Freedom of Speech - Not Hate Speech Though

Note: I recently watched a debate on “is there freedom to express bias?” that inspired me to write this. Watch it here (full Chinese, no Eng sub): 2018新國辯－哲理辩论（第二场）周玄毅VS黄执中：人有／没有表达偏见的自由

Last year, in one of the first few advisory periods,  I was asked to write my preferred gender pronouns (and other things) on a notecard and return it to my advisor. Someone asked, “why do we need to write this/what’s this all about?” To which I said, “Ahh… Just do it, it’s an American problem.”

The room freezed for a second. I didn’t realize how inappropriate that was at the time, because that’s honestly what I thought. I come from a country where the understanding of LGBT community is shallow and the understanding of non-binary gender identity is virtually nonexistent. I was in another U.S. k-12 school for two years before coming to Springs, and I have talked to people from all over the world. I have seen news, shows, and debates on this topic. From my knowledge and experience, I could tell that asking gender pronouns is more of a “thing” in the U.S. than in other parts of the world.

Needless to say, I was very biased. With limited experience with this world, everyone is biased. I am sure that if I explained my rationale behind what I said, every reasonable person would have understood and would not have taken offense. The question is: why do I feel the need to explain myself when people can assume that I do have rationale? Why have I become so cautious with my words? 

When I feel unsafe to express my ideas, I have already lost my freedom of speech.

But it’s fine to sacrifice free speech if that speech advocates hatred and violence, right? People seem to agree on that. Even big names like Donald Trump and recently Kanye West cannot escape the punishment of limited speech. It confuses me, however, when I think about where that “line” is: how extreme can my bias be so that people would say “it is almost undebatably wrong but yeah you can say that.” More importantly, who gets to decide that line? Is it social media platforms, judges, legislation, or the people? What I worry about is that my freedom of speech is easily taken away when people get banned for saying this and that. It is a slippery slope. The “(not hate speech though)” is a big asterisk to add after the declaration of freedom of speech:

You have freedom of speech*

*but not hate speech against my [country, added:1917] [&race, added:1868] [&gender identity, added:2021?]). 

It feels like that someday, the asterisk is going to grow so big that it practically denies freedom of speech entirely.