#assume all references to men and women are prefaced by ‘cis’

[labyrynth]

do you ever just see someone’s art style and know that they would rather be drawing girls

[radicalromanov]

hi there. i’ve been lurking through radfem blogs for quite some time and have since found my ideology shifting so much (like many radfems, i used to be a very liberal “feminist”, tra, pro-porn and prostitution). i’m a college student and this semester i decided to take a women’s and gender studies course so i could get a personal education…in comes my millennial female prof who openly calls herself queer (she’s just a lesbian), refuses to share her pronouns because she doesn’t want us to feel obligated to “out” ourselves to the class (thus constantly says “if you identify as a woman” to our class that consists of ALL WOMEN). her class has been about as informative as a Instagram infographic.

but TODAY. she said something that made me finally realize, okay, the radfems are right and it’s time I make the leap. she was describing a conversation she heard between a man and a woman. when she would refer to the man, she said “the dude”. when she would refer to the woman, she would say “the woman-identifying person”. she prefaced by saying she didn’t want to assume the gender of this woman-identifying person, and then proceeded to immediately call the man a “white, cis straight dude”. in the same sentence.

i am just so tired of people acting like woman is a bad word. im sick of people treating my existence like a costume they can put on. your blog has been very helpful in forming my new outlook on feminism. thank you for doing what you do <3

Thank you! And I agree with everything you said - people do really treat women as costumes.

I've seen many, many trans activists describe a woman as "someone who identifies as a woman" and questioning that insane logic makes you a TERF. But I've never seen someone describe a man as "someone who identifies as a man." Men aren't seen as costumes or superficial, they're seen as individuals.

[caustic-light]

hi!! i wanna preface this by saying you obviously can use whatever labels you like and it doesn't ultimately matter what i think obviously,, anywayi get being a nonbinary man which would by definition also be considered trans, so i am obviously not gonna argue against the validity of that, i do wonder if specifically using the term "trans man" to refer to yourself can be a bit misleading and confusing? i think terms like trans man and transmasc can be v useful in talking about their unique experiences and for advocating for things like reproductive rights etc etc,, and i feel like including amab nonbinary men in that can just get a bit yoo complicated? idk i just wanted to hear your thoughts on this tbh since i acknowledge that just bc something makes things more complicated doesn't mean it's bad, but yeah idk

I think something that makes discussions complicated is equating the terms trans masc, trans man and ftm. And the assumption that any masc aligned trans person has to be ftm is very prevalent, even assumed to be a given in queer spaces. But there is an infinite amount of ways of being trans. Also intersex people exist, and last time I checked many of them seem to be pretty tired of getting erased from trans terminology.

What happens when you take for granted that a label like tran man corresponds to a specific experience and history even down to the body of a person what you’re really doing is creating a new box. And no matter how many boxes you add to a binary understanding of sex and gender, as long as they’re all boxed in it really doesn’t change the way you conceptualize and perceive sex and gender.

When we talk about reproductive rights, there is a reason we push for terms like “people with uteruses,” rather than for “cis women and trans men.” The assumption that you can give a list of affected identities leads you to include people who aren’t affected, like afab’s without uteri, or people like me, and exclude people who are, like a lot of intersex people, or people with identities that you don’t think to include in your list of affected people, which is bound to happen with how vast gender identity is.

I also don’t think it’s complicated at all. It only is as long as you try to box it in. Once you start to view trans men as people who collect around a label that resonates with their feelings and experiences, and understand that you can’t create a box that is so specific to include all of them and exclude none of them, and that trying to create boxes is an insufficient way to categorize people, it starts making a lot more intuitive sense.

The brain likes to organize information a certain way and there is nothing wrong with that. To imply it is, would be like criticizing the way a computer stores data. But a side effect if that a lot of concepts seem easier for us to grasp if we put it into strict boxes. And especially when you grow up in a society that perpetuates that, it’s hard to separate reality from your own internal organization and expectations. And that makes it complicated to grasp at first. But once you get the hang of seeing identity as a whole interconnected field where people just gather in an abstract space about concepts and feelings that vary a lot between very physical and very abstract, it becomes really easy. You form new connections in your storage of information and the more you do it, the more intuitive it gets. You stop agonizing over making sense of every little thing and wondering how some terminology or name should be connected to other elements, or should organize in a predictable way. You just explore and learn and become content with not knowing how all of it is connected at all points.

