Someone asks what you did at the weekend. It is an ordinary question, until answering honestly means making a calculation about whether it is safe to mention the person you love. Then a small piece of conversation becomes work.
Consider what is being asked of a person in that situation. Everyone else can get on with the conversation. They must first decide how much of their life the room will tolerate.
The World Economic Forum’s reported focus on the cost of LGBT discrimination invites a question about how we argue against it. Economic consequences can make people listen, particularly where an appeal to fairness has failed. But what would follow if discrimination could be shown to cost a business nothing? Would the person editing their weekend story have any less reason to object?
There is a danger in making someone’s claim to fair treatment depend on their usefulness. It leaves their position conditional. They must contribute enough, perform well enough, or demonstrate a sufficiently expensive consequence before exclusion becomes a problem worth addressing.
Of course, practical arguments matter. If examining costs persuades an employer to remove an unfair barrier, it would be perverse to dismiss that progress because the persuasion was imperfect. People need changes in the conditions of their lives, not merely better reasons offered on their behalf.
Still, a useful argument should not become the whole argument.
In ordinary life, this places some responsibility on those who never have to make that calculation. A workplace can have an impressive policy while its daily conversation still makes honesty feel risky. A family can describe itself as loving while quietly requiring one member to leave their relationship unmentioned.
The practical question is whether belonging comes with conditions that only certain people must meet. That is something we can examine without waiting for an economic assessment.
When someone mentions their partner, there need not be a debate, a declaration of tolerance or a request for further justification. Sometimes the most consequential response is simply to let them finish telling you about their weekend.