alex I see what you mean all over too. and I think I am primed to look too. them and us. outsider and insider. human and non human. and i completely agree with you that this is objectively a very very catastrophic conception.
but then..
theres the difference between being objective and being emotional
and we need to find a balance somehow.
because you cant have one without the other.
so as far as i can see there are a lot of people (myself included) who have a sense of a more powerful emotional connection when they are talking to someone that they know has experienced the same experiences as them. every time i get that feeling i try to analyse it and see if i can extrapolate from that what the immediate negative effects may be and sometimes i really cant see the harm.
for example with the LGBT (etc) thing i understand that you dont have the same emotional experience when you talk to someone who has had the same exact experience but i genuinely feel safer talking to people that i know have gone through the same sexuality struggles as me and the same prejudgments, exclusions, moral difficulties, guilt etc etc than i do talking about those experiences with people who can say that they have felt the same feelings in different circumstances but since feelings are so difficult to pin down neither of us can be sure they actually are the same or if we are just using similar language to describe different sensations. when the factual experiences are the same the danger of that is halved at least.
soooooo. what was the point of this message... lol. um it was that while you cant understand that and i think actually thats a great thing to have reached a state where gender/orientation etc genuinely doesnt matter, not everyone has reached that state yet (no matter how hard some of us try!) so in the mean time there are many people who draw comfort from sharing similar factual experiences.
i hope this makes sense!
btw i would love to reply to your other messages in the psychotherapy forum but i am way too messed up right now to do that. which doesnt mean im not reading raptly!
so thank you and i hope i havent insulted because i am really just replying to your theory and not to you personally.
personally i think you rock.
tc
biiv