Let's start off a bit blunt. As a, self proclaimed, egalitarian I don't see people as equal or the same. Because they aren't. We are all individuals, all with our own characteristics  and quirks that makes us who we are. However, I do feel that we all should be awarded the same value. None of us has more value than another, regardless of their characteristics. And why should they have? 

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Recently the Netherlands, along with Ireland, banned an American preacher from coming in to their respective countries, in order to stop that preacher from spreading hate against groups of people. His supporters immediately started objecting against it, saying his "freedom of speech" or his "freedom of religion" was infringed or taken away even. Which is nonsense. It's quite simple actually, but people still don't seem to understand. You can refuse someone for their behaviour, you can't refuse someone because of inherent characteristics. 

 

I don't know if people don't want to see it that way, or if they really don't understand. Things like original haircolor, skincolor, sexuality or gender, religion, are all things you do not choose. If you can't choose these things, people shouldn't judge you for them. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is very clear. Article 5 states: "No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment." Discrimination and inequality count as degrading treatment. Sure, according to the UDHR people also have the freedom of speech and the freedom of religion, but that doesn't give anyone the right to violate article 5. 

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Behaviour is a choice. You can choose to vandalise other peoples property, but you don't have to, you can choose exceed the speed limit, but you don't have to, you can choose to say people with certain characteristics need to be killed, but you don't have to. It really isn't any more difficult than this. Stopping people from behaving in a way which is not accepted is okay. Judging people for inherent characteristics they have no choice over is not okay. 

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Unfortunately people do the opposite aswell. Which damages those, who suffer from discrimination. I remember a story where young boy one morning explained to his mother how he had been beaten up by 3 men, because of his skincolor. She made him report it to the police who investigated the situation. They found the young man had, in fact, not been beaten up. He got drunk and had an accident with his bicycle. Fearing punishment by his parents for under-age drinking and wrecking his bicycle, he decided to invent a hate crime. This kind of behaviour is bad and will cause victims of discrimination to be not taken seriousely. 

 

Equality

Personally I don't mind when people see differences amongst eachother. We aren't all equal. But we should be treated as having equal value. How difficult that may be. Just look at how long it has been for women were treated more equal to men. Still there are rather large differences. Especially with regards to being paid for work. 

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Equal pay for equal work should apply. But how do you judge that? Let's take physical work as an example. Putting up dry wall. In general an average woman is shorter and has less muscle strenght than the average man. So, when a man puts up 80 square feet of dry wall in a day and a woman does 60 square feet, how do you measure equal pay for equal work? Do you measure effort? Do you measure result? How do you determine what is fair? If the man gets 100 euros for his work and the woman gets 100 euros, the man will feel he is underpaid as he put up 25% more dry wall. If the woman gets paid 75 euros and the man gets paid 100 euros, the woman will feel underpaid, because she put in just as much effort as the man has. How do you judge equality? I can't give you the answer on this one. But regardless, I do feel we need to put an effort in, to treat eachother as having equal value. 

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Recently there has been some controversy online about transpeople in sports. The question was, do transsexual athletes have an unfair advantage? Here the same thing applies. "We need to put an effort in, to treat eachother as having equal value". This however, doesn't mean we can't look critically at what is happening. The equal treatment of one group should not come at the cost of the equality of another group. In order to avoid this, a critical review is necessary. Regardless of what inherent characteristics may apply, be it gender, religion or any other characteristic. Equal treatment of people can not come at the cost of other peoples equality.