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?"

on earth CARES what she does!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Apparently you do. At least you cared enough to comment.

I agree with the OP. People pretending to be victims when they're not are at the very least annoying - and at worst downright despicable. Especially when they're stealing resources that are supposed to go to real victims.

Is she aware of her privilege?

personally I’d leave her to it, accept her for who she is but quietly assume it was borne out of a need to be fashionable or special

You're being a bit unfair to bisexual people in opposite-sex relationships.

Assuming an equal attraction to, and preference for, women and men, and no other complicating factors, a bisexual person is far more likely to end up in an opposite-sex relationship than a same-sex one.

If I'm a bisexual woman, the vast majority of the single men I meet will be straight or bisexual and therefore a potential relationship partner. Only a small minority of the single women I meet will be lesbian or bisexual and therefore a potential partner (even ignoring the fact that some lesbians prefer not to have relationships with bisexual women). In other words, for a bisexual woman who's equally attracted to men and women the dating pool is overwhelmingly male.

The fact that bisexuals usually end up with an opposite-sex partner isn't necessarily anything to do with choosing an easier life of heteronormativity — it's basically a numbers game.

But being in an opposite-sex relationship doesn't mean that person is any less bisexual, and they may still need some services and communities oriented towards gay, lesbian, or bisexual people. To question whether bisexuals in heterosexual marriages are "morally" part of the LGB community or whether it's possible for them to experience oppression on the basis of their sexuality is playing right into the bisexual erasure tropes that don't seem to ever go away. Certainly they have it easier in a lot of respects than people in same-sex relationships, but your sexuality doesn't go away.

If you are bisexual in a monogamous m/f partnership you either don't let people know you are bisexual and get grief for being privileged enough to fly under the radar, or you do tell people you are bisexual and get accused of wanting in on special status. You can't win.

As for the 'apparently' heterosexual women of the OPs post, I suspect that they violently reject the 'cis' label (a completely reasonable position), but are not trans - so non-binary is the only label within gender ideology that they can use. If I believed in gender ideology I would have to do the same.

As such I have a lot more sympathy for them than I do heterosexual males declaring themselves lesbians without changing a thing about themselves.

I'm no believer in GI so I don't see the world through that lens. That said, I don't see why a believer would "violently reject the 'cis' label". It's almost as if they're seeing 'cis' as an insult. If they do, it speaks volumes about their view of people onto whom they project that label.

I don’t see how being married in a mixed sex relationship means you are automatically any more gender conforming than any other woman? To me women are women whatever their marital status and some bisexual people marry partners of the opposite sex. They aren’t less bisexual or more womanly. Probably more people assume they are heterosexual because statistically it’s more likely that a married woman is……I don’t really get the issue. Are you saying you can only “do” all the initials if you perform it in a particular way or that you think she’s lying about her sexual preferences and niche ideas about gender?

I didn't say they regarded cis as an insult, just that they rejected it ('violently' was a bit of rhetorical flourish on my part, I should have said 'strongly' perhaps).

I also don't see that stating yourself as non-binary 'projects' cis-ness on others. Presumably if you believe in gender ideology you believe that everyone just decides which trans/cis/non-binary label fits. (Which is why they are so obsessed with everyone stating their identity/declaring pronouns etc because otherwise there is literally no way to know).

Believers in critical race theory and intersectionality buy into a hierarchy of oppression. Being white is regarded as very privileged no matter what your life circumstances may be. Some people cannot bear to regard themselves as the oppressor and fear others will despise them for their 'cishet normativity'. Thus they grasp for an identity that will signal their belonging to the oppressed group, rather than the oppressor group.

Being NB is the laziest of the trans identities because all you need do is choose new pronouns and then wait to get offended when someone gets them wrong. Also 'queer', no one knows what it means anymore so anyone can adopt it. As that funny lady on Twitter the other day said, with the alphabet people everyone after the B is straight.

@ClumpingBambooIsALie and @DyingForACuppa

Thanks for the other side of the coin. Which is what I posted for, not just affirmation.

Just to be clear, in my hypothetical example I have no reason whatsoever to believe that the person is bi. They identify as LGBTQ+ and non-binary and attend LGBTQ+ events, but I have no knowledge of what - if anything - their other links are to the LGBTQ+ community are. They might have identified as a lesbian for ten years and suffered greatly, before realising they are bi. They might find the thought of lesbian sex disgusting, and literally the only thing "queer" about them is that they claim to identify as NB. I have no idea.

I suppose my question could be "you meet someone in a hobby group you are part of. You get on well and think that you might become good friends. They are femine presenting and tell you about their husband. They then mention that they are attending an event for LGBTQ+ people tomorrow and are non-binary. How do you work out to what extent they are "genuinely LGBTQ+" and to what extent they are pushing misogynistic and homophobic ideas whilst being the epitome of straight privilege in every single way and claiming to be 'queer'?"

@DyingForACuppa thanks for the clarification, in fairness I think my comment could be read a bit....snidey (?), not my intention . But I do feel that 'cis' is used disparagingly, like 'vanilla' or 'whitebread'. Perhaps also because it irritates GC people?

"5zeds
I don’t see how being married in a mixed sex relationship means you are automatically any more gender conforming than any other woman?"

It doesn't. In my hypothetical example the NB person was born female, has long hair and make-up and feminine clothes, and had a traditional white wedding to a man in a suit. The person is gender conforming irrespective of the straight marriage.

Is she? She doesn’t behave as most of my female friends. Is it MORE gender conforming to have long hair and sex with a man? Sounds unlikely and like you agree with gender stereotyping more than you are aware.

Ya, I don't think the OP is very inclusive either.

Labels aren't inclusive.

No they're not. This business of "I'm more oppressed than you are" is getting quite tiresome aswell.