I want to explain what I mean when I talk about identities as products and political tools, because I say that and then people get mad because they think I mean that the desire for representation and validation of the self is twee or fake or something

So

A few years ago, I read Alison Bechdel's Fun Home for a class on serialized storytelling. We had to discuss that book in class and, boy howdy, were the responses mixed

Some people were confused why such a raw, emotionally complex, and sometimes harrowing story would be published

Because it's...a lot. It's a messy autobiography about family, identity, death, grief, and stories told by those left behind. I felt very strongly about it because of it's ambiguity. I couldn't relate to all, or even most, of the events on the page, but it resonated deeply

And the idea that the book, one of a handful of queer texts on the syllabus, wasn't simple, clean, and all-encompassing narrative of any one demographic made some people really uncomfortable

Some in the class wanted it to be easy, because, I imagine, ambiguity is difficult

Cut to last year, and this one truly visceral memory I have of reading someone's criticism of an (another) autobiographical queer comic, this time by a Japanese lesbian artist. I vividly remember the critique's chief complaint

"As a queer person, I don't see myself in this work"

How does one walk into somebody else's life and expect to be represented there? How does one read an autobiographical work with the expectation of being present? Welcomed? Centered?

Across the divide of cultures, languages, histories, and borders?

Why would you do that?

I'm not trying to blast this person, so I won't link to anything, but that single critique has stuck with me because I feel like it really encapsulates what I'm talking about when I say we treat identities like consumable products

I expect a classroom full of people at UT Arlington to be confused by a queer text, and want comfortable resolution. I should hope you, as a queer person, don't pick up another queer person's work with the expectation of being perfectly pandered to, or else put down the work

I would hope you, in your desire to be seen as human, would not treat another human being's experience as a product meant to validate your sense of self

I would hope you recognize it as worthy, and not a product that failed to meet expectation

Because it feels that way

And you can't become free of the systems that try to destroy you if you view yourself and others as products or consumable objects, even when you don't realize you're doing it

You can't want better if you don't see how bad things truly are

It's fine to be uncomfortable with or disconnected from a story. It's fine to downright hate a story. It isn't a story's job to fill every gap in your life. You don't exist to have your humanity rationed out in piecemeal to keep you quiet and compliant by people who will it so

But I only hope that people see their own knee-jerk response to someone or something that doesn't line up with their own experiences as a product of a society that flattens everything into paste, rather than an affront to their own identity