Enough with the "watchmaker" argument already!

I am so fucking sick of the "watchmaker" argument.

It goes like this: "If you see a watch, you don't think that that watch must have always been there. You assume that there was someone around to make the watch. So why don't you assume that someone must have made the Universe?"

Or something like that. I have a hard time understanding this argument because it is so full of fail. The gist of it is that because a lot of complex objects had to be assembled meticulously in order to function correctly, that must be the same for any complex object.

But there's no basis for that claim.

First of all, we can break down everything into two categories: man-made, and not man-made.

In the first category, man-made, we have objects such as:

1. Watches
2. Bread loves
3. Boeing 747's
4. Books
5. Doorknobs
6. Polyester threads
7. Electric ranges
8. Etc.
   

In the second category, non-man-made, we have everything else. Including:

1. Trees
2. Rabbits
3. Mountains (which are hugely complex, given that they often have the ability to grow crystals and whatnot)
4. Grass
5. Gold
6. Plankton
7. Stars
8. Etc.

Now, for one category - the first - we know, or can reasonably figure out where these objects came from. They were assembled from other objects by a human being (or other animal - many animals have decent tool-making and home-building skills, among other things).

But for the second category, we don't really know where these came from originally. Yes, we can make some educated guesses, but it's a mystery. Humans weren't there to see it. However, what we do know is that one of these categories things can be found in the universe with the assistance of a human agent, and one of them can without.

And that is all that we really know.

Yet people who use the "watchmaker" argument seem to think that these facts are somehow indicative of a creator. Their logic is that, since man/animal-made objects have a sentient creator, non-man/animal-made objects must also have a sentient creator. Why? There is no logical reason to infer that conclusion from the facts presented. Nowhere in the history of science is it acceptable to assume that a trait which is inherent to one set of objects is inherent to a completely separate set of objects which is missing the very property that makes that trait inherent.

Or, to try and make that legible, consider squirrels and flying squirrels. Flying squirrels, as their name implies, "fly" (or, more accurately, glide through the air). They do so through the use of skin flaps on the sides of their bodies. Regular squirrels, on the other hand, do no such thing. Therefore it would be both ridiculous and pointless to first assume that they also have skin flaps (if they don't fly, then there is no need to assume that they have a method to do so), and then make a load of assumptions based on the "fact" that regular squirrels have skin flaps.

It simply makes no sense.

The way I've framed the argument, at least to me, it seems patently obvious that this argument is absurd, full of false equivocation and so forth. So why are its proponents so fond of it?

I can answer that in one word: perspective.

Human beings, including scientists, have a tendency to view their studies through the lens of their own perspective. And most human beings, including scientists, have some amount of difficulty curtailing this behavior. Well, the perspective of most watchmaker proponents is that nearly their entire world is man-made. We live in man-made houses, use man-made appliances and man-made furniture, drive on man-made roads using man-made cars, eat man-made food - you get the picture.

So most of what we see is man-made, and ergo, by definition, has been created. So we start to see "things that we know were created" as the norm. Just as white Americans who see their culture as the norm tend to gawk at floor-level toilets and ask nonsense questions like "What do you do instead of Christmas?" when you live amidst complex objects that have been created, and especially when you learn more about how those were created, you instinctively search for a source of creation for the other complex things that you see.

It's a matter of perspective. It's also false equivocation and generally bad science.

There is one other flaw of the watchmaker argument, and again it's a problem of false equivocation. That is, people who make this argument typically conflate what we usually refer to as creation (one object being changed into something else via an outside force, which may or may not be sentient) with the universe's Creation (ostensibly, many objects popping out of nothing.)

Firstly, no human being (or other animal) has ever been able to create something out of nothing. Never, in the history of the Earth. So there is no reason at all to assume that such a feat would require an intelligent agent.

And secondly, even if you actually pay attention to the way that scientists currently believe the universe came into being - plain ol' creation, one thing being changed into another - there's no reason to assume intelligent agency. There are plenty of examples all around us of complex systems being created without guidance from an intelligent hand. Complex cave systems, beautiful rock and ground formations, etc. form naturally over time because of the flow of water. Rows and rows of rippling sand dunes are caused by wind flow arranging the sand into natural, yet patterned, shapes. Snowflakes form in beautiful patterns when water vapor is frozen at high altitudes - a completely automated function that produces sextillions of unique crystalline shapes.

