Friday, 22 June 2018

How I Broke, and Botched, the Brandon Teena Story

quote [ The original writer of the Village Voice story that inspired “Boys Don’t Cry” looks back on her reporting — and the huge error she still regrets ]

Hiding the tears in my eyes
[SFW] [people] [+5 Interesting]
[by ScoobySnacks@5:33amGMT]

Comments

midden said[2] @ 10:42am GMT on 22nd Jun [Score:4 Insightful]
It seems to me that, "I have wanted to apologize for what I now understand, with some shame, was the article’s implicit anti-trans framing," comes from a deeper issue we need to let go of, and that's trying to fit everyone into some specific category. "Implicit anti-trans framing" is not the problem. Over framing is the problem.

The whole article is about labels; appropriate labels, inappropriate labels, changing labels, categorizing and sub-categorizing.

Sexuality and gender identity, or any identity, is a messy, complicated thing full of gray areas and contradictions, even for the most main stream of us. The ever-growing string of approximations represented by LGBQTAXYZ... is really getting silly. No matter how many letters get appended to it, there will be people who don't fit under any particular alphabetical heading.

I know that as humans, we love to categorize everything and everyone (including ourselves) and tuck them away in their appropriate mental cubbyholes. That might work fairly well when you live in a band of dozens of people or a tribe of hundreds, but it does not work when you live in a global community of 7,600,000,000 people.

The person who shares my office a few days a week has a gender and sexual identity that is quite different from mine. I don't need to know exactly how we differ or what narrow category we both fit into in order to have a good relationship, other than the fact that they go by a typically male name in the US and that they prefer to be referred to as "he." He has a partner whose specifics I don't need to know or worry about, either, other than the generally appropriate way to address him. We've worked together and socialized for years without needing anything more specific.

I do realize that labels can be useful things, especially when trying to understand what might seem strange, foreign, possibly scary or intimidating. Living with ambiguity can be hard. Just ask any agnostic. In my opinion, though we'd all be a lot happier if we could let go of trying to over-label others and ourselves. The vast majority of the time, "person" is enough.

(edit: after a cup of coffee, sitting here in the office before anyone else has arrived)
It occurs to me that it's probably just a matter of time. For instance, I happen to work with folks who are ethnically Afro-cuban, Hispanic, Korean, as well as generic Caucasian European, but unless that was for some reason relevant, it's not something I would mention in telling an office story. Fifty year ago, though, a story would probably start, "So I was talking to this Korean guy at work the other day..." even if the story had nothing to do with the fact that my coworker happens to be descended from Koreans. Today, at least in my East Coast Liberal Bubble, it's not something that would even occur to me. I hope the same will be true for gender and sexual identity within my lifetime.
damnit said @ 11:32am GMT on 22nd Jun
I guess, while they’re still alive, they wanted to make a correction instead of becoming a footnote in history’s long list of asterisked-outdated data.
midden said[1] @ 11:45am GMT on 22nd Jun
Yes, and I applaud them for that. But perhaps the redress could have been along the lines of, "these are people, regardless of labels, that's what matters," instead of, "I didn't understand the correct label to put on these people."

Labeling can help bring people who fall under a particular label together, building stronger communities, but it can also alienate people who identify themselves or others under differing labels, tearing apart communities and societies.

This seems relevant.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-identity-not-issues-explains-the-partisan-divide/

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