Where queer people might take issue with your comment (I’m definitely lightly irked) is that cishet people never say “I wish we would stop focusing on labels” unless the discussion is about queer labels.
That’s exactly what I’m saying though. Labels (for the purposes of the point I’m trying to make) aren’t generally helpful except as a generic indicator of the prevalence of a particular group in society. Even then they tend to get in the way of the discussion that those labels and percentages are trying to promote.
Any group trends towards latching on to their label in an unhelpful way. Often saying that anyone who isn’t making the advancement of the group described by their favorite label a priority in their life is an enemy of the cause and therefore is against them personally.
It doesn’t really matter what the label is. LGB and T are some common labels you see this happening with, from both angles I’ll add, but they are far from the only ones. You see it with large groups like countries and political parties all the way down to mundane stuff like being right handed or which band you prefer in some hyper-obscure music genre. It’s all the same mostly unnecessary categorization of people that generally serves no useful purpose beyond making one group of people feel superior to another. That just seems so pointless to me. It reminds me of hunter gatherers protecting their tribe by ensuring no outsiders are allowed in.
I will concede that there are instances in which in can be useful to speak in such terms but the vast majority of the time it seems archaic and shallow and needlessly exclusionary.
That’s exactly what I’m saying though. Labels (for the purposes of the point I’m trying to make) aren’t generally helpful except as a generic indicator of the prevalence of a particular group in society. Even then they tend to get in the way of the discussion that those labels and percentages are trying to promote.
Any group trends towards latching on to their label in an unhelpful way. Often saying that anyone who isn’t making the advancement of the group described by their favorite label a priority in their life is an enemy of the cause and therefore is against them personally.
It doesn’t really matter what the label is. LGB and T are some common labels you see this happening with, from both angles I’ll add, but they are far from the only ones. You see it with large groups like countries and political parties all the way down to mundane stuff like being right handed or which band you prefer in some hyper-obscure music genre. It’s all the same mostly unnecessary categorization of people that generally serves no useful purpose beyond making one group of people feel superior to another. That just seems so pointless to me. It reminds me of hunter gatherers protecting their tribe by ensuring no outsiders are allowed in.
I will concede that there are instances in which in can be useful to speak in such terms but the vast majority of the time it seems archaic and shallow and needlessly exclusionary.
The queer version of “I don’t see color.”