positionality vs identity

making this post in response to circulating claims about "transmasc privilege" and a noticeable gap in some of y'alls understanding of oppression.

positionality can be thought of as the way society perceives and treats you, and what privileges you are afforded accordingly.

identity can be thought of as your internal sense of self.

for most people, the two do not line up perfectly. your positionality depends on what people immediately see, not what you tell them. your positionality may also vary day to day based on a number of factors including but not limited to the people you are surrounded by, the space you are in, and the positionalities and identities of those perceiving you.

privilege is based almost entirely on positionality, not identity.

a good example is the diversity within the transgender community. if you take three transgender men at different stages in their transition they will each have a different positionality. one may have the positionality of a gender conforming cisgender man, the second may have the positionality of a transgender man, the third may have the positionality of a gender conforming cisgender woman. the gendered privileges these three people are afforded are vastly different despite all three of them having an identical gender identity.

if you have the positionality of a certain marginalized group, you will be targeted with the same oppression as them whether or not you share an identity with them. the fact that you don't share the identity doesn't suddenly make that oppression go away. you can be oppressed based on a positionality that does not align with your identity.

if you have questions on positionality vs identity i urge you to reply to this post instead of ignoring the gap in your knowledge.

on positionality

What a clear, excellent explanation for why articulating one's social/cultural identity has value. Emphasis added.

Home Is Here: Practicing Antiracism with the Engaged Eightfold Path by Liên Shutt (2023)

In the Soto Zen tradition, when I’m asked to give a Dharma talk, it is customary at the beginning for me to thank the abbatial leader of the temple and the Tanto, who is the head of practice and the person whose job it is to invite me. Next, I thank my teachers. All this is part of locating. It’s not just common courtesy; it’s to locate me in a lineage and a sect of Buddhism, and in a lineage of practitioners. Locating ourselves has significance; it takes effort and intentional attention to honor where we come from and who we are. At another place where I teach, we invite people to say what land they are on currently to honor the Indigenous peoples and also as an act of anti-oppression by acknowledging we’re on stolen land. We also invite people to share their pronouns as a way to say that we’re inclusive of gender diversity. Other social locations that are often shared, depending on which community of practitioners I’m teaching or practicing with, are sexual orientation, class, ability, immigration status, and neurodiversity These are all frames of reference for knowing where and how we inhabit our locations, specifically in different systems of oppression. It can also locate us in communities and, therefore, in systems of joy and of belonging. At the same time, part of our practice is about having a sense that there is fluidity and that these ways of self-identification or of being perceived by others are not all we are. As practitioners of Buddhism, we want to be aware that identity arises due to present causes and conditions. Therefore, how we all come to be here in this place, at this moment, is always in context

from Eumenides

By Aeschylus, Translated by Sarah Ruden

CHORUS: What must be is set in the ground. We are contrivers We bring our work to its end, unforgetting, fearsome, inexorable to mortals. What is appointed for us has no honor but a place apart from the gods, in sunless mire. We lay a rocky path for those who see the daylight and the blinded dead alike.

Who among mortals lacks awe, lacks terror at all this, hearing me speak of the law laid down by destiny—and its fulfillment that the gods concede? The ancient prerogative is mine, and I meet no insults in it, though I stand at my post underground in sunless murk.

hey um. u sure make a lot of art about lesbians for a man. you're normal about us, right? ;;

What? Yeah, I’m normal about y’all.

IMO! If kids face abuse to prevent them from becoming queer, regardless of whether or how that possibility manifests later in life, we should not be quarreling over whether that "counts" as homophobia. Because if they do turn out heterosexual, I don't think their latent heterosexuality was doing them any favors. If I were to recount my experiences with homophobia, surely you wouldn't tell me I could only start with the moment I came out, or that I couldn't count the comments of strangers who don't technically know my sexual orientation. Sorry to be annoying but with the historicity of queerness and how it's deployed on an "I know it when I see it" basis make it hard to say what counts and doesn't, which is why queer theorists are less inclined to make it an identity politics of discrete categories. I also think, say, sex workers are positionally queer regardless of identity. IMO!

keep trying write brief intro summary about life because drastic decline of health stuff because keep being paranoid about not-so-kind & conservative & ableist people who knew me before that all happened finding me now and thinking am faking all of it

and keep failing!!! on how many draft now n been working on it for past year or maybe even more!!!! communication disability strikes again (it strikes every day)

Dear grantees who want to work with a public library:

We don't need to know the history of your project.