[desaturatedd]

a psa for cis people writing [or writing with] a trans muse in the rpc

I would like to preface this by saying that the opinions of one trans mun may not reflect the opinions of every trans person, and some things I may not like, other people might think are fine / I might think something is okay that other folks may not. I am just one person, and I can only speak to my own experiences. When in doubt, ask your trans friends. Ask multiple people if you need to. Most of us are happy to help.

Write trans characters, not the trans experience. It is more than okay headcanon your muse as trans and write them as such. What starts to get fuzzy is if you’re doing threads about your muse’s experience as a trans person. You don’t know what it’s like to experience gender dysphoria or have to come out as trans or be the victim of transphobia, so please don’t write plots about these experiences.

Most coming outs happen when the person is revealing that they are not the gender they were assigned at birth. I see a lot of people writing about their muse coming out as trans after having ‘passed’ for an extended period of time. This does happen sometimes, but not nearly as often. Also, coming out is not a big event — we see celebrities do it when they have to tell the world that they are not the gender they were previously assumed to be. But coming out is an ongoing and oftentimes private process, and for most people, is one that never stops. 

On passing: Not every trans person ‘passes’ as cis. Not every trans person wants to pass. Some do. The point is — there is no one way that trans people look. Yes, there’s a stereotype that small, more feminine men are trans, and that masculine women with bigger builds are trans. That happens. But that is not always the case. And if you’re only headcanoning muses who fit this stereotype as trans, it’s worth considering why. 

On transitioning: Not every trans person has had top or bottom surgery, or is on HRT. Not every trans person wants to. Younger trans muses will likely not have access to these resources, or may not have been on hormones very long. This means they may not pass. This is okay. And, this shouldn’t need to be said, but: You do not have to medically transition in any way to be trans. End of story.

Refusing to ship with a muse because they’re trans is transphobic. We have to deal with this shit IRL all the time when dating, but it’s even grosser in RP because half the time, shipping =/= writing smut. Not that it’s okay then either, but the point is, a person’s genitals or assigned sex at birth have no bearing on their gender, and not shipping with a muse because your character isn’t attracted to the muse’s assigned gender at birth is transphobic. Full stop. 

Don’t deadname your muse. Personally, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with coming up with your muse’s birth name, but don’t make a big deal talking about “[name], previously known as [deadname]”. You wouldn’t do it to a real trans person, don’t do it to your muse.

It’s ‘trans man’ and ‘trans woman’, not transman/transwoman. Trans is used as an adjective in this case, not a noun. It’s a small detail, and there may be older trans folks who refer to themselves/muses as transmen/transwomen (and that’s fine — this is about semantics and it’s a recent change), but please be aware of this.

TL;DR — Just treat your trans muse like you would any other muse. Making them trans can add depth to their character, and if you want to explore what the experience is like for them, talk about it with a trans person, but don’t write whole plots or threads or headcanon posts about it. Let this headcanon inform your portrayal, but don’t make it the focus. This is a practice in ‘show, don’t tell’. Now go off and write your amazing trans muses ! I love them very, very much. 

[professorchaos]

Hey not writing this to call you out or anything (don’t feel obligated to publish it) but as a transfem person I feel kind of uncomfortable with how much you focus on your transfem headcanons of Butters and Kenny (esp since you’re TME)... I’m glad ppl are having more transfem hcs really but I just find it kinda awkward that you’d choose Butters (canonically misogynistic/stand-in for MRAs) and Kenny (one of his personality traits is to consume lots of porn) which are v similar to the (1/2)

transphobic stereotypes of trans women terfs circulate to make us look like misogynistic predatory pornsick men. (2/2)

I’m going to assume that you’re sending this ask in good faith, but I would like to preface my response by reminding you that you do not know me. You do not know my “assigned sex”, nor are you or anyone else entitled to that information. I do not feel comfortable being described with terms such as TMA/TME, AMAB/AFAB, transfem/transmac; these are all terms which ask nonbinary people to define ourselves by our genitalia, so that cis people can mentally label us as “girl nonbinary” and “boy nonbinary”. If other nonbinary people use these terms for themselves that is their personal choice, but I do not use them, and I have never discussed my assigned sex on this blog or any linked to it. It is therefore incredibly inappropriate for you to decide for yourself that I am “TME” based on, presumably, my typing style, experiences I have alluded to, or my appearance. The trans experience is vast, and it is misguided at best to make an assumption like this one. 

