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solvethisproblemattic-blog · 7 years

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I spent some time on a forum where someone recently said this. It was part of a discussion about increasingly fragmented and absurd LGBT flags, such as “ecosexual” and “deerkin”

So i have this theory that increasingly compartmentalized idpol subcultures are like mining bitcoin. Whereas in the beginning, identity politics was more about tangible things, now...its like this: the more specific detailed and obscure your identity politics are, the more cool you seem. Its like mining bitcoin because it gets harder and harder over time, until you have to spent enormous energy and resources and get very little back, but some people feel compelled to do it anyway. This doesnt mean i think idpol never is about real identities. often it is. often there are valid concerns at work. But many (not all, but a good amount) of the identities people are building identities around now....are actually just personal quirks. Aromantic actually just means that you arent a romantic person. Its not the same as being gay...because people dont get beat up in the street for being aromantic....and there isnt mountains of legislation constantly designed to make the lives of aromantic people miserable.

So...many people believe that a common pattern is one of more privileged groups finding ways to enter into the subcultures of the less privileged, in order to feel better about themselves. This is a common tendency with many types of cultural appropriation. And yet it doesnt occur to many of the people in question that this may be happening right now with cis and straight people. If you say that cis hetero people are 'queerplatonic' because they have queer friends but dont fuck them....im sorry thats not worthy of a flag.

There are reasons why flags mean something. the rainbow flag has been burned, spattered with blood, and ripped up countless times. people have died because of that flag. Same with the transgender flag, the lesbian flag, and though its new, im sure it is already becoming true of the genderqueer flag. But all this other microlabelling bullshit? im sorry but believing you are a unicorn or a satyr is not something that is going to be on par with the kind of oppression and struggle that someone with gender dysphoria or queer desires is going to face

In order to fairly critique what this group is designed to critique, we all need to be sure we arent just feeding into meme loops. The question should be...first...is this content we are critiquing, something that its creators literally believe in? the best way to start , in my opinion, is to talk to the owner of the page.

The person who posted this, (who im not naming, and who i know almost nothing about) had some interesting points, i think. for context, they were in part critiquing these blogs.

https://beyond-mogai-pride-flags.tumblr.com

http://beyondlgbt.deviantart.com/gallery/

http://hiddensexualities.tumblr.com/

I want to make it clear that I have nothing against the creators of these blogs personally, and am only posting the links for clarity and context. I also want to make it sure that whereas i found hiddensexualities outright disturbing (due to its inclusion of attraction to objects and zoophilia in its master list) i find the other blogs more ....confusing. Because it includes things like “ecosexual” “deerkin” and “angelkin”.

Confusing, by the way, doesnt necessarily prove anything. It may not at all be their fault that I am confused.there are probably a lot of cis people who find my gender confusing, and that isnt my fault.

That being said, There are a few ways to look at it. Im a 30 year old trans woman, and this may be a generational thing. The job of youth is innovation and experimentation, after all, and its possible that people my age need to just trust them. Not all of the experiments of queer teenagers always make sense to queer 30 year olds. That being said...I feel like that doesnt explain it either. If that theory explained it all...i could just delete this blog and move on.

Theres two main issues, as I see it.

The first is that there is a reason words like gay, LGBT, and queer have always meant a specific thing. Because resources and services for us are limited. If you can move to portland oregon where theres a trans health center or a lgbt friendly youth shelter, you are extremely lucky. In most cities those things are unheard of. If you are a trans woman who cant afford the cost of a name change during a time like this..you are really lucky if TAP has the time and resources to handle your case....they are extremely overwhelmed right now with their case load. There are also spaces, workshops, conferences, and groups which are made for, made by, and centered on these groups. it gets harder to prioritize who should or shouldnt have access to these things. Because if mildly dissatisfied tumblr-literate cis people flood into these groups/ spaces and use up limited services so they can “find themselves”...its less for the people who face discrimination, abuse, assault, and trauma every day because of our bodies and desires. In other words, I could be murdered for being a trans woman. No one is going to be murdered for talking about being an angelkin on the internet. If you run a youth shelter focused on LGBT youth...and you have to prioritize services for an asexual or for a gay person...you have no choice but to make that decision based on how much tangible oppression you actually see day after day. I have talked to these people and it is very clear what decisions they have made, and theres nothing fucked up or wrong about it.

I myself have worked with street youth several times throughout my career, and though i have met many endangered queer, gay, and lgbt street youth, i have never met a street kid who was angelkin, deerkin, or ecosexual. because its not sustainable outside of internet filter bubbles.

The other issue is that...i have seen and heard of many of these groups exerting actual influence in queer and LGBT politics. I will explain why this bothers me.

if this was merely a matter of youth subcultures making fun experiments and building magickal inner worlds, thats fine. theres nothing wrong with that. I have been part of pronoun contests before, and there is certainly a playful element to all queer circles. Theres nothing wrong with creating elaborate inner worlds...or subcultures based on very specific ideas. But its not queer. Because you cant fuck a deer (or shouldnt?), you cant fuck a demon, you cant fuck an angel, you cant fuck the earth, and otherkin is largely a fantasy. Theres a limit to what you can queer. Eventually it stops being queer or queering, and just becomes absurd.

I actually support transhumanism...but transhumanist ideas are far from being actually realized, and never will be unless they find a way to find a purpose in every day life. Its only when trans humanism becomes pragmatic or functional that it will begin to be sustainable or anything other than a fantasy. That will eventually happen, i think, but right now, this is ridiculous. bisexuality is a real desire, gay, lesbian, queer, pan, poly, these are real desires (and for the love of god dont jump down my throat because i only listed 99 out of the 100 labels. they are honestly and literally hard to remember) but once you start listing your sexual attraction to fictional characters, you arent describing real life.

I once had a conversation with a queer person (AMAB and androgynous presenting) who had recently gotten into a fight on tumblr because she believed that otherkin should be officially included in the LGBT acronym (LGBTO?). She then talked about wishing she had fur. If she faced oppression, it wouldnt be because she wished she had fur, it would be because she was androgynous and her anatomy didnt fit into the cisgender mold. In other words, what is assumed to be otherkin discrimination, is actually just regular queerphobia and transphobia. Maybe theres a little extra vileness added because you have a clip on tail, but i guarantee that if a cisgender straight woman was wearing that clip on tail and wished she ‘had fur’ they would be left completely alone. because no one cares.

By the way, asexuality is valid too...but my thoughts on it are complicated.

#otherkin #sexuality #gender #discourse #social justice #SJW #LGBT

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