Who are you? No who are you really?

Open Minds Group in London - July 22

Have you ever heard of the identity onion before? Well if you think of yourself like an onion with an outside and an inside, then if we cut this onion in half, what would we see? Which identities would be easy for us to see on the outside, and which identities do you keep much more hidden at the core of your onion?

We talked about this idea and a few other ways of thinking about our identities and the discussion was really interesting. People talked about how it’s not always easy to be ourselves out in the world, and sometimes we feel we need to ‘tone down’ different parts of who we are to help us fit in. This can become a problem when this toning down is due to homophobia or racism.

We talked about gender roles and how they can become a trap or a cage for some of us. Ideas about what is ‘manly’ and what is womanly’ can force us to behave in ways that don’t feel natural to us. Over time, behaving or performing like this can have a negative effect on our self-esteem and can affect our mental health.

Homophobia came up a few times, and we talked about the idea of internalised homophobia. This is the idea that we can carry negative feelings about our queer identites inside us and even when other people are treating us with kindness and respect, we still feel shame or sadness about our LGBTQIA+ selves.

The risk of internalising other people’s negative views can apply to lots of situations, including transphobia, racism and sexism. It’s hard to completely get rid of these feelings, as the wrong situation can sometimes reactivate them, but with practice you can shrink them and not let them affect how you feel about yourself.

One of the greatest antidotes to internalised homophobia is being around people that accept you for who you are. This was one of the lovely things about meeting everyone at this group and we hope that everyone felt more accepted, seen, and connected by having these conversations with each other.

Going back to the onion, what would your onion look like, inside and outside? If you’ve never done it before, try drawing it out and giving it some thought.

Are there parts of that onion that you want to get rid or change and are there secret parts of your onion that you want to bring out closer to the surface?

As always our identities are much more complicated than what we can draw on a piece of paper and we are much more than our skin colour, sexuality or gender. Onion or no onion, sometimes it’s good to remember this!

With warm wishes,

The Open Minds Project ­

We meet on the last Wednesday of each month and if you want to join us at an Open Minds Meeting, please visit the Events page on our website.