Post No. 2,760 - some more tweaking of my labels/self definition/self identification ...

I’m going to begin this with a quotation from my collection of quotations page: 

Definitions anchor us in principles.

Dr Ibram X. Kendi, “How to be an Antiracist”

Labels are not trite - they can be misused in a trite way, they can be a tool for vicious abuse, and they can be harmful, but they can also be empowering. 

I found that out with spiritual path labels in the 80s, and personal labels in the 90s. 

And, as circumstances, word associations, and I change, the best fitting labels will change, I have found, over time. 

And, after watching   “I'm Ashamed 🔮 Witchcraft as a Fat Queer Autistic Person of Colour”   https://youtu.be/4m0iia9LkGU?si=mgOv2Wu34_6c-4B0   , I have decided to start using “Witch” as much as “Pagan”, and will possibly move towards entirely using Witch - except in places/circumstances where it has a specific, wrong, negative meaning, such as Africa, where people who have misappropriated and misuse that term commit some appalling barbarities (e.g., against people who are albino). 

As a first step, I changed the header of this blog slightly; as a second, I have made this post ... now to sit with this a while ... 

 

PS - I have also just come across   “Labels LIE: The SCIENCE of How TAGS TRAP YOU”   https://youtu.be/e7NGvycOatE?si=6_ufU5HyTM4c7mfa   ... and two other Internet posts on this theme - also posted today! 

If you appreciated this post, please consider promoting it - there are some links below, and there’s also Instagram.  Remember: we generally need to be more human being rather than human doing, to mind our Mӕgan, and to acknowledge that all misgendering is an act of active transphobia/transmisia that puts trans+ lives at risk & accept that all insistence on the use of “trans” as a descriptor comes with commensurate use of “cis” as a descriptor to prevent “othering” (just as binary gendered [men’s and women’s] sporting teams are either both given the gender descriptor, or neither).

Copyright © Kayleen White 2007-2024     NO AI   I do not consent to any machine learning aka Artificial Intelligence (AI), generative AI, large language model, machine learning, chatbot, or other automated analysis, generative process, or replication program to reproduce, mimic, remix, summarise, or otherwise  replicate any part of this post or other posts on this blog via any means. Typo’s may be inserrted deliberately to demonstrate this is not an AI product.     Otherwise, fair and reasonable use is accepted under Creative Commons 4.0 on an Attribution-ShareAlike basis https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/