Living, Together: A Singlet’s Guide To Plural Allyship

There’s a queer form of existence you’ve probably never heard of (especially if you’re cisgender) even though it’s estimated that at least 1% of the population experience it: Plurality. Plurality (also known as Multiplicity) refers to “all experiences of being or having, more than a single individual, within a single body.” In simplest terms, it’s a descriptive term and identity label for people who aren’t alone in their brain – for minds that contain multiple conscious individuals. You might feel confused: How could this be real? Isn’t that some kind of a disorder? If Plurals are so common, why don’t I know any? That’s perfectly alright. Learning about experiences outside of our own can be disconcerting when they’re incongruent with our assumptions, and Plurality is so overlooked and stigmatized culturally that most of us haven’t had a chance to educate ourselves on it yet. I wasn’t able to grasp Plurality until I took a breath, reminded myself of my goal to be ever empathetically curious, and took steps to educate myself on the Plural experience (well, experiences). So, I encourage you to stick with me while I explain Multiplicity more deeply, address some common misconceptions, and help you begin your journey towards being the best ally you can to your Plural peers and loved ones. 

Unfortunately, the marginalization of Plurality has resulted in a lack of shared vocabulary amongst Plurals and those who live in bodies alone. Because of this, we’ll need to cover some terminology before we jump in. As with just about any marginalized community, Plurals don’t all prefer the same words for themselves. Some terms can be accurate for some while being unhelpful or offensive to others. So, I’ll share with you the most generally accepted terminology I’ve found in my research and my personal experience with Plurals, but it’s always a good idea to ask people what words fit for them and those they share a body with. Often, groups that share a body are called “systems.” Many have a system name (also called a collective name) that refers to the whole group, sort of like a family name. Some examples might be “The Willows,” “The Solidarity System,” or “The Loving Collective.”

Within a system are individuals which are often called system members or headmates. Those are the people who live within a system and they usually have their own personal names and pronouns, just as you or I would. So, for example, you could meet Sarah (she/her) and her headmate John (he/him), both of whom are members of The Loving Collective. Sometimes, John is “fronting” which means that John is in their body the same way singlets (people who live in bodies alone) always are when they’re awake. Other times, Sarah is fronting and John is either not around at all in that moment or is able to observe what’s happening but isn’t directly the one walking, talking, or whatever else the body might be doing. It seems like it’s sort of like if you and your friend were sitting on the couch while you played a console game. You have the controller, but your friend can see the screen and might give helpful hints, quip with you about the game, and ask for a turn once you’re done. When one headmate leaves and another takes over, that’s called switching. So, for example, if John is getting bored during a road trip, he might “switch out” so Sarah can “switch in” and take over driving for a while. Of course, there are plenty of other words that help describe aspects of Plural existence, but those are the basics you’ll be needing today. 

Just like singlets, systems and individuals within systems are diverse. Headmates in the same system are often very different from one another despite living in the same body. They can have different genders, levels of maturity, hobbies, desires for personal appearance, philosophical and political beliefs, and basically anything else that varies between people generally. That being said, just because people live in a body together doesn’t mean everything about them as individuals needs to be different. Having headmates is like having housemates; sometimes you happen to have many things in common, sometimes you’re quite different. 

Systems themselves, like members within specific systems, are diverse. There are systems with dozens or more members while others have just two or three. Some systems experience amnesia between members while others share memories easily. Some always have only one headmate front at a time, while others usually operate with several headmates conscious together. Some switch very rarely while others switch many times every day. Many systems have experienced Plurality for their entire lives while others only begin to exist plurally after a certain point. Similarly, different systems and even different headmates within the same system can have varying beliefs about plurality, as I’ve seen with some of my friends who live in systems. For example, one member of a system could believe plurality is related to genetics while one of their headmates might have spiritual beliefs about it and another might theorize that plurality and singularity are entirely socially constructed. 

Although no two systems are exactly the same, one thing that unites almost every system is queerness. Of course, existing in a body shared with others is already queer in the sense that it challenges the dominant conceptions of identity and normative existence. Yet life in almost all systems is queer in a more literal and exact sense as well. Unfortunately there’s not much research on queer identities within systems, although the links between neurodiversity and queerness are beginning to be explored. Anecdotally, I have never met or heard of a system whose members were entirely heterosexual, cisgender, and allosexual. Headmates almost always have different gender identities and romantic and sexual orientations from one another. Sometimes they all present as cisgender in spaces where they’re not able to be out as Plural, but often systems are outwardly trans even when they’re masking their Plurality. Systems are so often in trans communities that it’s a common joke amongst Plurals that “if you know enough trans people you know a Plural system.” In fact, I met many of the system members I know personally through trans community spaces. Members of at least one system I know have mentioned feeling most safe coming out as Plural to transgender people. This is because, even when the person hasn’t heard of Plurality before, they’re likely to already understand the fact that one’s identity may not always be intuitive or visible to onlookers and the truth that that does not invalidate it.

