5th--Dimension

I've experienced enough discussion of this that I feel the need to make an entry about it. 

So first, gender.

To me, we are people in flesh cans. To me, gender (and all things associated with it) is only an abstract, societal construct that people put stock in because it's ingrained. If you wish to change your flesh can, if you are not comfortable with yours, that's up to you. 

I am physically male, but I don't have a gender identity. I am not agender. I try, sometimes, to think of myself in terms of gender, and the entire concept is alien. "Agender" means that I am without gender. It puts me in a category separate from other, gendered categories, when I don't see any of them as being real categories. Boy and girl are just traits ignorantly grouped together by traditional prejudices. Agender has no meaning when gender itself has no meaning. No one thinks in the same way, and it's downright silly to think that you can stereotype gender traits. People who have masculine/feminine traits can be gender neutral or the opposite gender, regardless of what people think. Why even bother with that? I am me, not a category. If I happen to seem feminine/masculine, if I look like a boy or girl, it's irrelevant. I am me, not a category. I want no label, accept no label. You can call me "he" as a convenience, but don't make any assumptions about me based on that. I could just as well be called "she" or "they" and I wouldn't object.

The problem I encounter is that people put too much stock in these categories. Regardless of which way you argue, the assumption is that gender matters. And to me, it doesn't even exist. So if I say the truth, that it doesn't matter to me what pronouns you prefer to be called, I get yelled at. Not because I'll call you the wrong thing. If it matters to you, I'll indulge (it would be hypocritical not to). But because people want me to care. Why would I care about which arbitrary category you want to be in? Why would I care that you think this person should be called something they don't feel they are? What I see is two sides creating conflict over something that doesn't exist, and drawing everyone into it because they care so much about it. Perhaps without even trying to.

This isn't acceptable to me. But if I try to stay out of it, stay neutral, people get upset, telling me the equivalent of "if you do nothing about X, you're promoting X yourself," or that I'm pathetic/idiotic/prejudiced for not wanting to choose. If I try to argue that we need to stop caring about it, people get downright enraged, telling me I don't understand. If I try to say that if we don't see gender as something that exists, and only see people for who they are, everyone will be better for it, they complain that I haven't felt their pain. They create justifications to ignore me, if they even try to understand. They tell me that I'm being idealistic, or naive. Perhaps. But does that make it wrong?

Is it wrong to want to make gender something immeasurable or unclassifiable, and just see people as individuals?

Second, race.

This is much the same. I don't see race or anything associated with it as something that truly exists. I see the conflict between people with varying levels of melanin in their skin, and it's another fight over nothing. I understand why, historically, people thought it mattered. But at this point, can't you stop, look at yourself as a person, and ignore the skin color? You are a person, not a skin color. You shouldn't define yourself or others that way. We are people, not categories.

And again, it doesn't matter that I try to stay away from each side. People think race matters. I don't see the color of people's skin. Yet they see mine. They take advantage of it, using the laws and prejudices in place made to do so. That draws me into a situation I have no way of fighting, for the sole reason that this fight over nothing is so important to a lot of people.

Is it wrong to want to make race stop being part of anyone's identity, and just see people as individuals?

Physical Prejudices.

Humanity is filled with enough excuses to fight that we don't need to be perpetuating abstract, purely societal constructs. People are people.