It's so irritating to me that we are missing out on some really interesting cultural conversations about identity because we refuse to acknowledge that everyone has one. Like, yes, I am white in that I have pale skin and White in that I am treated like the default skin color and culture in my country, but also I am a White descendant of the Irish diaspora, a White granddaughter of non-English speaking immigrants, and if we could only TALK about what it means to be White, about the toxicity of assimilation, about the arbitrary nature of colorism that allowed my pale skinned ancestors to choose Whiteness where the ancestors of my friends with melanin had no such choice, we could start to tear this fucker down. If we could TALK about how my last name is a thing I was made to feel ashamed of, made to joke about, about how my grandfather would sneak away from the rest of the crowd at family gatherings to talk to the other francophone immigrants to have a moment to speak in his native tongue, a language none of his children speak, a dialect different from the one his grandchild was taught in school as an elective, maybe we could stop this fuckin SPEAK ENGLISH trash. Because we all have family history and we all are crushed into these boxes and it is SO SO SO important if you want to understand why some POC buy into this Respectability and Assimilation thing to ACTUALLY TALK ABOUT what assimilation IS and how it worked out for the cultures that chose it and what was gained and what was lost and who is offered the option of assimilation and who will always always be at the back of the line and why. You can say "Dismantle White Supremacy" all you like but unless you understand what it IS and why people buy in it will be an empty slogan. If you really want to dismantle a thing, you need to know how it works, you need to see how the pieces interact, you need to find the weak spots and critical gears and THEN jam your crowbar in the cracks.
And like, GENDER! Do you realize we haven't even HAD a conversation about what it means to be cisgender? Is it having a strong internal sense of being the gender you were assigned at birth? Is it feeling like your gender identity IS tied to your sexual organs, or your reproductive capacity? Seriously I have talked with AFAB people who have had hysterectomies and feel like their gender identity has changed because of it, is that grief or mental illness or is that how their experience of gender works? Is being cisgender feeling like the way you were raised is what has determined your gender now? Is it not caring about your gender and just going with the label you were assigned at birth because it causes you no grief and the clothing in that section of the store fits your body better than the stuff in the other section? Are ALL OF THEM valid ways to exist as a cisgender person? Is being cis as vibrant and varied as all the ways a person can be trans? WE DON'T KNOW BECAUSE WE WON'T TALK ABOUT IT. No, we're still stuck with at most the dichotomy between "all people are born equal in every way and gender is used to oppress vagina-havers" and "Men and Women are the ONLY OPTIONS and they are VERY DIFFERENT and if you don't like that you have OFFENDED ZEUS." Fuckin, come on cis people, get your shit together this is embarrassing.
If we could acknowledge that every identity, even the culturally assumed defaults, are actual identities, that they merit introspection and discussion, that none of them are inherently better than any of the others, we could have so much more interesting conversations about who we are and how we want to exist together on this planet. But no. We're still stuck on "do Black people deserve to get shot on the street?" "are trans people mentally ill?" "should immigrants go home or shut up?" And those questions are BORING and HARMFUL and I would really love if we could GET ON WITH THE BETTER SHIT.
:mittens:
yeah, there's no discussion of the default settings
sometimes the gay in the hotseat will fire back at the interviewer, "Okay but when did you choose to be straight?" --- but that's the closest we usually get to discussing the realities of these "normal" identities
I'm white as fuck, American as fuck -- my family was in the country since the mayflower days. Consequently, I feel like I have no ethnic background. We had no ethnic traditions growing up, no living European roots other than a town in England which has my last name. So to me, all ethnicity (even my wife's Italian traditions) seems a little Alien and Other. My whiteness is treated like a negative space, it's background, it's an absence of identity.
I'm Cis and never had to think about it until I met trans people in college and took a bunch of gender theory... but I still do not have any personal sense of what it means for your gender to feel wrong, to construct a gender identity on purpose.
these things remain an elephant in the room
Reflecting about identity is the final step in a psychoanalytical process and even within this field its considered heresy to a certain degree.
It's not easy, it's dangerous if forced, but it also has the most potential for benefit.
As a child, I believed that Canadians had no culture; presumably, I saw "culture" as the ways in which people from different countries acted differently, and since we all acted "normally", we therefore had no culture.
Gender identity seems...complicated. Generalization based on abstraction is the basis of how humans think and communicate, so we like to put things in neat categories. Naturally we want to put ourselves, and even other people into neat categories, even when this is nonsensical, or harmful.
