>>
|
No. 71664
>>71662 >Unity and tolerance is ignoring the labels that don't matter and focusing on the ones that do. That's a pretty arbitrary definition right there. Relevant to the thread, but arbitrary. Tolerance means not caring how other people choose to live their lives (and by extension, call themselves), unity is about working together toward some purpose despite the differences people may have. Labels can become problematic, but it's usually only when they are imposed upon people by others. People identify themselves as a "straight ally", there's no initiation to get in. Really, few of these are truly arbitrary. "Asexual" is no different from Lesbian/Gay, labels people have accepted over time. Many of them relate to genderqueer, which as I mentioned is a large world in and of itself, and those differences all have to do with how people see themselves, the gender spectrum, and where they fit inside it. It's like political parties, in that sense. You can be an "Independent" but that tells you relatively little about what they actually believe. A person can be an Independent because they are very far to the left or right of either of the parties, or because they feel they are more centrist. Others may simply reject the party system in general. Someone could categorize their political beliefs in countless ways, and they'd all be legitimate, in the end. Democrats and Republicans as well can be sub-categorized into a wide variety of beliefs, as well as which beliefs they feel more strongly. You can reject the labels altogether, and it would be nice if humanity was an animal that could do that, but most simply can't. It makes it hard to discuss these types of issues without first defining things. Again, it's hard for people who don't even fully grasp the idea and complexities of simple transgender folk to subsequently understand things like genderqueer. Orientation (who you are attracted to) is often mixed up with gender identity, which can confuse these things. There are a few that might border on arbitrary, and I could agree that dividing people between straight allies and everyone else isn't entirely helpful, but most of those do signify a unique category of relationships, sexual attraction, or self-identity and as such are no different from "lesbian" or "transgender woman".
|