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December Days 02024 #9: Community: Not-Men
Dec. 9th, 2024 09:55 pm[This Year's December Days Theme is Community, and all the forms that it takes. If you have some suggestions about what communities I'm part of (or that you think I'm part of) that would be worth a look, let me know in the comments.]
For what it's worth, and usually, what it's worth tends to be other people having dismissive ideas about my experience and what I assert as my identity, I am not actually a man. I look like one, I sound like one, I work in a hyper-feminized profession like one, I wear pink like one, I try to contribute to house chores like one, I bake like one, I have a complete range of emotional expression like one…
Okay, yes, some of that has gone silly and doesn't fit the current conventional definition of manhood, and a significant portion more of it doesn't fit the corrosive and poisonous/venomous/toxic definition being pushed on men and boys by people who claim they are authoritative and must be listened to.
( Not A Man )
( Not A Girl, Either )
There's no big finale here, other than, like, "Be excellent to each other, and when someone tells you who they are, believe them." (Both for people telling you their correct forms of address and gender identity, and people telling you that they intend to be hostile to anything that dares to exist outside their conception of reality without their permission.) If humans as a species could manage to make it to just that bar, we'd be sitting a lot better on so many of our social problems. Even with the high percentage of people who appear to be very invested in identifying themselves as threats and enemies and who work to put threats and enemies into positions of institutional and governmental power.
For what it's worth, and usually, what it's worth tends to be other people having dismissive ideas about my experience and what I assert as my identity, I am not actually a man. I look like one, I sound like one, I work in a hyper-feminized profession like one, I wear pink like one, I try to contribute to house chores like one, I bake like one, I have a complete range of emotional expression like one…
Okay, yes, some of that has gone silly and doesn't fit the current conventional definition of manhood, and a significant portion more of it doesn't fit the corrosive and poisonous/venomous/toxic definition being pushed on men and boys by people who claim they are authoritative and must be listened to.
( Not A Man )
( Not A Girl, Either )
There's no big finale here, other than, like, "Be excellent to each other, and when someone tells you who they are, believe them." (Both for people telling you their correct forms of address and gender identity, and people telling you that they intend to be hostile to anything that dares to exist outside their conception of reality without their permission.) If humans as a species could manage to make it to just that bar, we'd be sitting a lot better on so many of our social problems. Even with the high percentage of people who appear to be very invested in identifying themselves as threats and enemies and who work to put threats and enemies into positions of institutional and governmental power.
