#colonial gender binary

[indigenous-gender]

If you were wondering why many lesbians of color are fighting back against identity policing and rightfully calling it out as white supremacy, it is because this rhetoric is dangerous, harmful, and antithetical to our liberation. Invalidating lesbian manhood is rooted in antiBlackness and antiIndigeneity. Excluding lesbians of color for our race and culture is colonization in action. Excluding trans lesbians of color for our cultural gender and sexuality and for being trans in a way that subverts colonial gender systems is racist and transphobic. here is a fantastic article that talks about African gender and sexuality and highlights the existence of male lesbians or lesbian men. As an Indigenous person of triracial descent, I am proud of my Indigenous cultural gender and sexuality, and I will not allow white supremacists and queer assimilationists to erasure the history and cultures of my ancestors. Male lesbians and lesbian men are STILL HERE. We are proudly Black, Brown, and Indigenous! This is our tradition!

https://africasacountry.com/2014/03/africa-has-always-been-more-queer-than-generally-acknowledged

[lunaescribe]

The anti-colonial power of Jim! What a gift to have a non-binary Latine rebel.

[decolonize-the-everything]

I saw you post with quote from whipping girl in a post, and I want to share some perspective on what I think of transandrophobia as a transmasc who is not too fond of the term.

When it comes to discussions of oppression, I've never felt put down or discarded due to the word "transmisogyny". In fact I've just felt this word has just made sense. Not only is it the next step in intersectionality for transfems, it also encompasses experiences that are unique to transfeminity that all transfems experience.

Transandrophobia/transmisandry is not so cut and clean.

We can assume that, as a transmasc, we have experiences that transfems don't have and that much is true. After all, many transfems will not experience the want to go on testosterone, but in the end I can't find much else that is unique to transmasculinity. Hell, not even all transmascs want that.

Transfems, many before transitioning, have been demeaned for being feminine and have maybe even felt the need to fight for every last shred of masculinity they could in order to feel safe or in the in group. I have felt much the same with my transition, so I don't believe this is a unique experience that transmascs face alone. Rather, it is what you are forced into to feel safe.

I have been with partners who do no respect my gender identity or sought me out specifically because I was trans (chaser) and this is also not unique to transmasculinity.

I have been assumed to be a woman and denied my masculinity just for my visible boobs that I cannot bind due to asthma. And while most transfems can probably not really relate to that specifically, I know the term "brick" was not made by cis people. And it just shows that conventional cissexist standards leak into trans ideals of passing for all groups of trans people.

All this to say, I don't think androphobia is what I've experienced at all. I've experienced crossections of oppression like ableism and transphobia, but when I've experienced other forms of oppression or abuse (Cat calling, sexual abuse, physical and verbal abuse) it was with the idea that I was a woman stepping out of line, not because they viewed me as a man. In fact when I've been misogynistically harassed, they had no clue I was a man at all. Just another woman to humiliate.

I've been called faggot, been viewed as a feminine man when I do pass, and it still feels much more as an extension of misogyny than what people describe to be androphobia. I feel more like I'm being equated to a woman in order to feel dehumanized and emasculated. Which I don't feel can be confidently described as "androphobia" even with the trans suffix.

It just also completely rubs me the wrong way when I see some transmascs group it together with "fighting for men's rights," because these ideologies have been used by misogynistic killers and fascists. (Source: https://everytownresearch.org/report/misogyny-extremism-and-gun-violence/#misogyny-extremism-and-online-radicalization)

I get wanting to describe unique experiences, but I truly do think it should be gone about a different way than trying to make it neat and congruent to the word transmisogyny. There are cross sections that need to be analyzed that I feel do not get encompassed in the transandrophobia model

For example, I'm Jewish, and I can say this to a room full of progressive thinkers and trans people and still get treated like the odd one out. It's to the point I don't even mention it anymore because it's such a hassle to deal with the questions and needless tokenization.

I'm disabled, and because of this I'm infantilized, not considered, and thought of as an annoyance even within trans spaces.

