#can i be gaygender??

[skrunksthatwunk]

ok elaborating more sorry. i wanna emphasize/reiterate that it feeds a fantasy of her naturally being what a woman should be (in several layers a woman, a straight woman, and a gender-conforming cishet woman), of having a more traditionally feminine nature, and of having more prominent female guidance in her life.

she never really had older female role models or guides, and her dad was barely able to be a father to her, much less help her figure that whole mess out. she's a tomboy, y'know? she's kinda rough around the edges where other girls seem to have it all figured out. again, i think she likes being this way (see the more masc way she dresses when given choice over it), but junketsu's fantasy is one of never having to struggle with the consequences of nonconformity, chosen or inherent. (and i mean i would argue one's tomboyness or butchness isn't that much of a choice, but that's a tangent im not getting into)

fantasy-ragyo is someone who can give ryuko that being-a-proper-woman guidance, and who can nurture her like her father didn't. maybe if she got that kind of softer-touch attention ppl associate with mothers, she wouldn't have ended up like this. she could be feminine and delicate like every other girl. she could be normal. junketsu's fantasy is for typical femininity to be something ryuko doesn't have to struggle through alone and something that comes naturally to her. to have always been rather than to become, as i said in the first part.

im adding this because i think i jumped to the it's about being a lesbian thing a little too quickly and skimmed over the bits about gender performance that i think are very very interwoven with that.

the wedding scene could be about being butch. this could be about being a lesbian in general. this could be about being genderqueer. it could be a lot, honestly.

but i think it's important to note how it focuses on normative girlhood as part of the fantasy

i also think it's noteworthy how this is inseparable with marriage as what a woman should do, and as what a girl should look forward to. women's roles in patriarchal systems, and fascist systems in particular, are inseparable from marriage, from chaste reproduction (to make more cattle for the life fibers in-universe, and irl often things like making more soldiers/white babies for racial conflicts that are always just around the corner (and which they always, always start, because fascism relies on destruction and violence against an enemy to survive)). that normal girlhood must culminate in marriage to a man. there is no other way to be a normal girl. and you have to be a normal girl.

like i said in the first part, this self-determination pertaining to what it means for ryuko to be a woman could have been portrayed with the Strong Independent Woman version i described, in which the definition of womanhood is merely separated from marriage and romance, but that's not all that happens.

once again, it's not just that ryuko doesn't need this, it's that it cannot coexist with her.

she cannot still be ryuko and be this normal girlbride. the two are antithetical to each other because of something fundamental to her, something junketsu is helping her pretend doesn't exist. whatever that may be, the very essence of ryuko, or some key part of it, must be purged for this kind of life to be possible. and at that point, she's not ryuko anymore.

again, i think it's lesbianism, but it could be something else, something more vague and nebulous about identity, or something like genderqueerness (in particular think there's a pretty good trans man/transmasc reading in there somewhere) or aromanticism (i think each of these would be very powerful). the wedding scene is a lot of things, and can be about many more.

at the end of the day, it's mostly about being yourself and not what your mom wants you to be!! and devaluing the societal structures/roles/conventions around us bc they suck real bad!!! hell yeah 🤘🤘

man i think part of what fucks me up (/pos) about the wedding scene (klk) is how well it conveys that the fantasy junketsu puts on ryuko is not a romantic one.

like i think it would've been really easy to make it about her wanting to find a man who could take care of things for her or love her unconditionally and when mako busts her out the message is You Don't Need A Man! You're A Strong Independent Woman!! or something (which is a perfectly fine message btw. i bring it up because i suspect that's how some people read it, especially those who see ryuko as straight, in an utena-hetero-girlboss way (yes i HAVE encountered that reading before. head in my hands)). maybe there's a montage of the groom and her at romantic milestones (confession, proposal, dates, moving in, whatever), and mako busts in while they're exchanging rings or leaning in for a kiss or something. they could have done that.

but the show puts SO little focus on the groom, to the point of emphasizing his facelessness and lack of relevance to the fantasy and its appeal (see the door handle knocking him over and ryuko not noticing, too busy looking at mako), that i think it's impossible to read it that way. and that's great bc what's actually there is so much more interesting and thematically relevant.

