A Quick'n'Dirty History of "System" as Plural Slang

[lb_lee]

"System" in the plural slang sense is used as a stand-alone noun (or, less often in my circles, in the specific phrasing, "a multiple system" or "plural system"). People will ask us, "are you a system?" or "have you heard about systems?" In this context, a "system" roughly describes the gestalt entity that is formed by the mix of a plural's vessel, internal populace, headspace, and other internal forces at work.

So far, here is my timeline for the use of "system" in a plural context.

Therapeutic Uses

So, I'm not completely sure, but I think the "system" term (though not the philosophy) originated with Internal Family Systems. According to the Foundation of Self Leadership (2020), which is devoted to IFS, Richard C. Schwartz published his first paper about what would become the model in 1987, with Our Multiple Selves: Applying Systems Thinking to the Inner Family. Most of the time, Schwarz uses "system" with an adjective modifying it--like "family system," or "inner system." However, he does use "system" as a standalone noun a few times, like, "When any one part/sub-self takes over the direction of the system, it is likely to become increasingly rigid, and the person will conceive of only a narrow range of ways of viewing and responding to the world." (PDF pg. 9)

Schwartz is also very clear that when he uses these terms, he does NOT mean strictly MPD; he separates a greater sense of plurality from it. "In a sense, we are all multiple personalities. The condition we call multiple personality disorder only represents an extremely disengaged and polarized version of the ordinary operation of our internal system." (PDF pg. 3)

I'm not sure if it was Schwartz himself who spread the ideas to MPD therapists, or if a broader systems theory bled through, but regardless, in December 1988, we have this citation from Richard Kluft's "The Phenomenology And Treatment Of Extremely Complex Multiple Personality Disorder" where he refers to "a system of alters." The specific "system of alters" term shows up later in the therapeutic literature in 1995, in Stephen Braude's "First Person Plural: Multiple Personality and the Philosophy of Mind," (pg. 127), Krakauer's "Treating Dissociative Identity Disorder: The Power of the Collective Heart" from 2001, and many, many others. Just google "system of alters" and you will find plenty.

Schwartz DEFINITELY inspired the terms used in 1998's Amongst Ourselves: A Self-Help Guide to Living with Dissociative Identity Disorder, by Tracy Alderman and Karen Marshall (two married therapists, one of whom is multiple). The combo of "system" and "parts" are a dead giveaway. They mostly use system as a standalone noun, as in "If children are being abused or harmed, their angry ones cannot come out, because their systems (the children and their alters) know that they will be placing themselves in further danger." (pg. 10)

Right now, my best guess as to what happened is, therapists started using "system" with their patients, either influenced by Richard Schwartz's "Inner Family Systems" model or broader systems theory. Plural patients then appropriated and adapted the terms for their own use, but Schwartz clearly never intended the terms to be strictly for MPD (or later, DID) patients.

Plural Uses

My records of plural community start in 1988, with the Many Voices newsletter, and the earliest use of the stand-alone word "system" in the plural slang sense that I've been able to find so far is in the December 1990 edition, on page eight: "I'm the part of the system called Terry and Friends." That's less than four years after "Our Multiple Selves."

By 1992, I see the term more often. First on March 12, on alt.sexual.abuse.recovery, by a poster going by Hineni. They also, very conveniently for me, cite Schwartz's work: "I adhere to the 'Internal Family Systems Model' (which title is quite misleading) that asserts instead of a monolithic personality (ie one 'I' as our 'ego'), we all have a multiplicity of parts inside (and one unique part called a 'Self'). [...] We all have a number of different parts (or subpersonalities) which coexist in an ecological system. [...] in my view we all have multiple personalities; only extremely polarized systems qualify for the term MPD (which term I dislike anyway)." So there you have it, non-MPD/DID plurals have been using the term system for over thirty years.

It's used again in the August 1992 issue of Many Voices, on page 10, in a little comic by Jessie and Helpers, AKA Jessie (part of Penny). It reads, "When memories get too overwhelming for me and everyone else in the system we draw pictures of a peaceful safe place." Many Voices was made for "people with MPD or a dissociative disorder," so it seems the word worked for them as well.

