affinity language

[sophiaserpentia]

Originally published at Monstrous Regiment. You can comment here or there.

I’ve written a bit in the last few months about affinity politics and how it differs from identity politics.  This morning i was thinking about the language we use and how it affects the way we think about identity, affinity, and “who” or “what” people are.

Take the term “LGBTIQQ:” Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex, Questioning, and Queer.  This term has grown like a snowball because of attempts by activists to grow a coalition from scratch.  It started out as “Gay and Lesbian,” which (anyone alive during the 1970’s can tell you) was not always an obvious alliance.  The other terms were added as the coalition grew, in recognition of affinity between various groups, and to prevent re-invention of the wheel with regards to addressing similar political needs.

But the term feels unwieldy now because the community is changing its approach from identity politics to coalition of affinity.  If we want to be more inclusive, we can’t just keep tacking letters on (how about a P for polyamorous and a K for kinky too?).  Yet if more people join the movement, they deserve to be recognized somehow.  (At the same time, a danger here is that the needs of some of us could be lost in the wash — see Marti’s posts on the Transadvocate main page for insight about this.)

The difference between affinity and identity could be compared to the difference between analog and digital.  “Analog” looks at the world and sees continuous spectra; “digital” breaks the world down into discrete, distinct units. “Digital” makes it possible to condense information, but a lot of information is lost in the process.

The human brain looks for shortcuts.  It prefers digital over analog because categories make it possible to make decisions and draw conclusions without having to juggle a lot of possibly irrelevant information.  But when we do this to a person, we write over a lot of who that person is, and draw a lot of conclusions, possibly incorrect, about what they are like or what they think based on just a small amount of knowledge about them.

Our brains learn to break people down in a very digital way: “man” vs. “woman,” “gay” vs. “bi” vs. “straight:” distinct categories which we speak of as attributes that a person “is.” This leaves no room for contrary information (”How can he be ‘gay’ if he’s dating a woman?”) and it leaves no room for change (”You’re dating a man? I thought you were a lesbian.”)

We meet someone and then file away in our brain that this person “is a gay man” or a “is a straight woman.”  And then whenever we think about that person we pull whatever thoughts go along with “gay man” or “straight woman” and, accurate or not, apply those thoughts to that person and even write them as expectations of that person. We also treat these people according to the rules and dictates of society, many of which depend on this categorization of people.

Earlier forms of the liberation movement have reacted to this treatment by questioning the stereotypes without questioning the identity.  Affinity coalition is the next obvious step: questioning the discreteness of identity. It’s helpful to be able to describe where we are in our lives right now without having to be saddled with an identity forever and ever; a lot of these things change. Indeed, liberation depends on the loosening of categories just as much as it depends on the loosening of categorical expectation.

A few people around me have taken to describing themselves using numbers along the Kinsey spectrum rather than say they are “gay,” “lesbian,” “bi,” “straight,” “pansexual,” or what have you.  And they might say, “At this point in my life i am a Kinsey 3, but when i just entered adulthood i was a pretty firm Kinsey 0.”  Being able to express this variance-over-life is important because it helps to reduce the chance that someone will assign us to one category for life (and then have to deal with dissonance when we change). I’ve also heard the word “spectrum” being used to refer loosely to categories of people: for example, “female spectrum” as a term loosely referring to anyone who feels they are anywhere on the female side of totally androgynous.

I think this is a step in the right direction, but i wonder if terms like “spectrum” aren’t inherently dualistic.  We often think of a spectrum as a range going from A to B, and so i wonder if it’s still too easy to fall into dualistic or digital thinking.

To this end i pondered a number of other possible terms, which do not necessarily imply linearity: cluster, community, constellation, galaxy, nebula, orbit, set, sphere, universe, web.   Another factor is, if i use the term outside this journal, someone would have to intuitively know what i mean; this rules out some of the terms above.

I think i like “galaxy.”  If i were to say “the MTF galaxy” versus “the MTF spectrum,” you’d know roughly what i meant.

Comments

That...

[drooling-ferret.livejournal.com]

That, or genre fiction with a very specific target audience. ;)

Though I'm constantly hearing "bucket" used in this way at work (well, not this specific application, but as a general grouping word).

Re: That...

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

"Bucket"? I can see what they mean by that, but IMO there's too much of a possible negative connotation there.

Re: That...

[ineffabelle]

Mah bucket!!

(sorry, just had to...)