Identifying into oppression - discussion, challenging etc

[GCRich]

Imagine a hypothetical young woman. Her father works in a very well paid finance job and her mother is a fairly famous actress. Her education was expensive and then she went on to a top university.

She is good looking, gender conforming and had a spectacular traditional white wedding to a gender conforming man at a reasonably famous wedding venue. So far she pretty much ticks every single privilege box going, other than her sex.

She identifies as LGBTQI+++++++++++ and in particular non-binary, and as an aspiring musician regularly appears at various open mic nights for the LGBTQ+ community across Los Angeles where she lives.

Now, this hypothetical woman could, for all we know, have suffered significant trauma as a kid. She could be bi-sexual and suffered homophobic abuse all through her teens. She could suffer from depression or autism or any number of mental health conditions that make her life a struggle.

But I cannot help think that it is deeply offensive.

(1) Saying you are NB when married and gender conforming is meaningless.

(2) Surely the LGBTQ+ community is about the shared experience of oppression as a result of one's identity / orientation? Even if one is bi-sexual and NB does one experience any oppression at all if gender conforming and heterosexually married? Even if one is literally part of the LGBTQ+ community does that mean that one is morally part of it? Is your participation not taking opportunities away from those suffering from genuine oppression (eg a feminine gay man who was kicked out of home at 16 for being gay).

(3) Under what circumstances is it reasonable to call the woman out for appropriating oppression and playing the victim? Note - she is probably Top 1% of the global population when it comes to privilege, even accounting for the fact that she is relatively underprivileged as a woman.

(4) Is there anything more annoying than hypothetical people like the person above? Maybe this post should be in AIBU. "AIBU to get insanely cross when I see deeply privileged people identifying into oppression?"

(5) If this is all hypothetical then what is the point of the thread?

My two cents? People are people. Treat others as you would like to be treated, and stop trying to prove to yourself that you are special and different.

The end.

Well, I have come across a many people online who veer towards having this as a story, and I have combined elements I have seen from various random people, with others I have made up, in order to illustrate a point.

I suppose that I have the tendency to detest dishonesty. I absolutely hate it. And I find myself INCREDIBLY angry and frustrated when I see privileged people espousing hateful beliefs (homophobic and misogynisitic) from a deeply privileged position, whilst claiming to be the victim of misogyny and homophobia and transphobia.

Pulp wrote a great song about this in the 90s

So it's not a hypothetical person then?

I quite detest soapboxing, and white knighting the LGBTQI++++--- WHATEVER LETTER GOES HERE NEXT community. They can and do speak for themselves.

It was the Pulp glory days.

🤣🤣🤣

True.

So it's not a hypothetical person then?

I quite detest soapboxing, and white knighting the LGBTQI++++--- WHATEVER LETTER GOES HERE NEXT community. They can and do speak for themselves.

Well, it's not a real person, it is illustrative of many real people. What word would you prefer to use than "hypothetical", given "real" would be a 100% cast iron lie?

Re: your second paragraph - are you saying that you hate what I am doing or that you hate what a gender conforming married heterosexual is doing?

Ho do you know that they're gender conforming and heterosexual? Are you the LGBTQ police? If it's a typical scenario then it's not hypothetical, is it? Who are you calling out? Is it Lady Gaga or Michelle Visage???

"How do you know that they're gender conforming and heterosexual? Are you the LGBTQ police? If it's a typical scenario then it's not hypothetical, is it? Who are you calling out? Is it Lady Gaga or Michelle Visage???"~

In my hypothetical example (and online in real life multiple times) I have seen the social media profile which shows the woman to be gender conforming and in a heterosexual relationship. As I made clear in OP I acknowledge that it is possible to be bisexual whilst being in a straight relationship (but I also think that feminine gay men probably suffer more homophobic abuse than gender conforming women in straight marriages. )

What is your problem? Are hypothetical examples based on numerous real life experiences an invalid way of talking about an issue?

I think you're looking for reasons to be offended, implying that you're actually being oppressed by women who don't wish to "conform" as how they appear to you. Women are arguably the most oppressed group in history, and complex beings by your own description!

Wasn't there a barrister/banker(?), who's a part time trans woman? Won an award that was supposed to be reserved for woman. Oh, and the actor Ezra something.

Bit of a tangent, haven't there been straight women in relationships with tw, who call themselves lesbians? Not the transwidows, that's a whole different shitshow. In these instances there's no gaslighting. Do these women have the PC of sexual orientation? Not judging them, just curious. I don't know if it would make any difference in practice.

Would the problem be that PCs become so diluted and broad they essentially become meaningless.

MollyRover

I think you're looking for reasons to be offended, implying that you're actually being oppressed by women who don't wish to "conform" as how they appear to you. Women are arguably the most oppressed group in history, and complex beings by your own description!

