I'm so sick of articles that have so much black-and-white thinking--especially those that make the titles into complete blanket statements. For example, today I read an article titled "No, I will not Date You If You're Trans". Not only is this an incredibly insensitive and ignorantly written article, but it's also assuming that all trans people are the same. How awful is that? (answer: very awful)

The thing is, so many articles being published by Odyssey (and publicized on their Facebook page) do just that: they lump people of the same group into one giant category, and then make blanket statements about them and how they feel about them. This might be shocking to some of you, but people are more than their labels and their designated groups. Every person is an individual and deserves to be treated as such. Why does that seem so hard for people to understand?

Not only is it rude to assume things about another person (assuming makes an "ass" out of "u" and "me" after all), but it's even worse to assume things about a person you've never met just because they belong to a certain group or label. Would you say that all dancers like to eat guacamole? Would you say that all people that like guacamole are smelly? Would you say that all people that are smelly like to dance? Of course not. None of those statements make any sense. But that's exactly the same logic that many Odyssey writers have been using to write their articles.

So we, as writers for The Odyssey, need to STOP writing these kinds of overgeneralizing articles. I'm not going to sugarcoat this: I don't care if you want to title some article like that as clickbait or because you think it's funny; it's wrong and obnoxious, and it makes you look foolish and pathetic. I highly doubt you want to look foolish and pathetic. I also highly doubt you're trying to be obnoxious or hurtful or wrong in your article--but it's definitely something I've noticed among MANY articles posted on The Odyssey.

The takeaway here? Please stop acting like everyone in a group is the same or should be treated the same. I doubt you'd want that for yourself and any of your own group memberships. The golden rule is to "treat others how you want to be treated." And no one wants their individuality stripped from their being. No one wants to feel like just another fish in the sea. No one wants to feel judged on something that they cannot help or change.