Some thoughts on self-identification

[o_bunny]

...sparked by a friend's posting.

FWIW, I don't particularly care how a person identifies or presents him/her/themself.

Are you a decent human being? If so, dandy, we'll get on fine.

I don't mean to belittle folks; I realize that for many people, identifying oneself as gay/lesbian/bi/trans/red haired/left handed/protestant/aboriginal/whatever persuasion is an important part of one's identity.  But to me personally, it really doesn't matter.  I've met nice people and jerks of every gender/race/persuasion. (Here I'm using "persuasion" to mean most any physical or social attribute, whether congenital, imposed, or assumed.)

Am I curious about people?  Absolutely, it helps me treat people better. Does one's persuasion (of any sort) help define who one is? Of course; every experience that one has builds the person.

But *TO ME*, identifying oneself as a member of a particular group is just that: an identifier. It makes as much difference to my opinion of the person as does whether they ate the left half of their potato or the right half first.

I hope that makes sense.

Comments

[con-girl.livejournal.com]

That makes much sense.

[ironphoenix.livejournal.com]

*nod* It seems to me that doing otherwise is what prejudice is all about.

[henrytroup.livejournal.com]

I'm reminded that in Guliver's Travels, Lilliput and Blefuscu are at war over which end of the egg to break. I'm sure "Little-Endian" and "Big-Endian" were very strong identifications for them.

[o-bunny.livejournal.com]

Swift had it right in so many ways.