Labels: bug or feature?
#LGB is trending on Twitter and other places.
And no, it's not about trains, so let's not derail this topic.
Talks about a group that has made advanced to take the "T" out of the LGBT
Says that the "T" needs to break off from the LGB
Talks about how the "T" should not be removed at all.
Let's not even go down the rabbit hole that is "TERFs" - oh boy! Trans-Exclusive Radical Feminists! Sounds like fun! I'm sure nothing could go wrong...
This https://www.transhub.org.au/101/trans-lgbt gives one people's view of why the T is in the LGBT.
However, my focus is not on the politics, sexuality, gender, or whatever that the LGBT stands for, but rather the label itself.
Labels are a bug in our software.
Our software, in this analogy that I'm using to make this whole presentation, is reality itself. Whoever or whatever made it left in plenty of bugs and no patch for us, so we are on our own.
Labels are - useful features - I'm a skeptic. Atheist. Agnostic, Igtheist, utilitarian, Logician, male, heterosexual, middle age, white, American, human, omnivore, VET, single. Ex-christian, infidel. Bipedal, insomniac! Also, a few other labels that I'd rather not disclose and a few that I reject, and others that I pretend not to have.
So it's a feature - you know something about me you did not know.
Yet, you can not know all there is to know about me with just those labels.
But, I am not just any of those. Basing my identity, my "self" on any of that would not be useful to me, as I'm more than any of that.
So it's a bug then - because it's not as functional as we would like, also it's bad because anyone can claim to have any label and there is no way to stop them from doing so!
Yet, we have this separation of a label into smaller labels - because the LGBT is not "just" a label, it's also a movement, it's also a political ideology of sorts, its... what is it really? Who says what it is? Can anyone claim ownership of it?
Well, no. But people can and will claim it regardless, and other people will want their own label. They will move away from the current label to a new or old label, because people want to self identify.
That's fine, but it's making the system go buggy now. The feature that was useful in one place is now running rampant all over the place! Why?
Because.... humans are complex. We are social creatures; we yearn for a group, but we also like to be alone and our own self. We put on a group identity yet might lose the self identity. Such is the danger of the label.
So, how can we best use this feature, or how do we patch this bug?
That... is my question.
I do not know how to solve it! You do it! GO GO GO! ... and let me know when you have it figured out! :)
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