#bi lesbian here means im attracted to women and nonbinary people who dont consider themselves men or women

[neonbuck]

maybe it will clear out more toxic people if i come out as a bi lesbian on here and also considerably less transmasc than i used to identify as

[st5lker]

one thing i dont see talked about very often is the casual transmisogyny specific to nonbinary transfems especially those of us who have any kind of masculine presentation/pronouns. like as a bigender person i consider myself both a trans woman and a gay man at the same time in different parts and everyone just kind of sees that and goes "oh so youre not an actual trans woman so being transmisogynistic doesnt matter". and believe me i dont consider myself having it "worse" like im far safer irl than most binary post-transition transfems since i present masculinely irl and I constantly recognize that but when it comes to casual transmisogyny people are transmisogynistic in a very insidious way when youre nonbinary.

like people who would normally be really careful about checking themselves for transmisogyny just throw everything out the window when they realize youre nonbinary. you tell them you consider yourself a woman and a man at the same time, or anything in between, or have any kind of attachment to masculinity, and they immediately mentally categorize you as a man. it doesnt matter how you present, what you say, whether it's online or offline---if you're amab and don't fit the bill of being "woman enough" people online will go "thats a man" end of sentence.

the most painful part is that it comes from everybody. it comes from the cis lesbians that called that amab nonbinary person on tiktok a rapist for saying they liked when bi women primarily attracted to women were into them. it comes from the "femboy" obsessed tme transmascs and nbs who don't take your concerns about their transmisogyny seriously. and rarely, but most hurtfully, it comes from other trans women. anyone else remember when lesbianchemicalplant endlessly harassed a trans girl on here for daring to call her attraction to men gay? I do. I do because I saw it at a vulnerable time in my development and it made me repress myself for years because I thought being gay for men and a trans women were the most mutually exclusive things in the world and daring to say you can connect to both of those will get you labeled a Fake Transfem that's doing it for clout. i STILL get a feeling in the back of my mind that whenever i mention being a transfem after talking abt being a gay man people will be like "dont be ridiculous you're not REALLY transfem".

this of course comes from the fact that trans women are held to an impossibly high standards of femininity. you have to be a Capital W Woman to be taken seriously. meaning, of course, that you have to have long hair and thin shoulders and wear dresses and be skinny and short and attractive and usually white (unless they have a fetish for black women, then you can be black IF you hit the rest of those criteria). no matter what you can't be anything CLOSE to a man. make sure you take hrt and get The Surgery too and throw in some breast implants while you're at it.

if you're not rejecting every single part of you that could at all be associated with masculinity you're not even trying, you're just a man, you're just like all other men, and they don't have to care what you say about how you're treated. that type of transmisogyny is so deeply ingrained in literally everyone and its so depressing. it comes back to haunt ALL transfems but the way nonbinary transfems are treated is a perfect example of it.

[criticalrolo]

IDK if you want to actually talk about this more, but my sister identifies as a Bi Lesbian, and the way she describes it is that she is attracted to women and nonbinary people. I think saying that bi people HAVE to be attracted to men is off-base and ignores the nonbinary part of "more than one gender" - and as soon as you include nb people it is no longer mutually exclusive. ALSO fuck terfs getting to take an id away from people cause theyre shitty, I respect the people who id as that more 1/3

2/3 Of course Bi and Lesbians are full identities, but if people find a label like Bi Lesbian useful, not as a watering down but as a way to speak their truth, then I think it should be respected. It doesn't have to be a scale - maybe if anything a modifier? And it certainly doesn't make Bi or Lesbian less of an identity than the split attraction model makes Ace less of a thing. IDK I'd just rather be extremely inclusive over saying that an ID is bad. IDK about the Bipoc tho as Im white

3/3 one final aside, is I've seen it described as an easy way to explain that they are into multiple genders but not into men. And I think if its useful and easily understood, a useful shorthand, then let people use it. Fuck anyone (esp terfs) who apply it to other people, but I think we dont have to conflate all the ways people are awful to queer people with an Identity itself being fucked up. Anyway sorry to ramble right back, and I hope you have a nice night and Ill see you in the cr tag lol

Hey there! So, to address your points, I do want to say first of all that I totally find it admirable that, given the option, you’d rather stray towards overly inclusive as opposed to Not Inclusive Enough. I totally agree with that sentiment, and think that you’re absolutely coming at this from a good angle.

