Now that you've pointed it out I've also realized there was something off about how I thought about attack helicopters when I first read the title.

Wiki entry[1] and archived short story[2] for anyone else reading the parent's remark and wondering how does one coherently map attack helicopters to gender identity meme.

Wow, now I can't unsee it.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Sexually_Identify_as_an_Atta...

[2] https://archive.ph/20200101232918/http://clarkesworldmagazin...

I did not know it was based on a short story!

It wasn't based on the short story, the short story is a piece of trans literature that took the transphobic meme (which was around first) and turned it into a powerful work of art (for which fhe creator was literally hounded out of public exposure and into a major mental health crisis largely because of people's kneejerk reaction judging the work by its title.

Good time to re-evaluate your associations. That's a really obnoxious meme that I'm glad has died down outside circles of people who still obstinately see gender identity as something to debate and criticize rather than recognize and accept.

How does one re-evaluate associations and what good does it do? Are associations not automatic by nature?

Additionally, aren't the people you describe (who don't accept an asexual view of gender identity) exactly who was using the meme the whole time? I don't think that group has become much smaller recently (still the majority of people), so if the meme has died down I think it is rather because people have become bored of it.

  ... of people who still obstinately see gender identity as something to debate and criticize rather than recognize and accept.

Would you say the same thing for national and racial identity? Which identities are allowed to pride yourself in?

I hope you see the point behind that.

That's a good point. A male identifying himself as a woman makes about as much sense as a Polish identifying as a Korean.

Lets not have this degenerate into transphobia. My critique is directed towards gender identity in general and equally applies to cis people.

My critique was too. Makes no sense to identify with a category you don't actually belong to.

This topic makes me think about identity and who gets to change the definition of it and who doesn't.

I think it is fascinating how the battleground has shifted over time from conflict over objective interaction in the real world to etymology and the internal classification systems people use to model the world.