ryuko wants a normal childhood with a mom who loves her and spends time with her doing typical family stuff, who sticks with her as she grows up. the fantasy is of a normal development and family structure, of assimilation into a typical path of life for a woman, with its typical milestones. that includes getting married to a man. the fantasy is being naturally what society wants her to be, what will allow her to connect most easily to others within it. she's always butted heads with others, never fitting in for reasons she can't really understand, or often because she thinks the rules themselves are stupid. that came with isolation. loneliness.

the fantasy of junketsu's wedding is of conformity. it is also of conformity without effort, without awareness.

she doesn't want to force herself to fit in, because she knows that feels like shit. she wants it to be seamless. second nature. that's what junketsu appeals to. not the fantasy of pretending to be straight or becoming straight, but simply being straight.

(if it isn't clear by now, i view ryuko as a lesbian. this scene is a big part of why.)

it's ryuko pretending to be (and to always have been) something that will never cause her trouble, that will never alienate her. (or junketsu making her pretend that, though i think it caters to a lingering insecurity of ryuko's, that lack of stability, connection, and conformity in her real life).

it's also part of why mako and senketsu's rescue is not about mako being the right one for ryuko, but about ryuko's identity. her core state of being. who she is as a person.

(personally i read ryuko and mako as romantic (and i believe the show does as well, hence, y'know, the date and the mako hallelujah imagery during her asking her out and mako hitting on her and and and. sorry but however you feel about them as a ship they are definitively canon), and the scene does have romantic appeal/a romantic angle to it. but i think that romance comes from mako understanding ryuko deeply, and from calling her back into the person she is, rather than the person she could have been were she to have lived a Completely Different Life, and showing her that she has community and companionship even without this. she can be part of a group without doing all this shit. she doesn't have to fight alone, and this wedding business isn't the only way out of that loneliness. it's a gesture of love and concern for her as a person, one that comes from senketsu and mako together, the people who love her the most.)

ragyo wants conformity. she is a fascist. she wants everybody to wear the same clothes, to be in their proper place in society, and to submit to those who have rightful power over them. A hierarchy with life fibers at the top and humans at the bottom. ragyo designs and distributes the roles (clothes) people ought to wear, talks about clothes that don't suit people, etc. she wants ryuko to conform like she is, and like she has. a feelingless marriage to some man for what she can get from him. fitting in. she wants to have daughters that fit in. she wants to fit in. she wants to fit in because she's fetishized her place above other humans (pigs in human clothing, in roles unbefitting their pig status), her place under life fibers.

it has nothing to do with love, so ragyo doesn't even bother with it. nor does junketsu. even though the guise of love could be a powerful aide here, the staff chose to leave the message unmuddied. it is about conformity.

for ryuko to fulfill this fantasy, she would have had to be a completely different person, with a completely different life.

ryuko could not be ryuko and still wear that wedding dress. so she tore it off to be herself again (something she'd been lamenting/resisting since finding out she was "a goddamned life fiber monster" shortly before getting put in junketsu).

also note that satsuki used this wedding dress for her own aims as well, though she is lucid through it. it pains her. it's a role she takes on to fight against ragyo (fire with fire). but she says she realizes she couldn't win using others like pawns. she couldn't win from inside the hierarchy, the establishment. she couldn't win using a groom and a dress for her own inauthentic reasons, nor using that clout to climb the ranks of something that was wholly rotten just to get closer to ragyo. the whole tree must be felled.

anyway

[stonyponyofficial]

hey vi hows it going. is it okAy if i call you vi. well my question is when did u get trans or otherwise lgbt? if applicable: howd the realizations happen

-- second question who could have POSSIBL

well anonymous bosch ill have u know i just got home from werk :3 so it is officially quetion time! people are free to send more if theyd like u all know im gonna be here forever -w-

secret 0th question Yes i like being called vi sometimes :3 ive gotten vi, vee, vivi, veevee, violer ofc, biolet, love me some nicknames go crazy!

