Vote Suppression
Jun. 22nd, 2021 04:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nyykiI've said this for a while. My gender identity isn't up to a vote. I am who I am, I'm sort of tickled to death that I get to be me, and I'm way into Nyyki consciousness these days. Other people don't get to tell me that's wrong, or how they don't get it, or how I'm not doing it right, because this is all about me, one of the few things out there that falls into that small category. I get some folks might not be comfortable with how I'm evolving through this life, and I've had to release friends because they wouldn't show the respect I tried to give them, no matter how hard they made it to do so. But that's not about me, it's their stuff, and I'm neither going to own it or try to fit my life into it. I'm looking for allies in this lifetime, not people who want me to stay the same and never grow and change. I'm not a part of the set they're acting in or the supporting cast to their one dimensional story.
But I don't get off the hook that easy. There are a lot of folks who have a very different concept of gender expression than I do, and how fluid they feel entitled to be with no criticism from outside persons or forces. Nope. I get that "out and proud" is a thing in the gender community these days, and "fluidity" is a thing too. But this is a huge transition for straight society. We're to the point where a large number of them know someone who's gay or bi (terms I don't much care for, as they're divisive) and more than 50% of the culture is no longer flipped out by them, so there's a lot of progress made there. But gender fluidity, hybrid presentations, non-binary, and outright gender fuckery are going to take some time to get the straight folks to get comfortable with it. After all, they still look a bit askance at musicians and actors.
To this end, I make it easy on them. When someone uses the wrong pronoun or a dead name, I don't correct them, I remind them. I know this is rough for folks who've known me one way for decades and I'm changing all that up on them. I don't do anything radical when I'm wanting not to push buttons, conforming more to what they're expecting than something that's going to make them take notice and start to ask questions. And I also try to be me without sending out "I don't fit" vibes by monitoring how I'm being perceived. (This got so much easier to do when I lost my sight)
I also get that I'm sort of old school about all this. I started trying to deal with this back in the late 70's, before I got into middle school, (which was abject hell, as you might expect) so out and proud was so foreign to my experience it shocked me when it got into the gender expression community. I was looking to be in and accepted instead. I know that's impossible for some folks with non-polar gender expressions -- I did an epicine phase in the early 2000s because I wanted to see if that was far enough for me to function, so I dealt with the what is it issues that can evoke. (It wasn't near enough for me, as though who know me in "the big room" can probably attest) But for me, making the work easier on those who either don't know much about the gender spectrum or aren't cumfortable with how it affects them and society at a larger scale works for me and may help me to keep from being attacked or worse. (because though I know some useful self defense tricks my targeting has some substantial difficulties to it) To roll it back to the top, they don't get a vote, but I'm also not going to give them a reason to feel the need to if I can help it. Because if they feel disenfranchised from voting on who I am there's the risk they're going to try to do something about it. And that isn't a part of my plans.
But I don't get off the hook that easy. There are a lot of folks who have a very different concept of gender expression than I do, and how fluid they feel entitled to be with no criticism from outside persons or forces. Nope. I get that "out and proud" is a thing in the gender community these days, and "fluidity" is a thing too. But this is a huge transition for straight society. We're to the point where a large number of them know someone who's gay or bi (terms I don't much care for, as they're divisive) and more than 50% of the culture is no longer flipped out by them, so there's a lot of progress made there. But gender fluidity, hybrid presentations, non-binary, and outright gender fuckery are going to take some time to get the straight folks to get comfortable with it. After all, they still look a bit askance at musicians and actors.
To this end, I make it easy on them. When someone uses the wrong pronoun or a dead name, I don't correct them, I remind them. I know this is rough for folks who've known me one way for decades and I'm changing all that up on them. I don't do anything radical when I'm wanting not to push buttons, conforming more to what they're expecting than something that's going to make them take notice and start to ask questions. And I also try to be me without sending out "I don't fit" vibes by monitoring how I'm being perceived. (This got so much easier to do when I lost my sight)
I also get that I'm sort of old school about all this. I started trying to deal with this back in the late 70's, before I got into middle school, (which was abject hell, as you might expect) so out and proud was so foreign to my experience it shocked me when it got into the gender expression community. I was looking to be in and accepted instead. I know that's impossible for some folks with non-polar gender expressions -- I did an epicine phase in the early 2000s because I wanted to see if that was far enough for me to function, so I dealt with the what is it issues that can evoke. (It wasn't near enough for me, as though who know me in "the big room" can probably attest) But for me, making the work easier on those who either don't know much about the gender spectrum or aren't cumfortable with how it affects them and society at a larger scale works for me and may help me to keep from being attacked or worse. (because though I know some useful self defense tricks my targeting has some substantial difficulties to it) To roll it back to the top, they don't get a vote, but I'm also not going to give them a reason to feel the need to if I can help it. Because if they feel disenfranchised from voting on who I am there's the risk they're going to try to do something about it. And that isn't a part of my plans.
Welcome Content
Date: 2021-06-28 03:03 am (UTC)Re: Welcome Content
Date: 2021-06-28 04:12 am (UTC)Love you too sweetheart. I completely agree with you that FB and other social networking doesn't really do it for me the way journaling does, and I'm glad everything's working now with my account and client so I can get back to doing some more meaty topics instead of the flash messages and responses found elsewhere. I also love that there's no like button or other low engagement buttons here, at least not that I know of, and I hope there never will be.
Sent from my HAL 9000 in transit to Jupiter
Re: Welcome Content
Date: 2021-06-28 04:15 am (UTC)Re: Welcome Content
Date: 2021-06-28 05:13 am (UTC)I'm using Semagic on the computer. It makes posting so much easier, and it also lets me update friends and check my history so I can edit things. It was static for a while but they did a new version of it recently to add better security features in it. And BTW, I also love that unlike the other place, I can email responses to replies. I'm definitely digging this feature, as I've got Outlook optimized for my disability.
Sent from my HAL 9000 in transit to Jupiter