There are also September 1992 BBS records, which come latest and are also the weakest--I got them in plain-text from Astraea, back before the whole moving truck fiasco. Since I have to trust Astraea that the text files are true, I feel uncomfortable relying too heavily on them, but I was able to independently corroborate statements in the September 1992 BBS record of the existence of the Rockielynn System, who joined both alt.sexual.abuse.recovery and alt.support.dissociation in 1994. Other people in the Sept. 1992 BBS record also use the term "system" in the standalone, familiar way it is still used now: "We refer to ourselves as a system... and sometimes the system works, and sometimes it does not." One system's singlet wife says, "I care very much for - and love - everyone in the System."

A decent number of BBS users join alt.support.dissociation and alt.sexual.abuse.recovery, and "system" does as well. The term is used in Discord (RIP) and Sapphire Gazelles's alt.support.dissociation Insider FAQ, made in August 1994, the month of ASD's creation. The FAQ offers the following definition of "multiple system": "someone who has multiple persons/personalities living inside of one body. These are referred to here as alters. (As of the DSM-IV, this condition is called Dissociative Identity Disorder, but most people here will probably not use the official term.)"

Even though ASD was made for dissociatives, even in 1994, they stated that trauma was not the be-all, end-all of plural experience. In part 3 of the FAQ, there is this:

"Q: "Are there cases where there was no trauma involved, where the person
became multiple at a later age, or both?"

"Yes. A friend of Maelstrom's who she has known for many years recently told
her he was multiple. In his case, the initial split came during high
school, and there was no trauma (or, to be specific, there is nothing he
considered traumatic) that preceded it.

"And, as mentioned above, children who had a dissociative role model, but
who were not abused, may themselves become multiple."

Later edits of the FAQ from 1995 expanded to include, "Some people explore identity or alternate identity games, like role playing, acting, pretending, or alternate social structures to the point where they begin to question their original identity. In some cases, these identities can take on aspects, experiences, and problems which are essentially identical to those experienced by multiples who experienced trauma." They also emphasize, "Some multiples are unaware of any initial trauma. Whether such trauma exists and the memories blocked or whether no such trauma exists is usually impossible to determine."

From Usenet (and probably also still from therapists), the term disseminated further. By October 2000, the Anachronic Army was using it on their site, Dark Personalities: "We are the Anachronic Army, having over 5000 in our system." They dismissed MPD as "An inaccurate label." In 2001, "system" is in their glossary, with the definition, "An alternate term for a multiple. The following are also alternates to the term multiple: tribe, household, group, collective, house, clan." Pavilion Hall will yoink this definition in their own glossary in 2002, practically unchanged, and Astraea will yoink that definition in turn; it's still up on their own glossary. Blackbirds, members of Pavilion Hall, will also use the term in the May 2002-era Laymen's Guide to Multiplicity. Seeing as Pavilion Hall debated whether people with MPD/DID even got to call themselves plural, it seems safe to presume they would never have used "system" if they associated the term with the diagnosis.

"System" was being used by May 2001 on the Livejournal multiplicity community; one plural's post of a (honestly, pretty upsetting) fight between them and their girlfriend has the line, "In order to preserve overall peace between our Systems this declaimer seemed necisary [sic]." It's used again and again by many different kinds of plural.

ATW also uses IFS terminology in their 2005 selves-help book, got parts? It's right there in the title and disclaimer: "The ideas, concepts, phrasing, wordings, and lay-definitions contained in this book are ones used by myself, my System, my therapist, and various persons from my DID groups, past and present." (pg. 5).

By the time we joined the LJ multiplicity and soulbonding comms in 2007, "system" had most definitely generalized into general plural use on that site, independently of therapists. We used the term in our first comic, MPD for You and Me, which we created that year. Livejournal's code has rotted, so that the names of comm members can no longer be seen, but we still have from our own records a few usernames with "system" in them that date back to this period, such as mysidia_system from 2006 (who followed soulbonding comms) and elementalsystem from 2008, who are a "trauma-induced system" who also state, "We believe in healthy multiplicity. We are not insane."

"System" became such a general purpose word, in fact, that it spawned other words based off of it, like "gateway system," (a metaphysical multi term, and the first record I can find of it is from Astraea in October 2005) and "in-system relationship," (used by Plures House in 2012).

So yeah. "System" may have originated from medical personnel, but it was not originated for MPD/DID folks or dissociatives. Even if they had, plurals appropriated it over thirty years ago, and at most conservative estimate, it was used by all kinds of plurals (traumatized and not, medicalized or not, anti-psych or not, metaphysical or not) by 1992. The term seems to have spread from BBS, to Usenet, to darkpersonalities.com and Livejournal, to tumblr, and it was only there that it became a bone of political contention, as far as I know.