1 hmmmmm well i was gay before i was trans. pan, more specifically tho i dont really use that label for myself anymore. the spirit sure, but now im just a gay(+) gal as ive violetcasted about before. but i think that was late middle school for me? and then being transed happened in high school, the summer between my freshman and sophomore years. i went back to school in like. skirts and flowers in my hair and hand-me-down girl clothes from my friends it was kinda sweet. still dont know how i did that tho i dont even wear that feminine of a wardrobe anymore, i guess i just reaaallly wanted to start socially transitioning in the worst public space i could imagine ^w^

1.5 uhhhhhhh as for how honestly ive always kinda been 'like this' but it just took me learning the concepts to be like ????????? u can do that????? and then i did! whenever someone says being trans isnt a choice they are lying to u bc i made that choice. and now we are here. trans and gaygender <3

2 now, im not 100 per'd cent sure about this--or really anything...except love--but as for 'who could have POSSIBL' i am honestly not too sure :3 but.. i-owe them a lot for giving me such good quesions, so thabks u very much myterious anon

[skeetlebeetle]

i’ve come to realize the reason i decided (/j) to be trans is bc i wanted the rights and respect that are given to man and the sexy androgyny of a vampire. also i wanted to be gay

[mychemicalraymance]

genuine question but i’ve seen lots of people say that g doesn’t label his sexuality/gender and i know he’s tweeted about his distaste for labels but has he actually mentioned that anywhere else? i feel like ppl pull shit out of their asses way too often in this fandom and i love!! your takes and art on mcr and particularly gerard and figured i’d ask lol

ah well! i guess the thing to say about this is that this notion is actually expressed through an inaction. like gerard not labeling themself is seen in his lack of words. which was like.... non notable back in 2004-2013 basically but after that the context around them shifted dramaticlaly so like, the act became way more conspicuous. which is a cool case study in like how internal ideas of gender and sexuality can stay the same but the shifting negative space around them forms what people generally see

which! they have not NEVER said anything. first of all there's the late hesitant alien interview/ama on reddit, which is a really roundabout discussion on their feelings, not exactly expressing them but definitely letting us now they have significant feelings on gender and sexuality, but never elucidating them. and also stating that their presentation in their mcr career was in fact directly related to those feelings, and that they felt that their presentation was intentional/indicative of gaygender feelings!

and ALSO. secondly. they actually have said two or three times that they are straight - which- one was in 2004, one was them saying "i'm not a homosexual" (lol), another was i think implying that they doesnt experience life/ is not treated as anything other than a straight man. so there's something to say for that! and like i wont gaslight gerard way from 2004 lol... it could be his feelings, outside pressure, an understanding that changes over time. maybe they're straight [(x) doubt]. i dont think these instances drown out their discussion of gender though and here's why - the discussions of gender are later on. retrospective, and that saying you're straight is such a trained/expected response esp for someone born in 1977 that i dont think instances of someone in 2004/6/14 saying vaguely that they're stright is something i would hold them to. straight until proven guilty basically.

lastly also i think that gerard's discussions on gender are more significant than a few half hearted endorsements of heterosexuality, and that their discussions in comparison to the limpid "i'm straight"s from 17 years ago give credence to the idea that gerard places no value in labels and lots of value an open understanding and expression of gender and sexuality. sorry this is long

[mogai-headcanons]

(D&B anon) (Note that the Phobic Funkin cast don’t actually carry the traits their main names have and I don’t think they're meant to be personifications of those terms, just a heads up!) (More will be added to the rq later on.) Homophobic, who also goes by the name Cameo, from Phobic Funkin, is a canonically autistic kidcoric canon gay man who uses he/him, they/them pronouns, and is canonically dating Bandu! Panphobic, who also goes by the name Pan, is a neurodivergent queer man with an (1/?)

(2/? of D&B pt. 4 rq) intellectual disability (probably canon, not sure) and uses he/him pronouns! Transphobic, who also goes by the name Trans and Ari, is an autistic canon trans woman who uses she/her and 🏳️‍⚧️/🏳️‍⚧️s pronouns! Sexist, who also goes by the names Helpful, Supportive and Ouch, is a canonically nonbinary lemongender being with ADHD who uses they/them and 🍋/🍋s pronouns!

