Embedded Files
We know this is a stressful time, we hope that our resources are able to bring some comfort in this unstable time. We are experiencing this together!
Self Identity:
Self Identity:
Self identity is a fluid concept that cannot be defined in just one way, or defined permanently. The self is always changing, growing, and learning how to be within its environment, as humans are very adaptable. The language that we use in this current society to describe the different aspects of ourselves, is defined in ways as to help fit us into, or stand apart from, the structure of the christian cishetero-patriarchy that we live under. This is not to say that strongly identifying with societies' prescribed descriptors is a negative thing, but merely that it is the language that we use to describe ourselves based on our lived societal context. Since we are all extremely unique individuals, who grow and change every day, without the ability to be permanently described by any particular language, we can define identity as such: (deconstructed) self identity is a constantly evolving concept that is personal, and can only be determined by an individual about themselves. It's important to remember that societally prescribed identities help us fit in to the social structures that already exist, but those structures often serve to hold up the systems of oppression that we are trying to avoid. Sometimes when we heavily identify with an identity that holds up these structures, it can do us more harm than good. We should always think about what our motivations are for wanting to be perceived as having a specific identity, and interrogate where that motivation stems from.
Sometimes people will positively associate their job or work as a form of their self identity, but often, in the context of living under systems of oppression and consequent labor rights violations, members of society will assign each other traits associated with their working class position in a negative context, eg. ironically associating laziness with some of the hardest working positions in society such as blue collar workers, based on their assumed lack of educational background (education which is something that is majorly dependent on class status). The unfortunate truth is that in many places under global capitalism, people find themselves being defined first and foremost by their job, due to classism and the dehumanizing nature of having our labor exploited. True self-identities are things we choose, not things that are assigned to us without care or consent.
Common Identities Society Discusses or Acknowledges
Common Identities Society Discusses or Acknowledges
Biological Sex Assigned at Birth: Typically determined by exterior reproductive organs, (genitalia expression) representing the sex assigned as birth. Intersex people are often overlooked by this assumed sexual binary.
Gender itself is a construct, but that doesn't mean our gender identities have to be chosen for us. We can make the decision to identify differently and express ourselves however we choose.
Whether or not you choose to have a queer identity, there are ways in which our Sexual/Romantic preferences impact our social and personal lives.
There are many identities that exist outside of cishet-normativity, but often undeterminable by basic perception. Only the person who chooses to hold the identity can define it for themselves and others around them.
Femininity and Masculinity are intertwined, because their root words work to assign itself to the sexual identity; however, we know that is not the case. While both femininity and masculinity can be sources of harm and power, there are ways in which we can understand these terms better once we've deconstructed our understanding of sex and gender.
Racial identities are constructs built to serve structures of white supremacy, colonialism, patriarchy, and Christian Religious Dominance, historically through slavery, sexual violence, forced conformity, and assimilation. The construct of race is extremely impactful today as many people who are (or appear to be) BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People Of Color), face micro-aggressions of social constructs, purposeful social harassment, physical and sexual violence, societally sanctioned torture, and sometimes state-sanctioned death.
Many BIPOC people and communities identify strongly with their own cultural experience with white supremacy, racial superiority systems, and intersectionality with other minority identities. Many people of color find themselves unsafe in white, hetero-patriarchal, and colonized spaces
Cultural/Ethnic Identities
Cultural/Ethnic Identities
Many people identify with their ethnicity and nationality, but we should try to deconstruct these identities a little bit. Nationality is a set social construct; while nation's borders can feel permanent or set in stone, the land is shared by everyone with a multitude of different cultures and identities. Of course we know indigeneity and practiced cultures may be from and have deep connections to a specific land area. Many people find nationality and ethnicity to be core identities they carry. Culture and Ethnicity are often held deeply in a person's identity, because it's often impacted by how they were raised, and community impacts as a young child. We often assign culture and ethnicity with a people's language, religion, presentation, region, and medicinal/food practices.