Sure, some asshole will probably try and tell me that that's no different from, say, Minecraft. Because good ol' God had to put the water, stone, cold air, etc. there in order for all of this to happen. But there's no reason to believe that. There's no reason to believe that if a simple temperature reaction in the atmosphere can create an infinite number of entirely unique structures, a natural explosion in the pre-universe cannot create one planet out of sextillions that has the particular balance of water, rock, ground, minerals, etc. required to support life - or that life itself, which is incredibly simple in its formative state anyway, could not spring out of the sextillions of amino acid chains that formed in such an environment.

Routine Christian Fapping

...and if THAT doesn't scare you away from this post, I don't know what will.

Renee at Womanist Musings made a post about Anne Rice's abandonment of the Christian institution. She has this to say about it:

It bothers me to know that fundamentalism has made such a mess of Christianity that progressive people are leaving it in droves. Without the voice of the progressives, it leaves religion, an important cultural space, for those that would advocate intolerance towards others. I came across this story on a gay blog where the author was celebrating and I could not help but think of the cruelty of this action. A loss of faith is deeply a sad thing and is not something to be celebrated no matter how hateful various Christian churches have been. It is a sign of resignation, of giving up what is most dear because of the criminal actions of others and not because of the actions of God. Anne Rice losing her belief is not a victory, in fact it is a loss.

WHAT. THE. FUCK.

It is no exaggeration to say that I was in tears by the end of reading this paragraph. How dare she. HOW DARE SHE.

I am an atheist. I used to be a Christian. I gave up my faith because the people who advocated it were operating on lies. I don't mean culty brainwashing lies like "I am the only one who can get you to Heaven" (although they had their own mode of this) or "only people who fast on the seventeenth day of September will be saved." I mean big lies, like "Jesus is the prophesied Messiah of the Tanach."

I won't deny that Christianity was a horrible experience for me. Brainwashing, sexism, and every kind of bullshit under the sun haunted me day and night. I was convinced because of my parents that I could drop dead at any time, really, and the only reason I didn't was because God had decided to give me one more hour/day/whatever. Okay, it sucked.

But that's not why this post pisses me off.

A loss of faith is deeply a sad thing and is not something to be celebrated no matter how hateful various Christian churches have been. It is a sign of resignation, of giving up what is most dear because of the criminal actions of others and not because of the actions of God.

Most dear?

This viewpoint reeks so badly of brainwashing that I could vomit. Most dear. Get that? The most dear thing to Renee is being a Christian. Not her family. Not civil rights. A guy who was last heard from in a two-thousand-year-old book is the most important thing in her life.

Maybe I'm overreacting, maybe there's something about this viewpoint that is NOT irredeemably fucked up. But I have to know, what about the flipside? What about those of us that DON'T believe in a god? Well, we must be the most sad, destitute people on the planet without that ultra-important sky man in our lives. Of course most Christians wouldn't call us "sad and destitute." They'd probably say something like "missing out on something important and they don't realize it. But the fact is that, with this statement, Renee is contributing to the incredibly misconceived and hurtful idea that atheists are missing out on something vital just because they don't believe in a cosmic power.

Way to go, lady.

The fun continues in the comments.

..it is PEOPLE who have corrupted the message of love and peace and charity that is in and throughout the Bible, turning it into a tool for propaganda devoid of the love that is so essential to Christ's mission and message.

Oh, my gosh! She is so right! It is people like Moses (who ordered the execution of men who had sex with other men and married rape victims, as well as the exile of men who accidentally saw their mothers-in-law naked and other fun stuff) and Paul (who commanded women to do whatever the fuck their husbands wanted and ALSO had a few choice words for teh gheyz) who corrupt the TRUE meaning of Christianity, which is peace and love and huuuuuggggz.

HOW DID I NOT SEE THIS.