This brings us to one of the confusions you might be having if you’re new to the concept of Multiplicity: “If Plurals are so common, why don’t I know any?” The simple answer is that Plurals are still heavily marginalized, despite the work of the Multiplicity community which has been growing since the 1980s. Much of modern western society operates under the assumption that each human body holds one conscious person or self within it. This is a cultural belief and not a scientific fact, as evidenced not only by a variety of global cultural practices which seem to affirm some form of Plurality, but also by the many philosophical traditions that continue to ponder the self, consciousness, identity, and the metaphysics of reality. At the same time, it’s a powerful idea most assume is a scientific fact, forcing many systems to live their day to day lives in secrecy for fear of being ostracized or worse. Plurals are not yet a protected group, and plurality is highly stigmatized and misunderstood, making the choice to live openly as a system a dangerous one for many. This means not only that systems you know might not come out to you as Plural, but also that you might never notice “a person” you know is actually a system of many people. Even if you know about Plurality enough to realize the possibility, many systems mask in their day-to-day lives in order to avoid outing themselves, similarly to how some autistic people hide their autistic traits in order to avoid ableism. 

For Plurals, masking often means agreeing amongst themselves to regulate things like their body language, handwriting ,and voices to appear more cohesive and unitary to onlookers. Usually a masked system takes care to use “I” instead of “we” pronouns even when describing something that isn’t personal to the one speaking, and many systems agree to adhere to a “singletsona” when engaging with people who they’re not out to as a system. This means coming up with a singlet persona that everyone in the system pretends to be publicly, even when the agreed upon shared public identity is very different from themselves individually. Although pretending to be a singlet is necessary for the social and emotional survival of most systems, it’s also painful and tiring for almost everyone. This is because, along with needing to hide plurality itself, masking demands dishonesty and lack of individuality.

Let’s go back to our hypothetical system, The Loving Collective. While around people that know them to be a system, Sarah and John can be themselves. They can chat to friends about their beliefs about the world, share their opinions on movies and TV, and eat their favorite foods. If someone asks Sarah how she feels about their job as a programmer, for example, she can be honest and say she doesn’t like coding and tries to switch out during it. In contrast, if someone who doesn’t know she’s part of a system asks the same question, she’s forced to pretend to love an activity she hates. When the issue is simply likes and dislikes, masking might not be too painful. When it comes to other areas, though, the system members I know describe a frankly horrific experience. Imagine never being able to be referred to by your own name or pronouns. Imagine never, ever being able to make real friends or partners because you’re always pretending to be someone you’re not. That’s what life looks like for members of closeted systems. There’s a disgustingly prevalent stereotype that systems are actually singlets faking plurality for attention or as part of a trend. The truth is much worse: the systems around us are forced to fake singularity and it steals people’s lives from them, forcing them to roleplay as an entirely separate person every moment they exist in public.

This masking is, in part, necessitated by the way Plurality is generally conceptualized in the dominant discourse. It’s time to address the elephant in the room: “Isn’t this some kind of a disorder?” The simple answer is no, Plurality itself is not officially considered disordered, although arguably it was for a period. The outdated diagnosis of Multiple Personality Disorder pathologized any body having more than one “personalities or personality states” that “recurrently take full control,” meaning that in practice it conceptualized Plurals as sick just for existing. However, the current diagnosis frequently considered a “renamed” MPD is actually quite different. Dissociative Identity Disorder’s diagnostic criteria require that the Plurality it seeks to describe causes those being diagnosed “clinically significant distress or impairment in [...] important areas of functioning” which many systems which fall under DID’s other criteria don’t experience. Even outside of that specific qualification, though, many systems don’t fall under any diagnostic labels currently used. They just exist and happen to live in a body together, without it being connected to any recognized disorder. Like everyone, people in systems can suffer from anxiety, depression, or any other mental health issues. Mental wellbeing is important for everyone, singlet or not, but Plurality itself is not a disorder.

