Muh idenninny
This is where people are getting themselves when they make wild claims about “identity.”
Comic Relief firmly believes every individual has the right to be who they are and to define their own identity.
— Comic Relief (@comicrelief) November 15, 2018
Comic Relief firmly believes every individual has the right to be who they are and to define their own identity.
Oh come on now. Think before you say things like that. We don’t have “the right to define our own identity” in general. We can play, we can fantasize, we can pretend, we can imagine, in some situations and contexts, but not in all of them. We can make some changes to our identity, but we can’t just make any and every change we can think of, as an act of will or speech. We can’t “identify as” pharmacists or accountants or electricians if we haven’t had the relevant training and passed the relevant tests. We can’t “identify as” another nationality when crossing a border. We can’t “identify as” six years old in order to frolic with other sixes at the local playground. We can’t “identify as” dogs if we want to be seen and addressed as sane adults. Und so weiter. The individual isn’t all-powerful, and “identity” isn’t magic.
So you mean Trump really can’t identify as President? Because he has no relevant knowledge or skills? Hey, we’re saved! Oh, wait, he isn’t “identifying as”, he was sworn in as? Damn.
Yes that’s kind of a problem with elections – they don’t really have minimum qualification requirements or the like. Hence we get people like Reagan and Bush (who both got elected governor of states bigger than many countries) based on nothing, and now we got Trump who outdid them by getting elected prez despite a long and colorful criminal record along with the no qualifications part.
Indeed. As evidenced by the furor over Elizabeth Warren and Native American identity, some identities are off-limits. Some of it is just silliness – I met a woman once who claimed her true identity was a dolphin which seemed basically harmless although I think I disillusioned her a bit, telling her my stories of having interacted with dolphins in the wild while diving (short version – dolphins can be assholes). But when you get into appropriating the identity of people who are oppressed, all kinds of harm can ensue.
I just don’t understand why it can be “woke” to recognize that a white person identifying as African American is problematic and potentially harmful to actual African Americans, but a man identifying as a woman? Not so much.
I was reading something recently, I can’t remember what or where (might have been something you were critiquing, Ophelia) that talked about how some trans people had gender dysphoria, but not all and it confused the hell out of me. How can you be trans without gender dysphoria? What exactly does that mean?
And, of course, that is why trans activists had to re-position women as oppressors, because otherwise people might see what they are doing.
It wasn’t all that long ago that it was a huge no-no to commit ‘cultural appropriation’ by means of assuming the identity of a group you didn’t belong to. A white person wearing a sombrero or a feathered headdress was – and still is, as the commenters above point out – seen as extremely bad taste. The difference between that and a man wearing a skirt seems like shades of grey, but activists want to act like the first is awful and horrific while the second is woke and commendable.
I hereby declare myself King of Comedy.
The person running Comic Relief’s Twitter account needs to learn the difference between ‘who’s’ and ‘whose’.
Hey, not to nitpick but the title of this post is exactly what right-wing assholes do to make fun of women, minorities, lgb people, etc.. There’s pointing out that the tweet is asinine and then there’s using memes made by actual bigots to bully people who really don’t mean harm to anyone. What is there to accomplish spreading their language and using their tactics like that? Who benefits?