8 ms·

To a certain extent I certainly find the current/modern fixation with classifying gender and orientation odd. It's not entirely clear to me why it's important t

To a certain extent I certainly find the current/modern fixation with classifying gender and orientation odd. It's not entirely clear to me why it's important that I know somebody is a "queer sapiosexual" or whatever else. But there are clearly a lot of people who think such things are very important. And of course what seems a tendency towards needlessly complicated overly-expository self-labeling encompasses a lot more than gender these days. It feels like there's a subtext to a lot of it which sort of suggests that ideas can only be heard and understood clearly by those who own the appropriate labels (including gender), and so people seek to have expansive identities that give them the social bona fides necessary to have their opinions, thoughts, and ideas treated with respect and presumed relevance. In other eras perhaps these social credentials came from wealth or class or other "accomplishments." But the modern world seems to have let an obsession with the the variously unfair, arbitrary, capricious, and discriminatory nature of these previous credentials become the basis for inventing new ones based around constructed identities, since such constructs are available to all. In a way we can see this in how protest movements are labeled - it used to be that they were labeled by their goals or the problems they were trying to solve, like the "Civil Rights Movement" or the "Conservation Movement." But now we label things by their identity. Rather than conservation movement, at some point we ended up with "conservationists" and "environmentalists," which have given way to things like the "Women's March," "Scientist's March," etc, which seem to imply that identity necessarily indicates viewpoint - just by knowing what category/identity is marching I should know what it is trying to say. As a lazy human being I find this not an all-together pleasing development, mostly because it seems to go along with a bit of all-or-nothingism, particularly for "allies," who, absent the appropriate labels, may only accept or not accept the broad determinations of those who own the operative label at risk of being excluded/denounced. Anyway, I enjoyed the piece. Always enjoy reading about Victorian stuff.

