Can we please put to rest the phrase “identity politics”? What is at issue and has been at issue in regard to gender, race, and sexuality is the perception of identity by those who control the cultural conversation. We who are female, of color, and who express liquid sexualities during our lifetimes have created consciousness about social inequality and abuse based on our perceived identities. We who challenge the essential nature of everything are describing the trauma of being othered by the normative majority. The reality of identity is up for grabs. I don’t believe there is such a thing as a man, a women, a gay person, or a straight person. People have different skin colors, but race as a biological category does not exist. What we need to study is not identity, which is in flux all the time, but phobias against perceived identities. We need phobia studies, since sexism, racism, and homophobia are certainly real and alive. Sexism–and the same old dirty form of sexism that has existed for centuries–drives the recent use of the phrase “identity politics” by dems and male “leftists” to trivialize and fracture the global shift in consciousness these reform movements have accomplished. Yeah, racism and homophobia, too. But man do these asshats hate female humans.