That aside, I can understand where this concern comes from. I’ve been thinking about making a post about these particular headcanons for a while now anyway, so let’s talk about it!

TW: CANON-COMPLIANT CHILD ABUSE/CSA, TRANSMISOGYNY. 16+. Reader discretion is advised.

Firstly, as I have stated time and time again on this blog, I do not consume South Park, nor participate in its fandom, with politics at the forefront of my mind. It is necessary to discuss the show’s politics in order to make meaningful criticisms, but despite the frequent criticisms I have made (which I realise may perhaps give some the wrong impression), this is not a crit blog. I read and analyse South Park from a literary and developmental perspective; in other words, I am more interested in these characters and their stories as representations of child psychology and trauma than I am in them as political symbols or metatextual tools. I am aware that they are devices expressing adult viewpoints, and that is perhaps from a non-political standpoint where I find the most to criticise- ten-year-olds are not a good stand-in for full-fledged adults.

This, then, is where I take issue with your points. Butters being “canonically misogynistic” as a literary device utilised by adult writers does not play into my headcanons, not my analysis. The external context of the season 20 arc is not something I am interested in beyond awareness that it exists (because I honestly found it incredibly tepid- it’s written as if misogyny is amusing, which it isn’t). To me, then, Butters being “canonically misogynistic” refers to behaviours which have reasoning behind them within the text. I thoroughly enjoy analysing characters’ behaviour as if continuity as far back as the first season were at play in the writers’ room, regardless of whether or not that might be true. 

You are saying that Butters is a “stand-in for MRAs”, and this is a valid reading! However, I am saying that Butters is a ten-year-old child, affected by their environment and still mentally developing. 

Let me ask you something: can cis girls harbour internalised misogyny? Can cis girls call each other sluts or wh*res, can they call each other bitches, can they decide they hate other girls based on surface interactions with them, what they can get out of those interactions, etc? When Wendy decides that Bebe is too much of a “slut” to hang out with the girls in season 6, do we condemn her as a misogynist and say that she must therefore be a boy instead? We don’t- because that would be bizarre. Granted, there is a particular stigma behind trans women and misogynistic behaviour, and it would be strange to go around saying that every misogynistic man is actually a trans woman with internalised misogyny. Butters, though, is ten, and I think their behaviour is more than likely to change. It’s easy to forget, but in the canonical timeframe, it has probably only been little over a year since they were sent to a conversion camp. They are also a victim of (again, probably relatively recent, since it was mentioned in season ten) incest and CSEM (season five), and were also seen in season five to be forced by their parents to wear a paper bag on their head for looking “like a girl”. Their experiences with gender have not been kind and it is a commonly documented phenomena that abused children will experience some degree of gender confusion, trans or cis. 

This logic can also be applied to Kenny- even moreso, I think, since Kenny is so incredibly quiet that it’s hard to apply authorial intent to her behaviour beyond “the writers probably think that a child being this vulgar is really, really funny”. From my perspective, though (and once again, this is just because of how I choose to interact with the source material), Kenny’s hypersexual behaviours also have extremely obvious roots. Aside from the repeated, violent deaths- which I want to stress, would be so much more traumatising than fandom generally tends to consider or allow for- she has been raised in an environment where not only is pornography extremely accessible (Stuart leaves porn magazines in the open and only chastises her for cutting pictures from them, not for reading them), but there is little to no distance between her and her parents’ active sex life. This is something she has been exposed to since at least the beginning of the show, at which point she was eight years old.

Kenny being hypersexual, I would argue, is not an inherent character trait- it is a result of traumatic experiences. The previously mentioned overexposure to sexual materials, the violence of her deaths and her family, and the fact that she is also a victim of CSE(M) (season four/season five) mean that even with her quiet and introspective personality, she has little scope for what might be an appropriate way to talk about women and girls (I would also like to argue that some of her behaviours, such as her fascination with breasts, could be misdirected manifestations of simple childish curiosity, and even early signs of physical dysphoria made seemingly sexual by her unusually awful life experiences and responses to them). Not to mention that, despite her hypersexuality, she is generally considerate of the girls around her- she appreciated that Tammy Warner was hypersexual like her, but she also actually valued her as a person. It’s usually pretty obvious, when Kenny has a girlfriend, that the other kids are misinterpreting Kenny’s intentions as purely sexual when they are often sweeter and kinder than that (therein lies some of the humour, I suppose). 