3/? of D&B pt. 4 rq: (GAE) Bidu from Dave & Bambi: Golden Apple Edition is a straight ally who uses he/him pronouns! (OE) Joe from Omelette Edition is a canonically bisexual man with ADHD who uses he/him pronouns! (The wiki claims he is straight for some reason because he's dating a woman but official art from one of the creators says otherwise and depicts him w/a bi flag, just to clear up confusion.) He is dating Flannery, an autistic transhet woman! Danni is a gay man who uses he/they

(4/?) pronouns, and Scramblo is a hyperverbal autistic egggender canon gay man with general anxiety and some undiagnosed disorders who uses he/him pronouns!

4/? of D&B pt. 4 rq: Can you please add that Scramblo is canonically schizophrenic? Thanks in advance!

5/? of D&B pt. 4 rq: Can you please add queerbreak to all the Phobic Funkin' characters; add neurodivergent to anyone who doesn't have a disorder listed yet, add that Cameo is also a rainbowgender pinkaesic purpleaesic yellowaesic doggender sparklefurgender gamergender pinkgummybearic vinciamoureux plastexgender genderbubbly gaygender 00scoric pronoun hoarder and that he has special interests in Fortnite and the furry fandom and also uses 🌈/🌈s, 🏳️‍🌈/🏳️‍🌈s, 💛/💛s, 💜/💜s, 💖/💖s, (cont.)

(6/? of long D&B pt. 4 rq) h3/h1m, th3y/th3m, pog/pogs, woof/woofs and paw/paws pronouns; add pansexual to Pan and add that he has special interests in Fortnite, the streamer Ninja, and cooking; Ouch also uses oni/je pronouns for their native language, Czech; add that Ari and Ouch are friends, and Cameo and Pan are friends; add that Scramblo is eggic, yellowgender, yellowaesic, hardboiledic, omeletteic, overeasyic, poachedic, softboiledic, sunnysideupic, overmediumic, overhardic, (cont.)

(7/7 of D&B pt. 4 rq) brekibedgender, and a bear, and that Scramblo has special interests in cooking, and that he has a canon child named Egglet, and add that Egglet is an autistic genderqueer egg who canonically uses she/her and he/him pronouns!

went ahead and queued this without flannery since i can't find an image of her on the wiki, but i'll get her added once you lmk where i can find one!

[butyouvealwaysbeenthecaretaker]

AND its terfy, which isn’t a word I had access to the first time I read the book; but its very familiar looking back through it now

The idea that trans men’s bodies are the political property of the lesbian community, and therefore their experiences must be understood through the lens of the lesbian political tradition

the idea that politics for trans men are implicitly homophobic - like, not wanting to look like a butch is oppressive or the result of oppression, rather than a valid desire of a man who would like to look like any other man

the idea that trans men’s desires around masculinity need especial scrutiny, like, its a problem if they want to dress like a Republican or a straight man, or if their “alternative masculinities....fail to change existing gender hierarchies”

the idea that people transition from a delighting gaygendered incongruence to a normative masculinity is de-queering the world

not understanding that persistently talking about trans men as some kind of butch woman is an attack, even when you do it politely or for political purposes

Its the ideological basis for a lot of that kind of anti-trans thought that is leveled specifically at trans men. In that context, identifying as trans seems like a rhetorical slight of hand for Halberstam, to defuse such charges.

& once again, I want to stress that these stances are....not necessarily terrible politics, but they need to be expressed with far more nuance and delicacy than Halberstam is capable of; they need to acknowledge that transsexual people are real, valid, understand themselves in their own framework that has full legitimacy, and that can exist alongside Halberstam’s theory which, to me at least, quite transparently intends to undermine that framework (even though he claims at every opportunity not to be attempting this)

Halberstam seems incapable of adopting the perspective of a “classic” bog-standard-uncomplicated binary post-op transsexual man, and understanding the extent to which this differs from his own experiences of female masculinity.

[questioninggendering]

What the fuck is a lesbiangender??? This is a disgrace to lesbians. You'rr an absolute tool. Why is the term "lesbian" becoming completely devoid of all its original meaning? I don't see people going around calling themselves gaygender, or a "she/her gay man". Fuck you and fuck your female, LESBIAN, erasure.

Calm down terf.

No one cares.

Gaygender is a gender and she/her gays do exist. You would know that if you honestly tried to understand the queer community.