2014: Suddenly System Is A Bone Of Contention

On August 7, 2014, TrashCanCollective posted on tumblr a question about the history of the terms "multiple" and "multiple system." No clue who it was who said this to them, but TCC quote someone claiming TCC don't get to use either term, because:

"Why do you think you have a right to a term that was created by dissociative people as a way to separate ourselves from the stigma attached to DID, and then contribute to that stigma by denying the reality of mental illness? Why do you invite yourself into spaces for disordered people but reject the disorder?

Shouldn’t we, dissociative people, be able to determine whether you’re allowed to identify with us?

Whether you’re allowed to come into our space, use our terms that we invented to cope positively with a disorder that you don’t even have?

[...]

Comfortable terminology was our way of coping. It was our safe space. How dare non-disordered people delegitimize our disorder. Words like “multiplicity” and “multiple system” aren’t attributed to the disordered - they belong to us.” [emphasis theirs]

It's refreshingly transparent and factually incorrect. "Dissociative people" are not a homogenous culture, and neither are the terms and language used. A fair number of people with DID or dissociative disorders don't use the term! I went to the Ivory Garden Trauma and Dissociation Conference in 2015, did a panel there, and nobody knew what I was banging on about when I used the word "system." It just wasn't used there, not around me anyway.

Sources:

Alderman and Marshall. (1998). Amongst Ourselves: A Self-Help Guide to Living With Dissociative Identity Disorder. Oakland: New Harbinger Publications.

Anachronic Army. (2000, October 2). Dark Personalities – The Dark Side of Multiplicity [web page] http://www.darkpersonalities.com:80/index2.html Internet Archive. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20001002094513/http://www.darkpersonalities.com:80/index2.html

Anachronic Army. (2001, May 19). Terminology [web page]. http://www.darkpersonalities.com/terminology.htm Internet Archive. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20010519115202/http://darkpersonalities.com/terminology.htm

Astraea. (2003, January 11). Glossary [web page]. http://astraeasweb.net/plural/glossary.html Internet Archive. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20030111103116/http://astraeasweb.net/plural/glossary.html

Astraea. (2005, October 23). Glossary [web page]. http://astraeasweb.net/plural/glossary.html Internet Archive. Retrieved from web.archive.org/web/20051023034816/http://astraeasweb.net:80/plural/glossary.html

ATW. (2005). got parts? An Insider's Guide to Managing Life Successfully with Dissociative Identity Disorder. Ann Arbor: Loving Healing Press.

Blackbirds. (2002). The Laymen's Guide to Multiplicity. Retrieved from http://www.karitas.net/blackbirds/layman/brochure_pluralv1.1.pdf

Braude, Stephen. (1995). First Person Plural: Multiple Personality and the Philosophy of Mind. Rowman & Littlefield. Retrieved from https://books.google.com/books?id=DzkjTO1OkYMC&pg=PA127&lpg=PA127&dq=%22system+of+alters%22&source=bl&ots=pjjD23sQ40&sig=cYTNRgwDBA7vxgMkcI4J2vucLbk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiq8tHTkK3WAhXFJiYKHQgKBWsQ6AEISzAK#v=onepage&q=%22system%20of%20alters%22&f=false

brentmisato. (2001). Case in Point [Livejournal post]. Retrieved from https://multiplicity.livejournal.com/2651.html

Discord and Sapphire Gazelles. (1994, September 7). alt.support.dissociation FAQ 3/4 [Usenet message]. Retrieved from https://groups.google.com/d/msg/alt.support.dissociation/syXW3KkhIZA/gM5TsFZmt2sJ

Discord and Sapphire Gazelles. (1995, May 14). alt.support.dissociation FAQ 3/4 [Usenet message]. Retrieved 3/10/19 from http://faqs.cs.uu.nl/na-dir/dissoc-faq/part3.html

Elemental System. (n.d.). The Elements - Home [web page]. Retrieved from https://elementalsystem.weebly.com/index.html

Elemental System. (n.d.). Personal Life - The Elements [web page]. Retrieved from https://elementalsystem.weebly.com/personal-life.html

Foundation for Self Leadership. (2020). First Published Article on IFS Identified. Retrieved from https://foundationifs.org/news/179-outlook-shorts-december-2020

Hineni. (1992). posted for asar.47 (Hineni)/Internal Family Model [Usenet post]. Retrieved from https://groups.google.com/g/alt.sexual.abuse.recovery/c/6f2Mi_sRV9w/m/oSkO-JkPskcJ