Palomides 10y ago
it's very difficult to discuss a thing or build a community around an idea without a label. that said, I do think there has been a reactionary pressure, leading to encompassing labels like "queer" or "genderqueer" which are more general rejections of modern, delineated ideas of gender/sexual identity.
vinbreau 10y ago
There's an old saying, I believe it was from a native American tribe (can't say for sure); "To name something is to own it."
foldr 10y ago
> It's not entirely clear to me why it's important that I know somebody is a "queer sapiosexual" or whatever else. But there are clearly a lot of people who think such things are very important. The people who think it's most important of all are the people who disapprove of it. If we're living in an era where everyone thinks the details of their gender and sexuality are important, that's not because of hipsters in Brooklyn, it's because of fundamentalists in Kansas. >In a way we can see this in how protest movements are labeled - it used to be that they were labeled by their goals or the problems they were trying to solve, like the "Civil Rights Movement" or the "Conservation Movement." But now we label things by their identity. I think this might be a rather hasty generalization. What about the peasants' revolt, or the women's march on Versailles? And there are lots of protest movements today that aren't labeled based on identity, such as most of the worldwide protests against Trump.
- x1798DE 10y ago
  > If we're living in an era where everyone thinks the details of their gender and sexuality are important, that's not because of hipsters in Brooklyn, it's because of fundamentalists in Kansas. I'm pretty sure no Kansas fundamentalists care (or even know) about subtle distinctions between sexualities. It's not like you can tell a socially conservative person, "I'm not actually gay, I consider myself queer and I'm attracted to personalities, not genders." and have them say, "My mistake."
  - foldr 10y ago
    They seem to have pretty strong opinions on exactly which groups of people should be allowed to use which bathrooms.
    - x1798DE 10y ago
      I can't say that I follow the news on identity politics closely, but my understanding from liberal sources is that conservatives believe that people should use the bathroom assigned to their biological sex, and they don't know or care about whether someone is post-op or pre-op or genderqueer or any of the other gradations of gender. So, again, it seems nonsensical to explain the subtle gradations of gender identity and sexual orientation that have emerged in recent years (i.e. past 30-40 years, say) by saying that conservatives were requiring this information somehow.
iMark 10y ago
It's not important that you know someone is "queer sapiosexual". It's important that the person who is knows, and is able to describe themselves. I'm a homo-romantic asexual, and it took me until I was nearly 40 before I understood this. I often wonder how differently my life might have turned out if I'd realised this sooner. People often complain about labels. They're not labels - they're tools we can use to understand ourselves, and help others to understand us.
- smallnamespace 10y ago
  Labels can repress as well as emancipate, if there is a general expectation for people to conform to existing categories, and those categories are rigidly defined.
  - danudey 10y ago
    Looking at this from a technological perspective, it reminds me of the shift from categorization to tagging in information categorization. Instead of being 'Male or female', or 'Gay or straight', now there are a range of different adjectives people can apply to themselves (cis/trans, gay/straight, male/female, a/bi/homo/pansexual, a/bi/homo/panromantic, and so on). Rather than having to fit into one of two boxes, people who cross those boundaries in one way or another can specify that specifically. I think a lot of the confusion a lot of people have these days with regards to gender and identity politics is the proliferation of new terminology to describe the wide variations in preferences and identities.
imh 10y ago
Think of it like anything else with jargon. It's important to people, so they come up with words to talk about specific ideas more efficiently and less ambiguously.
GuiA 10y ago
I think a lot of it is also onset by the modern internet (twitter, instagram, tinder, etc.), where snap judgements of people are made based on a very limited set of information - typically a picture, and a short bio. In those cases, concise and effective social signaling is extremely important; and that's just what bios like "husband, father, christian, ruby programmer, beer lover" accomplish. In a few words, you've just made yourself relatable to a high proportion of people who will read your profile . If your bio is more niche, like "bassoon player, atari 2600 collector", then you've put up an easy filter to only attract the attention of the very specific group of people you care about. Particularly when taken in a romantic/sexual context, it makes it much easier for one with niche preferences to find people whose preference overlap theirs. There's another dimension to it, where these labels become aspirational. Perhaps I only play the guitar once a month, but really want to think of myself as a guitarist; in which case, just putting it in my bio gives it some air of legitimacy.
brandon272 10y ago
> To a certain extent I certainly find the current/modern fixation with classifying gender and orientation odd. It's not entirely clear to me why it's important that I know somebody is a "queer sapiosexual" or whatever else. I think it's important to recognize the era that we are living in and what has been occurring over the last 20 years. It seems to me that we have been rapidly exiting an era of conservative ideas surrounding gender and sexuality where the rights and humanity of LGBT individuals were not recognized or were substantially suppressed. It may seem silly or over-the-top to see someone fixate on gender or sexual orientation as a key part of their identity, but consider that the issue has truly been life or death for a lot of people in our very very recent past, and to enter an era where people can genuinely start to live what they consider to be an authentic life, I think that the outward expression and ownership of gender/sexual orientation labels is natural.
