We can do better.
Language is highly contested and controversial, but if we understand how our brains’ survival instincts shape how and why we have such strong reactions to differences, we can stay in conversation and relationship with each other.
Dr. Heather Looy, Professor of Psychology at The King’s University in Edmonton, explains the science and psychology of our responses to difference. As humans, our survival depends on making snap decisions about the safety of the strangers we meet, and as parents, we teach our children to distinguish between cats and cows. But the mental shortcuts and unconscious categories we use to survive aren’t always accurate, and it can be hard to talk about sex and gender outside of the binaries that feel comfortable.
There’s a full hour-long podcast combining all of the segments about talking, or scroll down to find Spotify links to listen to them as shorter, separate topics.
Listen to the whole episode on Spotify
Or listen to the individual segments on Spotify:
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Reading the Rainbows is a podcast on understanding diversity created by Dr. Heather Looy.
How do we navigate the bewildering and rapidly-changing rainbows of sexual and gender diversity, and the rainbows of responses to this diversity? In the podcast, Looy guides us through the research and the stories in a spirit of curiosity, compassion, humility, and hospitality. The goal is to provide accessible and digestible information to support our own journeys through this landscape.
You can find the rest of the series here Reading the Rainbows or wherever you listen to podcasts.