It’s important to remember that the DSM-5 diagnoses are useful for many people, singlet or in systems, but they’re human constructions. Psychological disorders are ever-evolving descriptions of patterns of human experience that seem to cause pain or “dysfunction”, not a stable list of “types of people” and why they are how they are. Mental health is extremely important for everyone, whether they live in a system or not, but unfortunately the DSM-5 has a nasty history of pathologizing people just for being different. As Michel Foucalt famously outlined in The History of Sexuality Part One, psychological diagnoses often operate as ways of officially partitioning human experience into normative and non-normative parts. They can define what’s expected and punish deviation by calling it sickness. A very obvious example of this is the DSM’s history of defining homosexuality as an illness. However, the DSM-5 still pathologizes many patterns of human experience which don’t seem inherently linked to suffering, with some examples being masochism, crossdressing, and being disinterested in sex. Nowadays, these diagnoses tend to stipulate that, in order for it to count as a disorder, a patient needs to be experiencing “clinically significant distress or impairment in [...] important areas of functioning.” Sound familiar? In fact, homosexuality also went through an awkward in-between phase like this in the DSM-5. There was a period where homosexuality was a disorder (called “sexual orientation disturbance”), but technically only if it caused conflict or disturbance and the patient wanted to change it. Needless to say, just because the DSM defines a human experience as disordered when it’s accompanied by distress does not mean that experience is somehow objectively wrong, bad, or sick. 

Unfortunately, this doesn’t mean that Plurality is treated as a benign variation of human existence by most people, though. Most singlets still seem to think of systems in one of two ways. If the members of a system haven’t developed good communication yet, experience frequent memory gaps, and consistently don’t mask effectively, they’re often imagined (at best) as one person who has been “broken” into “pieces.” However, most people don’t know any systems who consistently mask so ineffectively that their plurality is apparent. So, they mostly hear about Plurality in the context of horror stories and sensationalist journalism that give the impression that Plurality is extremely rare, extremely upsetting, and possibly even extremely dangerous. This can mean that systems who do choose to come out to people as Plural are met with skepticism, disbelief, and fear. 

As my friends who are system members have shared with me, well-meaning singlets frequently ask questions like “Are any of them–because it’s always “them” and not “y’all”--evil?” or treat them as delusional, trying to argue system members out of their own existence. These reactions to a system coming out aren’t just rude, they’re dehumanizing. It puts the people living in a body together in the deeply humiliating position of not only having to defend their own sanity, but also their very existence. Imagine finally feeling safe enough to share your true self with someone that matters to you only to be immediately accused of “needing help,” bombarded with questions about if anyone you live with would murder someone, and forced to engage in an extended metaphysical debate about if you and the people you live with get to count as real people. As unimaginably awful as it sounds, this is the reality that the people I know who live in systems go through all the time – and that’s not nearly the worst case scenario. Systems risk losing close friendships, careers, and even custody of their children just for admitting they exist and refusing to live life collectively roleplaying as someone they’re not.

The good news is, you can help make the world better for Plurals. And no, it doesn’t require extensive debates with yourselves and others on the nature of human consciousness and what makes someone a person. Plurals don’t need you to fully conceptualize what it would be like to live in a body with other people – they need you to listen to who they say they are without trying to convince them otherwise. They need to be able to chat about their real lives they share with one another without you treating them like they’re playing pretend or making up stories. They need room to be themselves, be called by their correct names and pronouns, and be allowed to express their true identities, beliefs, and experiences without being confined by an singlet-centric expectation of unity and cohesion. Multiplicity may still seem abstract and incomprehensible to you now, but if you can create safe spaces around you for members of systems to be open with you, all that philosophical skepticism and confusion might just melt away – I know it did for me and the other friends of systems I know. It’s pretty hard to worry too much about the metaphysics of self and personhood while you’re busy laughing your butt off to your Plural partner’s jokes or cooking a delicious meal with a few good friends of yours who happen to share a body.

For further reading, I highly suggest this guide to being the best ally you can for Plurals and this presentation about creating plural safe spaces. You can also check out this fascinating paper that expands on some topics I’ve discussed like mental health and queerness as they relate to Multiplicity. There’s even a few guides to understanding Plurality and etiquette for beginner singlets. It’s also an excellent idea to listen to the voices and experiences of people who live in systems with others directly. You’ll be an excellent friend to your Plural peers in no time.

Written by Aiden/Estelle Garrett with consultation from members of several systems who wished to remain anonymous, as well as Sophie R Galarneau.