A recurring assumption in public debate is that young people should be progressive. When surveys suggest otherwise, concern often follows. Headlines warn that young people are becoming more conservative, less supportive of social change, and increasingly willing to question ideas that many adults take for granted.

Whether those observations are accurate is a separate discussion. What interests me more is a different question: how far does the right to hold one’s own opinions actually extend?

At first sight, that seems straightforward. In a liberal democracy, people have the right to hold views that others dislike. They can be conservative, progressive, religious, atheist or, why not, genuinely nuanced. They can support gender transitions, oppose them, or simply be uncertain. Freedom of thought would mean very little if it protected only ideas everyone already agreed with.

The next step is freedom of expression. That principle matters just as much. A society may allow people to think differently (no, I’m not talking about you, Apple), but if they feel unable to voice those thoughts, it cannot claim to be fully committed to intellectual freedom.

At the same time, people have rights. Gay people, transgender people, religious minorities and ethnic minorities deserve equal treatment and protection against discrimination. Disagreeing with those rights does not make them any less valid.

This is where the tension begins. Nobody can force you to be friends with a transgender person. Or, for that matter, with an educational researcher. Friendship remains voluntary. That does not mean prejudice is harmless or consequence-free. It means that rights and regulations can only go so far in shaping personal relationships.

The discussion changes when beliefs move beyond personal preferences and start restricting other people’s rights, opportunities or access. At that point, the question is no longer what someone thinks. The question becomes what they are willing to allow others to do.

Perhaps that helps explain why these debates become so polarised. Some people see any rejection of a minority group as a threat to that group’s rights. Others see any criticism of conservative views as an attack on freedom of thought. Reality is usually messier than either side would like to admit.

There is also a long tradition of assuming that young people are naturally progressive. The famous quote often attributed to Churchill about being liberal at twenty-five and conservative at thirty-five is almost certainly apocryphal. Yet the broader assumption has been remarkably persistent. In youth culture studies, particularly around the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, youth cultures were often understood as forms of resistance against a dominant social order. That perspective generated important insights, but it may also have reinforced the idea that being young and being progressive naturally go together.

History suggests otherwise. The 1980s gave us conservative youth cultures such as the yuppies. Other periods produced young religious movements, nationalist youth organisations, libertarian groups and countless combinations in between. Being young and being progressive have never been synonyms.

A free society, therefore, faces a difficult challenge. It must defend two principles simultaneously: the right of people to think differently and the right of others to be treated equally. That balance is often uncomfortable. But maybe, just maybe,  that is precisely what makes it a genuinely liberal one.