What I’m saying, really, is that while I do understand your concerns, I do not feel that the character traits you are assigning to these children can be applied in the definitive way you are suggesting they can. They’re children, and children exhibit behaviours reflective of their environments which change as they get older. If, to you, these children are essentially stand-ins for adults, then that’s your reading, and that’s fine. I am not here to argue with your interpretation or tell you that it is wrong. But to me, they are kids, and I find their experiences and resulting behaviours in many ways reflective of my own. Thank you for reading, and sorry that this post ended up so long!

[lynchgirl90]

What Made #TwinPeaks Denise Such a Radical Trans Character on TV 

At a time when trans characters on TV and film were killers, villains, or just mocked, the equality accorded to David Duchovny’s Denise in ‘Twin Peaks’ stood out.

“OK.”

That’s how Special Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) reacts in the second season of Twin Peaks when his former colleague Dennis Bryson (David Duchovny) reintroduces herself to him as Denise—not “Wow!” or “Huh?” but a prosaic, matter-of-fact “OK.”

Later that day at a wedding reception, Cooper slips up and calls the transgender woman by her old name again. She corrects him: “Denise.” He apologizes immediately and sincerely—“I’m sorry”—and makes it a point to call her by her new name afterward.

“Well, this is all pretty amazing disclosure, Denise,” Cooper says, with the same stupid grin on his face that he gets when he sips a damn fine cup of coffee or looks at a majestic Douglas fir tree.

To this day, it may be the most tender portrayal of friendship between a transgender person and someone who knew them before transition—and it was first aired in 1990.

The nineties were not a great time for transgender representation on film or television, to say the least. This was the decade when Ace Ventura threw up because he discovered he had kissed a transgender woman, when The Crying Game’s big transgender reveal was marketed as a shocking twist, and when The Silence of The Lambs gave us a villain who wanted to make a “woman suit” out of human skin.

Back then, transgender female characters tended to be “deceitful, disgusting villains,” as Meredith Talusan wrote for Buzzfeed. An ass-kicking DEA special agent in a critically-acclaimed surrealist soap opera didn’t exactly fit in with that trend.

But perhaps it shouldn’t be a surprise that a show as revolutionary as Twin Peaks would also be ahead of the curve when it came to handling a transgender character. And it’s oddly fitting that a show flooded with anachronisms—that felt cut out of time and place—would somehow predict the future of transgender representation.

The representation of Denise—played by a truly breathtaking David Duchovny in era-appropriate stockings and a big-banged wig—has its fair share of problems, of course. The writers clearly wanted to squeeze a few laughs out of the new character, who comes to the town of Twin Peaks to clear Agent Cooper’s name after he gets falsely accused of drug-running.

“That’s a good color for him,” says Deputy Hawk of Denise in her first scene, after she leaves the room, misgendering her and giving the audience tacit permission to laugh at the character—especially because the line follows a deliberately long beat.

Later in Denise’s three-episode arc, the audience is shown a pair of black heels walking across the checkered-tile floor of the Double R diner before the camera cheekily reveals that they belong to the six-foot tall transgender woman. It’s a joke told at Denise’s expense, albeit in a visual grammar rather than a verbal one.

For a real-life transgender viewer like myself, there are pieces of Denise’s story that don’t quite add up. Denise tells Cooper that she transitioned because she discovered that wearing women’s clothing “relaxed [her]” while she was working undercover as a “transvestite” for a drug bust.

“Imagine how surprised I was, Coop,” she says. “It’s not exactly something you plan on.”

While I don’t want to discount anyone else’s life experience, most transgender people I know—myself included—don’t stumble upon this realization about themselves by accident but after years of internal agony. (In fact, when I first discovered Twin Peaks and watched the entire series in a weekend, I was in the middle of painful deliberations about how, when, and if to transition.)

It’s not immediately clear, either, that Denise’s transformation involves any sort of medical treatment. However, a line cut from one of the scripts reveals that she is in a program that requires her to “dress the part for six months prior to any further therapy, hormones, [and] electrolysis.”

At a time when most people still referred to gender transition as “sex change” and equated the entire process with surgery, that’s some pretty impressive attention to detail. But the same script introduces Denise as “MAN IN DRESS,” so I don’t want to give the writers too much credit.

Overall, though, Twin Peaks treats Denise with a remarkable amount of humanity—even by today’s slowly-rising standards.

