Jessđź‘ľYou don't have to fully understand someone's identity to respect, accept, and love them.
Irene Zhang@JessTheUnstill yeah I was telling someone that the higher order bits that I use to think about people in my life rarely have anything to do with the identities that others care about like gender, race, etc. it’s more like, oh that’s my friend that does X or loves Y. And you are right, I don’t need to also do X or love Y to support them.
@irene my ideal world would be one in which the fact that I'm trans would be at most the 3rd most interesting thing about me.
@JessTheUnstill yeah I’m really sorry about that. I feel like that too honestly, like I would like the fact that I’m a woman to really not be that interesting to people because I’m also a fully formed human? Being trans seems like it should be even less interesting because it’s not even your gender but like a fact that your gender assigned at birth was not quite right but it’s been fixed now
@JessTheUnstill ah yeah to me it kind of feels like people that had some kind of medical issue when they were a kid, like oh I had a hole in my heart when I was born but it’s fixed now. Like why would that be interesting to anyone other than a sort of interesting trivia fact
@irene I think of it kinda like where my hometown was or where my college was. Sure, if I meet someone else from ______, it's kinda like ooh cool we have something in common. It's not a thing I'm ashamed about (aside from it being an identifying feature I choose not to share publicly on the internet), it's just a part of the road I've traveled through life. Being Queer, however is who I am Now. And I'm proud of it. I'd far rather be known as queer Jess than trans Jess.
Bryan L. Fordham@JessTheUnstill @irene that’s interesting and helpful to me.
I remember a time when my dad was in his late 50s/early 60s and somehow in conversation with get discovered that there woman who cut his hair was a lesbian. Dad said something to the effect of, “that’s strange to me, but I’m also old. I’m just not used to it .”
I just turned 50 a week or so ago. I like to consider myself an ally, and I am at least trying to be. But I don’t know how to act sometimes. Reading your comment and thinking about dad, the problem is on my side: I’m still wrestling with the crap I was taught and believed years ago.
Instead I need to work on just meeting people, not labels. I guess I feel that it i ignore it I run the risk of being like those “I don’t see color” fools.
I think I had a point here, but I lost it along the way. Unlearning all this is a process. I don’t want my process to be a burden to others.
@Bfordham @JessTheUnstill well, there’s a difference between saying that you don’t see color and pretending that everyone else doesn’t. Like if you were a cop hopefully you wouldn’t pull over someone for being black but you can’t pretended that no cops ever do it. But as I like to say, I wish people would just perceive me from the outside as a formless blob that talks about operating systems, so I can dress and act however I want, which in my case is quite feminine. Same for sexual orientation or race, like I’m Asian but actually terrible at math but why do either of those facts matter?