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I had the unfortunate experience lately of watching the online self-destruction of an individual claiming to be several flavors of tubmlr. This individual claimed to be a multiple system, claimed that "body is aporagender" while "fronting consciousness is nonbinary." Now, I'll be up front, I'm a cis het white male. But I honestly want to understand and support a community that is at the very least, sporadically vocal about their existence. It's easy to make fun, but it was easy to right off homosexuals in the 50s too. I'm curious then if there has been any serious work done (scholary literature, etc.) on behalf of some of the more "fringe" elements of the modern social justice movement. Do the multiples and otherkin have a case to make? I've personally never met anyone claiming one of these identities, though I do know trans people and asexuals (which is not to imply these are neccesarily accurate parallels.) Where does this leave us in a decade or more if these communities don't dry up?
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Jun 18, 2014 18:08
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I am legitimately trying to understand subcultures that range from amusing to baffling. It's easy to poke fun at someone that identifies as a day-glo horse, but these are evidently real people asserting apparent claims. I agree with the claim of an unclear agenda. I don't really understand the endgame for the multiple systems and the like. Some seem to want greater representation, in truth, I can't name a work of media that prominently features a demiromantic nonbinary (I would add more qualifiers here, but I am trying to take this seriously and a common gag seems to be pile on these qualifiers) character. I'm thinking there exists an alternate interpertation for Otherkin and their related "alternate consciouness", for lack of a better term, groups. It's less popular, I think because people want a scientific justification for their identity but a lot of these identities are more in line with spiritual beliefs. Furry and Otherkin aren't really orientations of body disphoria of any well understand form, but can be called cultures in their own right. What's more interesting to me is the other side of the communities, especially the "fringe queer" side. This being the evangelical asexuals, panromantic demisexuals, communities that are very concerned with asking for pronouns and identifying themselves with options other than he or she (or xe.) Aside: As an etymologist 'xe' drives me nuts. English doesn't have a non gendered pronoun, but the vernacular (at least where I live) used 'they' without even batting an eye about the question of plurality. Reappropriating or removing hate speech is great, but inventing new articles of speech strikes me as an extrordinary claim without an extrordinary proof.
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Jun 18, 2014 22:59
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Sharkie posted:You should stop thinking that people who don't claim they have the gender they were assigned have anything to do with people who think they're a horse or whatever. That would be a good first step. Granted. I should be more clear that I don't want to conflate these communities. I think that by and large the furries have achieved a sort of parity. I can't ever recall anyone claiming oppression on the grounds they don't get to openly be a horse.
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Jun 18, 2014 23:49
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So popular consensus is that the otherkin, multiples, and transethnics are probably not very valid claims and at worst are damaging serious movements with real goals. I'd like to know if there's been any sort of scholarly, or even semi-rigorous investigations about them. Because even if they're all nuts and pretty maliciously so, they're fascinatingly wierd communities. At least to me? What I'm still curious about are the claims of the nouveau sexualities, orientations, and genders. Trans I get, nonbinary, sure, but what about the demiromantics, homoromantic asexuals, and aporagender? Is there validity with some or any of these claims? It was once proposed to me that every conversation should begin with asking for preferred pronouns, as a person always has the right to change. I don't think that's a very realistic goal, but as long as we're talking thousand-year-project goals can we eventually strive for this? And again, just as a disclaimer, I really respect the movements that are in place and am trying to get a handle on where the movements are developing and trying to stay on the right side of history.
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Jun 19, 2014 20:47
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evilweasel posted:Validity in what sense? I mean the issue is your question is so vague that it's essentially unanswerable. I mean in one sense it's clearly valid in that it describes some aspect of their personality in the same sense that "I like ice cream" does. In another, I think it's rather unlikely these are the same sort of fundamental aspects of identity that things like gender or sexuality are. But just asking if they are valid claims is too unclear about what you mean to have any real discussion on. That's fair, this whole discussion is about identifying ourselves after all so definition really is at the crux of the issue. What I'm really looking for is someone that exists outside of the sphere of jibbering internet culture to be speaking on aporagender, etc. But failing that, some indication that demiromantics are a group that should receive greater inclusivity overall. In an applied sense, I'm writing a novel, one character is trans. It's an important part of the character's background, but by no means the totality of it. But no characters are homoromantic asexuals. Am I failing to be as inclusive as I could be?
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Jun 19, 2014 21:12
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Sharkie posted:For your second, look at people whose lives are affected by bigotry in a material sense: it impacts their mental and physical health, their employment and marriage opportunities, etc. These are people it might be nice to be inclusive towards. Like, "inclusivity" isn't a very well-defined goal in and of itself - of whom are you trying to be inclusive, and to what end? Any book or film of less than infinite length is going to include some sorts of people and exclude others, so you have to prioritize, and have a reason for those prioritizations. Personally, I think it would be cool if more movies, tv shows, etc. had characters who were transgender but were presented as just you know, people, instead of caricatures. It took a while for gay people to achieve even the barest sliver of this sort of representation and there's still a longway to go. (acknowledging, of course, that those are two different issues). Aside: This is actually something I wrangled with for a while. The character in question is a major side character. The motivation was nothing more than "I see few transgender characters in this genre, perhaps I will write one." So nothing would really change if this trait weren't there. I absolutely agree that the best way is to present such a character as being normal and not call attention to this. But, if I never call attention to that character trait then it never gets brought up, and I'm off the opinion that it doesn't matter what my notes say about the character, if its not on paper it doesn't count. Which is also not to say I have a scene wherein the character declares "Look at my genitals! I think I'd prefer another option!"
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Jun 19, 2014 22:53
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SALT CURES HAM posted:I'm not saying literally everyone who is a crazy SJ person is a plant, just that there's trolls among them, and my guesstimate is that there's more trolls loudly saying stupid and horrible poo poo than genuine idiots doing so. Cultural appropriation has always struck me as a particularly buzzwordy bit of SJW rhetoric. There's plenty of valid criticism to unpack there, with lots of bad representation in broad-audience media. But it's also so easy to deconstruct a work for "appropriation." I'm strongly of the opinion that inclusivity is a higher goal than elimination of less-than-perfect depictions. Last, and I think what frustrates me most about the whole conversation is that there are either no clear goal, or the goal is like you said, actually kind of evil. I think audiences are smart enough to rightly call out the minstrel shows from inclusivity.
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Jun 21, 2014 21:57
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Closing this thread. This is no longer developing the conversation about fringe social justice movements that I was seeking a dialogue on. Take the psychobabble somewhere else.
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Jun 22, 2014 07:20
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