delecti 10y ago
It can be difficult to feel normal if there isn't a word to describe how you feel. If all you see is depictions of a certain kind of person (straight and cisgender [1]), but you don't feel that way, are you broken, wrong, crazy even? I've seen countless accounts of people that fit the formula of "I felt different all my life, and it wasn't until I heard the word <label> that I understood." So yes, maybe if you're straight and cisgender you never gave a thought to it, because the majority of people around you were as well, but to a little transgender or asexual teen, hearing the label is like finding a community and comfort blanket all in one. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cisgender https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cisgender - Cisgender (often abbreviated to simply cis) is a term for people who have a gender identity that matches the sex that they were assigned at birth. Cisgender may also be defined as those who have "a gender identity or perform a gender role society considers appropriate for one's sex."[1] It is the opposite of the term transgender. Edit: kid->teen, I'm not talking about pre-pubescent children
- wyager 10y ago
  > but to a little transgender or asexual kid Kids are weird. They often do a ton of weird shit at least until puberty. I think this trend with the internet-bound millennial left (at least, I haven't seen anyone else do it) of taking every possible aspect of someone's personality (like a child expressing that they wish they were boy/girl) and classifying/medicalizing it is just as harmful as overdiagnosing kids with ADHD and getting them strung up on amphetamines. Not everything needs to be turned into a medical issue or have a big deal made of it. Now, instead of just doping kids up on amphetamines, we're also giving them hormone blockers or even HRT. And no, that's not a bogeyman; it's not hard to find celebratory videos where the parents give their pre-pubescent kid their first round of hormone treatment. According to [1], 80-95% of kids diagnosed with Gender Dysphoria completely get over it by the time they hit puberty (and [2] says 88-98%). It is almost always, as we used to call it, "a phase". Any diagnosis made before puberty is extremely likely to be a misdiagnosis. So forgive me, but I don't really buy "Think of the (transgender/agender) children!" as a compelling argument, since the actual occurrence of permanent gender dysphoria in children is low bordering on negligible, with many persistent cases potentially attributable to parental treatment rather than any sort of neurophysiological disorder on the part of the child. See [3] as an example. I think encouraging children to see themselves and having dysphoria and to seek treatment is extremely harmful, given that in the vast majority of formal diagnoses, no medical intervention is necessary. The whole thing just reeks of projecting identity politics onto innocent bystanders in a way that is demonstrably bad for their mental and physical health. [1] Cohen-Kettenis PT, Delemarre-van de Waal HA, Gooren LJ. The treatment of adolescent transsexuals: changing insights. J Sexual Med 2008;5:1892–1897. [2] http://www.acpeds.org/the-college-speaks/position-statements/gender-ideology-harms-children http://www.acpeds.org/the-college-speaks/position-statements... [3] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/oct/21/boy-living-life-as-girl-removed-from-mothers-care-high-court-judge https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/oct/21/boy-living-l...
bijection 10y ago
Re: "It feels like there's a subtext to a lot of it which sort of suggests that ideas can only be heard and understood clearly by those who own the appropriate labels", linguistic prescription[1] seems relevant. From wikipedia: "Prescription has a tendency to favour the language of one particular region or social class over others ... frequently, a standard dialect is associated with the upper class" Interesting stuff. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_prescription https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_prescription
twblalock 10y ago
I've always been amused that the people I know who are most committed to identity politics are quick to dismiss conservative aspects of society they don't like as "just" social constructs that can be changed, even though identity is a social construct too.
robto 10y ago
I think the modern emphasis on gender/sexual identity has something to do with a widespread post-modern/relativistic worldview. In the victorian age, absolutes were part and parcel of the cultural context. Nowadays, we don't share that same foundation, and so people look for other foundations. And I think the foundation that a lot of people have come to rest upon is the idea that your sexuality is the core part of your identity, sort your most fundamental part. Viewed through that lens, the sort of hyper-classification of gender and sexuality makes sense: in order to understand who you are you need to be able to define what 'type' of sexuality you have. I'd like to put out there that I'm not sure about how useful this way of thinking about the issue is, it's just been on my mind a bit lately.
- Glyptodon 10y ago
  I think you've hit on part of why I find this stuff sort of odd at times -- I don't feel like anything gender related is at all core to my identity. Rather, the things I view as core to my identity are ideas, like "torture is always wrong," "slavery is always wrong," and "always wear shoes that allow you to move effectively in an emergency" if I may use some simplified cases.
  - icebraining 10y ago
    It's easier for some, harder for others: http://www.robot-hugs.com/cognitive-load/ http://www.robot-hugs.com/cognitive-load/
    - Glyptodon 10y ago
      If I follow, why do you think experiences like the linked lead to a core identity of "I am an X (or B or Q...)" instead of one of "people should not be treated this way/experience this/have to think about these things?"