I try to think in terms of continua, rather than binary classifications. Cisexual/transexual isn't a thing; it's a range of things.
Please don't get triggered by my particular choice of nouns below; I don't think they match the standard lexicon, but they're what I've got to work with. This general model has been lurking in my head for a while; if it's entirely wrong, and I am to be excoriated, then this forum is as good a place for it as any.
---
1. Sex: < Male (0) ... Intersex(5) ... Female (10) >
This is the "physiological / biological" axis; essentially, are your chromosomes XX or XY, and how your plumbing is configured. It's what you're born with. It can be tweaked to an extent with hormones, and surgery can have an effect, but without the technology to completely rewrite a person's DNA, you're kinda stuck with this.
Arnold Schwarzenegger might score around 0. I only have to shave 2 times a week, so I might be about a 2. Consider that Schwarzenegger's use of steroids may have contributed to his score.
---
2. Gender: < Masculine (0) ... Neutral (5) ... Feminine (10) >
This is the "psychological / cultural" axis; i.e., a person's gender identity within society. People who are on opposite ends of the sex and gender axes often identify as trans. A tomboy might be classified as "female / masculine". Keep in mind this is a continuum, and knowing someone identifies as cis-female doesn't tell you whether they're a princess who would like to go pony riding, but is terrified she might break a nail (10), or a butch field entomologist who drinks whisky while watching sportsball (2).
I was mistaken for a girl periodically as a child; if you saw a picture, you'd understand why. It still happens to me occasionally. I wear my hair in a braid, and (during the winter) wear a long coat, both which are feminine markers around these parts. Being only 5'7" doesn't help. The mistake typically happens when a store clerk approaches me from behind. It's partly annoying, partly amusing.
---
3. Orientation: < Straight(0) ... Bi (5) ... Gay (10) >
This should be self explanatory. One of my pet theories is that there are more people close to the middle of this axis than identify as such; "closeted bisexuals".
---
...no wait, I forgot about asexuality. Let's add another axis to cover that.
And isn't axis 3 an oversimplification of orientation? What if someone is sex-straight, but gender-bi? What if I'd rather date the butch field entomologist?
Isn't making masculine / feminine a single axis terribly reductive? There are dozens of factors involved in gender within society, and a simple label doesn't begin to cover it. How do we take into account gender roles that are reversed across different cultures?
Is that a skirt, or is it a kilt?
Wouldn't it be great if we could just let people be who they want, and dispense with labels altogether? I'll have a side-order of World Peace, while you're at it.
Gender identity seems...complicated.
Gender identity is EXTREMELY complicated. The axes I would most often use for gender identity (completely separate from sexuality OR physical sex) are as follows
Girl --------------- No
Boy --------------- No
Sometimes ------ Always
Yes, this is a three dimensional space that ONLY covers internal gender identity, it has literally nothing to do with physical characteristics, expression, attraction, or anything else that often gets tangled up with gender identity.
On the Girl axis, I rank as a "I guess so," on the Boy axis I'm "only a pinch," and on the fluidity axis I'm "basically always"
My genderfluid friend is GIRL and BOY and SOMETIMES, my agender friend is NO NO and ALWAYS. This is how I understand it at least.
How about everything is a fetish and we use exactly one axis per fetish? e.g.:
1. Turned on by penises: 0 ... 5 ... 10
2. Turned on by vaginas: 0 ... 5 ... 10
3. Turned on by feet: 0 ... 5 ... 10
4. Turned on by feminine character traits as defined by society: 0 ... 5 ... 10
5. Turned on by masculine character traits as defined by society: 0 ... 5 ... 10
6. Turned on by undercover erotic asphyxiation during important Zoom calls: 0 ... 5 ... 10
7. ...
Quote from: chaotic neutral observer on January 03, 2021, 06:08:10 PM
As a child, I believed that Canadians had no culture; presumably, I saw "culture" as the ways in which people from different countries acted differently, and since we all acted "normally", we therefore had no culture.
Gender identity seems...complicated. Generalization based on abstraction is the basis of how humans think and communicate, so we like to put things in neat categories. Naturally we want to put ourselves, and even other people into neat categories, even when this is nonsensical, or harmful.
I try to think in terms of continua, rather than binary classifications. Cisexual/transexual isn't a thing; it's a range of things.
Please don't get triggered by my particular choice of nouns below; I don't think they match the standard lexicon, but they're what I've got to work with. This general model has been lurking in my head for a while; if it's entirely wrong, and I am to be excoriated, then this forum is as good a place for it as any.