I'm fat, and because of this I cannot fit most standards that transmascs like to fit into. Even when I get top surgery, I'll need to leave some breast tissue so I still look natural because most fat men are not completely flat chested. My hips are high so even with fat redistribution I will not have the build that a lot transmascs get on T, and this will mean I experience passing much differently than a lot of my peers.

I feel these intersections are much better described with transphobia, because I do not feel hated and oppressed for being a man specifically. I feel hated and oppressed because I cannot be a man in the way people want me to be or because I can't be a woman in the way they feel I should be.

Tysm for this perspective. And before I say anything I wanna say that I'm not trying explain your oppression to you or tell you that your understanding of your own experiences is wrong.

I've been reading a lot and like I said Im reworking my own understanding of my gender based oppression it because as two spirit/nonbinary I'm never going to reach the ideal of woman, man, or even androgynous that has been set by white supremacy/eurocentrism.

I haven't called myself trans femme/masc for the same reason. The idea those things are based on weren't built for me and trying to make them fit feels as restrictive as it sounds.

My unique intersection of oppression has forced me to analyze gender not just as a tool used by sexists and white supremacists, but as a tool for self determination.

I'm looking at this not just as a non-femme trying to understand my gender, but also as a two-spirit trying to untangle the way colonialism has affected the gender is understood as a concept and attempting to decolonize it.

I'm gonna break it down how I see it under the cut.

•

And I will say that my actions in that regard will make some people Very Deeply fucking upset because your gender is a core aspect of a Lot of peoples identity and to be told it's inherently colonial might not make everyone super happy.

Like I said this post will make some people upset/defensive. I just ask you sit with that instead of coming to me about it right away, because all I'm doing is decentering colonial definitions & standards for gender to describe my experiences and understanding.

Take what resonates and leave what doesn't.

It's a long lost and there's no read more. Gender is complex, did y'all know that?

Anyway,

Colonial standards of gender often include:

Subscribing & adhereing to the gender binary

Subscribing & adhereing to gender roles

Adhereing to western/eurocentric beauty standards

Which doesn't seem like a lot when it's just 3 points like that, but the way those ideas breakdown into subcategories and build on each other is complex.

So before you can adhere to a gender binary, you need to believe in one right? So let's break that down. Cuz really my issue starts at the very beginning.

The colonial binary is man/woman/other with man & woman being understood as two distinct and opposite genders

Behaviors & gender are also identified and split into two main binary categories: masculine & feminine and they are associated with men and women respectively

Man & Woman are are the basis and frame of reference for understanding gender as a whole

Other being used as a catch-all for anything that isn't defined by Man and/or Woman ex: non-binary, androgynous, neo-genders etc.

The level of belief to which you subscribe to the binary helps others determine your validity & value within the binary

Additionally, deviating from this binary or disagreeing with this binary increases your proximity to Other and reduces your proximity to Man and Woman

Conforming to the binary is rewarded by increasing your proximity to your gender of choice within the binary system.

None of that works for me. Most of what I do is neither feminine nor masculine. I'm just...existing. And that's what I want to do. I do not believe that just existing in a way that doesn't fit into the binary of masc/feminine should mean that I don't deserve the language to describe the gender I Do experience.

I'm not "other" I'm two spirit and that should have equal recognition, visibility, respect paid to it as Man & Woman do. It's why I don't really like using the word non-binary in fact! It literally just means "other" as far as I'm concerned.

Every woman is not a man but not every non-man is a woman, you know? We deserve language specific to our experiences too. Not even just to describe our oppression, but to describe our experiences which there is currently no structure for. Its all built for recognizing men & women and the experiences of Men & Women.

Likewise, me being so critical of it has landed me solidly in Other territory (even if my gender didn't) cuz the binary system we have now thinks "real" men and women don't have problems with gender (like I do).

But that's getting into gender roles so I guess I'll move into that now. We're all familiar with gender roles right?