_Adam 10y ago
What is concerning about the transition from goal-based protests to identity-based protests is that the segregation of people has always been at the root of many tragic events in the past. All genocides, persecutions, internments, etc. are necessarily preceded by the identification of a group of people. Most people don't like to hurt other people due to our innate empathy. But there's a more primal instinct we all have called "survival", and it will usually override empathy. Part of the survival instinct is the "warfare" instinct, and by splitting people into groups with insolvent identities, a state of war is created that will give group members the justification to fight other groups. Most of the time the fighting is non-violent and results in positive outcomes - but only when the identity is associated with a tangible goal (as mentioned, the civil rights movement). Once the goal is achieved the group dissolves, satisfied. But as OP said, lately the goals have become less tangible and more fragmented, and the identities have become simultaneously broader and more exclusive. "Americans" vs "immigrants". "Cis" vs "LGBT". It's concerning because I don't know how it can be resolved peacefully.
Latty 10y ago
It may not be important to you, but surely you can see how it would be important for them? As a straight guy, it's pretty easy for me to find people for romantic attachment. If you have some different identity or sexuality, it could obviously be hard. These names help people explain their preferences to others, which is important for finding a relationship. You think of it as 'needlessly complex overly-expository' because it's not a problem for you - but if these things are a problem for you, then these descriptions help you communicate them to others and could even help you understand your own feelings. As to the 'identity politics' claim - I see this a lot, and it comes across as very dishonest. Most of the time, the groups that are engaging in the so-called 'identity politics' are groups being targeted because of their identity. It feels like, in the current climate, Jewish people would get acccused of engaging in 'identity politics' for decrying the holocaust. The claim that 'you shouldn't care about identity' ignores the reality where we live in a world that very much does care, and regularly discriminates against people. It seems very reasonable for them to stand up to that.
- notahacker 10y ago
  It's also useful to contrast that with the world described in the article in which sexual attraction and expression was more straightforwardly defined as normal/moral/socially-acceptable vs abnormal/sinful/illegal and most people engaging in behaviours society considered to belong to the latter group sought to avoid identifying too closely with them by acting out a pastiche of conventional married life and congratulating themselves on not being effeminate like a poof. The idea expressed in the article that the Victorian era was gloriously genderfluid for anyone but a few well-to-do families without any notable enemies seems more than a little optimistic too.
- Glyptodon 10y ago
  I at least agree there are lots of people in this world who are obsessed with getting in other's business and unnecessarily making it theirs, whether it's sex or abortions or bathrooms or guns. But rather than taking things for granted I think it's the opposite. For example, your statement about it being hard/easy to find relationship seems to assume that trying to find love should just be acceptable and not hard in most social contexts, whereas I think it's often obnoxious regardless of orientation/identity and probably best reserved for contexts where it's explicitly okay. Likewise, I agree that understanding yourself and your own feelings is really important, but I'm not sure why everyone's own internal voyage of discovery is something to be worn on on the sleeve more like it's some security blanket and less like it's as intrinsic to them as gravity. I'd actually posit that past a certain point a need for social acknowledgment of one's identity suggests some level of discomfort and uncertainty with it, which is fine. But why it's something everybody has to parse when they're just trying to bag your groceries or go over a quarterly report or something is beyond me. I do think there is something to "targeting" as you put it, or people not minding their own business as I may have put it. But I'm also definitely naive enough to think that telling those people to mind their own business shouldn't require a particular identity.
castle-bravo 10y ago
This is a very kind and gentle way of describing the current state of ideology in media. I have to commend you for your ability to communicate a critical message in such a friendly manner.
hackuser 10y ago
> overly-expository self-labeling When large numbers of people tell you to hide your sexual preferences and your gender identity in shame and even for safety, when they are target of public ridicule (e.g., gay jokes in movies), and when they label you and define your identity for you -- then asserting what you are, in the face of all that, becomes very important personally and politically. > It's not entirely clear to me why ... You might find it inconvenient, but if you look around, it's obvious why: > In other eras ... these previous credentials Today, right now, discrimination is very widespread against non-male/female gender identities and non-heterosexual sexual preferences. In the U.S., a major political party embraces discrimination; states make discriminatory laws. In other countries these things are outlawed and put people at risk of public violence and death (the latter is true in parts of Western countries too). If you are tired of this issue, IMHO, it's a bit short-sighted to complain. Imagine what it must be like to have to live with it, every day of your life, with every person that you meet; often just turning on the TV or reading a book. If you are tired of the words used, the people who live with it must be absolutely exhausted, worn down almost to death.

