#sometimes y'all really need communitarianism (with a radical reform of the family unit)

[trans-ralsei]

i get really annoyed — and borderline hate — the word 'individuals', especially when applied to trans people:

transgender individuals non-binary individuals gay individuals

this is absolutely a critique of the english language and how we use it to communicate. very rarely would i actually allow use of the word when i edit stuff that goes out on the city-wide movement for trans rights.

the word runs counter to the idea that we are part of a community. it implies that we can still be split apart, into singular units, when it should be recognised that we are an indivisible part of a society, intimately interlinked with everyone else. we are your bus drivers. your train operators. your journalists. your musicians. your coders. your sanitation specialists. your lovers. your family. your friends.

sure, individualism will get you some of the rights you enjoy as a human being. but it means that you are now separate from the rest of society as a whole. when things break down and crumble from the stresses that end-stage neo-liberal capitalism causes, what then? an individual needs friends, family, strangers to live, eat, dream, fuck, survive. what then is an individual but not a person? a human? what then is a group of individuals but not people?