The things I find difficult about the “bi lesbian” label kind of come from your second ask mainly. So the thing is, all sexualities can potentially include nonbinary people. “Nonbinary” is not a separate Third Gender Option, it’s an enormous array of different identities. People can be nonbinary but man or woman-aligned, completely agender, all the genders at once, etc. etc. etc.... basically the format that you’re thinking of conforms the nonbinary experience into an all encompassing “third gender” when in fact it’s a broad spectrum of experiences and identities that can be extremely similar or dissimilar. 

Because yeah... there are nb lesbians out there. Who are attracted to women, and other nb lesbian/bisexual people who identify with being sapphic or wlw. You’re actually talking to one right now ;) My experience with gender is All Over The Place and I’m not very good at defining it right now, but I definitely identify very strongly as a lesbian who is attracted to women/women-aligned people. Gender Is Lesbian for me personally right now lol

The issue comes when, as you said, you start to use “lesbian” as a modifying term. It’s not a modifier. It’s a full term that exclusively means women who are not attracted to men. I know you bring up the split attraction model here, but I’ve found that that is WAY more useful for asexual identities without getting into some of the sticky areas like this one where IDing as something actually is harmful/doesn’t make sense. I know that the term “exclusive” does bring up some bad associations but in this case, that’s because we have terms for people who experience attraction to Women/NB people who ID as sapphic (basically ur NB lesbians/people comfy with calling themselves NB bisexual women) and for people who identify as being attracted to men and women (and man-aligned etc. etc.)

LIke, see how long those descriptions got once I started including some of the many, MANY different experiences of being nonbinary...? Basically there’s just no single way to define Every Nonbinary Person for Every Single Sexuality since it’s such a broad spectrum of experience, which is why a lot of sexualities might sound pretty binary (like defining lesbian as Woman Who Loves Only Women) but in fact is because there’s no way to include every single nonbinary experience and categorize them into a neat little box, you know? 

So from there, you’ve gotta ALSO consider the points I made earlier about how the identity of “bisexual lesbian” also comes across as lesbophobic, biphobic, and transphobic in ways that harm all of those identities instead of bringing them together. Like, obviously your sister is a Valid Human Being, and it feels weird to be saying an identity is NOT valid... but like. Forcing two mutually exclusive identities together (one that explicitly does not include men and one that does) just ends up hurting the people who ID with those identities in the long run, like how I outlined in my other post. Essentially, it takes away from the overall meaning of What It Means To Be A Lesbian and What It Means To Be Bisexual by trying to force the two of them together. They’re different experiences, and that’s something to be celebrated and something to find commonalities over while discussing our differences instead of trying to mash them together, you know? Like there’s a reason why they became defined as separate identities in the first place.

Anyway, this is probably too long but I hope you can see where I’m coming from here. I’m obviously not going to tell your sister How To Identify, but there’s my thoughts some points you might want to consider showing her while she’s figuring out her identity, you know? So yeah, that’s all I’ve got. Hope you have a good day, and get hyped for the CR episode tonight!! <3

[gendernewtral]

same,, anon here,,,(dont post if tumblr does a funky,,, and this comes off anon plz) thank ,,,u so so so ,,,much for all of that <3..I really appreciate it. but I’m still confused abt ,,,,my sexuality tbh! since ,,,lesbian, wlw(bi), ,,,mlm(bi), gay, and nonbinary(according to friends..who say it’s wlwphobic ,,,to id as those ,,things and be nb...) are allcontradicting ,,identities,,.. I just feel connected to ,,each ,,,of them,,, tho?(and NOT ok with bi) ,, but sexuality is very cofusing.. how do I know if I even like men or women especially when I never get crushes ?? and I wanan use the label aro but then my friends r like “u must have ZERO attraction, even if you have 1% of attraction every 4 years you’re still not aro”(not an exaggerated quote) but .. having attraction THAT rarely .. does not sound like an allo experience to me ,,🤨

im glad the other messages helped!

my opinion is that no one else gets to tell you what words you use to describe yourself, and that you are the only person who gets to label your identity.