Health status and disability, often becomes a part of a person's identity due to the status of a healthy lifestyle, accessibility in our environment and communication, education/research for health providers and patients, and ultimately wealth and social status. Many people experience disability, and almost all people will experience disability, and a lack of access, in their lifetime. The often uncomfortable treatments, more frequent exams and doctors visits, adverse and painful health experiences, monetary payments, etc. that people with health conditions and disabilities face, often lead to being outcasted and incapable due to access, more likely to experience societal harms and neglect, and a lack of prioritization of their comfort and experiences of harm in relationships. People with these experiences, often find themselves not identifying with the majority able-bodied people in society. Those experiences as well as a currently increasing lack of access, the history of erasure -the killing and unethical testing on disabled people, current abuse and neglect of frequent patients -mostly due to unexperienced doctors and health insurance companies, and the stigmatized expextations in relationships that often don't take account for people with disabilities or people facing a temporary disability.
Health issues, healthcare experiences, routine testing, and appearance of health, can all become parts of disability or health-related identities. Health-related identities indicate that someone is has experience with a specific category of health, and doesn't specify if that person is facing disability. Disability and health-related identities can be life-threatening and painful experiences and we should never assume a person is able-bodied base on how we perceive able-bodies to look like.
Religious, Spiritual, and Moral Identities often feel different, because of the constructs that hold up these identities in our society. We know that religious identities are often strongly attached to a specific house of worship or standardized (colonized) religion and their spiritual and moral values, additionally political and social values that objectively and legally don't belong in a house of worship. However, the true identity beneath constructed religions can still include those religious beliefs, and even attend a church without participating in the social oppression systems. This identity to include more experiences if often referred to as a spiritual identity, which is open to including cultural practices and personalized practice of spiritual beliefs. Our Moral Identity is tied directly to our spiritual or religious identities, which include our values, core beliefs, and practice of those beliefs in our lives. Moral identity should never be conveyed as only existing within a religious/spiritual structure, because every person has a human soul that has experiences, values, and life to share with the world. People don't become less-than due to their religious, spiritual, and moral identity differing from yours. However, it is also never okay to justify proselytizing, harassment, structured harm, violence (words and actions), or death of another person because you have a religious belief or 'divine right' to do so. Those beliefs are where the majority of mass rape, murder, enslavement, and occupation are due to the crusading of religious beliefs.
Religious Nationalism is an identity often held by people who believe their religion should become the standard and enforced religion and religious values on to the entire nation-state.
AFAB: Assigned Female At Birth, this is a term that is includes the majority of women who identify as cisgender women, transgender men, and non-binary folks, who are effected by the ownership of a 'traditionally' female body at birth. Traditional reproductive organs including but not limited to: Vagina, Cervix, Uterus, Ovaries, etc.
AMAB: Assigned Male At Birth, this is a term that includes the majority of men who identify as cisgender men, transgender women, and non-binary folks, who are effected by the ownership of a traditionally male body at birth. Genitalia including but not limited to: Prostate, Penis, Testes, Vas deferens, etc.
Intersex: There are also individuals who are intersex- and have a mixture of traditional sex characteristics; a percent of the population are born this way and some never find out. Intersex individuals have the right to live in their bodies however, and in whatever identity that they feel is right. As we briefly mentioned, many people have a slight variation and never find out they are intersex, due to the standard of assigning people to an oversimplified binary when deciding someone's sex based on developing body parts.
Gender in itself is a construct of our long standing history in humanity. While we have seen a correlation with gender identity and sexual organs in humans for our history on this planet; there still well-known evidence that humans have always had people who don't identify within their sex given at birth. Being that it is a construct and system that most of our societies have upheld and idolized for its sexual and manipulative nature. Defining Gender as a system means that it has more than the barest of definitions; this system functions on the perception of the self and the people around you. Women, men and others, are given a chance at life all the same, but we all know the not-so-creative differences between the ways we parents and instruct younger girls in comparison to boys. Society often subjects people to having a specific type of childhood, and experiences through life based on their sex-assigned-at-birth, that assignment and subjectiveness is gender. This all comes down to the ways each person perceives themselves and their gender, in comparison to the other identities around them. Many 'men' are compelled to not show emotion or compassion for others as a way of gaining strength; however, this is a self-harm tactic that most men have learned from those around them and older than them.
