Quidditism

Quidditism

Quidditism is an ideology and a movement that seeks to take peaceful action to push the world towards an accepting, tolerant and fully free future, where everyone can thrive without fear.

Why quidditism?

The word 'quiddity' has 2 major definitions. The first one being "whatever makes something what is is, the essence". The movement seeks to establish a world where everyone is allowed to fully embrace themselves and who they truly are. In other words we wish for people to embrace their essence. The second definition of the world 'quiddity' is "deviation from an established pattern or norm, eccentricity". The quidditism movement focuses on marginalised identities such as LGBTQIA+ identities or paraphilias as these people are not allowed, in today's society, to flourish as themselves without fear. In other words, the liberation and normalisation of people considered eccentric, whether it be by their gender presentation, attraction or neurodiversity, is central to our goal.

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Quidditism's core values

Now, let's go over quidditism`s beliefs and summarize them.

Radical Inclusion

Radical inclusion is the first of the values we'll go over. Being a radical inclusionist means accepting all 'good-faith' identities. But what even is a 'good-faith' identity?

There are 2 main criteria for an identity to be of 'good-faith'. The first one being that the identity is genuine, and not taken up to prove a point, to grift, or to be generally disingenuous. In other words, if you genuinely identify with it, this box is checked. The second criteria is the one where controversy arises, It is generally defined as being harmless. However, what is considered harmless may vary from individual to individual. Quidditists generally consider that as long as it doesn't do any real world harm (like taking up limited resources, although it is rare a simple identity can achieve this) and tries it's best to be non-offensive and non-bigoted, the identity is good faith. In other words, identifying as a transvestite because it feels right to you, and while having read up on the terms history is completely good faith, however identifying as the same thing to try and mock trans people isn't.

So, quidditists are radically inclusive: they support any genuine identity that does its best to be harmless.

Paraphilias & Contact

Now, we talked about paraphilias above. A paraphilia is defined as an unconventional sexual attraction. In our day & age, homosexuality isn't considered one, however back when the fight for the LGBTQIA+ community was far less advanced, it was considered a paraphilic disorder.

Wait a second, what even is the difference between a paraphilia and a paraphilic disorder? Nothing except the "disorder' part, aka the factor of "is it causing harm or distress to you or people around you".

However, paraphilias are never inherently considered disorders in quidditism. 

Having said that, we consider them the same way as we do kinks and fetishes. They are cousins after all: kink regroups all use of unconventional sexual practises or fantasies while fetishes are a form of sexual desire strongly linked to a particular thing or activity. They overlap a whole lot, don't you think? 

In general, we will use these terms interchangeably.

You could summarise quidditism's contact beliefs by "if it is consensual, it's fine", but you would need to define consent for this. So what is consent?

Consent, as a noun, is defined as the permission for something to happen or the agreement to do something. As a verb, it is defined as giving permission for something to happen or to do something.

Additionally, anyone who consents must be able to back out and change their minds at any point before, during or after what they initially consented to without fear of repercussions. They should also feel free to give (or not) their consent in the first place, and not be forced to do so.

There are a few points that we will examine further here.

Firstly, consenting to sex in itself is a complex thing and not just the act of understanding and agreeing, so there must be both a technical understanding of sex along with an emotional understanding of sex for consent to truly be possible.

Secondly, anyone of age and not under the influence can consent before regression, use of substance, sleep or death.

Thirdly, only older teens (16& up) should consent to adults, with proper harm reduction of course.

The thoughts on younger people are still being worked on.

And lastly, animals cannot consent to sexual acts due to not having the cognitive ability and speech for it. Additionally, just because an animal's body enjoys an act does not mean they consented to it, as consent is a clear agreement and acknowledgement, not body language or what you perceive.

Total bodily autonomy

Bodily autonomy is defined as the right to make decisions about your own body, life and future, without coercion or violence. When we say total bodily autonomy, it isn't trivial. In today's world, abortion access and rights are threatened more and more, women are still subject to genitalia mutilation at a very young age in multiple countries, and trans people need to jump through hoops to get gender affirming care. But to us, it doesn't stop there. We want to fight so that everyone has the right to make informed choices on what they do with their body and life, whether that's extreme body modification, gender affirming care, abortion, or just a tattoo.

Anti-psychiatry

Anti-psychiatry is the view that psychiatric treatment can often be more damaging than helpful. Do not the often in the above sentence. So, what does that mean in practise? A few things.

Psychiatric care should be entirely optional. Whether you want to recover with psychiatric help, by yourself or even not al all, you should be given all the necessary information to make that choice for yourself. This ties back in with the last point, total bodily autonomy, and with the next one.

Chosen Recovery

We've spoken about informed total bodily autonomy and what that would mean in psychiatry: the option to seek recovery or not. Here, we are extending this beyond psychiatry. We believe that no matter what you might have that could be recovered from, you should get to choose whether you want to or not. First, we believe that that is your right, and second, we are horrifically aware of the fail rates of forcing someone into recovery: as a general rule of thumb, if someone doesn't want recovery, they won't recover, no matter what you try. That doesn't mean you can't bring the option to their attention, just that ultimately, it is their choice, and theirs alone.

Transhumanism

Following up on all the bodily autonomy related beliefs, we have transhumanism. It is a movement that advocates the enhancements of the human body and condition by developing and making widely available new and future technologies that can greatly enhance longevity, cognition, and well-being. That would include wing or animal ears implants for transspecies folks, to only cite one of many examples.

Realmism

Realmism is an ideology based around the belief in magic and the multiverse. It promotes all faiths and religions, as well as the practise of reality shifting and the right to outlandish, weird, and uncommon beliefs, with an emphasis on being pro-delusion. If you wish to learn more, the entry on transid.org goes into more details.

Existentialism

Existentialism is the philosophical belief we are each responsible for creating purpose or meaning in our own lives. It isn't given to us by an authority. Whether you choose to seek it in faith, the arts, social causes or just your own happiness, it is entirely yours to craft.

Pacifism

Pacifism is a commitment to peace and an oppositioin to violence, war in particular. The quidditism movement believes that unless strictly necessary, violence should never be used, defining it as a last resort. How do we achieve our goals then? Educating.

Punk

Quidditism follows a very punk-ish ethos. The punk ethos is primarily made up of beliefs such as non-conformity, anti-capitalism, anti-authoritarianism, anti-corporatism, a do-it-yourself ethic, anti-consumerist, anti-greed, direct action, and not selling out".

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