you can definitely be non-binary and use any of those labels. im non-binary and consider my identity transmasc enough to say mlm (i don’t because i like bi and queer so i don’t use an umbrella term) and i have non-binary friends who consider themselves wlw. you can identify as a lesbian if you’re non-binary, you can use gay to mean mlm if you’re non-binary, it’s really up to you. your experiences with sexuality determine what labels you choose to use, and nothing else! other people on here don’t have the right to tell you who you are or aren’t, it just isn’t respectful or considerate and not what the queer community is about.

in respects to ace/aro spectrum- you 100% can call yourself aro if you have some romantic attraction. aro is usually used by someone who feels that their romantic attraction is different from the kind that their society deems baseline. many modern societies consider having many crushes and relationships the baseline for romantic attraction. teenagers are expected to date in high school, young adults are expected to bring people home to meet their parents, everyone is expected to eventually date and marry someone. if these romantic expectations don’t line up with how you feel, and the romantic experiences of other people don’t make sense to you or they aren’t the same as your own, then you can absolutely call yourself aromantic.

it’s really up to you to decide what you’re sexuality and romantic attraction is. if you’re having a hard time choosing a label, you can always use an umbrella term, or use lots of labels! it’s all okay. if you’re having a hard time determining how your attraction works, you might find it helpful to talk to a more welcoming community of non-binary people who’ve decided to use certain labels so you see how they got to that point.

i hope you’re doing alright dude, and that this all makes more sense to you soon and you find something you’re comfortable with. if anyone who sees this wants to add any advice, go for it!

[winterywitch]

anyway heres a summary of my discourse beliefves:

cishet aces/aros do not belong in gay spaces, bi spaces, lesbian spaces or trans spaces

for me my whole life the LGBT community has been more than that. my perspective is not that of some sad brainwashed child, forced into being more ~tolerant~ than i should be. i genuinely believe and have always believed the LGBT community is more than that, and im not just gonna drop that anytime soon, because i dont think the right to only consider the LGBT community as for “SGA and trans” people is liberation.

therefore cishet aces/aros belong in ace/aro spaces, which for me, count as LGBT.

but not gay, bi, lesbian or trans spaces.

there will be overlap because they are LGBT. but no, cishet aces/aros should have no claim to anything specifically for the L, G, B or T of the community.

for me the community is

Lesbians

Gay men

Bisexuals [SGA or not - as an SGA bi person, i get to speak on this.

Pansexuals

Trans people

Nonbinary people [counting agender, genderfluid, genderqueer, etc. non-cis, non-binary identities]

Intersex people (of course should they want to - the point of this list isn't YOU HAVE TO BE LGBT it's You Can Be Included)

Queer people [anyone who isn't cis or isn't het, including aroace people. non sga bi people im a little iffy on re: them 'reclaiming' queer]

Allies [i think this is important for people in the closet, as long as we dont let cishets get too big for their britches]

Aroaces

and hell, here’s a + to include anything i might have forgotten

aroaces are not functionally cishet.

straight privilege is straight privilege. it isnt not-homophobia privilege. to experience straight privilege you must be straight.

they definitely benefit from not experiencing homophobia. they can be absolute dumbasses abt homophobia for that exact reason.

but they dont experience straight privilege, because they’re not straight. that is all straight privilege has ever meant for me in my LGBT community.

cishet aces are cishet, and also aces. this means they benefit from cis privilege and straight privilege, but aphobia weighs down that straight privilege because they dont perform straightness in the Right way. i dont believe this necessarily makes them systemically oppressed the same way we are. but i dont believe aro or ace identities are privileged either.

there is no coherent Ace Community boogieman that is unanimously a bunch of homophobic, transphobic, racist jackasses, and if you believe that, you are a complete dumbass

yeah, the ace community is comprised of white cishets but, im gonna wager even more commonly, its comprised of literally every LGBT identity and race you can imagine. the ace community is not the white cishet community. it’s the community of everyone who IDs as ace or aro. this is not white cishets as a rule, as a majority, or even half the time.

that being said, inclusionists can say some stupid, shortsighted shit sometimes that is completely ignorant of LGBT history/oppression. i dont agree with the implications that i dont stand for every single thing they say and will not be held accountable for every single thing they say.

