Truly Celebrating Difference

Diversity, but only the way I like it

• Why should we accept those different to us

  • Difference breeds perspective and innovation

  • We may have evolved with xenophobia built-in but we are smart enough to know that this primal urge should not control us

  • Philosophically, controlling another person's choices that have no impact on your is ridiculous

• What does it mean to celebrate difference?

  • There is profound beauty in the specificity of the individual

  • It's fair that many men and women, myself included, do not fit cleanly into the classical definitions of their gender archetypes

    • We're in danger of totally flipping the poles on this one

    • Toxic masculinity has grown to encompass traits that are incredibly common, useful and beautiful in men. We are shamed for our competitiveness, our ability to cultivate aggression and even (for some of us) our attraction to women

    • Similarly, women have been placed into a new, equally restrictive template

      • Focus on your career

      • You are not controlled by your emotions

        • Some of us, regardless of sex, do feel the influence of emotions far more intensely, we have invalidated the existence of this experience

      • Don't be excessively "girly" (this is a loose definition, go by example)

    • In our attempts to create equality we are also doing just the opposite

  • Feeling comfortable expressing exactly who you want to be and being accepted for it

  • We must make the distinction between celebration of difference and idolisation of identity

    • The identity arms race, I am more individual than you

• Does this imply the dissolution of all categories and labels?

  • A difficult issue

  • Categories are an evolutionary adaptation, our brains are not actually that powerful

    • We group things into boxes:

      • Plants vs Animals

      • Dogs vs Cats

        • We can easily recognise one dog from another, but I challenge you to avoid jumping to the word dog when you see one

        • A savvy post-modernist might point out that the category is just a social construct, and they would be correct, but it doesn't change the fact that while we could categorise differently we'd be hard pressed not to categorise at all

    • This is the same simplification that allows us to name anything

  • Today we are presented with unique challenges to ancient (and highly politicised) categorisations

  • For example, it has become apparent that our definitions of gender and sexuality are poorly suited to describe how many of us are

  • There are largely two approaches that have fallen out of this so far:

    • Destroy all labels, let us all be individuals

      • Conceptually I like this a lot

      • Practically it's... challenging

      • How do we talk about people? It creates a lot of overhead mentally

      • As someone of mixed-race I personally have great disdain for any discussion of what race someone is, race is a flimsy construct at best and I'd rather be evaluated for who I am. Are we really unable to comprehend someone without knowing their ancestry? On the other hand, there are many like me who would proudly and enthusiastically discuss their ethnicity and I can hardly claim they should do otherwise.

    • Make a lot of labels

      • This seems to be the direction gender and sexuality are heading in

      • This is a solid way forward, it allows us to have meaningful conversations about previously unrecognised groups of people

      • The challenge is that we seem to be trending towards a situation where, to describe their specific sexuality anyone could coin a new term

      • The cognitive overhead becomes a legitimate problem

        • How many genders becomes too many to expect people to learn?

        • If you refuse to shoulder the burden of non-binary as a category, that's on you

        • It's hard to discuss how many genders people would like there to be without using memes as citations, but for sake of argument if there were 1000 then clearly expecting us all to know them inside out isn't going to work

        • Additionally, the differences between these categories become infinitely smaller to the point where ignorance and confusion will result in unintended insults or misunderstandings of individuals' views

• These are both legitimate options, but both fall prey to the same trap: forcing change upon others

• What does equality really mean?

  • We continue to make the same mistake of trying to heavily control how others should live their lives and express themselves. Historically this has largely been through oppression and dehumanisation.

    • Yes, we must act when the actions and cultural attitudes being expressed are harming people, be it physically, mentally or otherwise

    • Is it possible for us to appreciate and understand one another without constantly retooling our lexicon? It's becoming apparent that

• The disappointing conclusion I find myself with is that categories are necessary for productive human conversations but they are inherently clumsy for those of us who sit on the boundaries (or firmly outside)