Identity Reduction Quotes

I'm an actor, full stop. Not an Arab actor. Not an actor of Algerian origin. Just an actor.

The preoccupation with transition and with surgery objectifies trans people, and we don't get to really deal with the real lived experiences.

I'm wary about this thing about being in the generation of social networking where people are like, 'I am my musical taste.' I am not just a collection of music. Or a collection of movies. I think that's a thing that people romanticize: 'Oh my God, she likes this band so she is a dream.'

Every day, there'd be somebody interviewing me as a "lesbian living in Russia." It got to the point where I would joke that I now have two jobs. I work as a writer and a journalist, and I also work as a lesbian. There's a big difference between being out and having that be your sole identity, the only reason that someone is talking to you. My twelve-year-old daughter said, "I have a new job as well. I work as the daughter of a lesbian," because she was also giving all these interviews.

There's always someone asking you to underline one piece of yourself - whether it's Black, woman, mother, dyke, teacher, etc. - because that's the piece that they need to key in to. They want to dismiss everything else.

There's all kinds of mothers, so to use the label 'mother' and to think you really understood all that a human being is because she's a mother, is a mistake.

When other people say, 'Oh you're so-and-so's friend, brother, or husband,' it's reductive to the point of being white noise.

You are often asked to explain your work, as if the reader isn't able to work it out. And people always try and label you by your work.

Describing someone as quirky is a way of erasing them. What does it even mean? In so many interviews over the years, that's how I'm described. It doesn't sit comfortably with me.

By a monstrous act of reductionism, the infinite depth of who you are is confused with a sound produced by the vocal cords." (p. 28)

Silhouettes are reductions, and racial stereotypes are also reductions of actual human beings.

I was afraid of Sonya being defined by her sexuality because that's not fair to her. I don't want Sonya to be defined by who she loves.

I find I am constantly being encouraged to pluck out some one aspect of myself and present this as the meaningful whole, eclipsing or denying the other parts of self.

I was giving a speech one time, and the woman who introduced me said, 'Well, she used to be J. D. Salinger's girlfriend. I thought, 'God, is that all I've been?' I didn't want to be reduced to that.