similarly, unless you wanna be held accountable for every single thing your side says/does before being allowed to call us out, uh, dont expect the same of us. the onus for this is on exclusionists, i have been around long enough to know you guys started this one. it is up to you guys to start being decent on that one, and then we’ll follow suit. those of us who dont are jackasses.

you are never at liberty EVER to explain to an ace person why their abuse or rape took place. that is called gaslighting, and no, you don’t get to throw a fit when someone calls this what it is. when you call a rape/abuse survivor an annoying disgusting freak for daring to talk about why their rape/abuse happened (since they factually know why it happened and you dont) and then proceed to insist that your headcanon of their trauma is the correct interpretation and theirs is not because theyre a filthy cishet ace (which they rarely are), that is quite literally the definition of gaslighting. and hey, don’t do it.

you are never at liberty EVER to explain to an ace person why their parents forced them into Therapy Specifically Designed To Convert Them Away From Asexuality (which may have a more efficient, shorter name). you dont know how that therapy worked or how the therapist worked because you werent there. you dont know that it was only because of homophobia so therefore this person has no right to claim their own trauma.

not everyone you hate is a cishet ace. don’t call people cishet aces unless you know for a fact they are cishet aces. i imagine you wouldnt want to call a trans lesbian a cishet, which exclusionists have done too many times for me to count. your platform should not be “you said something stupid and harmful, youre a cishet ace,” it should be “you said something stupid and harmful, end of statement.”

for some reason this is a controversial point in some discourse circles, but no one owes you sex. your partners don’t owe you sex. relationships do not equal sex. relationships do not even equal romantic love. relationships are a decision between multiple people on closer emotional intimacy.

if romantic and sexual aspects of a relationship are necessary for you, that’s understandable and okay! but you aren’t OWED that. people don’t need to out themselves as aro or ace for you. people dont need to feel pressured to give you anything they dont want to give. and you dont need to stay in relationships that dont make you happy.

allosexual privilege is not real. no one but white cishet men are 100% celebrated and privileged for experiencing sexual attraction. even white cishet women are oppressed for their attraction in many ways, and repressed from early childhood - so you can imagine how absolutely horrific sex-based oppression is for the LGBT community. we are not celebrated for sexual attraction, we are treated like we are dirty, and we are sexual predators.

WITHIN THE COMMUNITY, yeah, sometimes we are definitely, blatantly favored over aces, and people run around saying asexuality is unnatural, and sexual attraction is what makes us human. this is harmful and damaging, and it shouldn’t happen. i dont consider it systemic oppression and it definitely does not make allosexual privilege a thing.

calling people allosexuals is not something i condone. its not comparable to “cis” as a label, because cis people are an actual oppressor class towards trans people - non-ace LGBP folks are not towards ace people.

intracommunity bigotry is real and it is traumatic. people devalue it constantly and pretend it’s just a slap on the wrist, but it is an absolutely traumatic thing to have to face every day of your life. but it isnt the same as OPPRESSION, and we dont have to conflate the two concepts for intracommunity bigotry to be treated with the seriousness it deserves.

similarly, dont call people REGs unless they are not only aphobes but also truscum or TERFs. i also personally dont really believe in equating aphobes with truscum/TERFs but i dont believe in silencing trans people who openly talk about the similarities, either.

dont call people AERFs unless youre a trans woman holy shit

as someone who was directly affected by the truscum discourse when it happened [not debatable, by the way], this is pretty much recycled truscum discourse in my eyes. you dont need to lecture me on how its not.

just because someone on the “other side” called something you did ableist, misogynist, homophobic, transphobic, racist, etc., does not mean you get to shut your eyes and plug your ears. ESPECIALLY if you are part of a privileged class relevant to that accusation. for example as a white exclusionist you dont get to ignore the concerns of inclusionists of color or lecture them on the racism of the ace community. for example as a cis inclusionist [or honestly, even just a non-trans-woman inclusionist] you dont get to ignore the concerns of trans exclusionist women or lecture them on the similarities between TERFs and exclusionists.

