Very good article.  Thank you much.

We all make enormous psychological investments in our identity markers.  Some people then encase themselves in a defensive bubble to protect the validity of those markers at all costs.  

Others try to consider the possibility that someone with different identity markers is not a threat or in any way inferior.  Some even go so far as to challenge the validity of their own markers.  It is hard work.

Again, thank you for a very good article.