What is your sexual orientation?

[vivster]

curl-6 said:

vivster said:

Labels are generally bad. Cis and trans+ being the worst.

I couldn't give a shit how good applying labels to oneself makes people feel, it is bad and will inevitably lead to toxicity. A person's Identity should never EVER EVER be based on belonging to a certain group. Group thinking will always lead to antipathy towards outsiders, especially when a person considers belonging to a group as part of their identity.

Personality is personal and has nothing to do with anyone else. Personalities are too complex for any label anyway. Even my hardcore introversion doesn't fit at all times, so I try to not call myself an introvert, but rather just say that I am mostly introverted. Seems like not a huge difference, but it really is, because I do not count myself as part of a group called "introverts".

Same with my sexuality. Depending on wildly different definitions I might be called straight, bi or even gay by different people. So I rather describe what body parts and traits I'm attracted to.

There is simply no need to label anything about my personality or identity, especially not my gender or sexuality.

Anyone who labels their identity is part of one of the biggest social problems we as humans face.

While I cannot comment on sexuality labels, I must respectfully disagree that labels in general are bad. They can be, but they can also be very helpful.

When you're very different from most other people, belonging to a community you have a lot in common can bring with it immense benefits, I've seen this firsthand in my job as well as experiencing it myself. Similarly, diagnosis and the "label" that comes with it is often a revelatory and very positive moment for many neurodiverse people.

I don't hate or feel antipathy towards those who are different from myself. These differences already exist, independent of labels, putting a name to it simply makes it easier to navigate.

Without a label to help others understand the needs of myself and those like me, I and countless others would not have received the support that we require to live a normal-ish life.

I realize this is veering quite off topic from the issue of sexuality, sorry about that, all I'm saying is that while an "us vs them" mentality can definitely arise from labels, they can also do a lot of good. At the end of the day, while the name itself has something of a negative connotation, it's ultimately just a way to make things easier to understand.

The positive things you said about labels are exactly the problem.

Yep, it makes people feel good to have some sense of belonging. Which will then screw up everything because it becomes like a drug, people crave acknowledgement from within their group and then from outsiders until it spirals out of control and we have a mess like the current trans community. I don't think the small benefits labels bring are worth the detrimental effects. You will have a similar effect if you go about it differently to be recognized.

The second part is labels make things simple. That will also have disastrous effects in both directions. First it boils down a complex thing into something binary, robbing it of many important distinctions within that group. It'll lead to prejudice and lack of important information, which will draw animosity towards the group and at the same time will limit the support it can get because the support will be on the same basic level as it is understood under the label.

Labels feel good and make things simple. You know what else does? Heroine.

Basically all the worst things that happened in human history happened because of group thinking and it's today as bad as ever.