What groups you are unwillingly associated with? How you handle it?
I ll start : I have been following a pretty known tech/Linux journalist, and always found he is a fun dude to listen to, with interesting tech takes
The fact that he is also very openly “american conservative” (aka, religious & weapon nut, anti abortion, etc) annoys me, but i keep those things separate. And he does keep it separate too (politics channel vs tech channel), which is a great decision.
I'm frequently accused of being a white person by people who are looking directly at me and seeing my tan skin and my shoulder blade length dark brown hair.
And I don't really know what to say. Like, thank you for letting me enjoy the white privilege card, but it doesn't really do me any favors because in most areas the native American privilege card outweighs the white privilege card.
On the other hand, I am occasionally accused of being a Mexican even though I'm 6 ft 1 and speak very fluent English without a identifiable accent.
And old people have handed me things written in Spanish and asked me to translate it for them because it's my native language and it's fucking not, but then, since I can usually figure out what written Spanish means I still tell them the answer but I feel weird about it and I don't want to be made to feel that way.
Im like 94% percent mexican, but im 5’10” and speak fluent english with arguably the most neutral english accent, and speak next to no spanish (just a bit i learned in highschool)
I do hear a good bit of Spanish when my wife is speaking Tagalog. Don’t know why I found that surprising. And yes, both her maiden and middle names are Spanish.
Funny how people expect them to have “foreign” names. Nah. It’s all, Amy and Rob and Antonio and Phillip and such.
Strange how you’re getting downvoted and mocked, but nobody seems to have an answer. I too am rather curious where in the actual fuck being considered native-American outweighs white privilege! On a reservation?
(I’m not sure if I have to clarify, as this isn’t Reddit, but here goes: I do NOT agree with the current state of race relations and abhor the fact that “being white” is considered the best.)
I also get accused of it and my skin is tan. I was born in a Latin American country, I can speak Spanish, I can cook Hispanic dishes. Idk what to tell you.
I’ve been called a tanky, neolib, fascist, radfem, misogynist, racist, “woke”, republican, Democrat, religious nutjob, and militant athiest over my time on Reddit and I wouldn’t really agree with any of those descriptors lol. People just assume that if you have an even remotely nuanced opinion on a topic then you must belong to the “other side”. I don’t really care most of the time. I know what I believe and I don’t let it be defined by tribalism.
Using that as an example, if you spend a lot of most of your time let’s say defending little details about bad people it can come off as someone muddying the waters on purpose to downplay the awful things they do.
Or maybe your just on some shitty subs full of dumb people 🤷♂️
You’re assuming I spend my time defending bad people, which I don’t do. I just use critical thinking and point out logical fallacies. I believe fallacies are always bad, even if they support a position I agree with.
That’s exactly what I’m talking about. If a lot of your comments are pointing out logical fallacies against bad people then it looks like you’re muddying the waters. For example pointing out logic fallacies in arguments against conservatives but not doing the same against liberals wouldn’t make you wrong outright, but you’d be wrong by omission.
Haha as well. I’ve been called chauvinist, fascist and other words associated with the super far right, even though I’m center left on the compass. It’s impressive how utterly extinct nuance is in social media and traditional news.
I feel for you here. I think of myself as left of center but it is funny how much one side or the other treats the center like the hardest core of the other end. Its funny because I way back when I had started at a catholic college where I seemed waaayyy left but then transfered to the state school where I seemed centerist or at best kinda left and if you compared me to the school population then right of center. I did find the liberal state school seemed to have more of self awareness that the environment was skewed left whereas the catholic institution viewed itself as more center.
I’m unwillingly associated with the U.S. Democratic Party only because I’m uncompromising in my beliefs of equality and antifascism, but disagree with almost other policy of theirs^1
This doesn’t mean I agree with the only other major US party.
This is the correct answer. Pretending there are more than two choices doesn’t stop Roe from being abolished. You have to play the hand your dealt, etc.
Because I live in and enjoy living in Chicago, am socially liberal, an ardent feminist, an aspiring antiracist, people assume I’m a Democrat. Honestly, even the first alone is usually enough to trigger this assumption.
