Not everything HAS to be political

I feel bad for Americans, every aspect of their lives has to be politicized. Some things, like your personal identity, should never have been political in the first place. A government shouldn't be entitled to decide on something so deeply personal and individual for you. But I understand, we are deeply emotional beings and people who want power will always take advantage of that.

Imagine if your boss suddenly decided he was entitled to control everything about your dating life, even though he has no good use for doing so, it's trampling your boundaries and it's fucking CREEPY. This is the same thing but on a larger legal scale, I think it's stupid.

This article actually explains this better than I can. Keep in mind, the site is run by students who are mostly young progressive people. So this isn't some conservative anti-liberal hit-piece, it's a genuine experience.

If you put something like race or gender on a pedestal to those who don't understand the hardships, you just appear pretentious. In a vacuum, those traits alone are equal to all others. I don't support trans solely because they're trans, I support trans because it's an individual right. Your identity is yours to choose and no matter how uncomfortable it makes you feel, for as long as the identity itself is not harmful, let it be and mind your own business. 

Sure, there will be the argument that "trans women are men trying to take advantage of women in women's bathrooms!!" but to me, that's the fault of the individual. Most trans women I've met are just that, former-men who feel they should've been born female. And that in itself is harmless. Trans men don't get that same treatment, even though biological women sexually assaulting men is a very real thing but nobody wants to talk about it because of the negative stigma surrounding men. The point is, the label itself isn't the problem, it's just the individual themself who chooses to misuse it and the social environment change that ensues within the community that the individual is most heard or seen.

The core thing that needs change isn't legal leadership alone, it's society itself. It's a much wider problem, and laws against such personal identity is just a direct jab at human freedom. That being said, laws in support of minorities alone won't change bigots' minds either.

The issue I mean to address is the overuse of labels as reasoning. "What about x/y?", but you need to know WHY it's harmful to x or y to matter so much. Some things may appear more harmful than they actually are. Both sides apply:

"Think of the children!"

"What about women?"

If you only rely on the labels to propel your argument, it will fall flat with those who don't understand or resonate with them. No identity group has more objective merit than any other, everything about a group's merit is built purely on it's social enviroment and stigma and that can change too. The identity group itself is not the source of its merit, hence why arguments like "They're against trans people!" falls flat to hyper-conservatives and "Racism to whites is still racism" falls flat to hyper-liberals. Because the social connotation of those labels to them are negative, but subjectively so.

What I'm saying is, identity politics to me has done nothing but stigmatize arbitrary identity groups even further, worsening the gap and making bigotry go haywire. This constant polarization has made it genuinely impossible for people to negotiate and try to understand each other because "x supports y!!".

Anyways, thanks for reading.

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