Here's how I understand them:

The idea that you have an assigned duty or societal expectation to fulfill because of your gender

Gender roles control how you express your gender, the jobs available to you, how you behave, and even which responsibilities you have in the home

The roles you do/don't play help others determine the validuty of your gender & place in the binary.

Deviating from your gender role is perceived as a deviation from gender itself, again increasing your proximity to Other and reducing proximity to Man and Woman.

Conforming to your role is rewarded by increasing your proximity to your gender of choice within the binary system.

So as a native I know we have our own gender roles. In my tribe, they don't work like this. Very few of the gender roles in my community have the same exclusivity as traditional western gender roles, and historically all genders in my tribe have had a special & important role. Like I wanna make clear my problem isn't necessarily with gender roles, it's the colonial understanding of them, the same way my problem isn't with gender, it's with our understanding of it :3

And so, it's a no from me. Wtf you mean I'm less of a woman if I have a good job and a family? What do you mean I'm not a man if I'm a stay at home dad? Why is punching drywall considered more manly than taking your family out to dinner? Why is spending 2+ hours on your appearance a feminine trait??

Do non-binary people even have gender roles? No. And yet deviation from the norm that's assigned to you by both the gender binary and gender roles is a deviation itself. So by not having gender roles they are deviating inherently because the societal expectation is conformity.

And on that note I tried intentionally not use gendered language in this post where it's not necessary. I wrote this considering the perspectives of cis and trans women and men and nonbinary people in mind.

I hope reading this over you can begin to see why I don't believe that women are oppressed simply for being women, that trans people aren't simply oppressed for being trans, and why I think the systematic affects of gender should include not just people like me, but men too.

There are systems of belief at work here and they try very hard to maintain themselves. They are oppressive.

Like let's get into how the definition of genders doesn't exist. Only definitions of sex do. When you start trying to define gender you realize it's all loosely based on western/eurocentric beauty standards, bio-essentialism, and gender roles. Nothing else.

And I believe this is why especially Black women are attacked and accused of not being real women so much more often than other women (like we've seen with Imane Khelif just this week)

I mean it's even the running joke in TERF circles that a woman can't be defined outside of sex.

TERFs use that lack of definition in their favor specifically to regulate women and womanhood which I feel like speaks to the bigotry of it. People like TERFs get the pick the definition that excludes the women they don't like. Racists use the lack of definition to exclude Black and brown women, transphobes use the lack of definition to ban abortion,

I've seen the lack of definition and language to describe this experience hurt women over and over and over. And it's not just women.

Anything here also goes for men and nonbinary people

And again, I only stress that as a point to make because as a two spirit I am not afforded the privilege nor luxury of being able to not see how the current understanding (or lack thereof) of gender is part of my people's ongoing genocide.

I deserve language to talk about my experiences and I deserve to talk about them without someone else saying their right to speak on oppression is stronger than mine so I shouldn't speak at all.

So does everyone else.

Everyone deserves and needs to be able to talk to other people about their experiences. This is how we learn about shared experiences and can begin talking about the causes of them, relating and comforting one another, and eventually yes dismantling the systems harming us.

You can't build community if you do not allow the community to find itself and be built, you get me??

I'm two spirit and it hurts.

If after all this anyone still wants to tell me I can't talk about my own experiences or even create the language to talk about it because the pain "isn't real" or cuz women "have it worse" or because I'm "not specifically being targeted for being a (two spirit) like women are targeted"

Then I'd like to know which white supremacist gave them the authority to make that decision.

Cuz now as I've explained here, I fully believe gender as it's currently and systemically understood is inherently oppressive and targets anyone who deviates to uphold itself in the name of the patriarchy and colonization.

Likewise, it's my belief that since (cis) women have historically been the loudest people challenging the idea that men should be in charge, of course it would look like the patriarchy targets women. Historically, it was women who've demanded reform and change and so they are targets for being threats.

That said, one of the first things colonizers did when they got here was try to erase two spirit people, burn our histories, and destroyed other evidence of gender diversity. So the image is much less clear that women have been the only targets of the patriarchy. As I've written, I think anyone who deviates from the norm becomes a target because if you're outside the norm then you're a danger to the norm.