Kluft, Richard. (1988). The Phenomenology And Treatment Of Extremely Complex Multiple Personality Disorder. Dissociation, Vol. 1, No. 4. Retrieved from https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1794/1396/Diss_1_4_8_OCR_rev.pdf?sequence=4

Krakauer, Sarah. (2001). Treating Dissociative Identity Disorder: The Power of the Collective Heart. Retrieved from https://books.google.com/books?id=jDo7Edmljp4C&pg=PA56&lpg=PA56&dq=%22system+of+alters%22&source=bl&ots=Roq7GN0V3t&sig=Q81b-VbTMKZ2coP8zXVeFredd88&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjHp4O5k63WAhXJSyYKHePcCQMQ6AEIRTAI#v=onepage&q=%22system%20of%20alters%22&f=false

Lee, LB. (2007). MPD for You and Me. Retrieved from https://healthymultiplicity.com/loonybrain/Comics/MPD/MPD01.html

Lee, LB. (2017). Earliest Date I can Find for "Multiple is DID-only; all others are appropriating!" [blog post]. Retrieved from https://lb-lee.dreamwidth.org/885669.html

Many Voices Press. (December 1990). Many Voices: Words of Hope for Clients with MPD and Dissociative Disorders. Vol. II, No. 6. Retrieved from http://manyvoicespress.org/backissues-pdf/1990_12.pdf

Many Voices Press. (June 1992). Many Voices: Words of Hope for Clients with MPD and Dissociative Disorders. Vol. IV, No. 3. Retrieved from http://manyvoicespress.org/backissues-pdf/1992_06.pdf

Many Voices Press. (August 1992). Many Voices: Words of Hope for Clients with MPD and Dissociative Disorders. Vol. IV, No. 4. Retrieved from http://manyvoicespress.org/backissues-pdf/1992_08.pdf

Pavilion Hall. (2003). Terminology [web page]. http://www.tanuki.cx:80/pavilion/policies/glossary.html Internet Archive Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20030725121142/http://www.tanuki.cx:80/pavilion/policies/glossary.html

Pavilion Hall. (2002). Overview : Addressing the MPD/DID Issue [web page]. http://www.tanuki.cx:80/pavilion/codex/overview/mpd.html Internet Archive. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20021008150653/http://www.tanuki.cx:80/pavilion/codex/overview/mpd.html

Plures House. (2012). In-System Relationships: Fact and Fiction [web page]. Retrieved from https://www.exunoplures.org/main/articles/systemrelationships/

RockieLynn. (1994, November 28). Introduction, betrayal, anger [Usenet post]. Retrieved from groups.google.com/g/alt.support.dissociation/c/6daUymBAMA8/m/aB5qDXZrumMJ

Schwartz, Richard. (1987). Our Multiple Selves: applying systems thinking to the inner family. Family Therapy Networker, 11, 24-31, 80-83. Retrieved from https://foundationifs.org/images/Schwartz_1987_Our_Multiple_Selves.pdf (Sorry, not screen-reader-able.)

Trash Can Collective [not-your-fucking-pet]. (2014, August 7). Fellow plural people? [tumblr post]. Retrieved from http://not-your-fucking-pet.tumblr.com/post/94111819808/fellow-plural-people

Comments

Thank you!

[ysabetwordsmith]

This is a fascinating bit of linguistic history.

Re: Thank you!

[lb_lee]

You're welcome! I also made an edit to this post since you commented, because I dug into the alt.sexual.abuse.recovery archives, which go back farther, to see if I could find an earlier use of "system," and I did! By a multiple who rejects the MPD label no less! (Which is nice, I am really uncomfortable relying on those old BBS records.) On March 7, 1992 (so the second-earliest date I've got), Hineni said:

"I adhere to the 'Internal Family Systems Model' (which title is quite misleading) that asserts instead of a monolithic personality (ie one 'I' as our 'ego'), we all have a multiplicity of parts inside (and one unique part called a 'Self'). [...] We all have a number of different parts (or subpersonalities) which coexist in an ecological system. [...] in my view we all have multiple personalities; only extremely polarized systems qualify for the term MPD (which term I dislike anyway)."

So it looks like non-MPD/DID plurals have been using the term "system" for over thirty years.

--Sneak

Re: Thank you!

[ysabetwordsmith]

I'm glad you found an earlier reference!

