I’ve been thinking about this lately, mostly because of some recent events that I’m not going to go into. Some discussions that my system-mates and I had with some of our friends spurred this on, as well.
Some people seem to have this mentality that they own your identity, for some ungodly reason, and how dare YOU define yourself? This mentality usually comes from people who have some inherent bias against the group you say you belong to, or people who have this idea that they’re experts on how other people work. We’ve seen it happen with transgender people–people will keep barrelling on using inappropriate pronouns even when the person comes in looking, sounding and acting like their own gender identity. One clue to their birth gender, though, and their presentation becomes entirely irrelevant. Sorry, person with an Adam’s apple, apparent flat chest and deep voice–I will now address you with female pronouns because your birth name was obviously very feminine, and no man could ever be given such a name! Because I know you are not a real man, I won’t give you the dignity of being addressed as one. (Or for a trans woman: Sorry, obviously feminine-looking person! I will now call you ‘he’ for the rest of the conversation because I know that the name your parents gave you was ‘Robert’, and no woman could ever be named ‘Robert’.) Because, you know, I OWN YOUR IDENTITY, and I have EXPOSED you for the FRAUD you are!
Trans people aren’t the only ones who’ve run into this stuff, though–it’s happened to plenty of other people. ‘Oh, you tell me you can do this? Well, that’s all good and well, but your medical records say you were diagnosed with autism, and people with autism [sic] can’t do that.’ ‘You’re upset because someone didn’t respect your identity? It happens. Move on.’ (Hi, your privilege is showing.) ‘You’re not interested in science. Come on, let’s get you some nice Barbies to play with. You like Barbies.’ ‘You’re just one person with many facets. You can’t be separate people.’
I find it…really fucking presumptuous that people can act this way, and get away with it. I talked about this about five months ago in ‘Invalidation with a Smile’. It’s just ridiculous. How hard is it for these people to understand that others’ identities do not belong to them? My identity is MY OWN, thank you, not for every Tom, Dick and Harry to analyse, dissect, deny, wave away or reshape. It’s mine. Sometimes I need to remind myself of that, but it sure as fuck is MINE.
The most disgusting thing about this attitude is that you can’t confront it without someone thinking you’re an asshole for it. ‘Oh, they just made a mistake. They couldn’t have known better.’ ‘She’s just trying to help.’ ‘Why not look on the bright side?’ (No, I do recognise the bright side, but that doesn’t prevent me from seeing how fucked-up things can be. I don’t have to have one emotion about every single issue. Sometimes I can have mixed feelings. Sometimes I can be ambivalent! But then again, I’m supposed to be a one-dimensional personality, right? Not actually a person.)