We don't need to hear about "liberatory spaces" or the "coloniality of learning".

We certainly don't need to hear about "feminisms" (are there more than one?), "methods of survivance" (why not "survival"?), or "intersectional positionality in the world" ("positionality"? Are you ok?).

We need to hear about what people will actually be DOING at the event you are proposing to hold at the library.

xoxo

A librarian

PS: Please do yourself a favor and touch grass.

unfortunately hes kind of right in some ways like q being a better figurehead for spanish and english communities but thats just it. BILINUGAL. i personally do not believe that his intention from the beginning was to create a MULTILINGUAL server because he said himself in his initial promo that his intention was to connect his english and spanish communities. projects can evolve and change and he couldve added new languages naturally obviously but in my mind i believe if dream hadnt released his video when he did q wouldnt have changed his messaging to be about bridging multiple communities so quickly. and that feels really nasty from an audience pov

sometimes it really is just like. is this all there is. feeling oversensitive & undersocialized—too sensitive to socialize—forever, bc you never got enough ~affirmation~ growing up (poor, pathetic baby; how long will you persist in singing the same self-pitying song…), & so never developed the proper emotional cushioning against the heartache & the thousand natural shocks, &c, &c, &c, &c, &c…

In the Soto Zen tradition, when I’m asked to give a Dharma talk, it is customary at the beginning for me to thank the abbatial leader of the temple and the Tanto, who is the head of practice and the person whose job it is to invite me. Next, I thank my teachers. All this is part of locating. It’s not just common courtesy; it’s to locate me in a lineage and a sect of Buddhism, and in a lineage of practitioners. Locating ourselves has significance; it takes effort and intentional attention to honor where we come from and who we are. At another place where I teach, we invite people to say what land they are on currently to honor the Indigenous peoples and also as an act of anti-oppression by acknowledging we’re on stolen land. We also invite people to share their pronouns as a way to say that we’re inclusive of gender diversity. Other social locations that are often shared, depending on which community of practitioners I’m teaching or practicing with, are sexual orientation, class, ability, immigration status, and neurodiversity. These are all frames of reference for knowing where and how we inhabit our locations, specifically in different systems of oppression. It can also locate us in communities and, therefore, in systems of joy and of belonging. At the same time, part of our practice is about having a sense that there is fluidity and that these ways of self-identification or of being perceived by others are not all we are. As practitioners of Buddhism, we want to be aware that identity arises due to present causes and conditions. Therefore, how we all come to be here in this place, at this moment, is always in context

i hate when someone makes a genuinely good critique of patriarchy and then terfs are like yasss so true its because of the Trans

like no shut up it’s actually not!!! 😝😝

everyone already sucking ya dick in the notes so to clarify it’s fine if you draw lesbian shit but if it’s the ONLY thing you draw and it’s the ONLY shit that makes you so popular and you’re literally only known for your lesbian art that’s weird man. “uuu we need more lesbian content uu” yeah from LESBIANS! lesbians in the notes stand up like why u want man-made lesbian content so bad. also put your pronouns somewhere dude it’s not hard

Alright, I agree. I should be doing more, so I'm gonna be expanding my art content.

Okay I'm bored imma share this

I drew Fandroid the Musical Robot

but I also drew....

Fandrew!!

(I gave him drill hands cus why not) (it was because of when he explained in the Adhoc Pride special stream that he escaped by spinning really fast & drilled through it, so I randomly gave him hidden drill hands for goofs and laughs.. and he probably wouldn't know how to activate them)

(also I made their headphones both have gears on the side cus why not)

truly nothing on this earth is more foul than supernatural familial abuse discourse but specifically the discourse people have about if sam or dean "had it worse" like ok cool you have already missed the point of this show very hard.

listening to all my sister’s new songs on repeat to unpack and re-process whichever shared trauma is on the docket this time