more comment (re: identity and community)
This search for sexual/gender identity outside the pink/blue paradigm reminds me of people who are brought up within an organized faith like Catholicism, leave it, and then look for some sort of more specific spirituality among the Pagans. Not the best metaphor. But also reminds me of people who leave the Democratic/Republican paradigm and then look for some sort of more specific politics among the Socialists, Greens, or Libertarians. If you think for yourself about such things - gender, religion, politics - you're going to find that no group or label describes your own thoughts and beliefs perfectly. I recently listened to a younger person talking about leaving the Democratic Party of his parents, then finding Marxism, but then becoming post-Marxist, and trying to describe what his political ideology is now.
If we think for ourselves, the results of our thoughts will become infinitely fractal. How do you describe your positions to other people, then? Well, you can't. At best you summarize, or you spend long nights talking with each other about all of your beliefs, until you come to feel you've learned each other pretty well. Without these long nights talking with each other, we don't really know each other, and you haven't really described yourself.
Which means, ultimately, these labels are really more about fitting in, than about fit. Group dynamics - not wanting to be alone, and how do you build a community of people but from shared interests and shared beliefs - but there's an element of deception going on when we build a group - let's say the "gay" community - the idea that gay people have anything in common at all LOL. Or the "black" community. Or the "transgender" community. Or the "ace" community. As we join a community, as the community either accepts us or rejects us, there's a common fiction enveloping us regarding what we may or may not have in common. To join a community, to persist within a community, you must at least pretend to join this common fiction about what we in the community have in common. But all we really have in common is the desire to commune. Truth is the enemy of community, because in truth we are each infinitely different from one another.
Instead, can we abide in our differences? Can we hang out despite our differences? Can we love each other despite our differences? You're pro-life, I'm pro-choice, but we can still love each other. You're a TERF, I'm a transgender woman, but we can still love each other. You're a CEO, I'm a maid, but we can still love each other. How do we love each other without communion? I find this the greatest challenge.
If we think for ourselves, the results of our thoughts will become infinitely fractal. How do you describe your positions to other people, then? Well, you can't. At best you summarize, or you spend long nights talking with each other about all of your beliefs, until you come to feel you've learned each other pretty well. Without these long nights talking with each other, we don't really know each other, and you haven't really described yourself.
Which means, ultimately, these labels are really more about fitting in, than about fit. Group dynamics - not wanting to be alone, and how do you build a community of people but from shared interests and shared beliefs - but there's an element of deception going on when we build a group - let's say the "gay" community - the idea that gay people have anything in common at all LOL. Or the "black" community. Or the "transgender" community. Or the "ace" community. As we join a community, as the community either accepts us or rejects us, there's a common fiction enveloping us regarding what we may or may not have in common. To join a community, to persist within a community, you must at least pretend to join this common fiction about what we in the community have in common. But all we really have in common is the desire to commune. Truth is the enemy of community, because in truth we are each infinitely different from one another.
Instead, can we abide in our differences? Can we hang out despite our differences? Can we love each other despite our differences? You're pro-life, I'm pro-choice, but we can still love each other. You're a TERF, I'm a transgender woman, but we can still love each other. You're a CEO, I'm a maid, but we can still love each other. How do we love each other without communion? I find this the greatest challenge.