The welcoming attitude toward Denise begins with Agent Cooper’s immediate acceptance of her transition and emanates outward.

As Rani Baker wrote in her 2016 ode to Denise—playfully titled “26 Goddamn Years Later, Twin Peaks Still Has One of The More Compassionate Trans Woman Characters on TV”—Cooper functions as “the conscience of the [show’s] narrative” and an “anchor point of stability and traditional (yet modern) American values.”

Cooper is the kind, decent, cherry pie-loving, crispy bacon-eating heart of Twin Peaks—so if Denise is all right in his book, then she’s all right, period. The other characters often take their cues from him, not just in matters of law enforcement but in matters of the heart as well.

For instance, Sheriff Truman makes a snide comment about Denise under his breath when he first meets her. But two episodes later, he genders her correctly and even figures out a way to use her womanhood to their advantage in a hostage situation, sending her in dressed as a waitress to disarm some unsuspecting bad guys. (The script describes Cooper as “surprised” and “proud” that Truman came up with the idea.)

In fact, apart from Hawk’s initial misgendering of Denise, I can’t find a single instance of her being referred to as “him” or “he” in the show itself—although the Twin Peaks episode scripts use inconsistent pronouns in their written descriptions of the character.

Young Audrey Horne is downright in awe of Denise, exclaiming, “They have women agents?” when the two first meet. (“More or less,” Denise replies, in one of those borderline-offensive laugh lines.)

And to the show’s credit, no one asks Denise invasive questions about her genitals—a lazy, transphobic crutch for film and TV writers that is still being used today in movies like Zoolander 2. Cooper even prefaces a broader question about Agent Bryson’s transition with a careful “if you don’t mind my asking.”

The show also corrects the misconception that one’s sexual orientation automatically changes following a gender transition. When Denise makes a remark about Audrey’s obvious infatuation with Cooper, Cooper says, “Denise, I would assume you’re no longer interested in girls.”

Denise replies, “Coop, I may be wearing a dress, but I still pull my panties on one leg at a time, if you know what I mean.”

“Not really,” says Cooper, still grinning.

But it’s not just how other characters treat Denise that makes her stick out in a sea of awful transgender characters; it’s how she handles herself. She is friendly, self-assured, and frequently hilarious. When she catches the bridal bouquet at a wedding, for example, she tells Cooper, “Unfair advantage. How many of those girls were varsity wide receivers?”

As Baker noted in her piece, “Denise is presented as actually being talented and confident,” which is a “pretty big deal” given the way transgender women were being represented at the time. Denise plays a key role in taking down series villain Jean Renault and extracting a confession from another criminal named Ernie Niles. In a series full of quirky Lynchian players, she more than holds her own.

That’s why most Twin Peaks fans seem thrilled that she’s apparently coming back in Showtime’s Twin Peaks revival, which premieres on May 21: she’s not just a unique transgender character but a great character, her undeniable sensuality and eminent capability undercut by David Duchovny’s dry delivery of her lines.

I have been waiting for Denise to return since 2015. When rumors were swirling about David Lynch bringing Twin Peaks back to life, Duchovny told the LA Times, “I hope my character comes back, I think she does.” (Note that he gendered his character correctly— something that cisgender actors in transgender roles still sometimes fail to do to do.)

Finally, this March, EW revealed an exclusive photo of Duchovny on the set of Twin Peaks dressed in a smart brown skirt suit with a more modern hairstyle: the bangs are still there, just side swept now. According to EW, Showtime and Lynch won’t officially confirm that the original cast are reprising their exact previous roles—but it’d be shocking if it weren’t Denise in that production photo.

But transgender representation looks a lot different in 2017 than it did in the nineties. Laverne Cox is on Orange is the New Black. Jamie Clayton is on Sense8. Shows and films featuring transgender characters like Transparent and The Danish Girl are being nominated for—and sometimes winning—Oscars and Emmys. But despite taking a half-step forward from nineties transphobia, this new transgender moment is far from perfect. Filling transgender roles with cisgender actors—still the most common casting practice, apart from notable exceptions like Cox and Clayton—not only deprives marginalized actors of work, it sends the dangerous cultural message that transgender women are really men—and that transgender men are really women—underneath it all.

