Ask Lemmy

I think in practice, most people who those terms would apply to don't really use them on a day to day basis. I'm probably both demisexual and demiromantic, but I've never consistently identified that way even though nothing really changed since I found out about the terms as a teenager. I think they're mostly useful if you're getting back into the dating scene (why it's more important to use them for me at the moment) or hanging out with people who end up also being on the aro/ace spectrums.

The short of it is: western society has been pretending human behaviour is simple and easy to understand for ages, but can't anymore, and that's leading to a fight over how to think about it all.

Homosexuality was viewed as a choice. Gender was viewed as natural rather than cultural. Criminals were just evil. Addicts were just irresponsible. Etc. Etc. In the last century, the democratization of expression and the shift to individualism has shattered that illusion of homogeneous simplicity.

This combines with a primitive delusion of semantic authority (this word has a specific defined meaning, and it is the one in the dictionary/my head) so that people think the object is determined by it's descriptors rather than the descriptor is defined by its context. People hear a word (e.g. man) and assume all the common entailments are mandatorily part of the definition. (e.g. penis, taller and broader than average, likes to have sex with women, likes to hunt/fight/sport, wants to be a father and provider, insert other cultural signifier of masculinity here) So, when someone sees a word being applied to someone, but doesn't feel like the definition in their head matches, they feel it's wrong. (e.g. He likes men. That doesn't match my definition of 'man.' Could my understanding of the word 'man' be wrong? Of course not. They must be something else. 'You there, stop calling yourself a man. You're not.')

The current battle is a battle to define what the next concensus will be for the definition of various words. Traditionalists want to go back to a more familiar way of defining things. (e.g. It had a penis at birth? Man. And he better act like one.) And they are willing to happily ignore the preferences of people who don't feel like that definition matches theirs. Neogenderists (for lack of a better term) believe something is wrong with the gender concepts and want to change them, whether that means adding one neuter gender, adding 100 genders, limiting us to the traditional two genders but removing physical sex as a characteristic in favor of just the cultural elements/secondary characteristics, or seeking to abolish gender entirely. Some people are interested in making the language match people's self-conceptions, some are not.

And all of this is still in flux. Who knows which group will be most prominent in 10, 20, 30, 100, or 1000 years? We could have a time in the future where people will die to fight for the idea that there are exactly four genders, 'man,' 'woman,' 'human,' and 'steve,' differentiated mostly by hair color, with entailments regarding preferences for spicy foods, appropriate toenail length, and room temperature, and that the people who want to dye their hair are transchromists. We'd all like to believe humanity would have the wisdom to avoid it, but looking around doesn't inspire much hope.

I don't usually like to use specific terms to define myself, but to me it's easier to say: "bisexual agender" than: "I don't actually fit into the gender roles nor identities, and I also like a lot of different people, but not always. Also I sometimes feel inclined to a gender, but never enough to say 'I'm that'". You know, like a TL;DR.

Also, I've known different types of people who need definitions and certain terms:

• People starting to explore their identities and want to know if there's someone somewhere that feels/understand the same.
• People that will invalidate feelings and will not believe things unless there's more people telling them that they exist (doesn't always work).
• I, because I'm lazy and specific terms save me some time when I don't want to explain the whole thing, but it's enough for others to look up.

I'm pretty sure there are more reasons, but you need to understand that external people will try to negate anything that's not "written down". And to add more context, there are some terms I haven't even seen in person or known, but whatever, I respect that. I hope categorizing is not needed in the future. Unfortunately, there's still backlash, hate and violence towards the community, with or without "weird" words, you can be targeted just because of your looks or your personality.

P.S.: some people may not need to specify their preference/identity, but that may be because theirs is seen as "normal", that's a whole other discussion.

I don't think the weird pronouns or identities like "I'm a blue black dragon born in Azeroth" make any sense to me whatsoever but it takes me zero effort to use whatever the person prefers so even if it doesn't make sense to me I'd rather not go out of my way to make a person sad, especially someone who I have no idea what they're going through in their own lives. We all got our own shit and the world would be a better place if people could just not be assholes to each other about the little things.

why do we have so many terms?

The reason I see behind this is hyper individualism. Every one needs to feel special and unique in a group supposed to act in solidarity. I disagree with the amount of terms, especially the slur included, because the community can be summed up with H (homosexual) and B (Bisexual). Everything else has created more infighting within the wider community, and made it feel like a dumping ground for anyone who isn't "cishet" for the sake of inclusion.

Is using a label not somewhat alienating?

I find this to be true, mainly when your label prevents you from interacting with people of the "wrong" label. Which isn't exclusive to the Gay community, and found anywhere people group up.

Why do pronouns have to depend on gender?

The entire purpose of pronouns is to avoid the repetition of a name.

"Sally said that Sally wanted to go to Sally's house to get Sally's medicine."

"Sally said that she wanted to go to her house to get her medicine."

They are dependent on the sex of the subject historically, leading to why they now depend on "gender" in language as we have been moving further from a binary understanding of sex.

Should this not just be something personal?

I think it is something that should be personal. No one needs to know the specifics of my sexual attractions excluding those I wish to be sexual with.

If a person tells me their gender, how should I react/respond to it?

I would say simply thank them for being open with you and do your best to use them. If all else fails people have a name and you can default to that to avoid misgendering someone and hurting them.

why do some groups use different acronyms?

Because there has never been a time where the "Gay community" was a unified community, and different groups with different acronyms tend to heavily disagree on what should be added or omitted. It goes back to the first point of why their are so many labels: Everyone wants to feel like an individual even in cases where they are a part of a group.

I see it like colours, there is an infinite amount of colours, but it makes sense to have a name for the common ones.

I don't know the answer, but I support people as however they identify, I don't care and love them all, but I sort of would feel silly saying I was she/her. Like it's like I'm participating in something that I'm not really a part of.

My 87 year old aunt volunteers for a local theater, which obviously has a lot of queer folks involved, and at one point the coordinator said when the volunteers introduced themselves at a meeting that they should announce their preferred pronouns. I get that the coordinator meant well, but my aunt said it's nobody's business what her pronouns are unless RuPaul is asking. LOL.

For what it's worth, I am one of those letters and it is somewhat irrelevant to my identity. My identity is the following: human being.

I consider the identity obsession of Gen Z to be mostly narcissistic self-regard. It reflects our society's rampant individualism, where kids have become a lifestyle choice and pampered like fragile consumer objects. I don't have any answers about how to fix any of this. Indeed I'm something of an individualist myself.

Be nice to people, but don't feel the need to indulge their whims if it feels unreasonable.

If a person tells me their gender, how should I react/respond to it? Is my current line of actions appropriate (just address them with their preferd pronouns, and if I do not know that, use they/them; completely ignore the sexual part of it)

That's perfect. Many people struggle with this, myself included, but if you make an honest effort to address people by their preferred pronouns, then you're doing great.

Lots of great responses here. I just want to add my own reply to your question “why do we need so many terms?”: Specificity.

Any sufficiently matured field, subject, or activity will naturally accumulate more varied and specific terminology so that discussions around it can be more nuanced.

This applies to literally everything, however specifically in the context of identity and sexuality it is very important for people to be able to express themselves and feel like they have been heard and understood.