{"id":1730,"date":"2026-04-16T15:25:37","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T19:25:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.exunoplures.org\/main\/?page_id=1730"},"modified":"2026-04-16T15:28:32","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T19:28:32","slug":"against-respectability-politics-in-multiplicity","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.exunoplures.org\/main\/articles\/intersections\/against-respectability-politics-in-multiplicity\/","title":{"rendered":"Against Respectability Politics in Multiplicity"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yavari Romanov and Jack Dawkins, 2026<\/em><\/p>\n

Disclaimer:<\/strong> Note that this isn\u2019t an anti-endogenic rant. Although we\u2019re a mixed-origin system, we believe that endogenic systems are just as valid as we are. We hate plural-community pissing contests and have since we got involved.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When we got involved with the plural community twenty years ago, we got inducted into the healthy\/empowered multiplicity subculture, not realising how much trauma played a role in the formation of our system. We thought we were endogenic\u2014though that term wasn\u2019t used back then\u2014for years, till Jamie started suspecting otherwise and the rest of us eventually followed her lead.<\/p>\n

Our entr\u00e9e into the plural world was through websites like Astraea\u2019s Web<\/em><\/a>, the Anachronic Army\u2019s Dark Personalities<\/a><\/em>, The Layman\u2019s Guide to Multiplicity<\/em><\/a>, the Blackbirds\u2019 Four and Twenty<\/a><\/em>, and the Two Courts<\/em>. All these aimed to decouple endogenic multiplicity from DID. They were the precursor to the modern \u201cendogenic\u201d systems, though they called themselves \u201cnatural\u201d multiples or plurals. It is true that there are systems that exist without undergoing trauma. But the way they did it sometimes denigrated traumagenic systems who needed therapeutic support to navigate life. They held themselves up as being functional, sane, and independent, rather than those other<\/em> systems who needed significant services and supports to help them manage life.<\/p>\n

Most of those sites are long gone (except for Astraea\u2019s Web), but the ideas incubated there still exist even thirty years later. It\u2019s just that they\u2019ve migrated to Reddit, TikTok, and Tumblr instead.<\/p>\n

Even now, there are systems who make a big deal out of being more functional or stable than all the rest. They\u2019re marginalising those of us who are not only plural, but struggle with other mental health issues, because we\u2019re too \u201cdysfunctional\u201d and \u201cunstable.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s ableist, disempowering, shitty behaviour that doesn\u2019t help our community. It\u2019s based on capitalist constructions of what productivity and respectability look like.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s take a trip back in time to understand the foundations of respectability politics in the plural community.<\/p>\n

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