There's also a common overtone, alluded to in this thread, of "atheists are all rich, white, intellectual snobs." Reminding me for the FIFTY BAJILLIONTH TIME that I DO NOT FUCKING EXIST. There are no working-class atheists. There are no atheists whose abandonment of Christianity happened not because they think it's "stupid," but because their abuse at the hands of Christians unlocked their minds to the truth, which is that the WHOLE FUCKING BIBLE is full of abuse and abuse advocacy. There is NO chance that the POOR, INNOCENT BIBLE is actually full of hideous, hateful things that are damn well deserving of rejection. No chance that the Good News is peppered with a helluva lot of bad news. You get the fucking picture.

People, Christians, if you want atheists to stop arguing against Christianity, THEN FUCKING FIX IT. I don't care how you do it. Even if you just come right out and say "the bad parts are total shit so we're going to ignore them," I don't care. Just stop hiding behind the pretense of being the only GOOD Christians. When your fellow Christians - stop calling them fundamentalists and start OWNING UP to the fact that they are members of your religion - when they start spouting hateful shit, START CALLING THEM OUT ON IT. I know a lot of people already do this - usually in the same blog post or article in which they decry those persons as "rightwing nutjobs" or whine about the "corrupt organization."

Guys. CHRISTIANITY IS FUCKING ORGANIZATION. It ain't this "personal walk with Jesus" shit that you're all blabbering about nowadays. You all keep whining about Christianity being "corrupted" into this religion of hate; you're no different than the fundamentalists complaining that humanity has been "corrupted" into a state of horrible sinfulness. In the words of Tim Wise: No, fool. That's how it's SUPPOSED to work.

You could make an argument that Christianity in the way that Yeshua originally delivered it was not meant to be used this way. And you'd actually have a point. But if you go that route, you have to take it all the way. Denounce every single inch of the fucking Bible that isn't about Yeshua. Nothing said by any of his followers (especially not that Paul asshole) can be part of the conversation. And remember, those first four books of the "New" Testament say surprisingly little about Yeshua being the promised Messiah through whom you must pray and be baptized, so you have to throw that out too. I realize he did that whole "he who accepts me accepts Him who sent me" thing, but you'd be surprised how easily that can be read to mean "everything I say is relevant to how this shit is supposed to work; I'm not keeping any secrets from you folks." Oh, and you'd better be checking to see how much of the stories were forged decades after the fact, because those aren't part of the original message either. Though if you're looking for a shortcut, I recommend the Jefferson Bible.

Christians, yo: they have a lot of good intentions and very little knowledge of what they're actually dealing with.

I will, however, throw this in from the comments:

What I find problematic is that when people discuss the hate of American Christianity, they're really talking about white Christians and their version of Christianity. As a black Christian, I experience God/dess quite differently, I guess. While on the whole, black Christians are just as conservative as white Christians, it appears we prize an ethic of social justice over and above forcing God in the public sphere. For example, I'm pretty sure I just read yesterday that while the majority of black Christians view abortion as immoral, given the opportunity, we would keep it legal.

That's cool. I'm for that. But I'm NOT behind anyone - white or black or whatever - pretending that the shit in the Bible is fake, or distorted, or whatever... because if you really think that you haven't really been studying the book you so diligently worship.

One Man, One Woman

Over at TeenInk, some clueless Christian kid is opining the Deep Divine Reasons why two guys should not be able to join in holy matrimony. Naturally, she's using the second weakest reason why gay marriage is Just Nasty:

God put one man and One woman on this earth. Not two men. or two women.

I am going to do every Christian who ever stumbles across this blog a HUGE favor and say: Please, please stop using this argument. You are making yourself look stupid.

I'm going to dredge out my dirty atheist knowledge of the Bible to explain why now.

1. God put one man and one woman on the earth... and then their kids banged each other. According to some traditions, when Cain was exiled from God's presence, he took his sister with him for a wife; his brothers likewise married their sisters. Yet incest is forbidden in the Old Testament (except when God says otherwise - see Abraham and Sarah), the New Testament, and every halfway sane Christian tradition on the face of the planet.
2. God put one man and one woman on the earth... and their descendants went on to have many wives. Adam is possibly THE only monogamous character in the Bible. Abraham only had one official wife, but his wife wasn't above loaning him a prostitute when she failed to conceive. The rest of them were more official about their bangage. See also: Solomon.
3. God put one man and one woman on the earth... when there was nobody else around to reproduce. Let's face it: when you're starting a species, it's kind of counterproductive if your first couple can't breed with each other. Now we have six billion humans on the planet, millions of married couples devoted to creating more, and plenty of people who are happily single, sterile, or using contraceptives. What's a few gay couples?

