Identity, Authenticity - Do they conflict?

[Gemme]

Originally Posted by Nightshade

Wow. Interesting topic. I'm excited to read everyone's take on it.

For me, I am not my identity. How I id myself is my simplified, shortcut way of expressing a part of who I am to the listener. And to myself for that matter. I always have been authentically me and have spent a great deal of my life frustrated because I lacked words for who/what I am. How I feel. What's inside.

Being human, I am multifaceted and haven't got it all figured out yet (probably never will) so I know that parts of how I identify are subject to change. That isn't to say that everything is temporary, I just feel it's important to question beliefs with an open mind. As time goes on I learn more and more about myself and how I relate to the world around me and my identity gets refined. Or something that I've thought to be safe statement about me gets put through the fire and doesn't survive, so I know it wasn't truly a part of me.

I say MOST of it is subject to change because some things have remained true long enough for me to state as unequivocal fact. I'm turning 48 soon and I have always been happily, unwaveringly female. When I was a little girl, I used to hang out with tomboys (budding femme that I was) and wonder why anyone would want to act like or be a boy. It's not that I haven't questioned my gender, it's that I have and the answer has always been the same.

Tl;dr: I am not my identity, my identity is a simplified, partial explanation of me.

I really relate to what you wrote here, Nightshade.



To respond to the main question...the title question...for me...they have. Much less now than before, though. For a while, when I was still trying to figure out what was going on with me and where I was going and who I was, I identified with identities that didn't fully explain or connect with myself. I did it out of laziness and of fear. I had an identity but I wasn't being completely authentic with myself.

As I've grown and evolved, I've become more authentic. The identities that are right for me came only after I began to be true to myself.

Shakespeare may have had something there......