Because I’m politically conservative, respect religious freedom, respect the second amendment, and oppose stacking the Supreme Court, people assume I’m a Republican; even though the GOP hasn’t respected religious freedom or been politically conservative in general in decades.
And when I tell people that I’m not registered with a party, won’t vote along party lines, and won’t vote the lesser evil, I’m assumed to be politically inactive, apathetic, or ignorant. Whereas I’m very active, always vote, usually campaign for favored candidates and against corrupt incumbents.
The “team sport” mentality of FPTP political systems is absolutely terrible, honestly.
Im curious what you are politically conservative on? I don't see religious freedom as being conservative nowadays. Like respecting tst stuff. maybe the second amendment but like bernie is pretty good with that. honestly the supreme court stacking I only hear from an extreme side. EDITED - see if Im fast enough to sneak this in. How the heck does one even register for a party in chicago? I mean im not going to but is that even a thing?
Illinois has open primaries and you don’t need to register a party when you register to vote; but you can still register with the parties themselves. I also grew up in South Dakota, which has closed primaries, and you do fill out an party (or not) when you register to vote there, or at least when I turned 18 you did.
I’m conservative in the sense of opposing change, especially to our political system. Not all change, but my default stance is “don’t fuck with it”.
I’m confused. Is this a bit? You’re essentially describing the Democratic Party and all the things progressives complaining about the party “really being conservative” compared to the rest of the world.
The Democrats have a big problem with “solutions” that either don’t address the problem or create worse problems in doing so. And maybe I’m biased by dealing with the Chicago Machine, but there’s too much corruption as well. And don’t even get me started on the corporatism.
The DNC is pretty left socially on a global scale, which I approve of, but just all over the place in terms of economic policy, and I think that axis is where they get labelled as centrist or even right-leaning globally. Though, yes, Secretary Clinton in 2016 was the most conservative candidate with any real support, partly because she was the most experienced in actual governance.
The alternative is a party only focused on making the rich richer and staying in power even if they have to kill democracy to do it. I’d take partial solutions or failed attempts at doing the right thing every time over that. We don’t have other realistic options. From time to time we get populists who are mostly talk.
The word corruption gets thrown out far too much too. Those that break the law should be punished, but simply adding something to a bill to benefit your constituency is literally the job, and far too often I hear people say that’s corruption. It’s compromise.
Would you mind elaborating on “change…to our political system” perhaps with some examples and your stance on them? I’m exhausted and struggling to understand and find any examples aside from stacking the courts.
If not no worries, I’ll be chewing on this for a while. I appreciate your perspective and your willingness to share it.
For example: eliminating the Electoral college, term-limiting senators, declaring an official language, limiting jus soli citizenship, granting senatorial representation to the federal district… there are others that don’t come up as often that I can’t remember now.
I do have things I think should be changed or reformed, of course, as everyone does, but I’m very much against change for the sake of change. Society can be dynamic, the government should be stable.
I do think it would be helpful to have more clarity on the definitions of terms for different states of transitioning/non-transitioning but unfortunately that’s outweighed by the privacy concerns and the infighting and effort it would cause
It’s less about having the language and more about agreeing on the specifics of what language we do have. That’s not gatekeeping, just categorization. Mildly useful but people calling it “gatekeeping” is exactly why it wouldn’t be helpful to try to define it in practice (don’t mean to attack you, just taking an example).
Well, the easiest example is that some people use “trans” to mean anyone who has physicslly started to transition, others consider someone to be trans when they decide to broadcast their new gender identity, and others consider them to have always been trans. The opinion on which one is correct is often quite strong.
You could define it as “anyone who says they’re trans is trans” and avoid this entire issue, which is largely what the relevant laws do (unless they’re weirdly invasive), but that opens up the system for abuse by bad actors looking to false flag the trans community.
Well, the easiest example is that some people use “trans” to mean anyone who has physicslly started to transition, others consider someone to be trans when they decide to broadcast their new gender identity, and others consider them to have always been trans. The opinion on which one is correct is often quite strong.