Nope, I can say for sure that you are 100% wrong. I AM offended. Seeing people who are bursting with all sorts of privilege claiming to be oppressed for being "queer" and using facilities designed to be for the LGBT community, whilst being in a heterosexual marriage and in no way appearing to be part of the LGBT community beyond calling themselve "NB" massively offends me. The lie offends me. The claiming of victimhood offends me. The claiming of resources for underprivileged people whilst clearly not needing them offends me. The homophobic and misogynistic lecturing they do offends me.

NB has always been a meaningless category.

But maybe the real problem is that people in general are so desperate to belong to an identity group? I know a couple gay musicians, I can't really imagine any of them going to a special LGBT+ open mic night.

IcakethereforeIam · 18/05/2022 13:34

Bit of a tangent, haven't there been straight women in relationships with tw, who call themselves lesbians? Not the transwidows, that's a whole different shitshow. In these instances there's no gaslighting. Do these women have the PC of sexual orientation? Not judging them, just curious. I don't know if it would make any difference in practice.

Would the problem be that PCs become so diluted and broad they essentially become meaningless.

Yes. I am not a lesbian, but I am offended on behalf of lesbians. I cannot imagine how frustrating it would be to suffer from discrimination for being a lesbian, and then get a lecture from a straight woman having straight sex with a male bodied penis-haver about how that straight women is actually even more oppressed because not only are they a lesbian but they are in a relationship with a trans person as well. "Back of the queue butch lesbians - you don't matter"

I am judging them!

"I know a couple gay musicians, I can't really imagine any of them going to a special LGBT+ open mic night."

But presumably if someone were to decide that an LGBT+ open mic night is what they wish to host, in order to give LGBT+ musicians a chance that they might not get elsewhere, your gay friends might consider it a bit cheeky of straight musicians to sign up?

There seems to be a whole hierarchy of oppression that people are desperate to crowbar their way into. I was reading an article on 4th wave now from a detrans. Canadian girl. Because they it'd as male, they went to the end of the trans oppression queue, behind essentially middle aged straight white men. Were gaslit into sexual relationships, young girls coerced into sexual relationships with men in their 30s or older. Believing that they had stop shut up and listen or they were oppressing these men.

You judge away, I won't judge you for it.

Ya, the NERVE of you Karen

I’m a lesbian, I get what you mean, I am sick of people using the very vague “queer” label when they are gender conforming and have only ever had public heterosexual relationships to somehow claim they are discriminated against, are LGBT, and then start pontificating about issues which as far as I can see don’t actually affect them, they also take places up which should be for people who actually are LGBT.

Jamila Jamil springs to mind, who conveniently declared herself “queer” when she faced backlash about her suitability as a judge in Legendary.

yanbu

I know 2 people in a professional context . Both heterosexual women married to men. They do not appear to be gender non- conforming in any way. Both have recently said they are non-binary and thus claim a trans identity, they are quick to take offence if anyone forgets their new pronouns.
I find it all a bit tedious to be honest, who cares? They appear to be exactly the same women they were before.

I'm not sure they would particularly support the point, that there is a need for such things or that creating a seperate set of events is really a positive approach.

But they are all older and tend to belong to the school of thougt that thinks that sexual preferences aren't an identity but just a small fact.

Which is maybe the point, if these things become identities more than material facts they will tend to be difficult to contain.

I'm not part of the lgbtq+ community but is it all about a shared experience of oppression?

Claiming a so called non-binary identity is how otherwise privileged folk launder that privilege.

It is a power play, pure and simple, as is most genderism.

I’m a lesbian, no it’s not all about that, but it’s part of it as it’s a shared experience almost all of us have had, especially people growing up prior to the 2000’s.

I’m not really an “active member” of the community any more, in that I don’t have any gay friends and I don’t go to gay events. I used to, but weirdly I don’t think I have anything in common with most other lesbians except we both like women. All my friends are straight, I’ve tried to become friends with other lesbians over the years, but we don’t seem to have any common interests. I would say my life is the same as any heterosexual woman I just happen to be with a woman rather than a man.

I think for some people they just want to feel a part of a community and want something to play victim about that means they’re “not like other people”. So they adopt these vague identities like queer or non-binary as they can’t really be questioned and it allows them to “join the community” and feel oppressed. It’s bizarre to me as it’s the total opposite of what I wanted growing up, but these are different times.

"all about a shared experience of oppression?"

I did phrase that badly. What I meant was "surely an inherent part of being a member of the LGB community is the oppression almost certainly faced at one time or another?" I did not mean to imply that there wasn't a bit more to it than that!

As an aside I have suffered homophobic and anti-semitic abuse in person despite being neither jewish nor gay.