Potato Heads

Mr. Potato Head

The newest right-wing talking point is about the Hasbro toy – Mr. Potato Head.  Growing up we knew “Mr. Potato Head” as a series of plastic items you could stick on a baking potato, personalizing it.  There was the original “Mr. Potato Head”, complete with eyes, nose, mustache, mouth and hat. And then came “Mrs. Potato Head”, with a purse, lipstick and a bright smile.  They both also came with legs, so that your simple potato could become an anthropomorphic toy. 

Later on, Hasbro even provided a plastic potato, so that potato heads could be “standardized” in size and shape.  And they added potato head children and even pets, so entire potato head family groups were created. 

But now the supposed “liberal-radicals” (as opposed to the liberal-moderates, I guess) have allegedly “forced” Hasbro to “de-gender-ize” their toy.  Mr. Potato Head lost his “mister”, and he’s losing his “he” too.  It’s just a “potato head”. While playing with it, you can assign or not assign whatever gender you feel is appropriate.

Now it’s not like Mr. Potato Head has lost his “tuber” or his “yams”.  He never had them, he was, in fact, either a real or a fake potato.  The Hasbro Company is simply allowing children playing with their “Potato Toy” to make their own conclusions, or no conclusions at all, about gender.  It’s their toy, and their decision.  Moustache placed over lip-stick smile – no problem.  And there was no Court order given, and no Antifa associated crowd standing at the company gates in Providence, Rhode Island protesting the “hat and moustache”.  Hasbro made a marketing decision.  They hope to sell more of their imagination inducing product.

A Dial, Not a Switch

But for a right-wing crowd still reeling from their complicity in the Insurrection, Mr. Potato Head is a perfect opportunity to change the subject.  And while I don’t expect to see too many marches to protect Mr. Potato Head’s “manhood”, he/it is being used as a “straw-man/potato” argument for a subject that is much closer and dearer to the right-wing heart.  

A lot of the literature I get from the right end of the political spectrum proclaims that us “liberal-radicals” are taking away their religious freedom.  By “taking away”, what they are saying is that they are threatened by a world were gender identity isn’t “black and white”, or more specifically “boy and girl”.  We all, even us “liberal-radicals” grew up with that specific knowledge.  We knew what girls had and what boys had, and we knew why – it was science, either XX or XY.  There was nothing clearer.  And even if the science wasn’t absolutely clear back then, surely our sixth-grade health teacher wasn’t going to talk about it!

But we now know that, like a lot of things we learned in sixth grade, this isn’t quite right.  We know that the XX/XY thing is really much deeper and more complex.  And we also know that hormonal influences in the womb and during the early years influence gender-identity as well as just having “tubers” and “yams”.  Like most things in life, gender-identity is infinitely complicated; not a two-choice switch, but a dial, a spectrum of possible outcomes. 

Religion and Gender 

But that makes folks uncomfortable.  And some of their discomfort is “enforced” by their religious beliefs – “Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve”; and especially not “Armani and Eastyn”.   That’s where the “religious freedom” argument comes in:  “You liberals can’t FORCE me to accept complex gender identities.  If you try to – you are violating my religious right (sic)”.

There are lots of areas in our society where religious rights come up against individual rights.  The tension between those two competing interests in the Bill of Rights are at the heart of some of our biggest political issues:  from abortion to LGBTQIA equality, to gun rights.  We as a nation are committed to allowing individuals to express their differences – it’s in the First Amendment, right after the Religion part.  And we allow individuals the privacy of their own lives and bodies – that’s in the Fourth and Fifth Amendments.  And most importantly, our Constitution guarantees that Government won’t take a side in religion – the wording couldn’t be clearer:  “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion”.

Athletics

Which brings us to their next right-wing talking point:  trans-gendered athletes.  “We can let those ‘boys’ compete against girls, it’s not fair”.  But, just like the potatoes and the XX/XY thing, the question is so much more complex than that.  Yes, there are inequities in how transgender athletes are allowed to compete.  But frankly, most of the inequity is against the transgendered athlete, not their competitors.  And while we can all site examples (NCAA Division III track and field) where it seems unfair, let’s look at the bigger picture.  The argument is that somehow these “men” are taking advantage of women’s athletics to gain “prestige”.  But the reality is closer to this:  the problems those transgendered athletes create by competing, are so much smaller than the problems they face by expressing their inward gender.

In short, they face so much rejection in society by being “out”, that it is beyond belief that they are willing to accept all of that – for a medal.  The easy excuse to attack them is to say that they have hormonal advantages that the other women competitors don’t have. But that’s not really so easily answered. Just as gender is not a “binary” choice, neither is hormonal levels or physical development. We don’t know where a trans-gendered athlete falls “on the scale”. Neither do we know where the so-called “normal” competitors fall. It’s just not a black and white issue.

Rights

We can say that the Constitution gives us the “right” to believe what we want. What the Constitution does not do, is give us the “right” to force others to believe what we do. The Constitution forces us to accept diversity- it’s written in “black letter law”.

So while we can say “I don’t agree” or “I don’t believe”, neither of those can translate to “you can’t be”  or “you can’t do” without infringing on other’s Constitutional rights.  No right is “pre-eminent”, they are all balanced. 

I can put a mustache on a potato, and I can put a lip-sticked smile underneath it, or give it a purse, or a hat – or not.  It’s my choice, not someone else’s.