When we begin to reframe our experiences surrounding gender, we are merely looking at a the same image with different glasses. While a person may be a person and without identification they remain genderless; however, the moment I tell you she is here or he is there, a completely new perception of the interaction is taking place. This is one of many ways that the way we have made gender a system in our everyday lives. Exploring the understanding of any of our genders, is to go beyond anything our sex at birth might convey. Our gender expression is that of what we have been manipulated over the years to be what it is today. This doesn't mean that your expression is incorrect it just means a lot of interactions helped you form that expression. The different groups of people out there today believe the gender expression somehow infringes on the lives around the person expressing their gender differently, while it has no real impact on those around them. Many people of stereotypical gender expression have experienced several times where the impression of their expression gave someone else a false impression of who they were based on stereotyping. This means that gender is a system that serves very few people in the bigger institutions of modern day capitalism which typically consist of rich white males.
Gender can be expressed on a spectrum of femininity and masculinity, but at the basis of breaking down gender norms and constructs we have freedom of expression. There may be a gender attached to someone's identity but you can act, dress, and be whomever you want in this world. Of course this sounds a lot more glamorous than it may be in reality.
Due to the high range of hate crimes that occur every day surrounding gender and sexual orientation, it has been very important for everyone who is queer in some way to be careful about who they share that information with. It can be dangerous for some of us to share our identifying factors with others. Calling our Significant Others or Family Members: "Partner", "Spouse", "Significant Other", "Sibling", "Pal", (etc.) and other non-gendered specific names can ensure a bit of extra safety. However those who are most inquisitive of these kinds of things may inquire deeper; this is why we encourage our allies to discuss their non-queer relationships and non-queers family members in the same way. This has completely destigmatize the word "Partner," and "Spouse," allowing for many more queer individuals to discuss their partners in safety at work or in public.
Deconstructing/Decolonizing the Gender Binary:
Deconstructing/Decolonizing the Gender Binary:
Throughout European colonial history people believed that there are two genders, man and women. Gender is a societal construct that allows it only to exist as well as people choose to believe in it, and follow patriarchal values. The belief that there are only two genders, directly stems from the misheld belief that there are only two sexes. Even though there are two ends of the biological sex spectrum, it doesn't mean that there is not an array of biological expressions in between. While sex is never a determination of gender, biological sex can greatly impact the way we interact with the construct of gender, and aspects of self expression. It's important that we keep in mind the ways that people are forced into gender roles, and gender norms, without their consent by their society and community. However, that doesn't mean that sex=gender, and gender should never be a glorification of sexual biology over self expression. When anyone is expressing themselves genuinely, gender is not really present. Gender is a gaze and construct assigned to a type of expression. Even our descriptor words for these things are not exclusive to gender, such as: 'feminine', 'masculine', 'beautiful', 'handsome'. In fact the social gendering of these words is done through societal constructs being replicated and upheld. For many people, fully deconstructing gender can be a hard mental task- especially when we believe so much of our identity is assigned to gender; however, the fact remains that from a biological, neurological, and gender studies perspective, you are without gender right now, other than what society has assigned to you based on your visible sex characteristics (eg. hair growth patterns, breasts and genitalia, etc)
While we should never be trying to attain an expressed identity that we don't want to have, that doesn't mean it is bad to want to express yourself stereotypically. Anyone can think that any expression is pretty, beautiful, flattering, etc. without it being in or outside of the stereotypical gender norms. The reason for getting rid of the construct of gender, is that nothing is specifically one way or another, that also means that what we consider stereotypically feminine can be comfortable and feminine to anyone outside of that construct as well. The same goes for the stereotypical masculine, feeling true masculine to some. Now this doesn't mean that we continue to uphold gendered systems and structures through our policing of others expression. The freedom to choose what these words and identities mean to you, is the deconstruction of gender.
