hello all! some of you may know me, but to those who don’t, my name is reign, and i consider myself extremely inclusionist. i am making this post to create a term that i feel has lately been becoming increasingly necessary. i do consider myself a radical inclusionist, and i have no issues with identifying as a radical inclusionist, but lately i’ve been noticing some issues within the collective radically inclusionist community that has inspired me to come up with a term that more accurately reflects my beliefs, and i hope can do something similar for other people. what is this term?
critical inclusionism.
i define critical inclusionism as an inclusionist worldview that, instead of being inclusive for the sake of being inclusive, is inclusive through a lens of analyzing all the information surrounding a subject. what do i mean by this? well, i mean inclusionism that is based in critical analysis, not in “if it’s good faith, then it’s okay” because, while good faith is important, it is only one aspect of analysis. good faith identification is one piece of a puzzle- and critical inclusionism is about looking at the whole picture, not just individual aspects.
i am making this term for a few reasons, mainly things i’ve noticed about how people approach radical inclusionism- and i will attempt to explain those things now.
1. I have seen an increasingly large amount of people lately say that they are radically inclusionist because they support harmful things like proshipping, transracial, and being pro-contact in terms of pedophilic and zoophilic disorder. i have noticed that they use the same exact rhetoric as many radical inclusionists who are against all those things- that it can be in good faith, that it’s just someone’s identity and can’t harm anyone. the amount of people who have been able to use radinclus rhetoric to describe things that actually are tangibly harmful, has made me realize that the words i’ve used in the past to describe my radical inclusionism have not been specific enough.
2. I have seen many people who are uncomfortable with the term ‘radical inclusionist’ because it has associations to the term ‘radical feminism’, and while i don’t think the two could be anymore different, radical inclusionism has been used in the past to describe being pro-harassment of exclusionists, and so I understand why some might prefer an alternate label to describe their beliefs.
3. I’ve started to see more and more people think that radical inclusionism is about loving and accepting everyone unconditionally and unchallenged- and I think that’s initially a nice sentiment, but it’s a dangerous one, and it upsets me to see people equate that with radical inclusionism.
so, what are the differences between radical inclusionism and critical inclusionism?
it is not so much that they have any huge inherent differences- but critical inclusionism emphasizes different things. lets look at a few examples.
1.Mspec lesbians- the everyday radical inclusionist would say something along the lines of “this is okay, because someone else’s identity can’t hurt your own, and you shouldn’t be offended at how other people identify because it doesn’t affect you.”
and this is true in a way. but it’s also misleading. a radical inclusionist might say “mspec lesbians are valid because someone else’s identity can’t hurt you”. a critical inclusionist would say “words are not the ultimate form of oppression, but they can still hurt. however, in the context of queer liberation, and queer history, mspec lesbian labels have not only been common, accepted, and celebrated, but also reflective of queer solidarity. the history of terminology is relevant to how it’s used. the perception of harm surrounding these labels is entirely based in ignorance, and this is easily proven. the reason for the validity of mspec lesbians isn’t that they don’t hurt anybody, it’s that there is historical and community relevance to the terms and to queer liberation through self identification- this applies to queer identity in general but is applicable through a queer lens and may not be true in the scenario of a non-queer identity.”
vs.
2.Transracial- if someone believes they respect people of color, genuinely feels they are a different race, couldn’t it be argued that radical inclusionism should include these people? yes. and that’s the problem.
here actually enlies the difference between radical inclusionism, and critical inclusionism. where radical inclusionism says “this is in good faith and no identity can hurt or be offensive”, critical inclusionism says “while this may be in good faith in some scenarios, that is not the only part of the puzzle- the other parts of the puzzle are history and context, and while there is history and context of queer liberation to inclusionism for some identities, there is no such context for terms like transracial, and additionally, there is negative context because this term actually is based in a misunderstanding of race, which actually is offensive.”
radical inclusionism: “the words someone uses for themselves are just words and therefore can’t cause harm, so everyone is valid in however they see themselves.”
