I don't think not marking yourself has negative psychological repercussions, or at least, it doesn't have to. Surely it doesn't for the unmarked. There are other ways of going about it, and I believe I'm not the only one to suggest so. It doesn't mean you have to give up an essential part of yourself, and I s'pose the idea that it is is what I disagree with. I really don't think my "short-term requirements are impossible to meet and detrimental to the human soul," but if I suppose if I did, I wouldn't have the opinion I do. I see no reason to identify with being a woman, and doing so tends to make me feel weak, because that's what being a woman means to me, I suppose--pretty and weak. I think, however, it's possible to accept yourself, and whatever characteristics people use to put you into a certain category, without identifying with that category. Furthermore, it has been the case in certain times and places that things like skin color were simply not seen as relevant. And when the 'mark' doesn't have the same meaning, it doesn't marginalize anyone. This is not to say that there has ever been a utopia where everyone was equal and their physical forms meant nothing--just that it's neither natural nor universal which characteristics are seen as relevant, and without the underlying hierarchy, they don't accomplish the same social domination. I think the human understanding is fundamentally individual, although it's been shaped by social reality and social groups, and so while what ethnic group you 'belong' to may indeed be a very real part of your experience, it doesn't represent you...you can be outspoken without simply being a token of the ethnic type you belong to. But that doesn't solve the problem either, of course, because you get marked anyway. To break the association between the outward signs and the identity they purport to represent, you have to break the divisions of power and experience. So long as skin color can be a sign of low class and lack of education, the 'mark' retains its meaning. But when that ceases to be the case, it also ceases to be a part of the shared identity. Maybe that's "unrealistic" to you, and I do know that change in actual means is very slow, but the signs, the representation of social reality, change quickly enough (at least in a few generations) when the basis for the associations it's built on change--without even anyone needing to bother questioning their identity (maybe...).

I guess I agree that what you're arguing for in terms of political results is "something" too, although I don't think I know as much about that.