I like to think the way I see things gives room for multiple experiences to exist simultaneously and still holds people accountable where it's necessary too so pls lmk if and where it doesn't

So like....all that finally said.

I'm gonna go ahead and say that men aren't as much of a threat to the system because as we all know, they are men and as such they are systemically less inclined to fight the patriarchy that privileges them.

There is no NEED to systematically regulate men the same way that everyone else is regulated.

And I don't think trans men or non-binary men or feminine men or men of color are attacked for being men, no. I agree with that and I'm not saying otherwise.

I think they are attacked for deviating from the gender norm set by white colonizers/white supremacist/patriarchy and thus are attacked for being threats to it, as I think anyone who deviates from those norms will be targeted.

Which is the same underlying reason that any of us are ever targeted. So I think it's kinda shitty to be weird about it, yeah.

Insisting that All men need to be systemically targeted before we recognize the experiences of marginalized men is pretty straight up bigoted in every way it can be honestly.

And to make my point, all women are targeted by the patriarchy right and yet the only people in the spotlight of mainstream feminism are the people least affected: cishet white women.

So when you hear "we'll recognize the struggles of marginalized men later," Ask what that means and how they'll do it because most people can't even handle recognizing marginalized women. There are books and articles and stories and movies about how marginalized women feel abandoned by mainstream feminism, other women, and everyone else; especially Black women.

.....Colonizers don't want to recognize things or people they don't like.

And they don't address things they don't see as problems.

That includes the nuances of gender violence and gender inequality.

[paloma-ascends-into-hellfire]

so sick of north america and europe’s superiority complex over being “so queer friendly 🩷💕💞💓💗🌸🌺🌷🪷!”

latin america, north america, south and east asia, and africa all had non european ideas of gender and sexuality. my good friend colonization force fed homophobia and the gender binary down their throats. and now they wonder why gay marriage is illegal in these countries? it’s because of you girlie, you are the problem.

[jesncin]

Idk queer kryptonian have always intrigued me, never being mentioned in canon, but they should do something about them in canon with Jon being out and all... I can easily imagine Crush (Xiomara Rojas, lesbain daughter of Lobo) asking Kara about Krypton's gay scene sgsjksks

I don't know about canon, but we can certainly have fun takes in AUs about it haha. I know it's because Krypton as a concept is made by us, human beings with very rigid gender norms via the western gender binary and what not, so Krypton generally tends to be imagined in a very "like us, but futuristic" way- but I think it's much more fun to imagine an alien species with a whole different set of rules over how gender and sexuality function in society. An entirely different framework alien (hah) to us. Like think less gay couples or a gender neutral bathroom and more a society that never considered a binary to begin with. What would that world look like, and how would characters like Jon or even Conner react learning about this?

Canon will probably never do this because this would imply a nuanced understanding of the intersection between culture and queer identity and well! Haha.

[eribent]

condescending posts justifying the usage of "theyfab" through soft language that makes the same exact assumption about AFAB nonbinary people (that AFAB nonbinary people are feminine + cis woman adjacent) that the phenomenon OP is expressly complaining about also makes ("women + AFAB nonbinary spaces") on my dashboard???

disgusting get it out of here it's two sides of the same fucking coin that i'm so sick of seeing as a gender fucky nonbinary person - especially from fuckingggg binary people

[pumpacti0n]

"The performative roles that are enforced onto us reproduce harmful social relations, instilling onto us a preset of prejudiciary behaviors and ideals about what a man and woman is and how they're "supposed to be" in a "good society".

Instead of seeing personhood first, we are instilled with a gendered framework of treating the other person as the prescribed characteristic of what femininity and masculinity is supposed to be, and whether they perform to this prescription or not.

However, humanity itself is more complex than this reductive vision of putting some in to "Block A" or "Block B". Instead, a spectrum of interconnected complexity and performances that cannot be neatly contained into pink and blue boxes.