critical inclusionism: “the words someone uses for themselves are just words, but context can give words power. when it comes to inclusionism of queer identities, there’s a context of ‘queer as in fuck you’ that is integral to queer liberation, but this context is not always relevant, so analyzing the ‘validity’ of an identity isn’t about being nice and inclusive for the simple sake of being nice and inclusive, it’s about applying actual context and critical thinking, and queer identities are not comparable to non-standard yet non-queer identities in the context of liberation. words are words, but something can still be offensive even if it doesn’t cause tangible harm and critical thinking should always be applied.”
so, an outline of critical inclusionism-
- critical inclusionism analyzes inclusionism not through “this is valid just because it exists”, but through “this is valid because context, history, relevance, and the factual invalidity of claims surrounding potential harm matter in the context of queer liberation- critical thinking isn’t about proving whether a queer identity is valid, but about refuting the concept of queer validity as a whole through the lens of queer liberation”
- therefore, labels in the realm of gender identity and sexuality are not inherently valid or invalid, they exist and therefore they deserve to exist because queer liberation has historically been about the liberation of all minorities and therefore radical love of queer identity is contextually more important than semantics
- so, mspec lesbians, lesbian men, mspec gay men, all forms of non-binary and transgender identification, all forms of m-spec identification, and all forms of a-spec identification, all make sense in a context of queer liberation, because queer liberation doesn’t look at individual identity, it looks at collective solidarity and radical love for gendered, sexual, and romantic ‘variance’
- queer liberation as a context is, however, irrelevant to contexts of terms like transracial, transabled, transage, and pro-contact paraphilias. saying that “well, you accept mspec lesbians, so why not transracial people?” makes no sense because not only is there the presence of racism as a context, there is also the absence of queer liberation as a context
- overall: the history of queer liberation and radically loving gender and sexual diversity combines with a context of the specific history and usefulness of community love for self-identification, matters- inclusionism in a queer context is entirely different from inclusionism in general, and without the context of queer liberation, terms like transracial and transabled have no overarching community context to overcome the obvious offensive contexts of them. inclusionism is about critical queer love. validity shouldn’t exist in a queer sense because it is irrelevant to queer liberation. mspec lesbians, lesbian men, multigender people, non-binary, transgender, and genderqueer people of all kinds, are beautiful. critical thinking that includes “this harms me personally or offends me even though there’s no actual context for disliking this term other than bigoted and ignorant foolishness” is irrelevant. queer identity is beautiful. queer history is beautiful. queer exclusionism is irrelevant and horrible. acknowledging that “harm” doesn’t exist in the context of mspec lesbians etc., but it actually does in things like transracial, and that said statement isn’t based in cherry-picking, but an actual understanding of history, queer love, and queer liberation, is what matters. essentially, not gay as in happy, but queer as in fuck you.
critical inclusionism pride flag-
[Image ID: A flag with seven equally-sized horizontal stripes. From top to bottom, the colors are pink, purple, blue, teal, yellow, orange, and pink. There are five black rings organized in a checkerboard pattern in the center of the flag. End ID.]
symbolism-
the rings- the four outer rings represent 1) the beauty of gender diversity, 2) the beauty of orientation diversity, 3) critical thinking and critical support, and 4) the liberation of disabled people, people of color, and all other oppressed people. all four rings point to the central ring- queer liberation and critical inclusionism.
colors-
top pink- queer sexuality and romantic orientation
purple- queer gender
periwinkle blue- radical love for masculinity in a queer context
teal- radical love for trans and nonbinary identity in a queer context
yellow- solidarity among all queer people and all marginalized people
orange- critical thinking
bottom pink- radical love for femininity in a queer context
i am very pleased to present this term. if you have any questions, would like any clarification, or simply want to discuss this further, my asks and dms are open! i would like for this to spread, so i am going to be tagging some people! i do not support all the people i tag, but some are big voices in the community and i would appreciate their support. please reblog to spread /nf