---
1. Sex: < Male (0) ... Intersex(5) ... Female (10) >
This is the "physiological / biological" axis; essentially, are your chromosomes XX or XY, and how your plumbing is configured. It's what you're born with. It can be tweaked to an extent with hormones, and surgery can have an effect, but without the technology to completely rewrite a person's DNA, you're kinda stuck with this.
Arnold Schwarzenegger might score around 0. I only have to shave 2 times a week, so I might be about a 2. Consider that Schwarzenegger's use of steroids may have contributed to his score.
---
2. Gender: < Masculine (0) ... Neutral (5) ... Feminine (10) >
This is the "psychological / cultural" axis; i.e., a person's gender identity within society. People who are on opposite ends of the sex and gender axes often identify as trans. A tomboy might be classified as "female / masculine". Keep in mind this is a continuum, and knowing someone identifies as cis-female doesn't tell you whether they're a princess who would like to go pony riding, but is terrified she might break a nail (10), or a butch field entomologist who drinks whisky while watching sportsball (2).
I was mistaken for a girl periodically as a child; if you saw a picture, you'd understand why. It still happens to me occasionally. I wear my hair in a braid, and (during the winter) wear a long coat, both which are feminine markers around these parts. Being only 5'7" doesn't help. The mistake typically happens when a store clerk approaches me from behind. It's partly annoying, partly amusing.
---
3. Orientation: < Straight(0) ... Bi (5) ... Gay (10) >
This should be self explanatory. One of my pet theories is that there are more people close to the middle of this axis than identify as such; "closeted bisexuals".
---
...no wait, I forgot about asexuality. Let's add another axis to cover that.
And isn't axis 3 an oversimplification of orientation? What if someone is sex-straight, but gender-bi? What if I'd rather date the butch field entomologist?
Isn't making masculine / feminine a single axis terribly reductive? There are dozens of factors involved in gender within society, and a simple label doesn't begin to cover it. How do we take into account gender roles that are reversed across different cultures?
Is that a skirt, or is it a kilt?
Wouldn't it be great if we could just let people be who they want, and dispense with labels altogether? I'll have a side-order of World Peace, while you're at it.
Gender identity seems...complicated.
Yes, growing up in an a very average town in Canada, watching primarily American television (except in rare circumstances) and no noticeable ethnic traditions of my own family, I became obsessed with the USA because it seemed like "real life" - which I realize is counterintuitive.
Also, I also personally identify is No No Always, but rarely bring it up because decades ago I defaulted to an almost aggressively male "look" and am too lazy to change at this point. Me inside is very different from what I generally present outwards.
Great topic.
We live in our heads. Our genes, [or even jeans,] and their contents are on some level irrelevant. That's the whole problem with identity. It isn't really real. You can't measure it, you can't touch it. We live in a material world but so much of the way we perceive it, [and our place in it,] is posited on the totally notional and the utterly fictitious . . .
And yet, it still affects us, and others.
Quote from: MMIX on January 13, 2021, 04:47:15 PM
We live in our heads. Our genes, [or even jeans,] and their contents are on some level irrelevant. That's the whole problem with identity. It isn't really real. You can't measure it, you can't touch it. We live in a material world but so much of the way we perceive it, [and our place in it,] is posited on the totally notional and the utterly fictitious . . .
I live in Tucson, which is absolutely fictional. This is the same as living in my head, which is ALSO parched and empty and ugly AND cannot be measured, but you can touch it, and it WILL in fact touch you.
There is nothing real about Tucson, at least from an outside point of view.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on January 13, 2021, 06:14:56 PM
I live in Tucson, which is absolutely fictional. This is the same as living in my head, which is ALSO parched and empty and ugly AND cannot be measured, but you can touch it, and it WILL in fact touch you.
There is nothing real about Tucson, at least from an outside point of view.
Having lived in NM for my childhood, and been all over the Southwest, can confirm nothing's real. The jewelry falls apart when the vendor goes home, the pretty buildings are all facades, and every flowering bush hides a dead jackrabbit.
Quote from: ReverendJesus on January 19, 2021, 05:31:19 AM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on January 13, 2021, 06:14:56 PM
I live in Tucson, which is absolutely fictional. This is the same as living in my head, which is ALSO parched and empty and ugly AND cannot be measured, but you can touch it, and it WILL in fact touch you.
There is nothing real about Tucson, at least from an outside point of view.
Having lived in NM for my childhood, and been all over the Southwest, can confirm nothing's real. The jewelry falls apart when the vendor goes home, the pretty buildings are all facades, and every flowering bush hides a dead jackrabbit.