Just because some people are lesbiangender doesn’t mean that cis gender lesbians don’t exist. Not sure how anyone can take a gender away from another person by existing as themselves.

Bye! <3

[logarto]

there is such a massive middle ground between “labels are for soupcans!” and “you must stick with one identitiy forever or else you are a traitor” but no one talks abt it explicitly enough i think. the space is there and tangentially acknowledged but like... its so ok to not define w anything bc you dont know what exactly you are. its cool to just be chilling. labels are meant to bring you security and comfort and community, and if iding a certain way isnt doing that then its not helpful to you! you can still be ambiguously gaygender without explicitly belonging to a letter of the acronym and no one will be mad. just give yourself space

[xeno-aligned]

so i know there are genders like pangender, bigender, agender so is there a heterogender and homogender (honest question cause if not then i wanted to coin them)

what do you mean by heterogender & homogender? bc there are orientation genders, which are "when your gender is your orientation, or when your orientation is so intrinsically tied to your gender that you absolutely cannot separate the two. The word “orientation” can be replaced with your orientation label, ex: gaygender, lesbiangender, etc.” , so then there is gaygender (or homogender), and same with straight/heterogender

but just in case you’re confused - pangender, bigender & agender aren’t orientation genders. they’re their own separate genders; pangender is being all genders available to you within your ethnicity, neurotype, etc.; bigender is being two genders, whether at the same time or at different times; agender is having no gender or a neutral gender. they aren’t pan/bi/ace/aro-as-an-orientation gender.

[t4tdeanwinchester]

OH also I’d like to add that in the version of spn that lives in my head where dean is trans, cas doesn’t “make dean cis” or anything (bc I kinda hate that idea lmao) he just like. gives him angel top surgery and broader shoulders. because cas is also trans for all intents and purposes (hello angelgender....... hello gaygender castiel......) and if there’s one thing I know abt being trans it’s that trans people just see each other in ways cis people can’t. we have the ability to comprehend gender in the way that shrimps comprehend color. so I think cas sees dean the way dean sees himself, the way his soul looks, and remakes him that way (still a trans body, just one that dean can feel at home in) because they’re in love and also because he has trans-x-ray-vision

MORE LAZARUS RISING AS A TRANS NARRATIVE THOUGHTS....... because of the fact that I do think john would’ve been weirdly ok with dean being trans in a way he wasn’t ok with him being bi (read: grudgingly accept/ignore it but still hold it over his head as a bargaining chip “you wanted to be a boy, so go kill that monster like a man”, it’s easier to be a hunter, John is a misogynist, etc etc etc), because of that I don’t think dean ever had to particularly come out so to speak, I don’t think anyone has ever tried to understand him and listen to him talk abt the way he knows he is feminine but only through the masculine lens he has worked so hard to covet (gnc transmasc dean truth...), sam has always just known him as “my big brother”, but then here is this angel who, for what is quite possibly the first time, sees dean, sees him in hell, sees his layers and his performance and all the ways he ties feminine and masculine together and cas understands that dean wants a flat chest to wear women’s lingerie over he understands dean wants the low voice that can be used to say “don’t mess with a lady like me”, all those little intricacies, those soul deep secrets, castiel is the only one who sees them. it is a different kind of coming out, a different kind of confession, but still it is something reverent. and so he makes dean not in god’s image, but in dean’s image. he creates the body that dean has always invisibly lived in, (the knowledge of which castiel is dean’s sole confidant). and then there are years of not talking to each other, of finding new quieter less personal ways to hold a conversation, but it all started with an angel who saw right through him, saw dean, and knew how to make his body a home

[butyouvealwaysbeenthecaretaker]

I'm glad we are talking more about "gay genders" and the way that being LG can often produce genderweird experiences, which aren't exactly transgender but are also not uncomplicatedly cis. It's always been true, but I'm happy that there's more discussion and visibility.

But team, the next step is absolutely to consider bisexual people. We are comfortable seeing cis[ish] gay men and women embrace these complicated gender places, it kinda figures, it makes sense, it feels organic. But why shouldn't this be equally true of bisexual people? (It's because on some level, we are seen as essentially straight, as straight people who sometimes have same-sex relationships)

there's no real reason why, if we accept that gay people often develop ideosyncratic genders, that bi people wouldn't too. Possibly, the gaygenders of bisexual people would be even more peculiar, because they are passing through straight and gay spaces, through same and opposite sex relationships, it's super messy.

