Facing Challenges

Systems are challenged in their self-acceptance, day in and day out, from without and from within.
Here's what to look out for in the wild, and what that one internal conflict might just boil down to.

Normativity

Outside of basic non-acceptance or misunderstandings of the nature of plurality, the most widespread root of sysphobia is singlet-normativity - the idea that singlethood is a privileged default expected of everyone. Because wider society is not exposed to plurality, deviations from singlet behaviours and experiences can lead to rejection, distress, and danger.

Through a lens where singlethood is the only "normal", plurality is unacceptably complex and must be a fabricated delusion, the privacy of a system is irrelevant compared to keeping others aware of abnormalities, and the needs and desires of a system can be dismissed in pursuit of restoring normalcy via medical intervention.

In this rejection of diversity, limited definitions of plurality emerge. When utilized, these may leave one system objectified as "fun costumes" and another deprived of systemhood in being seen as “purely individuals” – and without a widespread diverse definition, questioning systems are left wondering if they can call themselves plural at all.

This creates a pressure to be "normal enough" that affects systems far beyond self-acceptance. Whenever a system un-represses (or "gains") a new headmate, they're challenged with the question - how many headmates can a system have without becoming unacceptable? Faced with normative pressure, "a System of 4" feels more believable/acceptable than "a System of 40" - even when both systems are comfortable. Whenever a plural experience doesn't line up with the simplest, most common analogies, it can feel like a risk.

Impostor syndrome, and the feeling that you might be being plural wrong, is pervasive - though some turn this fear on others instead.

Sysmedicalism

Sysmedicalists are those that ostracize systems for lacking a medical diagnosis, or otherwise adhering poorly to medical models of plurality. Through these criteria, systems are excluded from communities and support, and experience targeted sysphobia (e.g. accusations of "faking" systemhood) from what should be their peers.

This targets a substantial population - DID and OSDD diagnoses exclude many systems by focusing primarily on individual traumatic history and self-reported criteria like personal distress. It also places pressure on systems who fit these criteria to get a diagnosis, whereupon a mix of limited recommendations and poor practice means they may invite medical discrimination (including a pressure to get "fixed") or even genuine danger to themselves in the form of rejected voluntary medical procedures or ward discharges.

Sysmedicalist beliefs and language are widely propagated online, especially exclusion focusing on whether a system exists "through trauma" ("traumagenic", which is deemed acceptable), or through some other mechanism ("endogenic", which is deemed unacceptable). This is naturally not falsifiable - there's no way to validate that you possess an objective and correct understanding of the reason a system exists as it does, even in yourself. However, by propagating the two key terms as an objective categorization of all systems, online discourse is twisted towards whether "endogenic" systems are acceptable - rather than whether these classifications are appropriate to use, or even possible to define.

Syscourse

On a finer level, all kinds of systems are ostracized for specific experiences - with most systems and purported allies having a "weird" or "problematic" line above which a system being visible becomes unacceptable. Most of this discourse relies on generic interpretations of plural internal experiences and language that describes them.

Taken this way, all our examples can be made objectionable. The Minotaur is cultural appropriation, intrasystem relationships are cheating, familial terms disrespect "real family", fictives are copyright infringement, and the cultural and moral expectations of family, children, and animals in the outside world can be enforced on headmates resembling them - inviting exclusion based on singlet definitions of irresponsible caretaking, immaturity, and inhumanness - along with the occasional accusation of incest, rape, and bestiality.

Seeing past this moral panic requires a nuance towards experiences, identities, and activities that resemble outside-world bad behaviour but have little capacity for actual harm. Notably, these conflicts resemble larger online debates around depictions of conventionally-unhealthy relationships in fan works (proshipping discourse) and those around reinterpretations of (young) characters for pornographic fan art (aging-up discourse). Through similarities to their own identity, systems may even be affected by these debates – caught in the crossfire by having similar experiences, or personally targeted if they resemble debated characters.

Engaging with the stranger, more complex details of a system requires a level of trust - and systems are often forced to carefully navigate this to avoid unnecessary conflict.