In fact, humans have long had an awareness of different selves, divided in many different ways. Some are biological, others more spiritual or psychological. I've seen "system" used to describe such sets, but it'd take a lot of digging to find which ones.

Some you might find worth exploring:

* The human brain / ape brain / lizard brain division has several variations and deals in the evolutionary layers of development in the neural system. The lizard brain is the oldest and deals with survival needs like eating or fleeing from predators. The ape brain is next and deals with emotions and basic social relationships like parent/child. The human brain is youngest, a rather thin veneer that allows logical thought, sophisticated language, and planning for the future. And they're in that order of dominance, which is why the lizard brain can hijack your legs to run you out of trouble or yank your hand off a hot stove: you don't have time to think, only to react. It is sometimes simplified to hindbrain / forebrain. These all have basis in the physical structures of the brain.

This set has great relevance to plural people because many multiple systems have roles relating to survival, feelings, and thoughts. If the first two interfere with the third, they can be shunted to those earlier parts of the brain -- like three people in a house might choose to work in different rooms to avoid distracting each other, and any one of them could go answer the doorbell.

Less common, but I've seen this quite dramatically, is that not everyone has an ape brain. Some have the imprint of some other species -- a wolf brain, a horse brain, or whatever. This is most common in the furry / therian / anthropomorphic communities but crosses over with multiple systems whose members are not all the same species. We all have DNA from Earth's very checkered past, and sometimes different stuff manifests. For people with otherlife experience, different genders or species previously experienced may come through with no physical underpinning at all. That's okay. But if you don't know how or why it's happening, that can really fuck you up. It often helps to study the type of creature you feel a relation to, because instructions for an ape brain you don't have are likely to be no use or even worse than useless. :/ They might need to assemble something like an African mixed herd where zebras, giraffes, wildebeests, etc. live together so they can capitalize on each species' best senses to avoid predators and find food or water. Human psychology is no use for that, but there are pretty good descriptions in zoology.

* The left brain / right brain division deals with the two physical hemispheres of the brain and their bridge. Some physical and mental functions have a dedicated area on only one side, while others appear on both. This is why brain damage can wreck one thing while leaving others untouched. Generally the left side deals in logic and the right side in intuition. Nobody is all one way or all the other, but people often find one style easier than the other.

In a multiple system, some members may be more thinking and others more feeling. They typically have diverse skills. Many systems have one or more nonverbal or low-verbal members.

* Jungian psychology recognizes a variety of archetypes including the anima / animus and the shadow. He didn't get as far -- likely because psychology tends to fixate on less-functional people -- that these don't have to be unconscious. They can be conscious and fluent, so that a self-aware person can examine one issue from a masculine, feminine, primal, or other perspective to see which is most useful.

Many multiple systems include masculine, feminine, and other genders. There is very often a shadow self who deals with hidden or difficult things.

* The Egyptian vocabulary for body-mind-spirit is quite complex. They felt that every person had these different parts that worked together and in some ways could act independently. They didn't really have this modern concept of a person being one "single" thing. Nor were the parts disjunct, dysfunctional, or caused by trauma. It was just like how a person has a bunch of organs inside a body because they are born that way and each organ has a different job to do -- which is very much how some multiple systems feel, they are not broken apart and they work together smoothly.

While it's possible for trauma to shatter a personality into disconnected parts, it's also possible for someone to have different connected parts that function just fine while doing different things. I don't think the medical industry has a good grasp of that, but well, most of them have silo training instead of having looked at a dozen or so different models of personality or cosmology. It's nice to see the multiple culture exploring more widely in search of vocabular and models they find helpful.

Re: Thank you!

[talewisefellowship]

Please don't take this personally but as an anthropologist with an interest in human evolution I feel the need to nip these old neuroscience myths in the bud. The lizard brain theory dates back to the 60's and is no longer accepted by modern neuroscientists. It's also not possible for humans to have inherited physical traits from wolves, because evolution is descent with modification, and canines are not the ancestors of humans or primates in general. The modern taxonomic classification of an organism is also the evolutionary history of that organism, and when we compare humans with wolves, cats, foxes (chosen because they're the most common therian otherkin I see around), humans come from the order Primates while the latter all come from the order Carnivora. Humans can't have inherited physical traits from Carnivora because they don't descend from Carnivora.

By this evolutionary logic, primates should be the most common form of otherkin, but that isn't what we see, and I also don't think an evolutionary/neuroscience explanation for otherkin is necessary. In fact animals that are culturally significant in the english speaking world such as wolves, cats, foxes seem to be the most common, so I think a cultural explanation for otherkin is most likely, and doesn't invalidate them in any way. Plurality is also a culturally shaped experience!