I've thought before that perhaps we might understand the development of genderqueer, non-binary, agender identities as a bisexual thing. This isn't to erase people with those identities who are monosexual; but I guess I would like to survey how many "straight in every possible way except my gender" people are in these communities, because I suspect it's...very few. On the other hand, I think both bisexuality and asexuality would absolutely predict people who grow up watching gender on the television, and thinking "I'm not really any of these genders". Or, in reverse, I think being non-binary or genderqueer would predict people who can't exactly say whether they are gay or straight, and who would grow up watching gender on television thinking "I have no idea how I fit into any of these relationship structures".

And some partial evidence for this is looking at bisexual community heroes - Bowie, Prince, Janelle Monae, Lady Gaga, Annie Lennox - and observing that not only are they all subverting gender, they're doing it in similar ways, they're part of a recognisable bi genderweird tradition. This includes being kinda circumspect about whether or not they are gay while giving off gay vibes; artificiality and theatricality, but not quite in a camp way; and gender non-conformity. You've got Bowie and Gaga presenting their bodies as alien/other; you've got Lennox and Monae in suits, but in a very sharp and dapper way - not your traditional comfy/earthy butch, it's far more theatrical; you've got Prince's abundance of gender cues, combining feminine dress and styling with almost parodically heterosexual lyrics.

Gaga draws from drag culture, and I think you could also understand Monae as a drag queen (but both of these are gay male artforms). Gaga makes explicit reference in Telephone to the rumours that she is is a man (that people are making assumptions about her gendered body; but this is transmisogynist). Gaga is out as bisexual; she's a cis woman (as far as we know), but her stage persona is being understood as similar to a trans woman, or similar to a gay man. We aren't able to find words for where we place her gender and sexuality, because we aren't recognising that this mess of gender cues...could be a bisexual gender thing. Monae is non-binary, and has written het songs and sapphic songs and a stomping bi anthem. But, for the longest period of time, wasn't putting a label on any of this, aside from that one song about how "I want to be a queer/queen". Queen, of course, being another male-pattern-gay community term. Being a "no labels bisexual" isn't necessarily internalised biphobia or a superiority complex; it can reflect a genuine feeling of vagueness and uncertainty about where to plant your flag. A vagueness which is perhaps inextricable from an equally vague sense of how to fit into a binary gender. Meanwhile, Lennox is heavily involved in AIDS activism. She's clearly identified gay and bisexual men as "her tribe".

Lennox and Prince - who, as far as we know, are straight - but they seem pretty gay - and isn't that the bi experience in a nutshell, isn't that part of their appeal for specifically bisexual audiences? All five performers are characterised by...being simultaneously very out and very closeted. Again, I think that's relatable: a profound desire to be visible, but also a lack of certainty/confidence/ability to define what kind of queer you are. Bisexuality is inherently mute: you are assumed to be what you appear to be. Should we be surprised, then, if bisexual genders seem to take the pattern of "I don't know what I am or where I fit - and neither will you"

So I don't know whether I have the evidence to argue this, but I do think there's an...afab bisexual gender which is blending cues which say "I am a gay woman" and "I am a gay man", or rather, "I am a queer person, and queerness is indivisible from who I am, and so I see myself in queer people who date women and in queer people who date men". And that we should not be at all surprised or disdainful or judgemental or gatekeeping to see bisexual and genderqueer people L existing in this "I'm simultaneously L, G, B and T" place. That's the reality of having a gender/sexuality that never really fits anywhere, which can never really be visible or articulated as it's own thing. One knows one is queer, one reaches for whatever representation and visibility one can get, and it's a magpie gender.

(I don't have any evidence of the opposite dynamic, of bi men being very into lesbian culture or identification or modes of behavior. Perhaps this is a counter argument. But you often can't map the experiences of queer men and queer women neatly together (gay ones, transgender ones...), so maybe this is another example of that. But I would not be surprised at all to find out that femme bi men were into butches, for example.)

