All of this is wrong. Security in your worth should not be at all related to your identity. Your worth is intrinsic to your humanity, and nothing more specific than that, nothing you are or do, will ever make you worth more or less than anyone else.
Yes, and unicorns and rainbows and cute, little puppies. It's more useful to consider how people actually are than some notional and impossible ideal.
Not least because any psychologist worth their salt could explain to you the risks of holding yourself to unrealistic standards and thus always falling short - because you might take that sense of lack of worth as part of your identity. (There are all sorts of jokes about Catholic guilt.)
You have an identity. I have an identity. We all have a internal sense of who we are. Do you feel American? Well then, that's part of your identity. So is your skin colour, your sexuality, your religion. There's societal inculcation involved (you would probably feel Canadian had you been raised in Canada), but irrespective of how anyone chooses to define you, you have your sense of self-identity.
Do you get annoyed when Europeans criticise America? That's almost certainly because you identify as American, and so it is annoying when people have a go at what you identify with. And maybe, even subconsciously such that you don't even quite realise, it feels like they are attacking *you*, because of your identity. That's why it hurts and you get angry. Oh you absolutely do feel this way on something, even if not on this specific example. We all do, it is how humans think. And so it is if we attack and erode people's sense of identity, it hurts. Think then of what it is like if your deeply held beliefs and needs are assaulted by society. For instance if much as any human you feel and want to express love, but society aggressively teaches you to believe that your love is evil, disgusting, forbidden. Imagine then the incredible dissonance and pain it can cause a person to have been indoctrinated into believing that such a deep and fundamental part of themselves is evil.
Telling gay people not to identify by their sexuality is piffle and nonsense. They are going to, to at least some extent. If you genuinely want to minimise this identity, then I suggest you need to completely normalise their sexuality. You might want, for instance, to not demand they are
unsuitable to serve in the military, or
adopt children. You might not want to paint them expressing their love
as inherently sinful, consider their relationships to be
second-class. Every time you point at them, pick them out and say they are different, you help make that identity.
And let's face it, all that identity your side of the fence is ascribing to them is
negative. They are more sinful than straight people. They deserve less than straight people. They can't do things that straight people can. How on earth can you think that won't affect their sense of worth? You are belittling them.
Their answer is to have a celebratory day with parades to tell you back: yes, we are as worthy in ourselves as you. And good for them.