Palomides 10y ago

it's very difficult to discuss a thing or build a community around an idea without a label. that said, I do think there has been a reactionary pressure, leading to encompassing labels like "queer" or "genderqueer" which are more general rejections of modern, delineated ideas of gender/sexual identity.

vinbreau 10y ago

There's an old saying, I believe it was from a native American tribe (can't say for sure); "To name something is to own it."

foldr 10y ago

> It's not entirely clear to me why it's important that I know somebody is a "queer sapiosexual" or whatever else. But there are clearly a lot of people who think such things are very important. The people who think it's most important of all are the people who disapprove of it. If we're living in an era where everyone thinks the details of their gender and sexuality are important, that's not because of hipsters in Brooklyn, it's because of fundamentalists in Kansas. >In a way we can see this in how protest movements are labeled - it used to be that they were labeled by their goals or the problems they were trying to solve, like the "Civil Rights Movement" or the "Conservation Movement." But now we label things by their identity. I think this might be a rather hasty generalization. What about the peasants' revolt, or the women's march on Versailles? And there are lots of protest movements today that aren't labeled based on identity, such as most of the worldwide protests against Trump.

x1798DE 10y ago
> If we're living in an era where everyone thinks the details of their gender and sexuality are important, that's not because of hipsters in Brooklyn, it's because of fundamentalists in Kansas. I'm pretty sure no Kansas fundamentalists care (or even know) about subtle distinctions between sexualities. It's not like you can tell a socially conservative person, "I'm not actually gay, I consider myself queer and I'm attracted to personalities, not genders." and have them say, "My mistake."
- foldr 10y ago
  They seem to have pretty strong opinions on exactly which groups of people should be allowed to use which bathrooms.
  - x1798DE 10y ago
    I can't say that I follow the news on identity politics closely, but my understanding from liberal sources is that conservatives believe that people should use the bathroom assigned to their biological sex, and they don't know or care about whether someone is post-op or pre-op or genderqueer or any of the other gradations of gender. So, again, it seems nonsensical to explain the subtle gradations of gender identity and sexual orientation that have emerged in recent years (i.e. past 30-40 years, say) by saying that conservatives were requiring this information somehow.

iMark 10y ago

It's not important that you know someone is "queer sapiosexual". It's important that the person who is knows, and is able to describe themselves. I'm a homo-romantic asexual, and it took me until I was nearly 40 before I understood this. I often wonder how differently my life might have turned out if I'd realised this sooner. People often complain about labels. They're not labels - they're tools we can use to understand ourselves, and help others to understand us.

smallnamespace 10y ago
Labels can repress as well as emancipate, if there is a general expectation for people to conform to existing categories, and those categories are rigidly defined.
- danudey 10y ago
  Looking at this from a technological perspective, it reminds me of the shift from categorization to tagging in information categorization. Instead of being 'Male or female', or 'Gay or straight', now there are a range of different adjectives people can apply to themselves (cis/trans, gay/straight, male/female, a/bi/homo/pansexual, a/bi/homo/panromantic, and so on). Rather than having to fit into one of two boxes, people who cross those boundaries in one way or another can specify that specifically. I think a lot of the confusion a lot of people have these days with regards to gender and identity politics is the proliferation of new terminology to describe the wide variations in preferences and identities.

imh 10y ago

Think of it like anything else with jargon. It's important to people, so they come up with words to talk about specific ideas more efficiently and less ambiguously.

GuiA 10y ago

I think a lot of it is also onset by the modern internet (twitter, instagram, tinder, etc.), where snap judgements of people are made based on a very limited set of information - typically a picture, and a short bio. In those cases, concise and effective social signaling is extremely important; and that's just what bios like "husband, father, christian, ruby programmer, beer lover" accomplish. In a few words, you've just made yourself relatable to a high proportion of people who will read your profile . If your bio is more niche, like "bassoon player, atari 2600 collector", then you've put up an easy filter to only attract the attention of the very specific group of people you care about. Particularly when taken in a romantic/sexual context, it makes it much easier for one with niche preferences to find people whose preference overlap theirs. There's another dimension to it, where these labels become aspirational. Perhaps I only play the guitar once a month, but really want to think of myself as a guitarist; in which case, just putting it in my bio gives it some air of legitimacy.

brandon272 10y ago

> To a certain extent I certainly find the current/modern fixation with classifying gender and orientation odd. It's not entirely clear to me why it's important that I know somebody is a "queer sapiosexual" or whatever else. I think it's important to recognize the era that we are living in and what has been occurring over the last 20 years. It seems to me that we have been rapidly exiting an era of conservative ideas surrounding gender and sexuality where the rights and humanity of LGBT individuals were not recognized or were substantially suppressed. It may seem silly or over-the-top to see someone fixate on gender or sexual orientation as a key part of their identity, but consider that the issue has truly been life or death for a lot of people in our very very recent past, and to enter an era where people can genuinely start to live what they consider to be an authentic life, I think that the outward expression and ownership of gender/sexual orientation labels is natural.