CONCLUSION: it is intuitively correct to me that bisexual people would experience genderweird as part of their bisexuality, just as many gay people do. I have some theories about what these genders might look like, but I want to emphasise that I don't think they are objectively correct (there are non-bisexual people in the gender spaces in describe; and I would not dream of beginning to try and gatekeep them as bisexual-exclusive). At the same time, I think it would be politically valuable and personally helpful to bisexual people to develop a sense that bisexual genders exist; that they can be a source of pride rather than embarrassment; that our genders aren't just a mimicry of gaygenders or straight ones but can have characteristically bi elements and be part of a bi tradition; to have confidence and joy in the ways our genders don't fit neatly into straight or gay frameworks, and that we might have additional needs in relationships to affirm our gender place; that being bisexual might bring on actual dysphoria, that being bisexual might bring on things which makes neither cis nor trans frameworks a fit for you...and all that jazz. Bi people may very well develop genderweird that is similar or indistinguishable from gay genderweird; but also produce unique genderweirds of our own.

TL;RDR: being bisexual can produce genderweird, just as being gay does. We should assert this more confidently. It might produce uniquely bisexual genders. We should explore and document these possibilities. We shouldn't do this with a goal to be an asshole to others, because gatekeeping things helps nobody.

[butyouvealwaysbeenthecaretaker]

This is a very rough early idea, but could we say that non-binary is an inherently bisexual gender identity?

Was thinking on the way up about taking the concept of bi women coming out as GQ the moment they are closeted by their relationship as, maybe quite a serious proposition.

The idea of sexuality as "gender4gender" is very limited, compared to the reality of stuff like...queer-to-queer transitions, where people seem very certain that they desire people of the same sex (whatever that sex may be). Or lesbians who are specifically turned on by the idea of dating other lesbians. Or kinky folk who are dom or sub and don't care about gender.

Queer people wish to be in queer relationships, and perhaps it shouldn't be so strange to observe that gender can shift to queer a relationship if partner choice no longer provides that erotic experience.

(And obviously, once you're non binary, traditional labels like gay or straight cease to make much sense)

My husband proposed on the way up that maybe GQ absorbed a lot of other terms, or prevented a lot of other terms from occurring - for example, we never saw an explicitly bisexual gender identity develop the same way butch/femme developed in lesbianism, because the idea was precluded by genderqueerness which has space for everybody.

I know Amy has written recently snarking that fag hags have vanished now they can just identify as gay men.

I'm also thinking about how "non binary people should fit themselves into lesbian genders" doesn't really work. A lot of non binary genders seem explicity absent from those lesbian cultures.

For example, butch as a kind of woman + genderweird + masculinity. Has a very specific aesthetic and attachment to blue collar, un-fussy, dad sandals masculinity. Whereas in non binary cultures, you see things like androgyny, dapper, dandy, Brideshead, queens etc featured far more prominently. Theres no reason why those couldn't have evolved within lesbian culture, but they didn't and so here we are with bow tie as this GQ stereotype. GQ caters for a lot of different kinds of female masculinity. Like, woman + genderweird + femininity. Or, + aristocrat, + artiste, + fem in the gay sense. Like, even if I was to detransition, I've never and will never identify as butch, it's so far from my sense of everything.

I know I was sassy last week about people loving David bloody Bowie. But I guess this is what I mean about it being a bisexual gender identity. It's a kind of visible queerness where you can fancy men and still look queer, and participate in a queer erotic. It's kind of analogous to butchness for afabs who feel a kind of masculine, who have an inner sense of gaygender, but for people who are femmey, who fancy men, or both. It's the answer to "I want an erotic fantasy self of myself shagging men, and I don't want that fantasy to be drawn from straight culture". Just as butch/femme is "I want to play with the erotics of gender, but not in a straight way"

Like, we know it's common for LG people to experience their sexuality intertwined with genderweird. So it shouldn't be surprising that 1) Bisexual people also experience this and 2) their genderweird is going to uniquely reflect that experience. And I know "butches can be bi" is a hot topic, so I want to affirm that I think bi women can be butch. But also, I think that's far from the *only* genderweird bi people have going on, and it's possible that there are unique (&important!) genderweirds coming out of our community just as they do with everybody else.

Idk, this is a very early stage nonsense idea so critiques are welcomed. But I think there's something to it.