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Thinking about this pattern that keeps playing out throughout history where one group asserts itself as THE legitimate/normative/healthy expression of humanity (thinking race, sex, gender, class, neurodivergence etc.) with the non-normative excluded and pathologised. This then
leads to an extended battle by those excluded groups to be recognised as legitimate and afforded protections under the law and generally assimilated safely into broader society after a lifetime on the fringes. Wondering if this process has sped up over time and if it's possible
to remove it altogether and instead replace it with a non-combative broadening of the shared conception legitimate expressions of humanity to include the traditionally negated and delegitimised. Can we skip the generations of struggle, suffering and death that this gatekept
boundary of social normative legitimacy keeps inflicting on those groups who wish to emerge from the shadows and assert their own humanity? Are we getting better at this? Are there examples of this being done really well? Or is it in a sense a necessary struggle to pierce these
boundaries and challenge the pervading power structure? It just feels to me saddening that we're generally not learning from the pattern and trying to find the wrong side of history we're on right now and save that embattled group a lot of unnecessary suffering by including them
The common enemy I suppose is exclusionary normative definitions of legitimacy. Sexism points at a man and says "this is what a president/businessman/mechanic looks like" Racism points at a white family and says "that is what the best humans look like"
Transphobic cis women will look at a uterus/vagina/small feet/specific body type and say "that is what a woman looks like" and not realise it's the exact same exclusionary normative trick they abhor in sexists who look at a man and say "that's what a CEO/President looks like"
