Comment by purple-dragon
6 years ago
That’s my point. You can call me gay all day, every day because of my hypothetical lisp. That doesn’t make it so.
6 years ago
That’s my point. You can call me gay all day, every day because of my hypothetical lisp. That doesn’t make it so.
Sure, but I was more responding to your post above saying "I decide when and what I do with my body and what that makes me. No stranger’s perception nor insistence can change that." The perception of others does affect a persons categorization. Humans also categorize based on stereotypical behavior of things within a category, eg. lisp and swaying gate in gay men, long hair and lowered muscle mass in women, etc. These are all stereotypes that are found in a higher density within those categories, and often people within those categories change their behavior to align more with those categories(women intentionally growing hair out and wearing makeup) to accent category projection and improve accurate category interpretation in others(that is a woman). In this way, stereotypes aren't always prejudicial, it's more of the rigidity of the category interpretation that makes something bad, such as saying all men with lisps are gay, which is wrong.
I know this is quite a bit, but the main point I'm trying to make is that there is nuance in this conversation. Categorizations aren't always evil(though they can be), and are important social signals in our society.
I mostly agree, but it is lazy, sloppy, and unnecessary to combine “gay” and “flight attendant” at the hip as multiple people have done in this post.
As for deciding “what that makes me”, I was trying to obliquely save room for the case another poster brought up, namely being gay or bisexual.