“aspec” is not exclusively for the autistic community and i have NEVER seen claims that it was until ace discourse started. thats transparent as fuck to me and youre not fooling anyone. dont just make shit up lmfao

jokes about how Oh Lol Cringe aces inherently are, arent funny especially considering how many of these Jokes are steeped in anti-autistic ableism

idk when this happened but recently ableist jokes are the new Hot Topic of Comedy and thats like, mind-numbingly bad

i dont care what side youre on, IF YOU ARE USING THINGS LIKE FICTIONAL CP/PEDOPHILIC SHIPS/INCEST/RAPE CONTENT TO COPE WITH YOUR TRAUMA, YOU BETTER BE DOING THAT SHIT IN PRIVATE, ONLY SHARING IT WITH LIKE-MINDED, ADULT SURVIVORS, AND NEVER LETTING THAT CONTENT CIRCULATE OUTSIDE OF THAT GROUP. end of story. no ifs, ands or buts about it. speaking as a survivor who uses stuff like this to cope, being a survivor does not give you a free pass to, inadvertently or not, contribute to the pedophilia and circulation of grooming material on the internet. it is your RESPONSIBILITY as a survivor to not continue that cycle. if you avoid that responsibility, you have no right to play victim or pull the “im a survivor ;-;” card when people call you out on this.

educating kids on asexuality is not pedophilia, grooming or sexual abuse. jesus christ lmfao you dont have to assume people word it in a way thats inappropriate or predatory just because theyre pro-ace. kids NEED label/identity options, they are discovering who they are and without a label that fits for them, theyll likely feel like shit. let them have their labels. knowing about asexuality might greatly improve their life if it fits them!

for this reason, stop being weird about mogai labels/trying to “ban” them from everyone’s vocabulary/trying to turn them into some Cringe Joke that is only about Cishets Trying To Be Special. they didn’t fuck over EVERYONE.

inclusionists, in advising kids and questioning people who ask you for answers, be more open-ended. the insistence of “oh youre not a lesbian you’re a quioromantic demi-homosexual!” without also making it ok to just be a lesbian is what hurt and confused so many people on their journey to discovering their identity and its why they resent the whole mogai thing, fairly so. make it okay to just be a lesbian, or just be gay, or just be bi, or just be trans, while letting people know their other, more specific options.

asexuality is not an NSFW or TMI orientation

ace headcanons arent INHERENTLY homophobic, racist or ableist. they absolutely can be and ive seen that shit with my Own Two Eyes [pure innocent baby ace autistic papyrus headcanons back in the undertale fandom (shudders)], but they are not INHERENTLY so.

headcanons for characters with marginalized identity labels that arent identical to the ones you headcanon that character with are not oppression. and you dont get to police this shit as if its factually wrong

absolutely zero sexual interactions with minors ever, thanks!

trying to Bother The Pure Aceys by talking about sex is unacceptable

posting bullshit in ace positivity tags is unacceptable

stop calling people doing nothing but talking about their experiences “freaks”???

dont engage in the whole Oh There Are Valid Identities And There Are Special Snowflake Identities thing its not a very good look

biphobia is its own thing independent of homophobia

biphobia perpetuated within the community isnt necessarily systemic oppression but its traumatic and wrong and shouldnt be treated like some Lol Cringe Joke

you cant just say UM THAT LITERALLY NEVER HAPPENS???? when someone calls your side out on shit lgfkhghgfh especially when it literally does, all the damn time

ace [IRL person, whether or a celebrity or god forbid a flat out bigot] moodboards arent funny

you shouldnt agree to sex that you as an ace person dont want in a situation that you can control if the sex happens or not, but the pressure to provide sex to a non-ace partner is very real. stop blaming ace ppl for that pressure lol speaking as a victim of coercive sexual abuse, you cannot blame the one who didnt want it, even if they COULD have spoken up.

you’re not a bad person for wanting sex if your ace partner doesn’t. there is nothing immoral about not being ace. you just dont get to have sex anyway and you arent owed it if you are set on this committed, monogamous relationship - if sex is a big deal to you, you need to leave that relationship or work out an open situation.

laughing off peoples’ experiences as The Discourse is completely unacceptable, it encourages people to shut up and never analyze themselves and their identities

its not cute in your ace ship headcanons if the ace character is an asshole that rolls their eyes @ or judges their non-ace partner

similarly its not cute in your ace ship headcanons if the non-ace partner is an asshole that rolls their eyes @ or judges their ace partner

you dont get to tell people “ok you identify as heteroflexible but ACTUALLY you’re [insert identity]” literally ever, i understand the concern with people using “safe” identity labels to avoid facing their LGBT identities but acting on that concern in that way is not concern, its concern-trolling and its not fuckin okay.

