• kadu@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    This is (usually) the result of years of not being to openly label yourself, hiding who you are, and feeling alone and not part of a broader community.

    Just like a compressed spring will then expand after being let go before returning to a more balanced state, when society slowly gave queer people the space to at least exist openly, people started looking really deeply at “who they are” and “what communities do I belong to” and “how do I find what I want in a sea of diversity” which in turn gave rise to surprisingly specific microlabeling.

    The tendency is for this to tone down, with broader categories. But who knows, we can’t really predict language and societal change like that.

    • shneancy@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I saw that in myself actually. I used to look for a very specific label to describe myself with, now I just go with “mostly man I guess”

    • uranibaba@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      That would explain why hbt -> hbtq -> htbqi -> hbtqi+ (and probably more that I don’t know about).

      I was very confused when this started early on, when trying to do right and using the correct label/word, just to learn there was a new letter to the acronym.

    • aidan@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Labeling yourself is not being who you are. And, gender nor sexuality are a community.

        • aidan@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          You are who you are, whether you publicly label yourself as it or not. Others recognizing how I feel, and what I want, has nothing to do with whether it is legitimate or not.

          they can be.

          How so?

          • FeminalPanda
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            1 year ago

            Labeling myself helps me understand myself better and finding others like me.

            People coming together for a shared cause/feeling/purpose is a community. That’s like saying knitting isn’t a community.