The left brain/right brain theory also seems to be a myth according to modern studies.

--Janusz

Re: Thank you!

[zeeth_kyrah]

The behavioral traits of a particular individual are not always in tune with population-median neurotypical traits seen in that individual's species. In a symbolic or relational manner, we identify these persons or beings with the traits that best illustrate their actual, functional mindset and internal experience of the world, rather than going only by the results of observation of the external body shape or genetic profile. This is what I believe was being described, rather than a physical "our bodies are different" claim. Such explanations are better for helping cope with someone who is neurodiverse in this way.

As an example, I myself *cope* with a primate brain, but I also react and experience in ways that may suggest a connection (real or imagined) with other species. I experience occasional shifts into other mindsets, including the experience of my body being both physically the same as usual while simultaneously experiencing the feeling of having even more parts and senses (such as a tail and claws, or wider field of vision than usual).

The whole point of saying "otherkin" is to designate ourselves as members of a group that does not identify entirely as human. I'm sure there are primate otherkin, but perhaps the fact that humans are primates may mask the experience, much like using white paint on a white canvas - it would be hard to tell the difference without close examination or familiarity. (This painting technique may be used to add texture or to make a hidden image within the work.)

A related term to otherkin is "alter-human", which I've encountered only within the past few years, and which seems to be an attempt to broaden the community of otherkin experiences to include those who feel human but experience themselves to be different in some way from their baseline physical human body.

In any case, I'd rather go with personal experience and relational understanding to classify someone as otherkin, simply because it's not a well-studied experience with lots of science regarding physical structure, brain function, and genetic profiling of those who identify in this way. But I don't doubt there are differences, as has been proven with transgendered people.

Re: Thank you!

[talewisefellowship]

I agree with most of what you described (not sure about the idea of primate otherkin being imperceptible though because there are notable behavioral differences between human and nonhuman primates) and they are reasons why I think a triune brain theory is not necessary for explaining otherkin, just as it is not necessary for explaining anything else. Also in the usual triune brain theory, the limbic system is said to be the "mammal brain" rather than the "ape brain", I've never heard it called the "ape brain" anywhere else but here. It's still outdated either way though.

As for the idea of brain differences in trans people, I am a bit skeptical about it, if only because I fear that the supposed "brain gender" of some trans people may not match with their actual gender. If a trans man is found to have what's believed to be a "typically female" brain, what does that mean for him?

--Janusz

Re: Thank you!

[zeeth_kyrah]

I'm not sure, since the brain's structures and function are interrelated, and the brain is the primary intermediary of conscious self-experience. Meaning if one experiences themselves as a masculine/male person, the brain is likely to reflect that.

Here's a video of Robert Sapolsky explaining his understanding of gender in the human brain. The timestamp (919 seconds, about 1/3 of the way through) marks where he states a more complete summary of what I just said.

"System" used by "fakers"

[the_olivia_set]

Fantastic read! Thank you so much for doing this work!

Something we've come across mentioned a few times, that I'm wondering if y'all might have come across is, we've been told that prior to around 2012-2014 exclusionists would say that the term system was only used by people faking multiplicity. Have you come across that yourselves and/or do you have some references we could dig into?

Re: "System" used by "fakers"

[lb_lee]

Sneak: Do you mean a reference that the "system is only used by fakes" claim existed, the specific date range it existed, or that the claim itself is not true?

We mostly encountered the opposite side of that urban legend, the "system is a medical-only word, MPD/DID only!" version, and that was a claim we only encountered on tumblr ourself. I never encountered the No True Scotsman version of "no true multiple uses the term system," and it would be much easier to disprove, since there were plenty of old Livejournal plurals with "system" in their screen-names from before 2012. Where did you first hear it? Maybe it happened in places we weren't.

Re: "System" used by "fakers"

[the_olivia_set]

Oh wow we are way late to reply, oops!

We heard about this being a thing on tumblr back around 2010? We haven't seen the claim directly ourselves, but we have seen people around then that responded to the claim, pointing out exactly what you said, that folks have been using "system" for a long time.

Re: "System" used by "fakers"

[lb_lee]

Yeah, I think I didn't start encountering that specific disinformation until the noted 2014. Any timestamps from before that, I welcome, though! It'd help me trace where it came from.