legitimizing your own identity by delegitimizing the identities of others is bad

DO NOT, AND I REPEAT, DO NOT, BLANKET-TERM PEOPLE AS QUEER, LITERALLY EVER. DONT DO IT

DONT FUCKIN DO IT!!!!! NOT EVERYONE HAS RECLAIMED THAT SLUR, AND IT IS 100% A SLUR ON TOP OF BEING A CULTURE WITHIN THE COMMUNITY

JESUSS CHRIST DONT FUCKIGN DO IT!!!! WHEN YOU REFERENCE THE QUEER COMMUNITY YOU BETTER ONLY MEAN PPL WHO CALL THEMSELVES QUEER AND HAVE RECLAIMED IT/ARE PART OF THAT SUBCULTURE

we need more nonsexual, non-alcoholic spaces for LGBT folk that are safe for minors, trauma survivors and ace people, but thats not our fault, the prevalence of sexual and alcoholic spaces exists because we were literally not allowed to exist anywhere else until very, VERY recently, and even now it’s a Barely thing

you cant tell someone their experiences didnt happen like my god

we think ace discourse is about more than cishets because exclusionists make it about asexuality as a whole. you guys cant make it about more than cishets and then be like But Ok It’s Just About Cishets You IRrational Crazies?? :/

yes self harm through exposing oneself to the discourse tag is possible, no it’s not funny, no it’s not just ~cishets~doing that, triggers are not exclusive to PTSD survivors, shut the actual fuck up

you dont have any room to comment on the validity of quasiplatonic relationships if you’re not in one, most of the time you guys complaining about them and saying theyre Special Snowflake Things dont actually know what they are. mind your own business lol let people live

if youre not intersex, you dont get to tell people that the intersex community doesnt wanna consider itself LGBT, so they are wrong for saying intersex people are allowed to consider themselves LGBT. youre not being a good ally. sit down, shut up and let intersex people talk amongst themselves.

[to be added to at some point im sure]

asexuals STOLE dragons from CHILDREN to make themselves seem PURE AND INNOCENT, the MONSTERS

[merrysithmas]

The twitter post on nonbinary gender that you posted....ever since you started specifically posting about nonbinary gender, I've been wanting to ask you its meaning because I had never come across it. But I was scared and embarrassed to ask you cause i thought you'd get mad at me. Sometimes I want to educate myself but then you don't know who to talk to or ask about things. And also thank you because through your blog I am learning so much about gender.

oh thank you!!! thank you so much for sending this and asking. i am always here for questions and thank you for having an open heart and a kind soul. i know sometimes it can be intimidating to learn – and it shouldnt be. we live in a very divided world right now, and i wish people would be more receptive to questions and bridge building.

it is my personal philosophy there is a difference between anger and hate – anger can be channeled into action and example and good. hate makes you have a commonality with all the other evil sectors in this world and i refuse to be a part of it.

as for nonbinary gender – basically this is an umbrella term which means “is not male or female”. nonbinary people are included under the T or “trans” letter in LGBTQ because their assigned sex (AFAB, AMAB assigned female/male at birth) does not align with their gender. however, many nonbinary people do not consider themselves trans and consider themselves simply nonbinary. but many do consider themselves trans. it is up to personal choice.

there are several nonbinary genders: agender (feeling like one does not have a gender at all, genderless), genderfluid (fluid gender which switches to more female or male depending), genderqueer (a catchall term for many of these identities or some combined), nonbinary (feeling neither totally male or female, or feeling both, or feeling both but one more than the other, or feeling a new gender which is male/female combined), Two Spirit (a term specifically for use only for certain people from various indigenous societies/cultures which describes a lauded subset of people who have two genders or a conduit between genders), demigender (feeling partially male or female), etc. the list goes on.

