@Froge I can always closethis threadif you prefer. Nothing is being said that would go against the rules, but if you would rather it be closed just let me know.
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I’m good for now, but I can see it getting there at some point.
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We had a communication break… I liked what you said about learning and asking questions…
I think you’re right.
Maybe I am just afraid of the outspoken minority.
Maybe I’m just confused easily by all this because I’m just plain ole white bread straight woman.
Who knows,
I try.
Didn’t mean to start ■■■■ on your thread.
Just had some honest questions.
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No worries, it’s just an emotional topic for everyone and I wanted to set some boundaries before things got out of hand.
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Okay cool. My view on the whole this is basically that the microlabels can be good and bad. Good because people can realize they aren’t the only ones who experience life in a certain way, and it makes them feel less alone.
Bad because, in a lot of spaces, there is a huge push to obsess over these thousand and one different labels to try and figure out which one fits you, and a mindset that someone in one box has no idea how someone in another box feels or thinks or experiences life. Not to act like an old person, but back in my day, we didn’t differentiate between the lesbian experience, the gay man experience, the bisexual experience, the ace experience, etc. We were all just “queers” and like 90% of us had been kicked out, excommunicated, disowned, or whatever. We had no one but each other, so we all took care of each other. In the past couple years, I have seen the community fragment terribly with infighting between different microlabels and it breaks my heart. People spend hours agonizing over which pride flag is “theirs” as though waving the wrong one would be “cultural appropriation” or something. My kids stress and fret over what their identity actually is, and apologize every time they change their minds as though they were lying to us before.
The point of microlabels should be to foster greater community, but in practice it seems to create unnecessary divisions. That doesnt mean the labels are bad, but I don’t think anyone should be overly focused on one.
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I can agree with all of that. I just relate to it in a healthier way than you described, though that didn’t use to be the case.
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I think it’s probably also different in different parts of the world. I live in a very liberal, very queer city in a very liberal, very queer state. Here, you can’t really go anywhere without seeing at least 1 other queer person. I would imagine in a rural, less tolerant area, someone would feel a lot more comfort from going online and seeing someone else describe their experiences in a way they relate to.
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Hm, I’ve lived in both types of cities and just moved from a very tolerant city to a lot less tolerant city, unfortunately I didn’t realize this fully going into it. But I grew up not really knowing my identity, never got a chance to explore my gender because it was never safe until after I turned 18, and being autistic can also make you hyper focus on your gender and sexuality. So it’s a lot of factors for me.
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I find it confusing too. I take it as proof that I’ve reached the ‘old fossil’ stage.
I’'m not that delusional to believe I’m physically anything other than male, but non physically, for as long as I can remember, I’ve found it impossible to define myself as assuredly masculine or feminine. If I was with a group of men talking about the kind of things groups of men often talk about I’d feel like a fish out of water. The same with women.
That failure to clearly identify may or may not have anything to do with being an autistic person. It’s not something I’ve thought deeply about. At a more basic level I feel like a triangle in a world where most people are circles or squares.
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It’s very confusing for me too.
I blame my age as well.
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