delecti 10y ago

It can be difficult to feel normal if there isn't a word to describe how you feel. If all you see is depictions of a certain kind of person (straight and cisgender [1]), but you don't feel that way, are you broken, wrong, crazy even? I've seen countless accounts of people that fit the formula of "I felt different all my life, and it wasn't until I heard the word <label> that I understood." So yes, maybe if you're straight and cisgender you never gave a thought to it, because the majority of people around you were as well, but to a little transgender or asexual teen, hearing the label is like finding a community and comfort blanket all in one. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cisgender https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cisgender - Cisgender (often abbreviated to simply cis) is a term for people who have a gender identity that matches the sex that they were assigned at birth. Cisgender may also be defined as those who have "a gender identity or perform a gender role society considers appropriate for one's sex."[1] It is the opposite of the term transgender. Edit: kid->teen, I'm not talking about pre-pubescent children

wyager 10y ago
> but to a little transgender or asexual kid Kids are weird. They often do a ton of weird shit at least until puberty. I think this trend with the internet-bound millennial left (at least, I haven't seen anyone else do it) of taking every possible aspect of someone's personality (like a child expressing that they wish they were boy/girl) and classifying/medicalizing it is just as harmful as overdiagnosing kids with ADHD and getting them strung up on amphetamines. Not everything needs to be turned into a medical issue or have a big deal made of it. Now, instead of just doping kids up on amphetamines, we're also giving them hormone blockers or even HRT. And no, that's not a bogeyman; it's not hard to find celebratory videos where the parents give their pre-pubescent kid their first round of hormone treatment. According to [1], 80-95% of kids diagnosed with Gender Dysphoria completely get over it by the time they hit puberty (and [2] says 88-98%). It is almost always, as we used to call it, "a phase". Any diagnosis made before puberty is extremely likely to be a misdiagnosis. So forgive me, but I don't really buy "Think of the (transgender/agender) children!" as a compelling argument, since the actual occurrence of permanent gender dysphoria in children is low bordering on negligible, with many persistent cases potentially attributable to parental treatment rather than any sort of neurophysiological disorder on the part of the child. See [3] as an example. I think encouraging children to see themselves and having dysphoria and to seek treatment is extremely harmful, given that in the vast majority of formal diagnoses, no medical intervention is necessary. The whole thing just reeks of projecting identity politics onto innocent bystanders in a way that is demonstrably bad for their mental and physical health. [1] Cohen-Kettenis PT, Delemarre-van de Waal HA, Gooren LJ. The treatment of adolescent transsexuals: changing insights. J Sexual Med 2008;5:1892–1897. [2] http://www.acpeds.org/the-college-speaks/position-statements/gender-ideology-harms-children http://www.acpeds.org/the-college-speaks/position-statements... [3] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/oct/21/boy-living-life-as-girl-removed-from-mothers-care-high-court-judge https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/oct/21/boy-living-l...

bijection 10y ago

Re: "It feels like there's a subtext to a lot of it which sort of suggests that ideas can only be heard and understood clearly by those who own the appropriate labels", linguistic prescription[1] seems relevant. From wikipedia: "Prescription has a tendency to favour the language of one particular region or social class over others ... frequently, a standard dialect is associated with the upper class" Interesting stuff. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_prescription https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_prescription

twblalock 10y ago

I've always been amused that the people I know who are most committed to identity politics are quick to dismiss conservative aspects of society they don't like as "just" social constructs that can be changed, even though identity is a social construct too.

robto 10y ago

I think the modern emphasis on gender/sexual identity has something to do with a widespread post-modern/relativistic worldview. In the victorian age, absolutes were part and parcel of the cultural context. Nowadays, we don't share that same foundation, and so people look for other foundations. And I think the foundation that a lot of people have come to rest upon is the idea that your sexuality is the core part of your identity, sort your most fundamental part. Viewed through that lens, the sort of hyper-classification of gender and sexuality makes sense: in order to understand who you are you need to be able to define what 'type' of sexuality you have. I'd like to put out there that I'm not sure about how useful this way of thinking about the issue is, it's just been on my mind a bit lately.

Glyptodon 10y ago
I think you've hit on part of why I find this stuff sort of odd at times -- I don't feel like anything gender related is at all core to my identity. Rather, the things I view as core to my identity are ideas, like "torture is always wrong," "slavery is always wrong," and "always wear shoes that allow you to move effectively in an emergency" if I may use some simplified cases.
- icebraining 10y ago
  It's easier for some, harder for others: http://www.robot-hugs.com/cognitive-load/ http://www.robot-hugs.com/cognitive-load/
  - Glyptodon 10y ago
    If I follow, why do you think experiences like the linked lead to a core identity of "I am an X (or B or Q...)" instead of one of "people should not be treated this way/experience this/have to think about these things?"

