EDITORIAL — This confusing “identify” phenomenon

One issue almost everyone is talking about nowadays is how a waiter was treated by a local celebrity after he called him “sir” instead of the “ma’am” he prefers to be called.

It has raised quite a number of reactions from netizens as well as his fellow members in the LGBTQ community.

We are not here to lay any more hurt on that person for his actions, he has been criticized enough already. He has also issued a public apology so it should end there.

But one topic we would like to raise is the confusion brought about by this “identify” phenomenon. Letting people “identify” with something they are not can complicate things and lead to incidents like what caused the hullabaloo above.

Nowadays, for the sake of smooth interpersonal relations, we often let people get away with “identifying” themselves as something they may not be.

Case in point what happened above; some people are born male but identify themselves as female and insist on being called such. If we encourage this behavior where does it end? Others may insist they are born Filipinos but identify as Americans and demand American rights and privileges. Others may say they are adults but identify as infantile, so they will insist they have to be taken care of as children. Others might say they identify as animals and act as such, and so on. It will not end there.

It gets complicated when people who identify with genders, nationalities, identities, and things they are not insist on others conforming to their beliefs as well.

One internet reactor said it well: "Do not tell people to call an apple a mango just because you want to believe that an apple is a mango. Do not impose your belief on others if your belief is in the first place out of place. Call something whatever you want, it’s yours! But to impose on others and call them disrespectful for not seeing what you see is out of the line!"

Of course, in the end, everyone is entitled to their own beliefs, even if these go against common sense and will just sow confusion. But they should be warned that this may cause occasions when they feel they have been slighted even when no offense was intended or even committed.