Livre d'Or

Thank you, I really appreciate this comment, and please don't apologise for writing at length, I completely love long thinky comments! I also love the image of tangents wriggling round in circles :-) Thank you for the links too, I know you've done a lot of reading on this stuff and I really appreciate getting to share the fruits of that.

And I love this as an example of getting away from binary thinking (that's not a pun, just I don't just mean your gender is NB, I mean the binaries of privileged versus oppressed, innate versus chosen etc).

It's very much true of being Jewish, actually; I am Jewish by birth, not just in Jewish law but in the eyes of racists who have a problem with the fact that I'm Jewish, and would still despise me no matter what my religious beliefs were. I'm also Jewish by choice because I am immersed in Jewish religion and culture. I'm ethnically Jewish, so I don't have the typical genetics of most people in my society, and I do have the consequences of most of my ancestors experiencing the world as Jews. I'm also not very "typically" Jewish in appearance, at least as people expect Jews to look, so I don't get most of the automatic assumptions when I first meet people, I have the option to make decisions about passing. Anyway I'm glad talking about how I experience being Jewish is interesting and not annoying.

It's absolutely the case that much of the narrative about gender and sexual identities is constructed to get past gatekeepers and to seek sympathy from straight people who otherwise might not get it. I'm really impressed that you were able to talk to your godmother about the more complex picture beyond just people being intrinsically homosexual or heterosexual. Good for you and good for her!

And yes, in-between groups are authentic, there are plenty of people who can't just pick a side, and really, I'd rather do away with the sides altogether. I absolutely respect the work of bi activists trying to get more inclusive language and more importantly, actual inclusion in services and support. I just don't emotionally feel the lack of bi-inclusive language.