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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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「𝐀𝐍𝐓𝐖𝐊𝐄」
i've been saying for years that identity politics is a psyop by massive media corporations to make us hate each other instead of the rich fucks who control the government
this country is not divided by race, gender, ethnicity, whatever... it's divided by class
THIS, THIS RIGHT HERE
by はなち; ; Report
sese's mind
I mean, to me this blog looks very political, and don't get me wrong I think the same as you. But unfortunately the world we live in tries to strip away unique identities and opinions, so everything that is "out of norm" becomes rebellious and dangerous. This includes the LGBT community and also the alternative one (which is slowly becoming gentrified and loosing its values but that's another topic). Everything we do consequently becomes political, even me typing this becomes a matter of politics bc my PC was most likely built using illegal labour and limited resources.
I get it but I mean in a more direct social sense, plus, the politics can vary depending out where you are. It's not the underlying political omnipresence but more how it's socially handled. Some things, while inevitably taken into account in politics, shouldn't socially be treated as a matter solely dictated by politics.
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Maiden Death
Politics does not mean partisan. Politics is how a nation is organized.
According to Merriam-Webster, the word "politics" means:
a
: the art or science of government
b
: the art or science concerned with guiding or influencing governmental policy
c
: the art or science concerned with winning and holding control over a government
[...]
a
: the total complex of relations between people living in society
b
: relations or conduct in a particular area of experience especially as seen or dealt with from a political point of view
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/politics
Western countries, even Asian and African countries, live in Eurocentric societies, which means our values, our social organizing, our identities etc., are all built upon their ideals, whether we want it or not.
Identities are not individual, otherwise they wouldn't even groups and categories in which we fit them in. Nothing about humans are individual, but rather subjective. There is a reason that we associate the female gender identity more with long hair, politeness and subserviency, and it is not because identity is individual. The act itself of acquiring and developing an identity is collective, because we start discovering ourselves by mimicking those we see as our "identity muses". That is why most black people in America dress a certain way and talk a certain way, because their identity is collective.
Just the fact that we pick and choose what is worth becoming an identity and what is not worth is by itself a joint decision. Why does certain behaviours are dvidided by gender, and why certain physical, biological, features are separated by race?
Because society controls identity. Especifically, the dominant groups in society controls identity. And they also control who will be in or out of the government. The laws that you mentioned? Made by and for the dominant group. Even your identity is controlled, just because you doesn't see it being directly and explicitly dictated doesn't mean it isn't.
Either way, I think it's very nice and important for young generations to have this kind of discurssion, to better understand how life under the European concept of modernism <3
I personally like to disagree. While we can agree identity started as a branch of collectivism, I'd say it can evolve past that into it's own independent thing simply taking inspiration from elements brought by collectivism. Hence why we have people like outcasts among outcasts. It's just our human tendency to still find a way to return back to collectivism like for example emo subcultures which existed as a way for outcasts for find community. So I feel like it's more fundamentally non-individual but in application can very easily be individual. Hence why I refuse to pay allegiance to people based on the group that happens to represent the attribute I identify with. It's subjective, therefore I'd say in that vein it's neither non-individual nor non-collectivist altogether. It's just sort of floating but I feel it should be individual. I feel like we shouldn't need outside validation to be who we are, but we're very emotional creatures so I get why we still do.
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