Hungry Ghosts (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
hungryghosts) wrote2021-04-26 09:26 am
hungryghosts) wrote2021-04-26 09:26 am
(no subject)
a perhaps unpopular opinion: it is important to allow people to choose, themselves, whether to call themselves plural, regardless of how Obviously Plural their experiences may or may not be
more and more, we are somewhat disenchanted with how plurality, the concept, is being entangled with the notions of plurality, the community. it seems that by calling yourself plural, you immediately become subject to a variety of demands. to determine and declare your trauma history, or lack thereof; to explain your suffering, or lack thereof, in gruesome detail; to submit yourself to be Sorted into an arbitrary -genic camp; to memorize and regurgitate ever-expanding vocabulary lists...
perhaps these are unspoken demands, but these ideas have become so prevalent that they have become demands, nonetheless. even we, several times removed from the community and spurning -genic words, feel their weight. in our time wandering outside the community and meeting questioning possibly-plurals, the thing that was most useful for them to hear was reassurance that whether to call themselves plural or not was *their* decision - that their experiences would still exist regardless of what terms were applied to it. that they were allowed to rest in their experiences without making Choices about what they were or weren't. that there was language if they wanted it, but that they were also free to find their own, or to embrace undefinability.
(this post brought to you by vague dissatisfaction over how many plural "101" resources contain long vocabulary lists of various -genic labels)
(also, hello, sorry for not being around for so long. we've been hovering around the higher levels of the emotional pain scale thanks to work. still figuring out what to do about it! but in the meantime we have disappeared into Games)
more and more, we are somewhat disenchanted with how plurality, the concept, is being entangled with the notions of plurality, the community. it seems that by calling yourself plural, you immediately become subject to a variety of demands. to determine and declare your trauma history, or lack thereof; to explain your suffering, or lack thereof, in gruesome detail; to submit yourself to be Sorted into an arbitrary -genic camp; to memorize and regurgitate ever-expanding vocabulary lists...
perhaps these are unspoken demands, but these ideas have become so prevalent that they have become demands, nonetheless. even we, several times removed from the community and spurning -genic words, feel their weight. in our time wandering outside the community and meeting questioning possibly-plurals, the thing that was most useful for them to hear was reassurance that whether to call themselves plural or not was *their* decision - that their experiences would still exist regardless of what terms were applied to it. that they were allowed to rest in their experiences without making Choices about what they were or weren't. that there was language if they wanted it, but that they were also free to find their own, or to embrace undefinability.
(this post brought to you by vague dissatisfaction over how many plural "101" resources contain long vocabulary lists of various -genic labels)
(also, hello, sorry for not being around for so long. we've been hovering around the higher levels of the emotional pain scale thanks to work. still figuring out what to do about it! but in the meantime we have disappeared into Games)
no subject
At the end of the day, we think that labels should be options, not expectations. Folks should be able to try them out and use them if they want, and to not use those labels if they don't want to. There's this huge expectation in some corners of the plural community to use specific labels regardless of whether someone wants to or not, and there's a sense that people aren't allowed to decide what to call themselves. It's a useful tool when choice is given, but it's stopped feeling like a choice in a lot of spaces and has become as expected as giving someone your name. Heck, a lot of introduction formats we've come across in chats required origin and other labels to be listed, which was... yikes. No thanks.
We could ramble on about this for a bit, but it's a significant part of why we don't use a lot of community terminology if we can help it. It's not a helpful tool for us anymore, just a bunch of expectations.
Hope the emotional pain scale goes down, that's never pleasant.