Yep. People have strong feelings about their own journeys and identities. They’re welcome to do that. But when they start having strong feelings about other people’s journeys and identities, when they feel like that get to decide who isn’t and isn’t trans based on whatever criteria they particularly feel to be important, then they’re gatekeeping.
Those are the truscum and transmeds I want nothing to do with.
but that opens up the system for abuse by bad actors looking to false flag the trans community.
No it doesn’t. That’s just an excuse people use to post hoc validate their gatekeeping.
Gatekeeping as I’m using it in this context is the act of unnecessarily excluding someone from a community or diminishing their attempts to participate*. That’s why I think the best definition of most personal identity terms is a permissive one, eg. “anyone who decides to transition is trans”. But opening up that definition means we need another way to refer to people who are physically transitioning, because there are meaningful differences in their experiences and needs. (“Physically transitioning” honestly suits this purpose fine IMO.)
But there’s nothing wrong with choosing a narrower definition if you don’t use that to discriminate or exclude non-physically-transitioning trans people from spaces that could apply to them. It’s not a good idea because that message is easily able to be twisted to be exclusionary, but there’s nothing inherently gatekeeping about it; the term that would be common use would likely just become the one that refers to all types of trans people. Defining “trans” to be narrower than the wider definition is only wrong because we’re attached to the current definition. Which is a very good reason to keep that word defined as the broader group, but again someone who isn’t familiar with this would rightly see it as a valid definition.
note that the precise definition matters here, as I believe it does with a great many things
It’s not “opening up” a definition. It is the definition.
But opening up that definition means we need another way to refer to people who are physically transitioning, because there are meaningful differences in their experiences and needs.
No we don’t. Not everyone who undergoes medical transition undergoes the same journey. Some folk want surgery, some folk want HRT, some folk want both, some folk want one but not the other. Some folk want to micro dose, some folk want to replicate cis hormone levels.
There is no meaningful catch all term that summarises the needs of all of those folk. Trying to find a single term to capture that spectrum leads to a single narrative of what medical transition looks like, and makes it harder for people to transition on their own terms.
The language we need to talk about these things already exists, and is improving and changing with time. Nothing is gained by returning to the old days of binary terms and all or nothing language.
there’s nothing inherently gatekeeping about it;
Yes there is. It’s defining folk who medically transition as being a different class of trans folk. We’re not a different class. We all of us have unique needs, and the language should focus on those individual needs, whether they’re medical, social or other.
Defining “trans” to be narrower than the wider definition is only wrong because we’re attached to the current definition
This is exactly the sort of thing I was talking about in my original reply. I’m a binary trans woman, who medically transitioned with all of the bells and whistles, and so I get lumped in with people who genuinely believe statements like this.
I actively, loudly and strongly disagree with what you’ve said here, and I hate that people often assume I share beliefs like that. Defining the term trans to be narrower than it is is gatekeeping, end of story. It denies people the right to their own identity. That is inherently bad. People define for themselves, even in a hypothetical scenario where bad faith actors try and fuck it up
So I agree with the first half pretty well, you make some good points. But:
there’s nothing inherently gatekeeping about it;
Yes there is. It’s defining folk who medically transition as being a different class of trans folk. We’re not a different class. We all of us have unique needs, and the language should focus on those individual needs, whether they’re medical, social or other.
In general, just because everyone has unique needs/qualities/etc., that doesn’t mean that it’s not useful to have categories anyways. Although in this case perhaps you’re right, the situations are often complicated enough that it would be too reductive. In extending my wider pro-categorization stance to this issue in particular I may have ignored the naturally complex nature of it.
I get lumped in with people who genuinely believe statements like this.
I’m not sure exactly what you’re referring to, and you reacted differently enough compared to the rest of what I said that I think you may have misinterpreted my stance here?
It denies people the right to their own identity. That is inherently bad.
And that’s why I started this off by saying that it wouldn’t be productive to argue for this. Even if I were correct in theory*, nobody who this matters for would ever accept my definition, or any definition, other than the one that they believe to be true. You cannot force someone to accept a label that they don’t want, even if there would be benefits to using it. Although given what you said I’m not sure now that there would be benefits anyways.
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