homophobic”
- “Safeguarding vulnerable children is not a crime”
- “Standing up for women’s hard-fought sex-based rights isn’t transphobia”
(There are also “If X is Y…” variants of the same pattern where they accept the bad Y but argue that it’s actually good, such as: “If standing up for our country is Far Right then I am happy to be Far Right!”)
These thought-terminating clichés are dishonest responses that blend a variety of logical fallacies and tactics to deflect, reframe the discussion, and dodge accountability.
They are wrong at every level:
Nobody claimed that X is equivalent to Y. This is a strawman fallacy, designed to paint your opponent as unreasonable and put them on the defensive. Obviously nobody claims or believes that truth is, in any general sense, equivalent to hate, or that protecting children is homophobic. It’s also an attempt to make a sole claim on the high ground of “truth” or “facts” or “biology” and to baselessly deny it to your opposition.
X can, indeed, be Y. Most of these pairings are not mutually-exclusive opposites. If decontextualised and cherry-picked to mislead people and push a racist agenda, your “facts” are effectively racist. If your version of “protecting children” means “treating gays as a threat”, then it is homophobic. If your “facts” are chosen purely to be spiteful and fear-mongering, then they are hateful. If you are misusing “biology” to attack other people’s rights; ditto. Claiming X does not prove that you aren’t doing Y.
(“Opinions aren’t prejudice” is particularly ridiculous as it doesn’t even provide a flimsy cover like most of the other examples — prejudiced opinions are still opinions)
You haven’t established X. In many cases, your “facts” are not even facts. Your “disagreement” is not merely a disagreement but a denial of other people’s equality and humanity. Your opinions are prejudiced opinions. You aren’t protecting children. Biology does not support you. Your “sex-based rights” do not exist, so you aren’t defending them. And so on. You may disagree. But you haven’t offered a shred of evidence or logic yet.
You haven’t addressed the original claim of Y. This whole family of tactics is about deflection. You might as well assert that “good people aren’t bad” when someone points out you are being bad.
Finally, my favourite response to the “facts can’t be hateful” crowd:
