#and its always like 'well no nonbinary lesbians or butch lesbians... well maybe they are ok but they are on thin ice... but not these-

[man-squared]

People really think when you talk about lesbians being men or having relationships with men means you want them personally to go sleep with every man and not that you want every lesbian to have their own autonomy to decide what lesbianism means to them personally.

Like literally, the people who make large ass call out posts or posts that whine that there are people who are mspec lesbians or lesbian men or just that some lesbians have sex with men always make it so personal no matter if they are a lesbian or not. They seem to not be able to remove themselves from someone else's lesbianism and autonomy.

No one (seriously, no one besides actual lesbophobes) are claiming that you, a lesbian, has to have any relation to men. You do not have to date or have sex with lesbian men (or mspec lesbians), and guess what! We don't want to do those things with you either. No one is saying that because a small percentage of lesbians might have sex with men and/or be attracted to men, you as a lesbian have to. I don't know why you decided that you have to live in a world with communal absolutes. Not all lesbians are you, and you are not all lesbians (like really do you like the same women as every other lesbian? No, because you aren't other lesbians). Let lesbians have autonomy. Let lesbians live. Let queer people be!

Tldr: you don't have to do what other lesbians do. Just because a lesbian has any kind of relationship with men doesn't mean you have to. Other lesbians existing do not negate your lesbianism.

[elizabethrobertajones]

summer scions!! I absolutely love the new portraits for all their smug happy expressions. Except Y'shtola, who is not going to deign to give a camera a proper saucy look because that's silly. Urianger is smirking twice as hard on her behalf.

Glam review under the cut!

I unlocked Alphinaud first of the twins and didn't know Alisaie had a little necktie yet, so I'm deducting a point from my first impression because the sheer delight that he had a silly little necktie of some sort no matter the situation delighted me so thoroughly. Since they're still engaging in matchy twin dressing to some degree, I have to assume they either like it and won't admit it after digging in so hard, or Ameliance sent them off with cute outfits and matching backpacks, and they still don't really shop for themselves.

He's got the practical watch/compass gloves which are good for a technically proficient Sage and probably the most practical gear he's ever worn except for when he was poncho Alphy, but wearing ankle-length jeans seem like the least weather-appropriate choice of the Scions if we assume their average skin coverage is a good weathervane for the temperature in Tural. I chalk it up to teenage awkwardness.

8/10 unless he and Alisaie chose their outfits themselves, in which case it's a 9/10

I think Alisaie is the only Scion to keep a single piece of their default gear, and those are her usual gloves. She's colour-matched around it.

Because of the gloves and boots, she looks the most ready for hardcore hiking, somehow, and her matching Alphinaud with a cute button down shirt with rolled up sleeves along with that particular choice of baggier shorts (when she normally wears more form fitting shorts) do give me the closest to butch vibes it's probably likely to get for main characters. So I'm giving her an extra point I stole from Alphinaud for the lesbian vibes.

9/10 or 10/10 if she made these choices all by herself.

Everything about this cracks me up, from his portrait above to the image of him tanking open shirted once he pulls mobs.

Believe it or not, he's getting an additional point for those shoes simply because the competition in practicality in tanking is G'raha.

I had a moment of excitement when I thought the necklace was pink because that's always a cute Ryne/Minfillia thing fanartists give him with ribbons and such, but once I got zoomed in on him it was red, so I guess he's just been shopping. Although, the turquoise shorts are her eye colour and the actual large diamond shapes are secretly Mothercrystal coded in those colours, which just cracks me up that you can pick out one of the worse days of his life (Urianger's grand Warrior of Darkness plan) in his Chill Summer Beach Vibes look.

Douchebag beach bro shell bracelet as well, which really makes me double down on him and Urianger spending way too much on tourist bait along the stalls in the Famous Turali Market. The hat and sunglasses are giving him one of the Most tourist-y looks thematically reflecting how a lot of the Scion guys were just here to hang out, narratively or literally. Maybe he's trying not to get such an intense tan again, which is the only reason he's not entirely topless.

11/10 I could not stop laughing when I got him and Urianger to 100 and Beheld The Brilliance in the same moment.

Please note the raised sunglasses in Urianger's portrait, which are not the model his character uses.

I am delighted that I had been incorporating that island watch into my healer glams on both the logic you need to know your clock positionals but also they're largely the smarty pants jobs (WHM being vibes only aside - it gets its own glams :P). And here's Urianger and Alphinaud both using watches.

Now, I had a moment of being vaguely disappointed he had trousers not a skirt or something else swishy and androgynous, but then I did realise that I, a nonbinary weirdo who relates to Urianger since he made me nonbinary, have actually gone to a couple of garden parties dressed in some variation of this exact outfit of light trousers and a nice button up. Plus, the earrings are in both ears, so no "Google, which ear is the gay one?", these are just straight up cute femme dangly earrings with his favourite little dudes on.

More importantly, the colours he's repping are those of Lopporit Radio. He probably tunes in every night for his broadcasts :')

Mirrored sunglasses for the guy notorious for keeping thoughts and plans close to his chest and choosing deliberately to be enigmatic even when it serves zero purpose except for I guess gender affirming care. (The gender is Weird Bitch.)

I can't tell how I feel about those dad sandals. I suppose it depends if he's wearing them like a fashion model (brand new and clean with perfect pedicured feet) or if those are REALLY dad at the beach-like and, since I'm not a foot person, this for me is only a choice between "not off-putting" and "AURGH".

9/10 the proximity to Thancred hauls him up several points of misgivings I had, and the lopporit shout outs are killing me :')

I unlocked Y'shtola last and holy fuck I am a lesbian. I don't even recognise where those boots come from, so either a really expensive glam or something I just have not stumbled on. She has toe rings I think? And painted nails? I have no idea if the garter (?) is part of the boots glam or a custom thing as result of not recognising the boots and how much of them is normal. I feel like they customised a lot on her anyway - the back of her top has purple beads that match her staff (not dyable on the real piece)

and I think the necklace has to be part of the top instead of a separate necklace piece with the way it hangs, AND the bracelets are a glove piece with the original summer glam, but I assume they're layered with the false nails, also in the glove slot. All in all it's giving the sort of effort which is starting to creep up to what I'd expect from the modding community not the game. I mean, not THAT good but getting close. Baby steps towards what fandom can make :P

She really is god's favourite meow meow.

Anyway I can't really judge this fairly because it's really hot and I love her so I'm just going to give it 100/10 and move on. :)

how did I get a picture where Estinien looks like he's stooping to get in the frame...

The fact he has Azure Dragoon Blue Top and then Violently Nidhogg Fuchsia shorts is the colour theory that absolutely killed me. When he lights up during his burst and starts glowing pink all over his shorts are like. Taking him over like the eye once did I think.

love a guy who can embrace his past trauma and dress to match all that has passed before and all that he intends to do now (kill something large and tasty, grill it on the beach, fall asleep with a beer in hand until the waves come in and wake him up).

I gave him that wooden bracelet in the glam he has on my desktop screen so once again I'm feeling weirdly vindicated.

Other details: no ponytail despite the warm weather because he's got enough ventilation. The fact there's cactaurs on his shirt when he's on record for eating them is amazing. We should imagine he's wearing his jobstone like that pendant (since he's one of the only guys with a confirmed jobstone despite being the Guy Without A Job notoriously that one time.)

Unlike Thancred's hat and sunglasses combo, which seems fun and boisterous somehow, he seems the most walled off of all the sunglasses wearers even though he's not the most mysterious. The visor really helps make it a sort of wall. Maybe just because his terse upfront personality and somehow despite his clothes horse habits THIS amount of whimsy seems the most out of character at first glance, but he DOES look uncomfortable to me.

Somehow I find everything about this outfit excellent for his character but also like maybe he was forced into it, everyone cornering him and telling him the Scion Beach Party was a mandatory work event and he was not allowed to beg off of it and he did put some work in expressing himself but also is going to go find a much quieter corner to lurk in for the day, when not competing with Thancred (can't grill, loves it) for the barbeque (Estinien can grill, would only do it because the threat of Thancred doing it wrong is too high).

confused 7/10 mostly because I think Krile is blackmailing him and not because I don't love everything about this.

Here's how G'reenha Tia can still win -

Anyway here's the deducted point for tanking in flip flops (PERFECTLY acceptable BLM gear btw but he's Mr Versatile.)

(I joke but the main character of my novels is a flip-flop wearing menace who could and would tank in them)

Between the padlock and key necklace and the woven bracelet right after we all went feral over the Thavnarian bracelets for couples thing so recently (and Corvos is just across the water!) he's absolutely dripping cutie pie love interest coding yet again.

(Also yes I know the lock and key thing is very funny because we were introduced to him learning he was a fancy key to a big door.)

Gains a point back because the other green g'raha thing is I'm pretty sure people use this shirt glam because it kinda looks like it has weed on it.

Don't quote me on that, vibes only.

Anyway he came colour coordinated (with his original eye colour and hair colour not the bright Allagan dalamud red dye that goes with his normal outfit) so so precise and neat, like he's going to some sort of formal event, and even with flip flops he really does seem incredibly put together like the twins or Y'shtola, just for full outfit cohesiveness.

As someone who would hold G'raha's hand on the romantic gondola vibe, 10/10.

3 out of 10 and a huge cringe if you would not. He's got to stop Striving.

Hey it's the star of the show!! Adorable hairstyle out, cute plot-important earring on, and wearing her exact character colours but adorable beach wear :)

I love that she looks kind of like she went to the girls for advice and got the top from Y'shtola and the shorts from Alisaie, and she probably was very serious and stressed about getting this right even though there's no rules and no one's judging her -

oops.

Anyway the ballet shoes are adorable and go with all the cute picto spins and twirls :)

I think the strict colour scheme does speak to the slight lack of fleshing out she got so far in the story (we don't really have any real character reason that picto in particular spoke to her and this glam isn't one of the many fun takes people had on how to dress to meet that brief ). I don't think DT did more than just repeat that she's serious and sweet and trying really hard to get out of her shell and be more fun and creative and also she's been practicing dodging really hard she shouts mid-Trust combat (bless her). But ALSO getting out of the shell is really hard and she only found out everything and got some closure in the final level 100 quests so there wasn't really much to do with her after that.

This is like her First Non-Plot-Critical Whimsy Moment and losing the hood or any cat ears entirely (and there are perfectly functional cat ears to wear in game) is a good step considering we know she wears it precisely because she needed a sort of advance PR campaign to make her look cute and approachable before she opened her mouth and started bringing down the vibe (serious scary children are SO funny though and i love that for her). Having the same top as Y'shtola is a good thing for trying to make her less childish and have her trying to show that now as she takes this huge step out from the background. I mean, it still has a slight sense of her costuming herself and pushing herself out of comfort zones as she always does, but it's 100% in character so I adore it.

1000/10 because Krile is great and there's so much going on here and it's so fun when a character's whole personality is a costume and then they're like aurgh wait do I even want that??

[mommyclaws]

look as a lesbian I don’t get why it’s so awful to just want lesbian spaces?? We as queer people all have different experiences and we can have smaller spaces while still embracing the whole community.

Lesbians go through different experiences than bi non-men do. That DOES NOT mean “we suffer more” or whatever because I hate the whole oppression olympics shit. We are not attracted to men neither sexually nor romantically, and that’s what makes us oppressed in this heteronormative world. We go through harassment, corrective rape, violence, and conversion “therapy” because we are homosexual. If my dad ever found out I was exclusively attracted to women I would get kicked out. Why is it suddenly so awful and “gatekeepy” to ask us to have our own spaces? We still have sapphic spaces! We even have bi spaces and pan spaces! Heck, I see gay non-women are allowed to have their own spaces!

It’s harmful to be treated as a monolith. I’m not attracted to men, and saying im an “exclusionist” for this is lesbophobic. I’m not evil for being exclusively attracted to non-men. I’m not evil for saying we should have our own spaces while we’d still have sapphic spaces!

Words have meanings, and the lesbian label is important to me, for all of its history and all of my struggles. I’m tired of us all being seen as “big mean lesbians who hate men” so so much. It reeks of misogyny to me.

I am heavily disappointed, and I ask everyone to please understand why bi lesbians are harmful.

I'm disappointed you've missed the point of my post. I was talking about the history of different lesbians and sapphics being excluded and hated in our community through generations. The conversation wasn't about bi lesbians specifically, it was about the butches, transfemmes, Pan/Bi, Aro/Ace, nonbinary, and countless other identities that were or ARE still considered not "valid" members of our community at point or another. I was pointing out how this "Bi Lesbian exclusion" is just a repeat of past mistakes and in the retrospective it is rooted in radfem/terf ideology that claims sapphics have to present and feel a certain way to be accepted. I didn’t say anywhere that being attracted to non-men is evil, I didn’t call anyone a “big mean lesbian”. You’re putting words into my mouth. That entire post was about defending sapphic’s right to attraction and expression.

Lesbian, bisexual, pansexual, non cis women and etc can all be oppressed, harassed, hate crimed, rejected by friends/family and other terrible things for their non heteronormative attraction.

Some people are failing to realize these exclusively “one identity spaces" they feel are being threatened don't actually exist in real life. Sure someone can have like, a "nonbinaries only" discord server or a meet up with friends who are all the the same identity. But a majority of queer spaces in real life? They don't have those rules because theres no way to separate queer identities neatly like that- There isn't a need to. You're going to find bisexuals and pansexuals and nonbinaries and trans people and all sorts of other identities at the same lesbian bar, the same sapphic support group, the same circle of friends.

So what exactly are these "spaces" that every other identity has and lesbians supposedly don't? Maybe ask why bisexuals, pansexuals, etc also being in a sapphic space feels so threatening to some in the first place? They have a right to be there as well. We are a community.

A label can be used and defined as whatever the owner of the label is comfortable with! "Lesbian" has always been an umbrella term. It can be a singular identity or it can describe any sapphic experience or it can do lots of things, labels have always been flexible in this way. Someone using the label differently than another person isn't harmful. It's expression.

[bi-sapphics]

honestly half of this “lesbians vs. bi women” discourse wouldn’t even exist if y’all could comprehend that material reality exists and what it actually means. you’ve all become so chronically online that you think we have completely separate experiences that can never ever overlap, and if they somehow do, then it’s not enough to mean anything. you think there’s this solid line between black and white with no grey in the middle and that’s just not so.

some lesbians mistakenly think they’re attracted to men via comphet, y’all seem to grasp the validity of that concept well enough. bi women can falsely think they’re lesbians, also because of comphet, which y’all seem to take issue with for some reason. bi women experience homophobia in addition to biphobia, just like how lesbians experience lesbophobia specifically in addition to general homophobia. bi women get called dykes - in other words, if you want to use your own argument against us reclaiming it, bi women experience what you want to call lesbophobia (maybe rethink your argument if that makes you mad lol). bi women participated in dyke marches and lesbian feminism (and still do). bi women use butch/femme and sometimes even futch and nobody irl actually cares (we do see it as more than just an aesthetic, btw). bi women get called and are sometimes considered lesbians (not to endorse mspec lesbians, but we do actually have knowledgeable experience in that field). it’s not just bisexuals who are always feminine and lesbians who are or can be masculine. also, some lesbians prefer to call their attraction to certain nonbinary genders bisexual and that preference is perfectly okay.

there is so much more overlap between us than often gets recognized, whether because y’all are too caught up in the discourse to realize it or because you just don’t want to admit it so that your biphobic & bimisogynistic narrative can continue to make sense for you. obviously i would say it hurts us bi sapphics the most, but lesbians are really selling themselves short too just because some of them don’t want to be associated with us just by embracing their full history, culture, and dynamic.

it’s not that we’re suddenly taking things away from lesbians by acknowledging what we’re actually entitled to as bisexuals, it’s that we’ve always been entitled to these things and your “lesbian-exclusive” cultures never actually were lesbian-exclusive. so i understand why it feels like something’s being taken away from you, but it never really was only yours to begin with and your insistence just makes you look selfish for no good reason. to put it bluntly, “lesbian-exclusive” and “bi-exclusive” aren’t real existing categories (except... y’know... different flags and the double moons symbol. but that’s kind of it). that’s not how material reality works. that’s a concept that is, ironically, exclusively online. you have to realize that “lesbian” and “bisexual” were never supposed to be separated in the first place. there’s no problem with appreciating that lesbian does have its own closed-off definition now, and that’s valid, but it’s just an unobjectionable fact that this isn’t how it was supposed to be without radfems intervening. lesbian separatism didn’t happen with the consent of bisexuals and that’s just a lie you’ve been told. sorry about that.

[skullvins]

random fuckin gender ramble scroll if ur not interested in my gender bs

aaarrrggg i hate that radfem bs has caused me to still associate butch and femme with being lesbian only terms (even though i KNOW they’re not) and thus making me associate both of them with being women, even though i KNOW theyre historically not. its so hard to unlearn???

like, the overlapping lesbian/butch/transmasc history is so hard to navigate as a funky lil enby/genderqueer because a lot of terms are either too masc or too fem for me to be comfortable with, and now that im TRYING to explore exactly how my masculinity and femininity work its so weird!!!

I’m in solidarity with queer men and queer women, both trans and cis or gnc or whatever and figuring out my personal relationships with those communities is hard!!! I relate to my cis female peers as someone who’s only started socially transitioning in recent years, I relate to their issues as someone who doesn’t pass well, I relate to transmascs in terms of wanting to be seen as more masculine, in wanting to physically transition, i relate to trans mlm in terms of sexuality, i relate to lesbians/wlw in terms of sexuality too! some of the best comfort and solidarity ive found is in amab enbies and even some transfems when it comes to comfort and gender expression. the two amab demiguys i know make me feel comfortable exploring masculinity because i feel safe around them BECAUSE they’re not cis, and like, i can be ‘one of the guys’ with them without having to be A GUY, and i relate so so so hard to gnc guys or amab enbies when it comes to presentation. i almost want to transition JUST so i can reembrace femininity in a masculine way.

i dunno, i feel this insane pressure outside of the queer community to either be as masc as possible to pass and be taken seriously, and that’s gotta be at least partially due to the way radfem bs has spread, especially here in the uk.

i wanna be read as masc, i wanna be read as fem, i wanna be incomprehensible! I wanna wear men’s shirts and t shirts and polo shirts with a skirt because i can!! because skirts are fun and cute and i enjoy wearing them. i really do wish i was amab because it would be so much easier to present the way i want to, I think, but then again, i don’t have bottom dysphoria, not really.

all this changes though, really i might just be genderfluid, but i hate the binary connotations of that too. so many enby words are stolen or defined in terms of binary gender: being bigender to most means being male or female, being genderfluid means being fluid between them, being nonbinary is being not male or female, when people equate being nonbinary to being genderless it kills me because I am not binary! but i am not genderless! my gender is here and present and part of me and part of my relation with the world around me and with other people and part of my sexuality and orientation

i dunno, this is turning into a big queer rant. this isn’t me trying to shove labels onto myself, I’m fine with rejecting them if that’s what’s needed - i don’t define my sexuality any further than queer even though hypothetically i could probably id as bi or pan or any mspec label, but I choose not to because being QUEER is my orientation. perhaps my gender as well (i do id as genderqueer as well as enby) but i want to really truly understand my gender AS queer, rather than just brush it off as queer because I cannot define it to myself or understand it. i want to understand my relation to the world around me and to other queer people.

so am I butch? am I femme? maybe it changes? is that allowed to change from day to day? my gender doesn’t FEEL like it changes but that presentation does, maybe! maybe I need to try new pronouns, but using she/her like i want to is hard when i associate it with misgendering and failing to prove myself as trans enough to cis people.

i wanna be masc with women and fem with men, but the latter is hard due to fears that come from experiences with misogyny. a lot of cis men ARE scary to me - I’m an 18 year old afab for fucks sake. i wish i could have that re-embraced femininity, but I’m not flat when i bind or build masc or tall or fuckin. anything! and hormones aren’t an option yet because a lot of my mental health is too unstable, the nhs is in shambles, and I don’t have money. i can’t embrace that yet unless im in the right circles, with the right people, and i can’t be that in society, I don’t trust it. I don’t know if I wanna dress fem and have people see me as masc or fem, i don’t know what pronouns i want them to use, i dunno man!!!

i wanna reach out to older queer people but again its hard, we’re in lockdown, i don’t live somewhere with a big queer community, i’m not a fan of bars and such and there’s not any in my town so i’d have to travel a bit, i wish i could just feel at home!!! i wanna be feminine without being female but also without being male, at least not fully male! I’m not male, i have this connection to femininity and it doesn’t feel male to me, I don’t want to be included in explicitly male or explicitly female spaces, I wanna be with everyone or no one, i dunno

again, i wish butch and femme didnt feel so gendered to me personally, and that’s not just this site but also what ive grown up with, my mum used to always say i was a wannabe ‘butch lezza’ whenever i was trying to get her to take my NONBINARY identity seriously and I’m not that! not because it’s bad to be, but because that’s just not me. I’m not a wlw, I’m not even sure on my attraction to women, or to men, or to anyone, I’m just attracted to queerness, and i dunno it’s hard. being ‘butch’ to me, somewhat, still means wlw, even though it’s not true, and i hate how radfem bs has ruined the word for me. i wish i could understand my identity in terms of being butch or femme, or whatever i am, and i wish those words weren’t tainted for me in the first place. i guess all of us are just ‘failed women’ in the eyes of society, huh.

characters who are feminine, but still explicitly male, or have some relation with masculinity, or are fluid between it, or who return to masculinity as a default give me so much euphoria just to witness. I’m in desperate need of a haircut and i don’t know whether to grow it out properly again or cut it short

either way, I’m gonna dye it purple

[werevulvi]

I kinda just wanted to make a rant, to lay out why I feel so iffy about trans women and hopefully get a better understanding of my own feelings and what the fuck is brewing under that surface. There has to be a reason. This post is analytical drivel, not a debate, but by all means, feel free to respond or otherwise talk to me about this. Let's take it from the beginning and then go from there.

Part 1 Detransition:

So, I began detransitioning roughly 2 years ago. That's where my feelings about the trans community as a whole began to shift, and with that my feelings about trans women. At that time, I was still active in a truscum group and came out as detrans there, after having been known and looked up to as a trans man there for over a year. At first I was accepted, but when I started having doubts about wanting to get rid of my beard, and felt like I wanted to embrace my body hair and deep voice... people there started acting like shit towards me. They told me that my biological sex still being female did not matter, that I was essentially a man and had to detrans medically to be considered a woman again. That hurt badly.

Shortly after that, I was also told that because I was medically transitioned, trans women were "more female" than me. That was like the last drop that made the goblet pour over. Fuming, I started saying that I'm more of a woman than trans women can ever be, even if I keep a full beard, because they'll never be truly biologically female, no matter how much surgery they got. I was hurting by their cruel words, so I stuck it where it would hurt them the same. (I’ve always an “eye for an eye” sorta person.) That's when people started telling me that I hate trans women, but I felt like that was a misunderstanding. That I was just acting out, out of sadness, grief, anger, panic, and having my gender denied for the sake of validating trans women's genders.

But were they right?

Part 2 Gender critical thought:

Over time, I got exceedingly gender critical and fell into radblr. I also read/watched content that "exposed" transgenderism as a scam, most of which was articles and youtube videos from conservative right wing people, and Christians. I had joined an fb group for detransitioners, and the creator, a "born again" Christian detrans man, happily shared all the many sources he had on how transgender was all a scam from the start of its movement. I felt somewhat sick consuming those links, but probably equally intrigued. But at the same time, I kept a foot in the trans community, starving for attention, even though I was never good enough for them anymore, unless I lied and said I'm not a woman. What a sick twist of fate, I felt.

Part 3a Sexuality, from a lesbian view:

Sometime around that, I struggled with my sexuality and after a lot on inner search, I came to the conclusion I was a lesbian. I felt as though I was only attracted to the same sex as myself, including trans men, but felt nothing worth praising towards males, including trans women. That led to yet another rabbit hole that I tumbled down into. I became convinced that majority of trans women were lesbophobic predators, and I had some shit luck on dating apps. Most people who approached me there were gnc males; transvestites and trans women. I almost went on a date with a good-looking trans woman whom I had mistaken for female, because I felt guilty for having lost attraction to her the moment she told me she's trans and post-op. Luckily she canceled our date for unrelated reasons. I felt like because she was attractive to me before I knew she's trans, but felt completely uninterested in her after the fact, I couldn't possibly be attracted to trans women.

Part 3b Sexuality, from a bisexual view:

That, of course, is not necessarily a bad thing. But I kept asking myself why. Especially since I realised my error in my sexuality calculations, and upon correction discovered I'm actually bisexual after all. I still find women and transitioned females attractive, and in addition to that also men in general, and some vaguely transitioned males. Except from trans women. That odd little inconvenience stood out as a sore thumb which I couldn't stop scratching. Why? I kept asking myself. Why not trans women?

My question dug deeper than just to attraction. I don't think I feel iffy about trans women because I'm not attracted to them. I think it's the other way around.

I never had to convince myself to be attracted to trans men. I discovered early on in my own transition that some other trans men were really hot. That was it. I later on dated a trans man whom I was head over heals in love with. That confirmed it. I've been questioning my attraction to standard men and women far more than I ever questioned my attraction to trans men. It was that obvious, that clear. However, when it comes to trans women I was always the complete opposite. That no matter how I twisted and turned it, I only ever felt revulsion at the thought of being sexual or romantic with a trans woman. No matter how well or badly they passed, no matter how aesthetically pleasing or how charming their personalities.

I wanna clarify that I'm not at all forcing myself to be into trans women. I'm just trying to understand why, so that I'll no longer feel bad about my lack of attraction to them. Because I cannot accept things which I do not understand.

Part 3c Sexuality, digging for answers:

At first I thought, maybe I'm just not all that attracted to femininity. It's not like I typically get super into hyper-feminine natal women either, and fake tits and faces with a ton of plastic surgery has always made me queezy. No, I seem to have a strong preference for masculinity in partners, regardless if they're butches, other masc bi women, trans men or kinda standard masc natal men. So then it just kinda makes sense that trans women, whom are often hyper-feminine, just don't fit that image. Except... that one trans woman I almost went on a date with... she looked like a butch. I mistook her for a natal woman partly because she had short hair, no makeup and wore what looked like men's clothing, but I could see she had hips and tits, and her face looked naturally female. But I still wasn't into her, because she's trans.

Then I thought... okay, that one checks out, but maybe I'm just creeped out neo-vaginas? Yeah, that must be it! I'm almost equally creeped out by neo-penises too, but most trans men don't get bottom surgery anyway, so it hasn't been much on my mind. But then I thought: okay, but what about trans women who choose to not get bottom surgery then? I am attracted to dick. Nope, still uneasy at that thought. I started comparing men who are just very feminine, to trans women, and noticed yeah I don't actually feel half as iffy about men who are just feminine. A man in a dress and makeup can actually be very hot, to me. And I've always preferred long hair on men. But I prefer them still looking clearly male underneath that, although I don't mind a few androgynous features here and there. But I’m only into it if they don’t act like their affinity for femininity makes them women or non-binary, or if they’re feminine in a way that mocks or sexualises womanhood. So I’m not into tacky transvestites in over-sexualised lingerie. At least try to be tactful and elegant, please. So, it’s not male femininity per se that puts me off. If there’s any femininity I’m actually into, it’s male femininity. Because gender non-conformity is attractive to me. And I love the idea of being a strong female protector and girlboss of a gentle, delicate, feminine man. At least I like fantasising about that. (But enough about my daydreams.)

Part 4a Womanhood, biology and identity:

Somewhere after having gotten that far in my digging, I started getting close to finding my sore spot: trans women's view on womanhood.

As for myself, my own view of womanhood is completely detached from femininity. I'm just like... I can even have a full beard and bass voice, a flat and hairy chest, and still be a woman. Because I'm simply bio female. Trans women tend to very often think that they need to "pass" and with that comes a certain look: high voice, no facial hair, no body hair, big breasts, curvy hips, etc. All of which are features that I'm dysphoric about having on my own body, but admire in other natal women. But on trans women, it's like I feel uncomfortable about those kinda features on them. Like to me being a woman is just dealing with having developed that way, or not dealing with having developed that way. Where as for them it seems to be actually striving for developing that way, and I guess that causes my brain to short circuit. Cannot comprehend.

Part 4b Womanhood, fragility and validation:

My womanhood is kinda fragile. I admit that. I'm quite insecure as a woman, because of my transition and masculinity. I feel like most of my womanhood has been lost, which although I'm fine with, I still grieve. I grieve it because I was a bit of an idiot when I first transitioned and had not yet processed my trauma - not because I regret looking like a man. It's complicated, but basically... I feel as though my womanhood is hanging by a thread, which is my genitals, reproductive system and chromosomes; all of which are either mostly hidden or always invisible.

I'm often met with disbelief and disagreement. People either saying "You're not a woman because you can't possibly be female. You look too male." or "You're not a woman because you medically transitioned. You having a uterus is not enough to make you a woman." and it gets to me. And then there are trans women... some of whom do not even need to put on a wig to be instantly validated as women by just identifying as such. Others thinking that because I look like a man, they refuse to think of me as a woman. And that... pisses me off.

There have been a few trans women who in some utterly failed attempt at being supportive of me have said I'm like a nonbinary person who is half male and half female. That's not a lot better, but thanks for trying... I guess.

Part 4c Womanhood, dysphoria and misogyny:

I think that might be what gets to me about trans women. All of it. This entire list of things. That some of them are lesbophobic predators and have absurd claims of what being female is, that others mock womanhood, and yet others view themselves as somehow more female than I am. The genital factor and the slight creepiness of plastic surgery. Their view of womanhood as an identity and my view of it as a biological sex. I keep ending up in fights with trans women about these sorta things. I can't keep a lid on my frustrations no matter how hard I try to just see them as people with dysphoria and opinions that are different from mine. I cannot find any fucking solidarity between myself, as a dysphoric natal woman, and trans women. I feel like they're making mockery of my sex, my dysphoria and my struggles with misogyny, as well as making me feel like shit about something that I love about my body: my transition. I have no common grounds with them, and whenever they try to find solidarity in stuff like misogyny, I feel like they don't even know what the fuck they're talking about. I have a huge bone to pick with them, on multiple levels, and I don't even know where to start or where it ends.

Part 4d Womanhood, jealousy:

But a lot of it comes from jealousy. And I think it's mutual. I'm jealous of their ability to access female only spaces despite being male, which I cannot access despite being female. I'm jealous of their ability to be accepted as women. And on the other side, I think they're jealous of my reproductive ability, and my female socialisation, which I'm not like super hyped about myself, although I do love my pussy (she gives me great orgasms.) I'm jealous of their ability to claim womanhood without even trying to pass as female, because people are quicker to accept the woman-gender-identity than the woman-bio-sex. But likewise, ironically, I sense that they're jealous of that I can claim the "woman lane" despite looking convincingly male, because I'll always be biologically female, no matter how insible my sex is.

They cannot see me as a woman, because of my transition, without looking at themselves as men, no matter how far they transition. And I cannot see them as women, no matter how far they transition, without labeling myself as a man, because of my own transition. I think that about nails it.

Part 5 Conclusions:

I don't think it's true hatred, but rather insecurities both from myself and from them. Because we cannot both exist as women under the same ideology. One of us has to be considered a man, and neither of us is willing to fold on that. Ultimately... I am a threat to their womanhood, as much as they are a threat to my womanhood. And that tension is so thick... not even a knife could cut it. I guess the sad thing is though, that I think that tension is unnecessary. I am so unlike trans women that we could potentially bond based on how different we are. Because there is a lot of similarity in those differences, if you really think about it.

But no, I do not wish them harm in any way. Despite the vast array of insults I sometimes hurl their way. That is really just in response to them insulting me. I do not think they're doing anything wrong by transitioning, or even necessarily by identifying as women. I think, if they had just been more like "I can see you as a woman despite having transitioned, because deep down you like being female and having a pussy... kinda like I'm a woman because I wanna have a pussy, despite having been born male" I would have been much quicker to embrace them. Because that, I could get behind; but they can't.

So, there is no solidarity. It remains an endless fight. But I feel like it's not just on my part. I have tried. I do try. But they're not willing to meet me halfway, and that makes me go to attack in self-defense, which makes then go to attack in self-defense.

[lilyliveredlittlerichboy]

I'm so glad that you agree with me! See, we have so much in common. Maybe we don't have to fight?

This is the whole reason I'm nonbinary by the way. Cus gender is a social construct and none of the rules around it make sense. Don't like gender? u don't have to have one.

I'm not dysphoric in the traditional sense of the word. Gender just doesn't make much sense to me. So I've decided to get a mixing bowl and make my own. (less like baking and more like play-doh. gender stimmy)

Here's a couple things where our views differ.

1. Gender is always meaningless and only oppression: Gender can be really liberating and I know people for whom gender means an awful lot. (cis and trans alike) That's their call to make, not mine. Everyone gets to decide how they want to exist in the framework of gender, or make up new rules to suit them, and you shouldn't get to tell them they're not the gender that they say they are.

2. The ones with the penises subjugated the ones with the vaginas: Vaguely correct as in people who owned land needed at some point to figure out inheritance, and one of the easiest ways to keep wealth in the family under patriarchy is by subjugating women, and teaching children strict gender binaries. That's gender as thought up by capitalism, and it's Not Great. we agree on this. but these days it's not really that simple anymore. we have rich people men and women alike subjugating all of us in monstrous ways, meanwhile society is priming us to oppress each other in equally monstrous ways and one of them is "all people have to stay within the laws of their assigned sex, or else be societally punished severely". and this is where you get misogyny, but also antimasculism and the strict forces of toxic masculinity which is shackles to the men as well. its where you get cosmetic surgeries on intersex infants to make their genitals look more "normal", this is where you get homophobia and transphobia because to the cishetpatriarchy, we're all filthy deviants who shouldn't exist and it doesn't matter whether you're a lesbian, a butch cis woman or a feminine gay man, a trans woman or a trans man or nonbinary or a drag artist, society hates us all, completely Regardless of what exactly you're calling your gender deviance.

So might as well leave people to label themselves anything they want to, and dismantle the forces of capitalism and white supremacy, which is where misogyny and all other forms of (gendered and otherwise) oppression get their power.

Trans people are not the problem. In fact "queering" of any sort is part of the solution, to break down stereotypes and break down how people see gender and to exist, loudly and proudly, outside of the gendered expectations of the cishet gender conforming majority.

Thank you for reading and also??? thank you so much for being possibly the first radfem who's replied to any of my posts in a calm and non aggressive manner.

maybe we can get along don't you think? even if we don't always see eye to eye on the mundane specifics of the gender stuff, maybe we can atleast be allies in the fight against capitalism and gendered oppression as a whole. we can debate the specifics in a friendly way maybe, rather than attacking each other. (even within trans circles we don't always agree on the specifics!) Our fights are so similar and they both point in the same direction and the division between us is artificially constructed and held up by psyops im pretty sure. the capitalists with all the money and all the power love to see the evil wimmin and the evil transes fight each other cus they would love to give none of us any rights at all, and having us distracted fighting each other really takes away from the good we could accomplish collectively.

We don't have to be friends. But at least acknowledge that our struggle is the same, in the grand scheme of things.

Radfems are gender deviants who see the pressures of femininity and say "no thanks, wanna break this shit".

Trans people are gender deviants who see the pressures of their (& others) assigned sex and say "no thanks, gonna break this shit".

See how we're the same?

Trust everyone, at least to know who they are better than me, or someone random on the internet. That's the meaning of solidarity. To acknowledge that the pressures of society exist and there are many ways to react to them, including being trans and being radfem, and even if you disagree with how someone else lives their life, if you'd do it differently, it doesn't mean you get to tell them it's wrong.

Telling people they aren't who they say they are is furthering oppression - our goal, surely, is that regular average people are more free (not less) to express their gender or lack/nonconformity thereof. Believe people when they tell you things, because what is the alternative? violently policing genitals, birth certificates? i thought we wanted less oppression, not more!

Thanks for reading, again. I have a tendency to ramble early in the mornings, and I just woke up.

my american friend sent me a post about hoping my night is good and tomorrow is better, and i was like yeah okay but here it's already 8am.

they said but time is made up!!

it's a slightly silly thought but it reminded me of the way terfs talk about gender.

and it's true: time is a social construct alright, but we didn't invent night and day. we simply looked at the world and named what we saw.

we didn't invent male and female: we simply observed the world and found that many humans came in one of two forms. and we named them, and then socially constructed gender around them, with all the oppressive roles and stereotypes that we know today.

But here's the thing.

Day and night isn't all there is. There's dusk, dawn, twilight. There's the full moon which makes the night bright, there's eclipses which make the day dark.

Not to mention that depending on which part of the day it is, "day" and "night" look different.

8am is different from 3pm. 11pm is different from 4am.

8am is morning, 3pm is afternoon, 11pm is past bedtime, 4am is almost morning again.

(don't judge me for my bedtimes)

So yes of course we have day and night. But they are not absolute truths. There are lots of stages in between day and night, lots of times that aren't quite either, like 5am or 6am. If you live anywhere near the poles of the earth, the boundaries of day and night shift all the time. Some places get dark for months on end, while on the opposite side of the world the sun won't set until the end of the season.

Which brings me to another important point.

Perspective.

To you it can be 8am, but that doesn't mean it isn't 2am a handful of timezones back. If you say it's day, this will inevitably be untrue for part of the world. That doesn't mean you're wrong though: it just means you don't speak for everyone.

Perspective matters.

Male and female exist, but they aren't absolute truths. Both biologically and within the framework of gender, there are grey areas, people who are neither or both, or a secret, third thing. People who are solar eclipses and bright moonlight, people who are the dawn and the dusk and the morning and the evening.

You can call yourself whatever you like. You can be a woman or an adult human female and that's perfectly fine and good for you, but you do not get to tell others what gender they are.

That's like being in the 3pm timezone and realising that someone else is at 1am, and throwing a tantrum.

Or even quietly going, "Yeah sure I will support your delusion. You can keep pretending it's 1am, but deep down I KNOW that it's actually 3pm!!"

Like, you're just wrong. About the other person's experience and perspective. You know your own well enough, but now your making the mistake of assuming your perspective is universal.

It is not.

Believe people when they tell you things. That is all. Tbh.

[somecunt]

I really wanna hear about people using this,that, these, and those as pronouns.

I don't know how any of those would work together. Well... some people use it/that as a pronoun. Also apparently it/its pronouns are slightly frowned upon in the nonbinary community good thing I'm under x-gender, so I don't have to deal with that.

But it's difficult because this,that,those,these involves distance. I'm not gonna talk about how these and those refers to multiple things, because that was the same argument for they/them, which was always dumb because people often use they/them without even thinking about it for gender binary people.

He/him/his

It/it/its

That/that/thats ?

That/This/Those ?

I find it interesting how problems are constantly forming.

Fuck Trans people

Fuck Nonbinary Trans people

Fuck Nonbinary Trans people that use Neopronouns

Fuck Nonbinary Trans people that use Neopronouns that are words

Fuck Nonbinary Trans people that use Neopronouns that are dehumanizing.

There's always an argument.

I think it would be great if forms had something like

Male

Female

Nonbinary

Agender

Genderfluid

GenderQueer

Androgyne

**Edit: Aporagender**

Other

I'm trying to get all the umbrella terms for people who don't really want to be under the label as just nonbinary.

I know there's bigender,trigender, demigender... maybe multigender would be a good umbrella term for those?

There's also where people feel like their autism affects their gender

Can someone make a chart or something of all the not rare genders but layer them as umbrella terms, cause if someone doesn't it's gonna end up being me. And if you don't do it well, I'm still gonna do it.

I'm coming to realize X-gender is a japanese thing, I did indeed find it through Japanese media but I felt like I had heard it long before. Like I'm 1000% sure I heard X-gender long before I heard nonbinary. Maybe I was thinking of 3rd gender hmmm.

Also why are gender nonconforming people marked as transgender, that doesn't make any goddamn sense to me and no one has ever bought it up. A cis butch lesbian qualifies as gender nonconforming and so does a cis femboy. I wouldn't call it a cis thing cause trans people can also be gender nonconforming.

I can understand stand how gender nonconforming people can face discrimination but shouldn't it be it's own thing?

The Wikipedia categorizes having a gender expression that is different from your birth sex as being transgender. This makes no sense.

Though, I was able to figure out a cis person could be trans I might have already bought it up in a previous post. This wouldn't make them transgender, but transsexual, a cis person that seeks to medically transition to any extent and completely identifies with their original birth sex.

I'd love it if someone, anyone really talked about any of this. I'm willing to discuss any of these things

[okidenshi]

Being a lesbian and also autistic, I’ve always had like. an interesting relationship with my gender- like when i was a kid i was really comforted when i heard about the term tomboy, and i described myself as such for a long time.

And like, i definitely also went thru that mindset that most women do where you just, despise everything associated with traditional femininity because obviously liking the color pink and wearing ugg boots meant you were “giving into the patriarchy” or whatever nonsense have you.

Tho my last two years of highschool, i realized that’s bullshit and i should live to do Girly Things if that’s what made me happy, and be unapologetic about it. And i was, i wore make up a lot and wore pinks and went to Starbucks and went to prom- and i loved it, i truly felt comfortable during that time. Now i had times were i would dress in flannel and jeans and shit cause i also knew i liked to look futchy too, but yea for the most part i was very feminine, and i was happy to express myself that way.

But... that being said, as I’ve lived outside of high school, i do wonder sometimes how much of that joy i felt about dressing that way came from the confirmation from others that i was doing a great job of fitting in with how girls are expected to dress an act. As an autistic person, trying to fit in socially is a struggle, and when we do it right, we are often praised by others and our own minds for doing so.

While that can be harmful for autistic ppl in general, being queer on top of that might also give the person (in this case.... me lol) a warped sense of gender identify and expression. On the side of my autism, there’s a desire to chameleon myself into society, and there is joy in successfully doing so, but that joy is, overall, short lived. As much as i like to Look Good, my first need as an autistic person is to feel comfortable in what i’m wearing. Even if i feel good wearing feminine clothes, the dread i eventually develop over having to wear clothes that are Nice Looking over a sweat shirt and loose jeans... it builds up, and eventually i think you can experience burn out from it.

But that’s the sensory stuff; i still acknowledge that, most of the time, i do have a desire to express femme-like. I like long hair, i like putting on short shorts and having round thighs and sleek shoulders an a softer face and wearing flowing dresses

And to be fair, I still adore the futch and butch Looks as well, and i often find myself yearning to chop my hair shorter and wear loose jeans and denim jackets and fingerless gloves. Like, the amount of times I think of Ellie from TLOU and just go “wow, i just wanna look like that” is quit often lol.  

But still, you can be a woman and dress masculine and feminine, i know that.

So....... why do i also find myself seeing men or male characters and thinking “god, if only i looked like that”? What about Frodo’s sharp jawline yet gentle voice and soft eyes made me think “thats me”, was there something about Danny Phantom’s clone being a girl and him being a man that made me so entranced as a kid when i saw it, why is it when i look at Cloud Strife in a dress do i ponder “is this what people mean when they say they experience gender euphoria?”

The idea of being a “man” or presenting masculine while not identifying as a woman or a man has been a off and on question since i was about 14, maybe even younger but 14 was when i had better terminology to think about it.

I don’t.... think i want to be a man, no, i don’t really like how that sounds or feels. I’m... ok with being a woman, but there are times were i dont really want to be a /woman/. I just want to be a body, a blank canvas to express a look or idea in that moment, and when i’m done with it, i have a “home base” gender to return to, something i’ve known and that i find familiar and safe. 

But yea... it’s confusing, and sometimes i feel dumb for thinking or talking about it, but it was been on my mind a bit the last.... while i guess??

Idek what terms to use. like.... technically i’m nonbinary, like by what i just described, you’d think that’s how i’d identify, but for some reason using that term doesn’t feel right for me. But i’m not a Woman either, i’m like?? a Queer Woman, yknow?

Sometimes i wonder if my sexuality is also just what i want my gender to be which i KNOW sounds ridiculous because they are two separate things but its just a thought i had. Like... women, yes, but. Queer about it.

Pronouns are also Wild, like i use she/her and honestly, even tho im like... and off-brand queer “woman”, i really do prefer she/her. They/them and he/him and other pronouns i’ve seen dont Feel Right, so um............. she/her will probably always bee the pronouns i use tbh. Maybe its my autism brains just liking familiarity, but they feel most comfortable to me even if im Not Exactly A Woman. 

Anyway...... this probably made no sense, but it was just on my mind i guess. TLDR; my gender’s just my name at this point and sometimes i think i wanna be a Boi but ehh?? eehmhmmmklsjdfl yknow?

[cumuluscrow]

dumb stupid gender stuff

i can’t believe i’ve actually resorting to making a read more tumblr post about this but sometimes life throws u curveballs

it’s so so hard for me to form coherant sentences about this topic, it’s just confusing and upsetting and i feel like the more i discover the less i know

i’m gonna refrain from describing my whole fucking gender journey but in essence, i feel like i see myself in a far more gender-neutral way, and i feel varying degrees of discomfort when i’m recognised as being female. that’s the long and short of it. i get that this probably seems like SUCH a minor thing to a lot of people (god there has to be a name for everything nowadays not liking makeup doesn’t mean you’re not female!! just be a butch lesbian or something you know). but it’s really not like that, i dont know how to describe it. this is NOT a ‘decision’ i made lightly, i’ve been torn up over this for years, and i know that i feel so refreshingly like myself when i just confess to myself that this is who i am. someone who is non-binary.

i’m trying to kind of... figure out metaphors and ways of describing the way i feel. it feels like i’m a spy with some kind of female disguise, going through life lying to everyone, and that brings a strange kind of disconcertment with it, almost as if i feel bad for lying to people... with like, my appearance??

i dont even know if this IS gender stuff. i might well turn out to be cis, when i finally figure this shit out in about 300 years time. maybe i’m just really insecure and fucked up (which i kinda am) and i’m subconciously choosing to channel my self-hate into my gender. i dont know! all i know is that i prefer to be seen and referred to in a gender-neutral way. that’s really all i know.

here’s the thing though, because this goes far deeper than me. how do you exist as someone who is non-binary? how is that possible? every single fucking aspect of life is gendered, society, science. the way you recognise people. when you see a person, you always notice 2 things - their race, and their percieved gender. you can’t not.

i feel like i can’t quite get across my point here. i think what i’m trying to get at is internalised hate. there’s a part of me that definitely hates me for this. like, just be goddamn normal for once in your life. i support non-binary people, of course i do, but there’s a part of me that eyerolls at the purple pixie cut, binder-wearing nb, and there’s a part of me that eyerolls at the sparkly eyeshadow-wearing, bearded nb, and i hate that. i hate that that’s in me, not only is it not very nice, but it makes things so much harder on myself and if i hate myself any more than i already do then my soul is gonna collapse in on myself and form a black hole. finally, i will be free of gender.

oh and then there’s the flipside, of course. my brain can’t give me a break because if it’s not thinking that sort of complex shit, its thinking that i’m not nb - not at all, you’re some snowflake attention seeker and you’re an asshole for appropriating other peoples terms. there are people who are actually nb and they’re nothing like you, they’re just not. they’re real and you’re some messed up immature little bitch.

then there’s the less deep stuff, the practical side of things.

i came out to my girlfriend a few weeks ago. even though she had a hunch, she was still really upset and i still feel terrible for messing with her feelings, or something

we’ve been best friends since we were in infant school. she doesn’t know how to change how she perceives someones gender when she’s known them so long. she was upset because she felt like she knew me, she felt like she knew my ‘soul’, that it felt feminine, or something (such an aquarius). she was upset because she knew she saw me in a way that might make me feel uncomfortable.

we can’t seem to have productive conversations about this. we just ignore it 99.9% of the time, and then we have conversations late in the evening where we both cry and we wake up the next morning and everything is the same. i still hear her use she pronouns in conversations with me (eg. i bet that person was stood there like ‘what is she doing’? the she in reference to me. bad example but i can’t think of any others.

here’s the thing though, i dont want to correct her. i dont want to make it weird, and i dont want to bring my issues into a normal scenario. after all, this is something we exclusively, only acknowledge in small, serious conversations late at night, i can’t bring it out into a normal scenario. and i think she’s the same. we’re both equally uncomfortable to acknowledge it.

which begs the question - where the fuck do we go from here?

oh, and other people. yeah, that’s a thing, too.

i don’t plan on ever telling either of my parents. talking to my dad about normal stuff kind of feels like torture at the best of times, and my mum, bless her, doesn’t really... get things. i’d rather her just straight up not know this, than have an inaccurate idea of what it was.

work colleagues? well, before lockdown when i was at work i had to listen to a conversation about how nonbinary people are all stupid, gender exists, sex exists, biology, blah blah blah (already something i’m extremely insecure abotu the concept of) i don’t know how to properly describe how unpleasant that is to stand and listen to, knowing that you’re the exact person they’re talking shit about. it makes dread curl up in your chest, it makes you feel sick, and it makes you too anxious to even think about speaking up. when i got home i just started crying

other family? well, i once had to sit and listen to my sister go on an anti-nb rant, too, equally unpleasant experience

all other family is shit. just shit. bunch of wankers i’d rather not talk to them ever

i feel like, i finally have a vision of a door in my mind that i’ve been looking for for years, but when i approach it and look through it’s just filled with so much anxiety and panic and distress that it negates that fact that i’m on the other side of that door, living far more authentically

i dont know what to do next. i really don’t, and i’m scared. i feel desperate to reach out and like, talk to some other nonbinary people or something. just, i want someone, in real life, to stand there and validate me, without there being any catch, without there being any negatives, without any other things at play. 

wow. this is so long

[peppersbian]

June 17 2021

Posted to the Crockercore Instagram

Pronoun update lmao. Not that you specifically may care but i figure maybe me talking about my feelings will help other people with theirs

I've been struggling to identities what exactly has been my recent disconnect from my gender presentation. He/Him has always been atrocious, She/Her feels like a threat, and they/them feels empty.

I've been going by she and they pronouns for four years. I have been confident in these pronouns for four years. And only recently they've felt wrong and bad due to everyone saying shit like "cis she/they".

That's probably enough to make someone feel invalidated. I am not cis woman. I never have been. And to be perceived as such is wrong. But that's what people do now. As much as people will say "well obviously nb she/they's aren't included" the damage is already done towards people's reception if she/they pronoun users.

In addition to this, comes the extra intersection of being a lesbian. I don't enter men in my life or my identity what so Ever. This inherently separates us from traditional womanhood because of how the standards and perceptions of womanhood revolve around men.

Gender nonconformity is a major and intrinsic part of my identity. It may seem like an oxymoron to be both nb and gnc, bear with me. My nonbinary identity stems from this disconnection. I am not a ""woman"" therefore I am other.

But lately I have considered recently is if I have been using the label of nb to deflect from having to explain and face the loneliness that comes from no one truly understanding my experience and relationship to gender unless they too are a gnc person. And even then!!! I have met so many gnc people who can't understand and straight up disrespect my gnc identity in relation to my lesbian identity.

But adversely, I have considered if my attempts to distance myself from the terms "nonbinary" is a result of most people's perception of nb people as transmasculine agender people.

(Which is an extremely small portion of the nb umbrella that is totally chill and I love them but I'm incredibly frustrated that's what people think all nonbinary is).

I not am transmasculine. I am not agender. But because of my masculinity and lack of woman-ness, this definition will fill the gap in the eyes of other people. I do not want that.

Its frustrating. I do not want to be perceived as something I am not, but continually my identity will be pushed away to satisfy other's comforts.

I have been feeling this disconnection because I just hurt and feel alone. I've been scrambling to change my presentation because I want people to understand who I am. But that's never going to happen lmfao. It hurts when no one understands your experience. It hurts when they deny your attempts at expressing it.

Inherent aloneness. This is the birthright of butches. To paraphrase Stone Butch Blues: "when I looked in the mirror I wondered if I was brave enough to become the person I saw in it".

I am a butch lesbian. A dyke. That is my identity, holistically. A Gender and sexuality all rolled into one beautiful bundle that cannot be expressed separately from one another.

I wish I could say it doesn't matter how people perceive me. Because I care. I wish people would not see my as a woman for my agab. I wish they wouldn't see me as a "man" for my masculinity. I wish nonlesbians and even just generally nonbutches could understand what makes me fundamentally me. But they won't! Never have, and probably never will!

And this might sound like a complete bummer, but I see this as a *not* bad thing. Gender nonconformity is defiant. It has existed forever. It will continue to exist. And it currently exists in me. People's rejection of my presentation only indicates their lack of understanding.

And this essay probably cleared nothing up for no one! Hell, who knows maybe I'll get a few "nb lesbians can't exist those aren't real" reply's in my DM's. Yawn, get a life. But this is for me. This was cathartic.

Tldr: I don't give a shit any more, and I never should have. Pea brained motherfuckers just can't understand how ridiculously sexy I am.

Tldr^2: Lesbians hmu Awooga

Tldr^3: I'm going by They/She pronouns, and prefer masculine terms.

Tldr^4: read stone Butch blues by Leslie Feinberg (after checking content warnings)