So not only are there multiple precedents for later couples breaking "the rules," but the practical motive is no longer an issue. You simply can't argue that since it was ONE MAN and ONE WOMAN then, that's how it should always be.

By the way, I know this is going to blow your minds, but God put one Jewish man and one Jewish woman on the Earth. They had brown skin, black hair, yadda. Somehow nobody thinks that it's a good idea to argue that blondes shouldn't exist using this logic.

Now, I'm not harpin' on your right to argue against teh gayz (though since I'm a gay dude in a woman's body, that's okay, right?) That's your prerogative. But if you're going to do it, stick to the Leviticus/Paul combo. That one at least makes sense internally, though you'll want to keep it from us atheists who frankly couldn't give a rip what your god thinks. Especially since a lot of us quit BECAUSE he was a douche.

By the way, the worst argument of all time against same-sex relations?

The plumbing doesn't fit! It doesn't even make sense!

Let me blow your mind with a few alternatives to straight-on vaginal intercourse:

1. Oral sex
2. Anal sex
3. Manual sex
4. Mutual masturbation (though this one barely qualifies, in my book)
   
5. The almighty dildo

All of these can be performed very effectively by same-sex couples (though the dildo works best for lesbians). If you don't know what any of those are, feel free to search. As for me, I'm done.

I Am Invisible

I am invisible.

I usually don't realize that because I spend a lot of time hanging around transgender-safe message boards, but the fact is: I am invisible. When people talk about atheists, even though they don't specify, they are thinking of cisgendered atheists. When people talk about gays and lesbians, even though they don't specify, they are thinking of cisgendered atheists. Men means cisgendered men. LGBT means L, G, sometimes B, and those other weirdoes we heard were out there. Transgendered people are invisible.

Obviously there are some people out there who know we exist - shows such as Family Guy, The L Word, Coronation Street, and Degrassi have had transgendered characters. The film The World According To Garp has an excellent portrayal of a trans woman, and there are other movies that are just about us. But to the majority of people, we do not exist - or exist only in a theory so abstract that we may not exist at all.

I know. I used to be one of those people.

For the first eighteen years of life, I either didn't know about transgendered/transsexual people, or what I knew was very abstract: sometimes there were boys that felt like they should be girls, and underwent treatments to become girls, and often their parents kicked them out of their homes and they ended up homeless and/or addicted to drugs but sometimes they turned out okay. I'd heard somewhere about FTM's (courtesy of my mum, actually) but it never sunk in for me. Why? Because I didn't know anyone who is transgendered. I didn't know anyone who knew anyone who was transgendered. I'd never bumped into a transgendered person on the Internet, and when I did, I didn't spend a lot of time with him. My mother was on the site, watching my every move, and she didn't approve of his "lesbianism." Plus I think I was afraid that if I told the forumites that I felt similarly I'd be laughed at. You can't be a "gay man in a woman's body," after all. You can only be a straight woman. But I digress. Naturally, I never thought to include trans people in any of my writing or correspondence or anything.

This is the mindset that prevents trans people from getting their rights. Someone introduces a piece of legislation that covers trans people (or gays, or POC, or atheists, or whatever), and you think that since you don't know (or like) anyone who will be affected, it isn't important. So you let it slide.

