Quotes on Identities

Drag is involved with changing identities and not taking identities too seriously at all. That's why drag is such a hard sell to a network - or anyone, really - because it's up against the ego.

Tribalism reflects strong ethnic or cultural identities that separate members of one group from another, making them loyal to people like them and suspicious of outsiders, which undermines efforts to forge common cause across groups.

We have many identities, and we can't be authentic to them all. The best we can do is be sincere in our efforts to earn the values we claim.

Because trans people are marked as artificial, unnatural, and illegitimate, our bodies and identities are often open to public dissection. Plainly, cisgender folks often take it as their duty to investigate our lives to see if we're real.

I always assumed that my otherness was a curse - that I would be held back by my Asian and queer identities.

I get kind of, um, bored by all the sexuality and gender labels because I feel like that's where the problem comes in, when people feel that they need to have these particular identities. If you didn't have these labels, and you just acted on how you genuinely felt at any point, then you wouldn't have anything to contend with.

Enjoying fiction requires a shift in selfhood. You give up your own identity and try on the identities of other people, adopting their perspectives so as to share their experiences. This allows us to enjoy fictional events that would shock and sadden us in real life.

Our identities have no bodies, so, unlike you, we cannot obtain order by physical coercion. We believe that from ethics, enlightened self-interest, and the commonweal, our governance will emerge.

It comes down to this: black people were stripped of our identities when we were brought here, and it's been a quest since then to define who we are.

The marginalized did not create identity politics: their identities have been forced on them by dominant groups, and politics is the most effective method of revolt.

When we have a trans woman playing a trans woman, then you see, 'Oh wait, this is what trans really is. This is what it looks like: a person.' That sends a message to trans kids that they are valid in their identities that they are allowed to exist.

Every human being has an assortment of diverse identities, and it greatly matters which one is triggered by social situations, which hold up different kinds of mirrors. The same is true for nations.

Our identities really are a constant negotiation between the story we tell about ourselves and the narrative our societies like to recite.

I'm not sure if the passage of time affects our core identities so much as reveals them to us.