The tide on this debate is only now starting to turn. Transparent creator Jill Soloway, who previously defended casting Jeffrey Tambor as a transgender senior a few years ago, has since said that “it is absolutely unacceptable to cast a cis man in the role of a trans woman.” And Tambor himself told the world in 2016 that he “would be happy if [he] were the last cisgender male to play a transgender female.”

That’s why, as blogger and Twin Peaks superfan Joel Bocko pointed out in his excellent primer on Denise Bryson, Duchovny’s apparent return to the cast “will be both celebrated and controversial.” Will we forgive Twin Peaks for giving us yet another cisgender man as a transgender woman because Duchovny is continuing a part he first played twenty years ago? Or should the casting choice be judged in the present with no consideration for the past?

At this point, it’s hard for me to imagine Denise Bryson’s heels being filled by anyone other than Duchovny. I am the first to criticize movies and shows for casting cisgender actors in transgender parts but there’s a special place in my heart for Denise’s wry quips, quick instincts, and killer legs. And in the grand calculus, Twin Peaks earned enough goodwill with me by setting itself apart from the omnipresent transphobia of nineties entertainment that it can afford to irk me today.

I’ll withhold final judgment until I devour the finished product like the Twin Peaks nerd that I am. But for now, the thought of seeing Denise on my TV again makes me grin about as wide as Agent Cooper contemplating a spread of jelly donuts.

Here’s hoping I get to give her re-reintroduction a big ole Agent Cooper thumbs up.

Or at least a simple, accepting “OK.”

link (TP)

[snarktheater]

Could you not say qu**r so often, please? Or at least tag it? Alternatives could be SGA or trans (depending on which part you're referring to) or LGBT? It's uncomfortable to quite a lot of people if it's used as an umbrella term too. Thank you

While I’m not interested in delving into that discourse on this blog…well, I guess it was gonna happen sooner or later. 

So just to be clear, before I say anything else, let me preface this post by saying that I’m going to state my position on this, but I will not admit any further discussion on the subject on this blog. You’re free to talk to me @talysalankil​ if you feel like having further discussion, but this blog isn’t the right place to do so. Also I’m going to use links from my personal blog because it’s just easier. But frankly if you want better sources on the subject, they’re out there.

Warning for massive wall of text. I tried to structure it, but there you go.

“Queer” has been reclaimed for decades. Many people who are much more knowledgeable than myself have pointed out that it’s been used at least as long as LGBT as an umbrella term (and that it was reclaimed before SGA was even invented), and it has the benefit of being inclusionary. The fact that is a historical slur cannot and should not be ignored, but the thing is, there is literally not a single word in use to refer to people who aren’t cis and straight that hasn’t been used as a slur at one point or another. Fuck’s sake, people still use “gay” today as a derogatory term, even when discussing things that have nothing to do with sexuality.

Meanwhile, SGA is an acronym that takes its root from conversion therapy (yes, really; SGA discoursers have claimed otherwise but survivors of conversion therapy attest to it), so I’m pretty sure it is equally trigger or even more triggering that queer to people.

SGL (same-gender loving) is a less historically charged acronym that I feel less strongly about for that reason, but it also comes from AAVE and I feel like there’s an element of cultural appropriation for me to use it as a white person, just like I wouldn’t use two-spirits because it’s a native american term. 

But that’s not my only issue with either acronym. See, the issue I have with SGA/SGL are multiple, and I’m going to put a cut here because this is getting out of hand:

It is an inherently binarist concept. Meaning, it either excludes nonbinary people entirely, since for many of them, the concept of “same gender” is compeltely irrelevant; or it partially erases nonbinary identities by grouping them together as “male-aligned” or “female-aligned”, i.e. implying they’re “basically a man” or “basically a woman”. Which, even if that is something some nonbinary people do identify with, is not something anyone should be entitled to force on people. Plus, you know, I guess people who aren’t on the male/female spectrum or agender people don’t exist at all and/or don’t belong in the community according to those people?

Bisexuality and polysexuality does not necessarily include “SGA”, even for cis male/female people. Implying that a bi person is straight if they experience attraction for the opposite binary gender and for nonbinary people is, once again, erasing those nonbinary people’s identities.

Because of these two points, the concept of SGA is inherently transphobic, since you cannot use it without assuming people’s gender.

This also adds a shade of exclusion of intersex people, whose status with regards to the community has always been complicated. Some intersex people don’t want to be included, some do. But “SGA and trans” doesn’t leave room for those who do, but don’t identify as trans (and those people exist), to join the community, even though they deserve a place.