People can't live like this. You can't go on holding in your minds that transsexual people don't exist, or there are too few of us to count. There are never too few of us to count. This is something that I didn't truly understand until I became a member of two of the least regarded minorities in the United States of America, and looking back I am ashamed to think that I once thought differently. Here is what I didn't realize: The majority, or the average if you will, does not equal the default. There is no default for the human condition. I am not a cisgendered white male unless I specify otherwise. It's not easy to remember this, with our parents, teachers, peers, and the media convincing us that diversity equals deviance. Society is not a dichotomy between white males and everyone else. It is a complex mosaic of people. Some of them are descended from Europeans, some from Africans, some from Asians, some from Eurasians, some from Americans, some from European-Asians, some from African-Caribbeans, some from people of many different continents. Some of us are Christian, some are Hindu, some are Jewish, some are Muslim, some are Jedi. Some used to be religious but aren't anymore. Some were never religious at all. Some are close to six feet tall and others are closer to three. Some are HIV-positive, some have cancer, some have diabetes or syphilis or angina or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or missing organs and some have no outstanding health problems at all. Some are organ donors; some aren't. Some are female, some are male, some are intersexed. Some are cis, some are trans, some are genderqueer. Some are bisexual, some are straight, some are gay, some are pansexual, and some are one or the other but willing to experiment. Some of us have very little money, some of us have a lot; some of us just have what we need to get by comfortably. Some of us live in the cities. Many of us live outside of them. Some of us love only one person at the same time, but some love more. Some of us masturbate. Some of us don't. Some of us do and lie about it. Some of us promise our parents that we'll never have sexual intercourse until we find the one we'll be with for the rest of our lives. Some of us wouldn't have found the one we'll be with for the rest of our lives unless we had sexual intercourse first. Some of us love feet. Some of us hate feet. Some of us couldn't care less about feet. Everything about you is part of your identity, and it is no less diverse, beautiful, and strange than that of someone whose traits are less common than yours. And here's the thing: every trait about that person, to the extent that it does not harm another person, deserves to exist and be respected and protected by human law. If your identities are protected, and you can't find the time to make sure others have the same courtesy, then you don't deserve the protection you have.

Becoming Your Label

As I've said, people have a lot of labels. Some of them they wear for life, like their skin color; others fade with time, such as age and class; others come upon them suddenly and in a life-changing event.

I can name the labels that came upon me that way: atheist, transgendered, anti-racist.

When a label comes upon you, it often comes as something of a surprise. Sometimes you've purged a label that already covered that aspect of yourself, but sometimes the other label comes in and forcibly removes the old one. And sometimes you're surprised by a label that's always been there, because something you've just seen or done has made you deeply, acutely, aware of it.

I've had all of this happen to me at one point. Releasing my "Christian" label was an intensely painful process; taking on the "atheist" label took several months. When I took on "transgendered," I had already discarded "cisgendered" as a label that had never applied and adopted "girlfag." When I discovered "white," it was more a realization that it was more than just a skin color - that there was an identity that went along with it and that it was something worth mentioning about myself.

In each case, I had to figure out what the label meant for me. And in each case I went through roughly the same process: reading, learning, trying to understand the societal nuances that made this label, comparing myself to other people who had this label. And I made the same mistake each time: trying to become as similar as possible to other people who had the same label.

It started out when I became an atheist. Even though I use that label to describe myself, I'm not an atheist by the popular definition. I believe that there may be gods out there (not an overarching God, but smaller gods), and perhaps some kind of ghosts, and while I will not outright believe a claim without any evidence I will not immediately disclaim it for lack thereof if it is not actually possible for me to acquire evidence. (You might call me a "somewhat credulous skeptic.")

But when I got out on the Internet and started reading the writings of other atheists, I found that our beliefs didn't really match up. Most atheists prefer a "nonexistent until proven otherwise" approach; a demand for hard evidence before they believe in the proffered spirit. I see nothing wrong with that; they haven't have the same upbringing I had, regaled with tales and the occasional witnessing to miracles that, if they happened as reported, could not reasonably be explained scientifically. I would also not expect them to take these stories as evidence, since most of them were related to me through parties and their veracity is greatly suspect. But I cannot discount them.

And yet, I tried to. Not intentionally, of course. But the more I read of other atheists and their rather stricter worldview, the more I began to feel the subtle societal pressure to conform to the same standards. After all, if so many of them believe this way and I don't, it must be because I've got something messed up. And after a while I found myself parroting the things they were saying, repeating the "pics or it didn't happen"-style phrases, and insisting that gods were all in people's heads.

After a while - and with the help of my sister - I realized that there was a problem. There was no good reason for me to be acting that way. I had reasons to believe the things that I did, and denying them wasn't making me more skeptical, just conformist. In essence, I was trying to be the most atheisty atheist I could be.