Historically in societies under religious colonization, the way you were raised, the color of your sheets, the job you had (or weren't allowed to have), and the life you were allowed to lead as a whole, was all determined by your sex. Sex, as a form of identity, has often taken the name of gender as well; however, gender is a construct that relies on societal enforcement assigning it to your identified-at-birth-sex. Now this can get tricky to understand, but it's often easiest when we fully separate sexual (sex-assigned-at-birth) and gender (how one expresses oneself) identities. That doesn't mean that the two groups don't heavily overlap, it just means that they are inherently separate and are applied differently to our lives. To live life in any physical body comes with a lot of nuances and differences in that experience in comparison to any other body, and to flatten that experience based on an incorrectly held societal definition of a biological sex binary, does no service to the truth of human diversity.
The constructs of gender impact both AMAB and AFAB people in society via enforcement via patriarchy, but there is a need to highlight not just the historic rates of violence against AFAB people across society, but to particularly hold space for the context of the weaponization of our own reproductive system against us in the context of sexual assault, pregnancy, and access to reproductive healthcare.
Expanding on Lateral Violence Between the Sexes Under Patriarchy:
Expanding on Lateral Violence Between the Sexes Under Patriarchy:
Society creates these gender roles for us to play into, and with enforcement via the power structures inherent to colonial, patriarchal capitalism. While we frequently discuss the harms of men and cis-hetero individuals in general under patriarchy, both AFAB folks and many groups within LGBTQIA2S+ circles who are seen by many to be 'queering' from 'traditional values' (Christian heteronormative monogamy), are often active participants as reinforcers of the harms of gender roles, against both AFAB and AMAB individuals.
This can look like 'toxic masculinity' and 'toxic femininity' (internalized sexism) in action, with people acting out patterns of gendered behavior against each other; for example, a transmasculine individual recreating harmful toxic masculine dynamics such as refusing to participate with household tasks that have a feminine association under patriarchy, such as cooking or cleaning, or a woman attempting to gain power in a space by playing into standard femininity to appeal to existing male-dominated power structures or by attempting to recreate those power structures by acting as a "girlboss", which actually usually ends up modeling 'authority' off of toxic masculine behaviors such as domination and aggression. As a further example, transfeminine people can sometimes tend to lean into either toxic feminine or masculine behaviors as a way to attempt to reclaim power under patriarchy that is stripped from them when they reject their masculine assigned gender at birth. Some cishet men will also perform femininity in order to gain appeal/power with women/in queer spaces for personal or particularly sexual gain. On the flipside, many men like to use the way that we all can tend to play into patriarchy in these ways as justification for the continuation of it, and even as a inlet for them to blame non-men and queer individuals for its existence in the first place.
Expression of Identity:
Expression of Identity:
In identity there is a range of expressions and positions that can be self-assigned by us or socially-assigned to us. This means that we have the ability to express ourselves how we want to, but society may still assign identities to us that we would otherwise not take on. Expression of sex (not gender) and race for example are not considered optional identities even though both identities are rooted in social oppressionary/discriminatory systems. While gender and sex may be socially constructed, it's a heavily, widespread belief that there are only two sexes and therefore two genders (false belief). Just because these things are misheld/false constructs assigned to us, doesn't mean they aren't an inherently impacting our experience in society.
While these restrictions exist, there are many ways that we have the ability to change the presentation and expression of our identities. We have a lot of gendered terms that we use to describe our expression such as: feminine, masculine, woman, man, transfemme, transmasc, metrosexual, androgynous, etc. These are terms we may use to describe our style, expression, and identity- but that doesn't mean that they are defined similarly by other people. We all define these terms differently based on culture, and ways that we understand expression such as gender, sexual orientation, and culture. We often experience the assigned identities based on our self expression (such as queer gender and sexual orientation). Trans people, AFAB people, gender queer, two-spirit, and people with androgynous expressions, face this discriminatory social systems in everyday experiences.
When we express our identities we are often thinking about the ways we will be perceived socially, for some that may be thinking about the outside perception from people in public, and for others that may be planning an outfit night with friends. It's important that we remember that these things are never inherently dangerous or bad, but that the ways in which we are motivated to express our identity and interpret other identities can greatly impact people outside of ourselves.
Our identities have many facets, and the intersection of those identities result in a unique expression.