Bisexual and polysexual people are constantly erased, and reducing their right to belong to the community as their attraction to their own gender is harmful rhetoric even for those who do experience that attraction (such as myself). It is the kind of thinking that leads to saying they’re “basically gay and using bisexual to ease into it” or that they’re “basically straight and just experimenting/lying” (the latter is particularly directed at women, especially if they are in a committed relationship with men, while the former is particularly directed at men, including myself). I am not “basically gay” and I don’t want to use an umbrella term for my community that reduces me to that in all but name.

More biphobia: it assumes that there’s such a thing as “straight passing privilege” and that anyone who’s not presently dating someone from their own gender is benefitting from that. That line of thought literally started off as biphobic rhetoric. Oh, and, you know, “straight passing privilege” is just being in the closet. Kind of like how TERFS say that trans women experience male privilege instead of being trans women in the closet. Apparently the closet only applies to you if you’re gay.

The unifying experience of the community is not homophobia. I mean, the fact that you have to use “SGA and/or trans” should be proof enough that you’re already adding trans people as an afterthought. But beyond that, biphobia is a different beast from homophobia, as is transphobia, as is aphobia. They stem from a similar form of societal bigotry, and there is intersection (a bi person dating someone of the same gender will probably experience similar issues as a gay couple, corrective rape which lesbians and ace people are both targeted by), but there are also differences of specificities (I already mentioned bi erasure; ace/aro people are targeted for being “mentally ill”; and I don’t think I have to explain the specificities of transphobia in a world where “bathroom bills” is a phrase that exists)

As others have pointed out, the phrasing makes it sound like the community started with “SGA people” and then was gracious enough to include trans people, which is historical revisionism.

The queer label offers grey areas for people who need time to figure out their own identity or just cannot place their identity on the existing, mainstream labels. SGA does the exact opposite of that by forcing people to place themselves on one side or another of a pretty ill-defined line.

Even if it weren’t for any of these points, the term has now been claimed as the rallying cry for exclusionary LGBT+ people, particularly to target ace and aro people. And by that I mean it started of as that, but let’s pretend it was already around and was claimed by those people.  Well, I will not stand for that, just like I’m not standing by TERF rhetorics. Interestingly enough, “queer is a slur” only emerged as discourse at the same time (and usually from the same people) who tried to enforce that exclusion.

LGBT+ aphobes have time and again shown that they were recycling biphobic and transphobic rhetorics (as I’ve shown myself earlier in this list), and in many cases, have proven to be the same people who used biphobic and transphobic rhetorics a few years ago, and that they haven’t given up on those views, merely grown more careful about where and how they advertise them.

If you want more I suggest you run a search for “SGA” on my main blog. It’ll be a lot of the same idea as what I just summarized here, just with more details.

So…yeah. If anything, I do not want to be included under the SGA umbrella, even though I am a bisexual man who so far has only ever dated other men. Well, one other man, but my dating history is kind of irrelevant anyway. Point is, I’m not using that umbrella. And I have every right to reclaim queer since…well, I just said I’m a bi man, which I’m pretty sure that should be enough.

I don’t have as many issues with LGBT, but at the same time, the acronym has also been pushed as “it’s LGBT and only LGBT therefore anyone who’s not lesbian, gay, bi or trans doesn’t belong” by the same people, enough that it feels sour in my mouth. I still use it liberally, although I try to use LGBT+ or other variations, such as LGBTQ, LGBTQIA, LGBTQIA+, LGBTQIAP+, etc, but ultimately, queer is just easier and has the benefit of being more inclusive than any of the above.

I understand that it’ll make some people uncomfortable, but until someone comes up with a word that makes no one uncomfortable (which, again, does not exist yet—the closest we got was MOGAI, but that one was targeted by a smear campaign from, you guessed it, exclusionists who didn’t like that it included ace/aro or trans people and now people can’t use it without starting a similar debate as this), I’m gonna have to settle for one, and I’ll pick the one that makes me the most comfortable, because I am a member of this community too and I have the right to do that. Just like you have the right to use SGA and it’ll make me uncomfortable, but I won’t come to your blog sending you an anon message asking you to stop, because I understand that no umbrella exists that satisfies everyone at the moment, and I have more pressing issues to deal with.

If that’s an issue, feel free to unfollow or whatever else it is you feel like doing. But I will not budge on this.