I had the same problem when explaining my atheism. I originally abandoned my faith not because of evolution, or science, or the many horrible deeds committed by Yahweh throughout the Bible, but because I had been shown that Jesus was not the Jewish messiah. But when people started asking me why I wasn't a Christian, I started abandoning that story - in favor of the much more commonplace (and rather overdone) explanations I had heard from other atheists. Again, I was trading in my identity for the group identity.

It was harder to do that when I realized myself as transgendered. Right away I realized I didn't fit the "standard" (see also: stereotype): I wasn't male-to-female, I wasn't attracted to the same sex, I hadn't pervasively felt from the time I was young that I must belong to the opposite gender. It didn't take me long to realize that my limited grasp on the subject was... well, limited - in fact, that's what led me to taking on the label in the end. But even after I had learned the subject extensively, even after I knew that people could manifest at different times and be attracted to different sexes and identify as androgynous or two-gendered and everything else, I was always trying to discount my own experiences. I would compare myself to others, and since I never fit the common story - I didn't identify as male as a child, I was never uncomfortable with my lower genitalia, I wasn't attracted to the same sex - I was convinced on some level that I wasn't really trans, or that I wasn't trans "enough" to count. I think in a way I was still trying to convince myself that I didn't have to be trans. But in a bigger way I was making myself feel inadequate because, after failing to fit in with the larger world around me, I had found a world that I actually might belong to - and I still didn't fit in. I felt like I was the freak among freaks.

The third event deals not so much with a label I like to use, but in a label that due to my upbringing I am saddled with, and bear the results thereof: "white."

In an earlier post, I mentioned the blog Stuff White People Do, an educational resource on "the ways of white folks - I mean, some white folks..." I followed a link from one post to another post (readable here), and in the comments section there was a discussion that had become rather heated.

The post, you see, was on the way some white people treat black women. They see them not as vulnerable human beings, but as people of steel, capable of taking whatever flak the world throws their way. This stereotype, the black ladies explain, is perpetuated by modern media, which has portrayed every black woman ever as that type of character (which they refer to as the "sapphire" stereotype), or as an older, takes-no-guff, fiercely-protective and overweight woman (the better-known "mammy.")

White people read this, and understood this, and knew that the black women were right and they needed to do better. So they asked (and I wondered) a seemingly innocuous question: "How do we treat you like people?"

The reaction was swift, completely unenlightening, and deeply revealing of the problem at hand: "You know already."

And I (though I did not participate in the conversation), and several other white people in the thread, said "No, I don't."

It was all nonsense, of course. I already knew what had to be done. In fact, I'd already written about it in my Peach People post. But I'd fallen prey to that quintessential white fallacy: getting hooked on labels.

One of the black ladies had mentioned that white people tend to be bad at socializing with black women. I (and, I expect, the other white persons who asked the same question), remembering that I was a white person, hastily made the conclusion that I had made a mistake in my line of thinking and that I had somehow missed some crucial piece of information that would teach me how to treat black women like people.

What I, and seemingly a number of other white people, had failed to realize was that I was completely overthinking the situation. And it was the black ladies - one very patient and frustrated black woman, in particular - who finally put us in our place and made at least one white person (that'd be me) feel very, very silly - and very, very white.

See, once again I had conflated a label with an identity. First I assumed that because the label "white" applied to me, I must be vulnerable to the same fallacies as the other white people that had been described. Then I assumed that the label "black" entailed some kind of enormous cultural gap - something that made the fact that they were also human and women rather trivial when deciding how to treat them. If I really wanted to know how to treat a black woman as a human, all I needed to do was see her as - well, a human.

Each of these stories belies the same problem in the use of labels. There is no doubt that labels have a purpose - they enable one person to get a loose grasp on another person's identity at a quick glance. But labels are not an instant guide to an individual's personality. Each label is a facet of a person, not the whole person - and yet their entire being is affected by that facet. Labels are further divided into sublabels, which in turn are shaped by quirks and nuances that make the overall label nearly meaningless. Labels are not useless - it is true that all persons with a particular label have something in common, whether a little or a lot. But it is important not to overvalue their meaning, not to assume any specific meanings for a label, and not to get so hooked on one label that you ignore the other facets of a person's being.