_Adam 10y ago

What is concerning about the transition from goal-based protests to identity-based protests is that the segregation of people has always been at the root of many tragic events in the past. All genocides, persecutions, internments, etc. are necessarily preceded by the identification of a group of people. Most people don't like to hurt other people due to our innate empathy. But there's a more primal instinct we all have called "survival", and it will usually override empathy. Part of the survival instinct is the "warfare" instinct, and by splitting people into groups with insolvent identities, a state of war is created that will give group members the justification to fight other groups. Most of the time the fighting is non-violent and results in positive outcomes - but only when the identity is associated with a tangible goal (as mentioned, the civil rights movement). Once the goal is achieved the group dissolves, satisfied. But as OP said, lately the goals have become less tangible and more fragmented, and the identities have become simultaneously broader and more exclusive. "Americans" vs "immigrants". "Cis" vs "LGBT". It's concerning because I don't know how it can be resolved peacefully.

Latty 10y ago

It may not be important to you, but surely you can see how it would be important for them? As a straight guy, it's pretty easy for me to find people for romantic attachment. If you have some different identity or sexuality, it could obviously be hard. These names help people explain their preferences to others, which is important for finding a relationship. You think of it as 'needlessly complex overly-expository' because it's not a problem for you - but if these things are a problem for you, then these descriptions help you communicate them to others and could even help you understand your own feelings. As to the 'identity politics' claim - I see this a lot, and it comes across as very dishonest. Most of the time, the groups that are engaging in the so-called 'identity politics' are groups being targeted because of their identity. It feels like, in the current climate, Jewish people would get acccused of engaging in 'identity politics' for decrying the holocaust. The claim that 'you shouldn't care about identity' ignores the reality where we live in a world that very much does care, and regularly discriminates against people. It seems very reasonable for them to stand up to that.

notahacker 10y ago
It's also useful to contrast that with the world described in the article in which sexual attraction and expression was more straightforwardly defined as normal/moral/socially-acceptable vs abnormal/sinful/illegal and most people engaging in behaviours society considered to belong to the latter group sought to avoid identifying too closely with them by acting out a pastiche of conventional married life and congratulating themselves on not being effeminate like a poof. The idea expressed in the article that the Victorian era was gloriously genderfluid for anyone but a few well-to-do families without any notable enemies seems more than a little optimistic too.
Glyptodon 10y ago
I at least agree there are lots of people in this world who are obsessed with getting in other's business and unnecessarily making it theirs, whether it's sex or abortions or bathrooms or guns. But rather than taking things for granted I think it's the opposite. For example, your statement about it being hard/easy to find relationship seems to assume that trying to find love should just be acceptable and not hard in most social contexts, whereas I think it's often obnoxious regardless of orientation/identity and probably best reserved for contexts where it's explicitly okay. Likewise, I agree that understanding yourself and your own feelings is really important, but I'm not sure why everyone's own internal voyage of discovery is something to be worn on on the sleeve more like it's some security blanket and less like it's as intrinsic to them as gravity. I'd actually posit that past a certain point a need for social acknowledgment of one's identity suggests some level of discomfort and uncertainty with it, which is fine. But why it's something everybody has to parse when they're just trying to bag your groceries or go over a quarterly report or something is beyond me. I do think there is something to "targeting" as you put it, or people not minding their own business as I may have put it. But I'm also definitely naive enough to think that telling those people to mind their own business shouldn't require a particular identity.

castle-bravo 10y ago

This is a very kind and gentle way of describing the current state of ideology in media. I have to commend you for your ability to communicate a critical message in such a friendly manner.

hackuser 10y ago

> overly-expository self-labeling When large numbers of people tell you to hide your sexual preferences and your gender identity in shame and even for safety, when they are target of public ridicule (e.g., gay jokes in movies), and when they label you and define your identity for you -- then asserting what you are, in the face of all that, becomes very important personally and politically. > It's not entirely clear to me why ... You might find it inconvenient, but if you look around, it's obvious why: > In other eras ... these previous credentials Today, right now, discrimination is very widespread against non-male/female gender identities and non-heterosexual sexual preferences. In the U.S., a major political party embraces discrimination; states make discriminatory laws. In other countries these things are outlawed and put people at risk of public violence and death (the latter is true in parts of Western countries too). If you are tired of this issue, IMHO, it's a bit short-sighted to complain. Imagine what it must be like to have to live with it, every day of your life, with every person that you meet; often just turning on the TV or reading a book. If you are tired of the words used, the people who live with it must be absolutely exhausted, worn down almost to death.