"in my ideal world, I invalidate other people's identity by rejecting it to their face despite paying lip service to it"
Weird ideals there.
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No, I'm being honest about myself and the way I view the world, and I try to make accommodations so that I don't hurt others who really want me to view them a certain way.
My sense of identity doesn't match up with the way others see me, often, but I'm okay with that.
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The way you view the world inherently invalidates their identity. There's a big difference between someone perceiving incorrectly as opposed to being directly told something from the source and rejecting it.
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I don't know how to update certain categories. If someone is constantly going to parties and around people 24/7 but tells me they're introverted, I can't just... *stop* viewing them as extroverted. I can view them as having a self-identity as introverted!
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But my brain is like 'Oh, they pattern-match onto 'takes actions to be around other people a lot'", and I can't *un*match that pattern just because they tell me they're different. I don't have control over that level of processing the world.
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I understand it taking a while to make the adjustment - when I learn things about people I've known for a while that correct an assumption I had, I don't necessarily collate it right away. But I also don't reject it, which is what it sounds like you want to do.
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I don't have a particular desire around it, I just notice that my brain isn't updating based on the information.
Some assumptions do update over time! But the gender thing feels like it belongs in a special category, very close to the way identifying objects feels.
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It definitely takes time to cast off some of the things we grew up with. I spent a long time, when I met a trans non-binary person, subconsciously thinking about how they must have looked before transitioning.
I sympathize with that being a difficult abd slow process.
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The distinction comes between whether it's a frustrating process that we're still working on or one that we've decided NOT to do.
I got the impression from your original thread that you were in the latter camp.
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I feel extremely self-accepting towards myself. I try to notice how I work and not judge it. Often how I work changes! Sometimes it doesn't. Both are okay. If the way I process gender changes, that's fine. If it doesn't, that's also fine. The thing I'm wary about is-
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trying to force myself to view something that i don't. This has happened to me a ton of times in tiny little ways, where I rewrite my perception on myself in order to fit what I think people want from me. I notice incentive to do that here, and I'm being careful not to.
This strategy has kept me gentle and has still allowed for updating. I've changed my mind on stuff like privilege and oppression, on trigger warnings (twice, back and forth), and towards more acceptance of progressive gender theory.
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But I *will not* update based on people telling me I need to do this in order to make them more comfortable. I do not judge at all the fact that I don't see people as their chosen gender. I also do not judge that people want to be seen as their chosen gender.
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That makes sense to me, and I certainly wouldn't advocate for the extreme opposite, taking everything other people tell us at face value without evaluation.
Ultimately I think the important thing is, as much as possible, to let others be the authority on who they are.
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