i know a lot of people will scoff at this and think - “oh that isnt REAL” “there are only two genders”. well guess what? it is real. it has been my life for literally as long as i can remember back into childhood. it wasn’t until a few years ago i discovered the term for it, and it wasn’t until last week that i decided i want to use gender neutral pronouns. i remember one day when i was in highschool i asked myself “am i trans??” i remember being so scared i cried for a day and repressed it so hard. i have never aligned or fit in in that way. i remember telling my mom as a kid i wasn’t a boy or a girl. i remember always struggling so hard trying to decide who to be. i remember doing a google search as a kid and reading about Two Spirit people of various indigenous cultures and thinking — my god. it’s “me”. it was the first thing i ever saw that spoke to an understanding of my identity, and i felt such immense comfort i cant even describe it to you.

but now, after coming out to myself and the world i am literally the happiest with myself i have ever been in my entire life. i finally feel like i am not living inside myself, that when people meet me they know exactly who i am because im not hiding it anymore. my whole life i always had this little voice in my head saying “the person they think they are meeting/seeing isnt the whole you and they will never really know you, no one does”. i am “out” to my family and friends who matter and i am so proud of myself. im not afraid of being visible. in fact, i want to promote it.

im a future doctor and i can tell you with 100% certainty there is biological basis for separation of gender and sex. whether it it hormone levels, chromosomal activity, genome structure, brain chemistry, brain physiology and anatomy, or likely an infinitely complex amalgamation of all that and more. but one doesnt have to be a doctor to have credit in saying this: i can tell you, just as me, a nonbinary person - i am real. and i dont want to hide or suffocate anymore. society’s rules and binaries are truly blind. they leave out so, so many people. and we are at a revolution in our culture right now that i hope is going to change that exclusion forever. i hope people will see other people free and realize the strictures and rules they were brought up to live behind arent all that exists.

i always say it like this: if you are cisgender (a person whose gender matches their sex at birth) it is not your job to “understand” a trans or nonbinary person. because you literally cant. you can’t pass judgment on something you literally cannot experience. a cisgendered person’s brain is not built with the chemistry/function of someone who experiences a nonbinary life. there is nothing wrong with that. but the job of a cisgendered person is to say: “i will never understand what that feels like, but i will -believe- it is real because trans and nonbinary people have the dignity of personhood, they are PEOPLE, just like me, and if they tell me this is how their bodies work it must be how it is working inside of them.”

and one more thing - gender identity has nothing to do with gender presentation. which means, a nonbinary person who dresses femme, wears make up and has long hair is just as nonbinary as a masculine presenting nonbinary or androgynous nonbinary person. a cisgendered woman who wears tshirts and baseball hats because that is what makes her comfortable is still a woman. a cisgenderd man who wears makeup is still a man. a trans woman who wears suits is still a woman. a transman who likes makeup is still a man. your gender is in your head, your sex/genitals are in your pants, and your aesthetic preference is just how you hapoen to like to decorate your body.

sexual orientation is separate from all of this, and is simply who you are attracted to. a cisgendered woman can be attracted to women: lesbian, poly, pan, bi. a nonbinary person can be bi, pan, poly too. a transman can also be bi, gay, pan, asexual, etc. a cisgendered man can be hetero or gay.

dysphoria is psychological and physical discomfort with ones sex/genitals/body/body function because it does not align with one’s gender. some trans/nonbinary people experience and many dont! so for instance as a nonbinary person i sometimes get intense dysphoria over my chest (breasts) and menstruation. more often than not i deal with it, sometimes im even proud of it, i am proud of surviving as a female-bodied person in this misogynistic world! im proud of the perspective it gives me on humanity. but if i could get rid of them would i? most days, most likely! ive always wanted to get rid of my breasts, i legit hate them. but some days i can deal. i console myself by saying all genitals are homologous to each other - male and female gentials are essentially the reverse of one another and so the same. they dont dictate who you are. if a woman with cancer gets an oophrectomy does thay make her not a woman anymore? of course not! if a man has his testicles removed is he no longer a man? am i a woman because i have a vagina? nope! gender isn’t one’s body. as a nonbinary pansexual person my identity is pretty firmly in the grey area lol. i consider myself an attractive androgynous. i am proud of who i am and what i look like, even when im not totally content.

i hope some of this helps and i hope you will spread acceptance! sorry this got so long but i wanted to give a real answer. always feel free to ask anything else, weird or not weird, i promise i wont get offended. :)