The Question – Identity

We all have various identity’s, ones we can and can’t control these identities are shaped throughout our life, they evolve and change by what we do and who we are friends with. The first identity we are assigned is male or female, I don’t want to get into gender identity as I believe its not my area of expertise.

But from our first breath, our evolving identity is underway. As we enter nursery and school, as we make friends, we form groups and as they evolve those groups are who we become associated with. I’m as you know am disabled, throughout my life I have always been an outsider.

I have struggled with my identity both with Cerebral Palsy and my sexuality, two things which I have found exceedingly difficult at times, but have got used to overtime. Asking my parents about ‘getting better’ to be told I cannot, you ask the question ‘why me?’ I can’t answer that, but as I have got older I realised that I don’t know any different.

Sexuality as been another area of my identity where I have struggled, I have always accepted that I am a man. There are things I don’t wish to share, but since hormones kicked in, I have been attracted to boys, though my only relationship forced me to repress a lot.

It was only when I was twenty-two, I began to open up and realised how much I had lied to myself, but it has given me peace.  ‘Why me?’ because they are both things which make me, me. Something I wouldn’t change for anyone.

We all live in a country which the media now describe as divided by ‘leave or remain’, I think there is more to it. We voted to leave, but as a reluctant leave voter the deal is not one, I believe in and have always believed I made a mistake.

The referendum stirred up I believe a lot of scared people, leading up to the 2016 vote we know a lot of people were scared to say they wanted to leave the EU. These people I believe were worried about immigration, and sovereignty which Vote Leave.

Peoples nationally and culture should be part of their identity, but shouldn’t stop them from building relationships with others. I believe having friendships with people who you may not always agree with, we need not be scared of those who are different.

The murder of Jo Cox managed to briefly unite both sides, Cox’s death shows we all a common belief that no one should be murdered for there political believes. From what I’ve read about her she was a kind and caring person who wanted to improve our world.

What we do for pleasure is also what defines us, where we have been aboard, where we go who we hang around with. The rich go aboard every couple of months, while if your upper working class you go every few years or once a year.

But we must let the class system divided us, between the haves and have nots, as I believe it is important that friendships a varied. We know that society is divide but money shouldn’t be one of them, as it is sadly. Identity should be part of us, but not divisive.

Religion is also something which can be divisive, but I believe because you may follow a religion that doesn’t mean you agree with all its teachings or use it to spread hate against other groups. I believe most followers see themselves as tolerant of other groups.

We mustn’t, however, stereotype groups of people, not all Christians believe homosexuality is wrong, not all American are loud and arrogant. As a person who has a disability sadly there have been times when I have been put in a box and been down about who I am. I try not to put people in boxes, given

We must remember that even though your part of a group of people who share views on say religion or politics you don’t always and will never agree on everything. This means we mustn’t stereotype these groups of people, as wholly supporting everything that is said in religious texts.

These are negative stereotypes we all don’t like to admit it we all have an unconscious bias. Sometimes we may watch or change our views of people with certain characteristics, but we mustn’t as that will be seen as being discriminatory.

These are often I believed formed by bad experiences or what we read in the media, we should not allow these to form our own prejudices. If we do have these biases, these will become part of who we are identity politics.

We live in extraordinary times we have seen the Black Lives Matter movement rise over the last two months has I think highlighted how subconscious basis has led to racism and BAME people having fewer opportunities to succeed than white peers. Maybe as white people we need to be more aware of our own basis’s when it comes to other people.

Simply, I believe at the end of the day we all share similar messages of love and care. The UK I believe is we don’t talk about English or Northern Irish identity as much as we do Scottish or Welsh because of our history, I explored this last year.

It is not necessarily our passport nationality which our values, it’s the country we live and work in. At the moment, I feel we are in a phase where many countries are looking inwards and this stirs up hate or margination of minority groups.

The way this is done is largely by simple messaging which I believe the left hasn’t grasped. Look at “Make America great again,” or “Get Brexit done,” these attracted the people who have for years struggled to identify with traditional politics, the centre of politics hasn’t been able

Our identity is unique to us, its not one thing and it’s always evolving as we get older. It varies on where we are, for example, we act and behave differently evolve ever-changing as we grow as people.

I don’t think that there are parts of my younger self which are no longer part of who I am, but those activities or characteristics have shaped my character. We are always finding new parts of our identity which is part of the evolution which has been going on from the beginning of time.

We cannot choose some parts of our indent, like disability, sexuality, race. They are the factors which shape who we are, what also shapes our identity is what we do for both work and leisure, as it what we spend most of our time doing.

You would like to believe that most of us are accepting of all identities which form our collective identities. Collective identity I think includes the protective characteristics, also your personality and our human identity.

It can get difficult when we get into, for example, veganism, goths or being a parent are not according to the 2010 Equality Act are not protected by law. But we need to be able to find ways of saying things without being offensive.

Identity is also something we share as a local community, city/town, region or country. I believe that if you attack, black people, LGBTQ+ persons, people who are religious or other minority groups you attack my identity as a British person. Our identity as a nation is based on equality and if we take away anyone’s rights to be themselves, we have failed.

We need to unite as one, as that makes us stronger when we encounter prejudice, is only there to divide us…