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Comment by purple-dragon | Hacker News Reader

If I can say it another, simpler way: I decide when and what I do with my body and what that makes me. No stranger’s perception nor insistence can change that. However, repeatedly being subjected to such judgements over subconscious or natural expressions of behavior, whether voice, gait, etc., is a vehicle for psychological harm, much like gas lighting.

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You can absolutely decide what you do with your body, but what it makes you is not solely your decision. Like it or not, what we are labeled as is partially determined by what society thinks we are.

Here is an extreme example to prove this. I can say that I am a chair, and I can argue this until I'm blue in the face, but that won't change the fact that others will think that I am a human, not a chair. More relevant to the conversation, let's say I am a man that only has relationships with other men. I can call myself straight all I want, but if I tell other people about my behavior, they will categorize that behavior by the behavior(homosexual), thus it will not always align with the categorization that I apply to myself(straight). Okay or not, it is human nature to behave this way.

That’s my point. You can call me gay all day, every day because of my hypothetical lisp. That doesn’t make it so.

Sure, but I was more responding to your post above saying "I decide when and what I do with my body and what that makes me. No stranger’s perception nor insistence can change that." The perception of others does affect a persons categorization. Humans also categorize based on stereotypical behavior of things within a category, eg. lisp and swaying gate in gay men, long hair and lowered muscle mass in women, etc. These are all stereotypes that are found in a higher density within those categories, and often people within those categories change their behavior to align more with those categories(women intentionally growing hair out and wearing makeup) to accent category projection and improve accurate category interpretation in others(that is a woman). In this way, stereotypes aren't always prejudicial, it's more of the rigidity of the category interpretation that makes something bad, such as saying all men with lisps are gay, which is wrong.

I know this is quite a bit, but the main point I'm trying to make is that there is nuance in this conversation. Categorizations aren't always evil(though they can be), and are important social signals in our society.

I mostly agree, but it is lazy, sloppy, and unnecessary to combine “gay” and “flight attendant” at the hip as multiple people have done in this post.

As for deciding “what that makes me”, I was trying to obliquely save room for the case another poster brought up, namely being gay or bisexual.

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