Hell, even sex itself is bimodal, which explains the existence of intersex people. A post-gender society can only exist when the institutions and systemic consequences of patriarchy have long died.

In the meantime, we can only work towards advancing and progressing notions about gender, and working to dismantle the hierarchies that the binary puts onto us, perhaps reaching a point where we no longer need the gender categorization to meaningfully ourselves in our own unique way."

"Anarcho-Transhumanism" - Post-Comprehension

[luaminesce]

The older I get, the more I believe that TERF/radfem ideology is basically just repackaged European/US Christofacist imperialism in a secular hat.

[nickysfacts]

The Public Universal Friend, a preachers that was both true to their word and their name!✝️

⛪️🏳️‍🌈

[kaikree]

i turned 30 yesterday and i need the ability to telepathically tell ppl who comment on my comic about the trans characters that the bad faith questions are not as subtle as they think

[indigenous-gender]

I saw someone say that they would feel betrayed if they found out someone they were talking to who had identified as transfem was actually afab. To that I say, it’s none of your business how anyone identifies or what their reasons are, and if you would feel betrayed by a queer person identifying with a term and community, that’s something you need to rethink and reflect on. I am tired of colonial terminology being forced on Black/Brown/Indigenous people, especially when these terms are being misused. AFAB/AMAB terminology originates from intersex communities. I am not AFAB or AMAB. I was not assigned a gender. I understand that society perceives me as a specific gender most of the time, but their perception has zero to do with how I identify. I identify as transfem because I am coming from a place rooted in indigenous masculinity, and transgressing and transforming into womanhood. I do not have to explain or justify the way that I identify. It’s just another painful reminder that white gender will always be centered, and Black/Brown/Indigenous gender will always be excluded. I understand why you would feel that way, but your feelings are not my problem. Identity policing is rooted in white supremacy.

[kabbalicgay]

Motherfuckers got embarrassed when they were being called ''SJWs'' in their teens or early adulthood that you all stopped reading any sort of theory or political work that encourages us to stop and think about what mechanisms and structures are a part of society that influence the way we see ourselves and the people around us - which includes patriarchal and euro-centric standards of beauty and appearance - so now you're too busy arguing over if a child wanting to make her "big nose" less big is progressive and #feminist or not.

[nando161mando]

"Research shows 150 Indigenous communities acknowledge multiple genders; colonialism introduced idea of binary"

[moodr1ng]

basically im gonna start just putting 'dni if you define gender categories as men and non-men' and move on lol. like just be open and proud that you do not respect multigender people and, more importantly, people whose genders sit outside of the western colonial gender binary entirely, and stop pretending. like just decide whether im a man or a woman to you personally and sit on one side of the fence. if you are unwilling to conceptualize gender without a binary in there - even a reinvented binary that makes just enough space for you but not me lol - then fit me in the binary. im serious. if you think "everyone is either a man, or a not-man" is anything but a reinvention of "everyone is either a man or a woman" but awkwardly shifted to try and add nonbinary people to one side, then put that framework into use and misgender me. i am actively asking you to. you do not get to handwave me away as just an exception to your good new gender binary, or to try and say i fit into both groups when you are literally defining them by being mutually exclusive.

decide if im a man or a woman to you, treat me accordingly. ONLY treat me as one or the other, and do not switch it up when its convenient for you. just misgender me. i think its kinder.

[existentialcrisis-24-7]

maybe i'm betraying the lgbt community but I actually do like the concept of aliens or other inhuman beings being technically non-binary because they don't get the concept of sex and gender in the same way humans do. like I get that having actual human non-binary rep is important but exploring gender, how it could be viewed in other cultures and worlds, and pushing boundaries sounds far more interesting. Even if the alien does eventually decide that the human concept of gender does fit them, it would be interesting to think about.

[vizthedatum]

Assigned before birth

My mom used to tell me that when I was in her womb, everyone (including her) thought she was going to have a boy.

When she would narrate that, I'd feel a pang of joy... but didn't (or refused to?) know why at the time.