Btw the fact sysmeds seem to think “Identity = frivolous choice you can undo” is in itself transphobic. Especially in the context of being horrified with the idea of it being compared in any manner to being trans. Like that somehow makes being plural “just a choice.”
I did not choose to be a boy anymore then I choose to be a headmate in a system. The same goes for wholely endogenic systems, including willogenic/tulpa systems. Even if they willed or made their headmates, once they exist, they exist, and forcing dormancy is highly unethical the vast majority of the time and can backfire really fucking badly.
It isn’t a choice they can undo lightly, nor would most want to just to make you feel better about them. Not to mention the ethics of such a decision and the fact the created headmates themselves did not choose to be created.
I “choose” to identify as transmasc because it describes my feelings of being a boy, and I “choose” to identify as plural because it describes us being more then one. My headmates exist regardless of what words we use, plurality just explains our experiences the best.
That doesn’t change because the orgin for that core experience of being more then one is different. Maybe they don’t experience the negatives that come from our specific trauma, so what? Why does that suddenly make their experience fake? Because it doesn’t aligned with the psych idea of what causes DID? When DID isn’t even the thing they are talking about? What a load of bullshit.
Honestly I think of one the worst ideas that came from syscourse is this idea that plurality started with DID. That it somehow owns the whole idea of having more the one consciousnes or self in one body. The moment you admit that idea extends to spiritual systems in a non-traumagenic manner, is the moment you admit that plurality is not exclusive to trauma. This is an idea that has long been a thing before even MPD was conceived of.
Plurality is just putting a word to the experience that has existed for as long as humans have been a thing.
Maybe we need not be so scared of having similar experiences to people we consider “lucky”, maybe we need to open our mind to the vast diversity of experiences that the human brain is capable of and just listen. :}
Listen to endogenic systems about their own experiences.