The entire Southwest is what it looks like when the carnival has left town.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on January 19, 2021, 02:32:41 PM
The entire Southwest is what it looks like when the carnival has left town.
Yeah, that.
This thread is now about the American Southwest.
Quote from: hoopla on January 20, 2021, 03:54:41 PM
This thread is now about the American Southwest.
Or Canada.
Identity is about who we were taught that we are in our early childhood, so on first term its an imposition, that we take on.
So for me personally, I can say im racially a mutt, my biological sex is male... those are "objective characteristics" which i have no problem accepting as part of my identity because theres not really much arguing about it.
But then there's the grand majority of subjective characteristics, sexual orientation, beliefs, politics, gender...
Grand majority of identity is not about what we actually are, but what we want to be, theyre prospective, theyre ideals that we chase, and our wish to belong to a certain pack or groupality and what role we want to play and be recognized and valued for.
So if part of someones identity revolves around illegitimate privileges, most of the times they WILL go down fighting for it.
Bullshit. Identity can be intrinsic and have nothing to do with a sense of belonging. Literally half of the things you mentioned in your list of "subjective" characteristics are as subjective as the pile of dogshit you just stepped in: you can deny it all you want, but the stink and the brown smears tell the truth.
I grew up in this forum, extreme metal communities, industrial music communities, and video game communities. I had a toxic, strained, but reasonably okay relationship with my family; I'd learned how to survive in it and they kept me from having to struggle for survival. You know what happened when I came out as trans?
I got fucking forced out of everywhere except here. I got thrown on the fucking streets by my family and told I'd be shot if I came back. And being an autistic transwoman and seeing how IANAR got talked about made me feel like I was gonna get the boot here too. (Fortunately, these parts aren't bigoted, not even back then -- they just dunk on dumbasses.)
If that shit had one inkling to do with wanting to "belong" I'd have just said "oh, then I guess I won't be a freaky deviant then" and life would go on. I wouldn't be on the street, begging people for money and shelter on a semi-regular goddamn basis. I'd probably still have a lot of friends that stuck by me through some hard times, but whose bigotry meant I had to cut ties for my own safety. I'd sure as shit still have my family. Who the /fuck/ chooses hardship and alienation when they could choose easier survival and having a goddamn chance? What sort of masochist do you take me for?
Sexual orientation isn't subjective either. People have died for it. People have killed over it. People have lost every single fucking thing in their lives for it. Presenting it as subjective, as an ideal some people want to strive for, is pretty disgusting. It's a hard life, you will die forgotten, everyone will curse your fucking name, and you'll lose so much in the process. Why the hell would someone choose to do that, when it's not even something they can play "intellectual superiority" with? You get nothing out of it -- your dating pool shrinks, your prospects in life damn near close, you lose most of what you have, you don't get any rhetorical high ground, you just make yourself a fucking scapegoat. For what?
This is some ignorant shit to write, Johnny.
And to be clear: when I came out as trans, I /didn't even know there were trans communities/. I knew those people existed, but I thought we were all isolated nomads in a hostile world. I thought maybe a thousand of us existed worldwide. I had no chance of "belonging" to anything as far as I knew. Yes, that shit came to exist and I have found new communities that defend me fiercely, and I'm glad for that. But that wasn't in the cards in 2009. That wasn't even a possibility in my mind.
People are not as brave as you are, by default people try to be what others want them to and what is convenient - that's why they're so reluctant to change their points of reference of identity and the practical behaviour attached to it.
You're literally saying that I'm brave so I took a chance on an identity I "wanted"? That's what you're saying to me. Holy fucking christ, Johnny.
What the fuck.
Look, I respect you, so I'm gonna tell you that wherever you got these ideas from, it's fucking poison and bad signal and you need to ditch that shit on the double.
The shit you're saying is how people like me GET KILLED. Don't be this fucking asshole.
This is seriously so shocking a turn for me that honestly, if you cannot see the harmfulness of the shit you are saying and own up to being a dipshit on this topic, do me a great big huge ol favor and never ever fucking talk about queer identity again, because I will lose my fucking shit. This is the seeds of bigotry you're spouting, it's the reason conversion therapy is a thing people fucking do to this day. I won't fucking have it. I have precious few places where I can be my weird ass self in public and by fucking god you aren't gonna start bringing fucking Robert Galbraith bullshit in this holy place or I will knock your goddamn teeth out through your asshole.
It's not my purpose to upset you, I'll think about what's been said.