And yet I managed to do it three times before I ever figured out what I was doing wrong. Sounds like I've got some work ahead of me.

Introduction

Hello, my name is William, and I am here to talk about labels. I know I bear a ton of them: human, white, blonde, European-descended, fair-skinned, able-bodied, female, daughter, sister, low-class, obese, transgendered, FTM, male, brother, pansexual, part-time crossdresser, in the closet, blogger (as of now), writer, English language persnicketor, caveman, environmentally conscious, animal welfare supporter, meat-eater, atheist, agnostic, panmaterialist, pacifist, activist, homeschooled, country boy, unemployed, self-taught, slacker, single, Zac Efron fangirl, single, cat person, dog owner, racist, anti-kyriarchal, food lover, adrenaline lover, American. (I'm sure I've missed a few.) All of these apply to me in some way, even though I don't necessarily agree with or want to use all of them. No doubt all of them have colored your perception of me, making you less or more likely to take me seriously, less or more likely to view me as shallow or immoral or worthless or potentially annoying. Some of them seem like outright contradictions - humans are good at that.

So here's a breakdown of my favorite and least favorite labels - the ones that I identify with and the ones I'd rather leave behind.

White, European-descended, fair-skinned

I don't like to call myself "white." First of all, it's simply medically untrue (I'm also a persnicketor). Secondly, the term "white" brings up so many associations of Anglo-Saxon superiority, Aryanism, and other stuff that I just do not subscribe to. If you have to lump me, I'd rather be called "White" than "Caucasian" (my ancestors just are not from Georgia and that term is SO flippin' racisto), but for common usage I prefer to be referred to as "fair-skinned," "European-descended," "North European-American," "light pink," or even "unfairly privileged peach-toned bastard."

Female, male, transgendered, FTM, gay, bisexual, transvestite

I am female-to-male transgendered, which means that I am biologically female and perceived as female in the outside world, but as far as I am concerned I am male. Here on the Internet, I prefer to use male pronouns and a male name. I enjoy wearing women's clothes very rarely, and only on my terms.

White, obese, slacker, American

This particular set of labels will get me pegged pretty quickly as yet another water-buffalo American, shuffling down the sidewalks in singleminded pursuit of my next Big Mac. Well, I'm here to tell you that I don't eat Big Macs (or fast food, if I can help it), I don't shuffle, and unlike some people I actually take responsibility for my own obesity and am trying to repair it.

Caveman, meat-eater

With all respect to the American Heart Association, American Diabetics' Association, etc.: sorry, but you're wrong. The anti-meat, pro-carb guidelines currently in place are based on faulty data, half-baked assumptions, insufficient studies and a whole lot of hyperbole. That's why I won't eat hot dogs or processed hamburgers and sausages if I can help it, but I will happily sink my teeth into a whole, chemically-minimal piece of beefy goodness. (I also work out. That's the other side of being a caveman. And to soothe any further concerns about my health, I also eat plenty of green vegetables and fruit, and my blood sugar has been almost completely under control ever since I started eating this way.)

Atheist, agnostic, panmaterialist

Again, all of these are true. I am an atheist in that I do not worship any gods. I am agnostic because I do not know for sure (and not because I'm "between religions" at the moment - I'm just not interested in that kind of a relationship right now). I call myself a panmaterialist because I appreciate the fact that everything that exists in the universe now came from the same place, has existed forever, and can never be destroyed, only configured into new shapes. Even human minds will live on in the minds of others, sometimes for generations after the original has passed. Everything that exists is part of a living, ongoing network that cannot truly be destroyed.

Zac Efron fangirl

It's true. I can't help it. Looking at Zac Efron makes me so happy that I just want to squee, because he is that pretty. You could say that Zac Efron is my one weakness.

Country boy

I'm not a cowboy, just so you know. I've lived in the country my whole life, yet I've still grown up into a middle-class type of young adult. I don't even like cows that much. But I like to live out here, I like to take long walks and photographs, and the fresh air is to die for.

I'll extrapolate more on these and other labels in other posts. These are just the ones that stand out to me as the kind that I identify with the most or the least, or that other people are most likely to consider when they decide what kind of person I am. That's what labels are for, after all.