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Do we really want to get rid of categories ?

Fdaniel's picture

After reading Kate Bornstein's workbook I was very confused as to whether I was questioning my gender and sexuality enough. Was I not being open minded because It never crossed my mind that I might want to kiss a girl? Or was it Kate Bornstein that needed to lay off on the questions! After reading this workbook I have came to the conclusion that I am for sure a cisgendered woman. However, I questioned whether I should even label myself anything other the name I'm most comfortable with, Faith (my first name). Do I want to deminish labels? Or do I want to keep them and continue categorizeing people that dont nessarily want to be categorized. When talking to Sam today I got a new perspective. Sam discussed the idea of actually being comfortable in one's box and not being asshamed of it. Well I second that! I think that labels are a sense of comfort but they can also be something that categorizes people in a negative light. So, to hell with all this confusion!!! For once there is an answer to this conflict. The answer is ... to do what ever the hell you want! If you want a label be my guess and if you dont simply inform people what you'd like to called. However, ultimately it's not just "society" that creates these categories its US! We renforce them everyday. We use pronouns like "he" or "she" without asking and we check boxes that say male or female on it. I think companies ask female or male for identification purposes not nessarily to oppress us as a society. My name is Faith Daniel, I could be mistaked for a boy by just my name being written on a piece of paper as opposed to me idenitifying that I am in fact a woman. Really think about how our world would be if we eliminated categories, labels and gender all together!!

Comments

Taylor11's picture

being comfortable with categories

It would be really interesting to be in a world that didn't have categories because we rely on them so much.  As humans it seems we like to put everything in a certain places and we find comfort in the fact that we know where things should be and how they are defined.  If categories, lables and gender were to disappear the  world and how humans view it would change.  Instead of looking at something or someone and categorizing them based on appearence and how they fit into certain boxes based on defintions, the something or someone being viewed would be seen as what?  We are very programed to put things and people into boxes even if we are unaware that we are doing it.  I find it very difficult to imagine a world without categories because putting things in categories is second nature to me because it is what we do everyday.