July 7, 2021
No honey, not that kind. While “tits” is a misogynistic and transphobic term to describe the lactating organs that some people possess, it is also an acronym for The Ideology (or Identity) Tolerance Spectrum. This is used to measure how tolerated an ideology or identity should be, or how tolerated it is. It can be used to both shine a light on today’s problematic society and create goals toward change. It is broken up into 8 different levels, 4 positive and 4 negative. These are celebrate, venerate, accept, tolerate, ignore, criticize, castigate, and demonize.
Celebrating is the highest positive level on the TITS scale. It is actively touting it and ensuring that it is widely accepted and praised in society. This could be through marches akin to pride parades, or starting campaigns on social media to bring light to the topic that deserves positive recognition. Some features relevant in today’s society that deserve celebration are transgenderism, all gender identities outside the cisgender one, kink awareness, anti-racism training, black lives matter mostly peaceful protests, mask wearing, our planet, and woke progressive activists.
The second level of the spectrum is veneration. Venerating on this scale can be seen by boldly showing your respect and support for something. This can be seen by attending protests and making social media posts, such as a black square. This is essentially a more low key version of celebration. Cultural aspects such as Q+ sexualities, woke minorities, scientific gods like Dr. Fauci and Greta Thunberg, and progressive democrats like Kamala Harris and the Squad members should be venerated by the general society.
The third level of this spectrum is acceptance. While not an active level of support, it is still viewing something positively. This is usually not seen much, but it can be shown by voicing your support to said topic with another person, among other ways. Some things that should be accepted are homosexuality, minorities in general, vaccines, climate activists, and establishment democrats. These are moderate topics that are no longer of much concern, and we need to focus more attention on topics like the ones listed above.
The fourth level, and the final positive one, is tolerance. This is simply acknowledging its existence but not showing an opinion about it. This is the original intention of movements like LGBT but are no longer viable in today’s political climate. Because of this, topics in the direct center of good and bad are generally advised to be tolerated. These include bisexuality, woke white people, vaccinated people, environmentally conscious people, and never trump republicans like Mitt Romney and Liz Cheney.
The fifth level, and the most moderate of the negative levels, is ignoring. This is generally viewing something indifferently and not acknowledging it. This includes not talking about sexuality with your queer child or not talking about race with your Black coworker. While this is a hurtful tactic, it is generally not as offensive as the three other negative ones. Some identities and ideologies to be ignored include heterosexuality, actual racists like KKK members (we need to focus on the true racism that is systemic), the CDC (they betrayed us when they allowed us to take masks off), people who take basic actions to protect the environment like recycling and buying reusable items (not enough to save the climate), and apolitical people and centrists.
The second negative level and the sixth level is criticizing, which is showing negative views on an ideology or identity. These can be seen through negative comments on social media, or talking with someone about how you do not support said identity or ideology. Some of these should include the made up “sexuality” known as super straight, white people in general, unvaccinated people, environmentally unconscious people, and establishment republicans.
The third negative level and the second worst on the spectrum is castigation. This is actively criticizing and rebuking an ideology or identity. This can be seen by creating youtube videos dissing a topic, or by smearing it on social media for a period of time. Some topics that deserve castigation are anti-LGBTQ+ people (they are not the true problem when it comes to anti-LGBTQ+ hate), hateful and racist white people, anti-vax people and COVID deniers, climate deniers, and far right people (like KKK members, the real threat is from systemic and powerful conservatives who need to be taken down.)
The final and worst level on this spectrum is demonization. This is portraying something as purely evil, leaving no room for positive views. This can be seen with constant attempts to trend hateful people on Twitter, or creating constant smear campaigns. The difference between castigation and demonization is that demonization must be constant for it to be effective, castigation will reappear occasionally. A lot of times, demonization is directed at certain people to shut them out. While this is usually the case, there are also ideologies and identities that need to be demonized. These include LGBTQ+ critics (they are far more dangerous to preserving love and equity), race traitor minorities (they are easily the worst when it comes to regressing racial progress), anti-mask people, climate change critics, and America First republicans.
Since we’ve covered the entire scale in detail and provided several examples revolving around LGBTQ+, race, COVID-19, climate change, and political affiliation, it’s also important to visualize this important spectrum that should and must be used to pinpoint where we are in society and what we aim to be. This is especially important for our goals of equity to in turn strive for full equality in the long run. Below is a picture of the scale with body image as the topic.
Progressivista 