This is my entry for @misslasvegas' Spread-the-Love Contest. Please follow the link to check out this amazing competition.
In her post she challenged us to:
Go and find a brand-new Steemian with the #introduceyourself tag.
Someone who did an introduceyourself post before she posted her competition post.
No more than one week old. AND, not from the trending page please...
Make sure that this is their genuine first introduction, and not the 12th post with the same tag.
You SHOULD NOT KNOW THEM!
Well, the post I found might have crept it's way into trending as it has a $10 payout but I didn't find it in trending. I found this post by reading through the new section of the #introduceyourself tag and out of the six post I read, this was by far the best written.
The post was called simply, Introducing Myself by @t-lab.
Anyone who knows me on steem, knows that I'm a writer in my profession which is partly why this post jumped out at me. But also, the openness and honesty of this new steemians introduction shone beyond many intros I've read on this platform. If curie accepted submissions for intro posts, I would have submitted this one without hesitation.
I'm dark-gray asexual, demi-romantic, non-binary, mostly androgynous, gender-fluid human being.
It took me years to figure that out,
decades, actually.
Source by @t-lab
The author of the intro post tells us a story about how she came to the realization that she doesn't follow 'traditional' gender/sexual classifications. I've read more than a few posts on steem that attack the subject of political correctness and gender fluidity in the same breath. Those people would probably attempt to classify me as a bleeding heart liberal in an online conversation, but would soon find out that I'm anything but in a real one. What I object to in those articles I've read, is how they take one subject which is valid - the ridiculous extents of how far political correctness has gone in certain areas of life - while trying to lump it in with their own skewed views on what they perceive as 'normal'.
Ha ha, shit. Before I get into a full-on rant I'll qualify what I'm saying simply. Anyone who has the emotional strength and maturity to figure out that they are an asexual, androgynous, gender-fluid human being, in a society where our media pretty much pushes three sexual identity choices on people from the moment they're born, deserves recognition as a strong, intelligent person. There is far too much judgmental bullshit out there on the internet, so I was really pleased, and proud, to see that the steem community welcomed @t-lab with open arms.
Pheww, I just made it on the right side of the word count with 467 words 😂
@misslasvegas...
Thanks for running this competition.
Join us @steemitbloggers
Animation By @zord189
Good post. Thanks for entering me. And you're spot on. No two human beings are identical (except identical twins, and even then), so with billions upon billions of possible configurations, why does Western culture limit us to two genders and three sexual orientations? That's never made sense to me. Good luck on the contest. I hope we win.
You're most welcome for the entry @t-lab... I'm keeping my fingers crossed :) Welcome to steem and I have followed you so hopefully I'll catch some of your posts on my feed.
Difficult question to be honest. I'm pretty sure it is a combination of many things. Perhaps societal pressure to conform, i.e. the tendency of humans (as a collective) to follow 'the norm'. Also, that it's almost hard wired into us to be a competing species. With tribal identity come objectification, as it is part of the whole structure of that tribal 'nationalistic' mentality to need someone else to label as other. This attitude and modality has been happening for thousands of years and this has caused it to be embedded in the collective unconscious.
Ha ha, that's all just my personal view though. Many people would probably read that and say it was utter nonsense.
OH WOW @raj808! What a great entry! This is pretty much as real and raw as they come. I love it! Thanks so much for the entry, upvote and resteem.
Oh, and I believe you're starting to know me very well: I can't resist the Dean Winchester wink 😍.
Cheers, right. I thought it was raw, honest and open intro post. I'm one of these second round hippies who just thinks people should be able to be whatever they want to be, child of the 90's and all that.... lol, but sometimes I get a little intense in calling out knobheads and there stupidity.
Ha ha, I'm glad you liked the gif :-)
Yeah, I agree: be whatever you want to be. Yeah, I tend to have less and less patience with people who show great amounts of stupidity lately. That was kinda the first indication that I had to make plans to leave here. I used to have endless talks with people to try and make them think for themselves, only to be drained of all my energy and see the person in question still hold the same stupid ideas. Here it's often the blank stares I get that get to me LOL.
Hi @raj808!
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Your UA account score is currently 4.419 which ranks you at #2161 across all Steem accounts.
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YEAH @t-lab!
I couldn't nominate you because I know you, so I'm glad someone did!! :D
:-) Hi phoenixwren. t-lab's post was an easy choice as it was the most interesting and well written out of all the posts I read in the #introduceyourself tag. I'm glad I found such a great post to enter and now it's fingers crossed time... for both of us to win lol