Harmful Impacts of Constructive Identity Expression:
Harmful Impacts of Constructive Identity Expression:
Impacts of Identity Expression:
Impacts of Identity Expression:
There are some struggles when people want to imbedded in queer culture and queer identity without being an ally and lying or hiding parts of their sexual identity in order to keep or gain social/societal power. Of course when it comes to any identity there is never a time in which we should be taking on an identity without fully understanding the implications and experiences of that identity. Identities are never a halloween costume, and no identity or associated-behaviors/language should never be socially appropriated. There are many ways in which our identities can intersect and impact us more.
Performative Identities:
Performative Identities:
With every identity, there are ways in which we can manipulate, co-opt, and appropriate identities in ways that give us more power and social status. Often times participating in these ways so that systems and structures strengthen, sustain, or increase your social status or power, is an active choice. These things often include performing for the people around you publicly and potentially privately. When one is performing identities for their social status, they are faced with the constant need to perform according to the social standards which often change frequently. This means that while one may be sacrificing the safety and existence of minority communities around them, as well as closing off portions of themselves they deem do not fit into the structure that provides them with the power and resources to survive comfortability, their values, morals, and standards, may also have to bend and change to the will of the social constructs and oppressionary/discriminatory systems.
Performing identity is not always inherently bad, but often times when we feel the need to perform an identity for social status or power, we are doing more harm to our self-identity than good. Of course we should always affirm ourselves in the control we have when it comes to expressing ourselves however we wish to exist. However, that does not always translate to how we desire to be perceived by our society and communities. While we can hope that people acknowledge our true identities and expression, we should not encourage tailoring our expression of identity to the way the social constructs and systems of oppression want us to in order to fit into their understood social identities and roles. (We acknowledge that while we deconstruct these social constructs, the reality is that sometimes we work within the social systems out of safety and not a desire to participate.)
We all carry multiple identities, some we choose to have, some are assigned to us by society. The ways in which these identities overlap and interact, is called intersectionality. Intersectionality is a frame of looking at the ways that we carry multiple identities both oppressive identities and privileged identities, and the ways that our communities and societal structure responds to those identities intersecting. Even though they are often social constructs and systems of oppression, race, gender, disability/accessibility, sexual orientation, and presentation all greatly impact the way they are positioned by society and seen by the world. When we are in public and private spaces we are impacted by our identities, but more often we are impacted by their intersection. We all carry intersectional identities, that effect each of us differently. The ways in which we respond to that effect and call out the systems of oppression when safe and able to do so, will begin deconstructing the colonization of identity.
Sometimes when we find ourselves with identities that largely differ from each other; for example a cisgender AMAB person will have more power than any-gender AFAB person; however, the dynamic can change if a the cisgender AMAB person is carrying a BIPOC identity. We know that social systems directly impact how much power we are able to receive from society, but that doesn't mean we should play into the social constructs and oppressionary systems that cause us and others harm. However, we find that due to the replicated structures of patriarchy, white supremacy, colonialism, and religious nationalism (etc.), people are still finding themselves forced into participating in these systems in order to survive.
Perception is how any given person individually experiences the world and the things it in around them. All of us have our own understandings about the community and society we have built around us. These things are difficult to understand until you notice your own perception changing as your life experiences increase. We having a way of learning things about our perception, but first we have to look at how we are perceiving these things. By knowing that Social Systems highly impact the perception people have on each other, we can stop the ways that these impact our reality. People want us to believe that these social systems actually rule or control our perception, which can be true if we are not readily combating advertisements and social norms that are product of social systems.
Other pages like this:
Other pages like this:
There is always more research being done!
There is always more research being done!
If you would like to help us write about commonly silenced areas or personal experiences you may have with these topics, contact us at thisisactivism2023@gmail.com or fill out our Comments page. We want our website to be a continuous growth of knowledge to share with each other in a positive way. There are so many things we don't talk about and we should!
There is always more research being done!
There is always more research being done!
If you would like to help us write about commonly silenced areas or personal experiences you may have with these topics, contact us at thisisactivism2023@gmail.com or fill out our Comments page. We want our website to be a continuous growth of knowledge to share with each other in a positive way. There are so many things we don't talk about and we should!
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse