#like gender is a social construct doesn't JUST mean you can use any pronouns you want and dress how you want

[menlove]

okay actually no I'm NOT done bc so many people on here will hear someone say "men are an oppressive class who hold social power and privilege" and SCREAM bioessentialism but literally no part of that is bioessentialism in fact it's LITERALLY the opposite. like no men ARENT biologically oppressive and evil or whatever. they aren't biologically superior or stronger or more violent or anything. SOCIETY put them in a position of power and based all our gender norms around that. this is such basic shit it's actually exhausting.

everyone wants to parrot "gender is a social construct" until you actually start talking about what that means and who that construct is benefitting and why

[raythekiller]

YOU NEED TRANSMASC REQUESTS???? I CAN GIVE YOU TRANSMASC REQUESTS!!!!!! :D

begging on my hands and knees for some headcanons for Jeff, toby and hoodie with the transmasc!s/o, where reader is on his period and like SUPER dysphoric, I’m talking like doesn’t want to look at himself, get touched or speak to anyone cause the dysphoria is so bad and he’s lowkey miserable 😭

I NEED COMFORT OK 💔💔💔

🗒 ❛ Dysphoric Reader On His Period ༉‧₊˚✧

Featuring: Jeff The Killer, Ticci Toby, Hoodie

#Notes: big mood

pronouns used: none, but male! reader

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꒰⸝⸝₊⛓┊Jeff The Killer

He'll try to let his teenage boy-like disgust over the fact there's blood coming out of your intimates aside cause he knows this is already taking a toll on you. He'll just kind of awkwardly pat on on the back while going "There, there, little guy" as if that'd make you feel any better. When you squirm away from his touch, he'll realize this is probably a little worse than he thought it was and get even more awkward. Look, Jeff doesn't do feelings well, so he might not be the best at comforting, but he'll listen if you want to vent, not really adding any input himself. A friendly ear is all you'll get from him.

꒰⸝⸝₊⛓┊Ticci Toby

He's best friends with Cody, who I headcanon to be transmasc as well, so he definitely has a better starting point than Jeff. Won't let you isolate in your room and be miserable - he won't stand for that. He'll literally drag you outside if he has to, has a very aggressive way of showing that he cares. Absolutely suggests a makeover, he'll dress you up super nicely and convince you to look in the mirror, all the while saying how handsome you look. Makes sure you shower and eat properly as well, no buts, your well being is important to him. Brings you any supplies you need for your period as well as snacks. Overall super caring and considerate.

꒰⸝⸝₊⛓┊Hoodie

Honestly I feel like he has a very loose idea on gender, by which I mean he doesn't care for it, so he might not totally understand your struggle. Hold on, let me try to explain it better - he honestly and genuinely doesn't care for labels or how people perceive him as or what pronouns others use for him or anything like that. Gender is a social construct anyway, why should he give a shit? But you care, and he doesn't completely understand why. Still, he knows you're struggling and he's not about to ignore it. Will make sure your period is well taken care of with tampons and chocolate and pain killers while also trying to make you feel better about yourself. If you feel like a guy, then you are one, and that's it. Who cares what others think - it's you that matters, and he'll tell you that every day if he has to.

[realitys-ex]

On Dwarf Gender in Discworld

So, Dwarfish gender stuff is clearly something that PTerry decided to add in later [I can't recall the first time it came up in any form, but I am 90% sure it was with Littlebottom], seeing as in earlier books he does use 'she' when Carrot is sending letters home, and he differentiates between Mom and Dad, which one can assume wouldn't happen in the mono-gender Dwarf world (admittedly it could happen, but I think with an ex-nihlo construction it wouldn't).

Now I have seen people attempt to explain Carrot's letters, but it always felt a tad flat to me.

Tbh, there is a lot of world building that happens in the Early Discworld books that gets retconned to one degree or another in later ones (the behavior of trolls changes, the set up of the university with its schools of magic disappears, the Dungeon of Dimensions becomes a non-factor, Hell with its Devils doesn't even get a nod after Eric, etc.).

This is not really a complaint, the books grew, as did PTerry's writing skill and ideas. This is just an observation.

So some of his ideas weren't fully thought out or explored.

And I really feel like Dwarf Gender is one of them.

So we have established that Dwarfs have a single Gender both Linguistically and Culturally/sociologically. They recognize another sex, obviously, but as something private that effects nothing outside of the bedroom, and should not be spoken about.

And that Gender is Dwarf-Man (which is, btw something that somewhat bothered me. shouldn't it just be dwarf? If they had an issue with knowing that someone was a woman, wouldn't that mean they have equal issue knowing that someone was a man? For a simple purpose of 'if person A tells me they are a man which is socially acceptable to do, but person B says nothing, I can infer that they are not man.'? Like, I understand the point that Pratchett was making would not have been served that way, but still).

But anyway, Littlebottom adopts some human-female gender norms, and what happens in the books happens.

But well, aside from the slight annoyance of Human Gender Norms being the Gender Norms, the concept of possible impact to Dwarf Society is never explored!

For example, accepting everything above, Dwarf society is Sexism (genderism?) free, due to the fact that outside the bedroom, there is no Sex. You can't bar women from jobs etc. if there are no women.

But now there might be women. Will human style sexism enter Dwarf culture? Will Dwarfs be barred from being Low King or Grag?

What about linguistics? Obviously Dwarvish would have no female pronoun, so would they add one? Is Dwarvish a gendered language that they need to create a full new set of styles for?

I know that none of these things would be the focus of a book, but I would have loved it if it got a bit of a spotlight.

[spacedoutkeys]

Hot Take: Genders

So I don't normally post hot takes that go against societal norms, especially with a topic like this, but why not, right? I don't mind a friendly debate every now and then. So this post is going to be split into two groups, the hot take itself, and the reason why I think that that's true so that it doesn't leave you scratching your heads.

1. The Hot Take:

So, what is the hot take you may ask? Well, you know it's about genders, as it says above, but what exactly is it? Well, it's my take on the two or more genders debate that's been going on for years now. There are two genders. However, there are variations of the two genders.

2. The Reasoning:

So what makes me say this? Well, let me put it this way, genders and sex come hand in hand often enough, Sex is whether you have an XX chromosome (Female) or an XY chromosome (Male). That is your birth sex. What you were born into the body of. Determines whether you have a penis or a vagina. Now, your gender is the socially constructed role of how you present yourself to others. Masculine, Feminine, things like that. Now, why do I say there are variations when things like Bi-Gender, Gender-Fluid, Demi-Girl, Demi-Boy, Non-Binary, Gender-Neutral, and Transgender all exist? Well, let me break it down for you! Starting with the first one on our list;

Bi-gender: Bi-Gender is typically when people fluctuate between being masc presenting or fem presenting in their gender identity. But that's just the issue. They switch between being masc or fem. Think of bi-color or bi-polar, that's usually one thing being two colors or one person having two or more personalities. Not a whole other color or personality in and of itself. Next, let's go with the ever popular transgender, trans(itioning) gender. It is typically seen as when your gender does not match up with your birth sex. But typically a trans woman will address herself as a woman and a trans man will address himself as a man. Their GENDER is man or woman, while they are transgender, they do not want to be seen as a female transitioning to a male or vise-versa. They want to be seen as the gender they're transitioning to. But they again, aren't a separate gender.

Gender Neutral: Gender neutral is often used to give something a non gendered outlook, such as the it/its and they/them pronouns people use (I myself using they/them with she/her) because they don't feel like a girl or a boy. Gender Neutral is the Nulling of gender. There is no gender. So it can not be a gender in and of itself. Demi-Girl/Boy: As a demigirl myself, this one is rather easy. Typically using She/they or he/they pronouns, these folk see themselves as someone who isn't always a female or male, but they don't feel like a male or female at the same time. They are either one of the two genders or no gender. Demi itself meaning half or partly, as in half girl, half boy. Gender_Fluid: You fluctuate between male, female, and null! So like with bi-gender, you are not a separate gender, you are a grouping of different genders! Now, this is not to say they don't exist, as I'm saying their a variation of the main two genders + null. And of course, any ones you want me to try and debunk I missed here feel free to comment or repost and I'll get back to you ASAP! I hope to spark some conversation and friendly debate with everyone and I hope this was well spoken enough to make sense!

[yrrtyrrtwhenihrrthrrt]

Fun fact about my agender ass I fully believed that gender identity did not exist until I was like fourteen

Like I had not experienced it so I assumed nobody else had. Now I know that gender, the gender binary, gender roles, are all social constructs, but from my understanding, gender identity isn't. Many many people are born with a gender identity in their brain, and sometimes it is the one they are expected to have, and sometimes it isn't, and sometimes it changes over time, and sometimes it develops over time, but most people have some gender identity in some way.

I, as well as some other people, just, don't.

And I had no way of knowing that anyone else experienced this. I really thought it was just a game everyone agreed to play. You get assigned a blue pinny or a yellow pinny in gym class and that's that. It kinda sucks but that's the game. It's not like "blue pinny" is a part of your identity, it's just an arbitrary assignment. You might wish you were on the yellow pinny team, because they get a head start in the dodgeball game, but you don't identify as a yellow pinny team member. And that is exactly how I saw, and still see my own gender.

And I have to apologize for this but this resulted in, when I was young, transphobia. It wasn't the violent kind you often see today, but it was dismissive and distasteful. Obviously I'm not proud of it. But I thought "how the fuck can you identify as a gender aside from your AGAB? Nobody "identifies" as anything you just take the assignment and go so ObViOuSlY it's made up." And I was talking to my sister about this and was like "I mean if you woke up in an alternate universe where you were a man, it would be no issue at all, right? I mean aside from having to get used to different body parts and being treated differently, it would be fine" and she was like "no???? Tf??? I'd be really upset!"

And that right there rocked my fucking shit and turned my world upside down. Anyway I learned a lot since then and I support everyone and their gender identities now, obviously, as it was over a decade ago. I realized that "I guess I'm a girl because I was born that way and I don't care enough to change it, even though I literally hate being perceived as a girl I'd hate being perceived as any other gender just as much" doesn't actually make me cis (shock!!) This is also why I much prefer the term agender to nonbinary. I've been asked if I'm nonbinary when I say I'm agender, and I know some agender people identify as nonbinary (power to you!) But to me, "non-binary" feels like a gender identity that is. Well. Nonbinary lol. It's like asking an atheist "so you have a non-Abrahamic faith?" Like no they don't have any faith at all. I don't have any gender identity at all. That's how I see it anyway.

But all this to say being agender is weird. And while I'm about as allo as they come, I can relate to asexual people in a lot of ways.

It's like there are these boxes and everyone else can see them, and everyone else can exist in them comfortably, and sometimes people have to change the shape of their box but at the end of the day, it'll fit them. But I can't see the boxes, yet I've been put inside one, and everyone else can see it. I don't want to change the shape of my box, it wouldn't make a difference. I just don't want to be in this box at all. I can't see it, I keep bumping into the walls. I'm glad when the boxes make other people happy, but all I want is to get rid of it. And while it's freeing to identify as agender within myself, to start using any pronouns instead of exclusively she/her, I know that everyone else can still see the box. If they didn't see me as a woman, they'd just see me as something else, some other box, and that's not any better.

And I'm so tired.

[poetessinthepit]

The boomer understanding of transgender people is really interesting because sometimes, it can be weirdly progressive and other times not so much.

One time I was talking about Chaz Bono. I can't really remember the context. My mom asked me why I referred to Chaz Bono as a transgender man when Chaz Bono is just a man.

I thought this was maybe kind of cool. Disclaimer, I'm cis so what do I know. I know many transgender people are loud and proud about being trans, but I also think it's normal whether you're trans or cis, to just want to be seen as who you are and get through your day without being hassled.

I picked her brain a little and she was like " well, Chaz Bono used to be a woman, but Chaz Bono is a man now. He had a sex change."

Anyway, it seems like my mom, who works in the medical field, honest to god, believes there is one single surgery that can just flip all your characteristics from one sex to the other. This is obviously wrong, but I think a lot of people her age believe this and it tends to be more liberal people her age and not the other way around.

You could argue this places a lot of emphasis on passing and I could agree with that, but in the case of my mom, I truly think any trans person, passing or not, regardless of how much they've medically transitioned, could just tell her they've had a sex change and she'd be like cool, you are what you say you are. She ,at worst, would probably secretly think "maybe, they have a shitty doctor".

Now, I'm not saying there are no issues with her way of thinking and that it doesn't come from a place of ignorance, but it is interesting to me how there are some narrow circumstances where it comes across as more accepting than millenials can often be. My generation, myself unfortunately included, is often guilty of using "trans" as a qualifier, as way of saying "well, they're a woman but...", fill in any gender identity, etc.

Another time, the topic of transgender athletes in sports came up, something we probably never would have talked about if the right hadn't made the topic newsworthy. My mom, who is an avid tennis player, immediately brought up Renée Richards and said "Well, Renée Richards just did okay back in the 70's. She didn't dominate. It probably depends on the circumstances." I thought this was a pretty nuanced take on a pretty nuanced issue that she came to organically.

Of course, the main issue is that my mom has absolutely zero understanding of being non-binary or even a binary trans person is intentionally gnc in their presentation. I've tried to explain it to her many times in simple terms and like any movie with a non-linear timeline, she just can't wrap her head around it. That said, I think my mom tries to be accepting generally. I know one of my mom's closest friends has a non-binary kid that came to our Thanksgiving once and my mom was earnestly trying to use they/them pronouns and even corrected some of the other guests.

I know this whole post might come across as me trying to excuse my mom's transphobia because I, like anyone else, just want to believe that my parent is good person. Honestly, maybe it is. Maybe, I just lack the self awareness. But I'm also just personally fascinated by it. And it's also true that LGBTQ boomers, the people my mom learned from, tend to have a different understanding of these issues and different terminology than younger LGBTQ people. You could completely chalk that up to internalized bias, but it's a lot more complicated than that. We're talking about social constructs here.

My personal opinion is ( and don't get me wrong, I can totally see why someone from a marginalized group would validly disagree with the following sentiment) that for the most part, with some obvious exceptions, how someone arrives a place of tolerance does not matter, as long as they get there. The ends usually justify the means. And I think the job of an ally, something I try to be, is to foster understanding where you can. It's mentally exhausting for someone from a marginalized group to constantly have to justify their existence in the world. We need radical empathy. Sometimes, I am the ally I need to be or close to it and sometimes, I'm more like my mom, well-meaning but ignorant.

[multigenderswag]

Tw internalised transphobia.

I am aware that gender is a social construct. But because of that I don't feel valid as a man, and, how it is even possible for need having operations, short hair, using he/him pronouns...? There are ofc a plenty of reasons, but, a lot of them are things like "what if I just need to accept myself and then I will be normal cis person" or "what if I have better experiences with males and that's why I would like to become more like them" (even if Now I don't think any gender is better, but I'm stressed out it can be the reason).

I feel like me when I'm a man and only a man. But I don't understand why...

You don't have to know why you're feeling something to know that your feelings are real and deserve to be respected. And even though gender is a social construct, that doesn't mean it's not important to a lot of people.

[cordycepsfem]

Hey, @amorphousprimordia - you want to talk aggressive?

You brought genitals up in the first place you absolute dolt.

I am not here to talk about "gender." It is meaningless, socially constructed, and somehow always manages to put the female people down into a "lesser" status. Gee, weird how that always works. I do not believe in enforcing gender roles nor do I give a shit what people say about gender. It's just like how I don't believe in other people's religions. You wanna get dressed up and call yourself a woman? Want to have friends and family and strangers call you some different name and demand they use different pronouns for you? Have a blast. You're still not female. Wanna cut your dick off? Do so with all the blessings in the world. You're still not female. You won't ever be.

So sure, have fun being a "girl." Around the world, actual girls are aborted before birth, left outside to die, murdered, raped, trafficked, sold into slavery, and bombed to death. They're less likely to be educated and more likely to be married off at a young age. When they become women (because we at a certain point stop referring to ourselves as "girls"), they're more likely to die in childbirth or while pregnant than any other time in their lives, they die 3 a day at the hands of an intimate partner, they're still less likely to have a good paying job or own property. Medical professionals take us less seriously - so do car mechanics, college professors, all kinds of professions and vocations... tests aren't done on women but use males as default so almost everything in the world from seat belts to ibuprofen is made for men.

But you in your privileged life can put on what you want, change your name, slap some labels on instead of a personality, and say you're one too. And you want us all to believe it's just the same thing.

A+ running away from the question you fucking asked. You know there's no "girls with dicks" - no DSD that gives a female person a penis. Great way to shoot yourself in the foot, though - thanks for asking. I do love reminding people that "intersex" doesn't mean "literal mashup of the two sexes."

You called yourself a "spiteful tr*nny" but what you really are is running away because you can't even defend your own argument. Nice try defending your friend. Shouldn't have come at me on a night I'm pissed and had nothing but time to waste.

Are you happy?

[ferinehuntress]

―  [ N ] EUTRALISM IN PILTOVER .

Piltover does not believe in the social constructs of sexuality or gender norms. Before fully understanding this, one must first understand what this means.

Social Constructs, or Constructionism, is the concept of a culture placing meaning between symbols, objects, and other solid products and giving an immutable quality to them. Such concepts are the idea of the worth of money or the power of a noble house sigil. The opposite of this is Neutralism. Neutralism is the idea that qualities, attributes, or meanings are their true nature without any kind of rules or framework. This means that something is the way it is and there is no need to place value or importance upon it.

Piltover does not place any kind of social constructs upon sexuality or gender terms. They do not see it as anything of importance to place value or terms upon and the idea that there must be this kind of gender or that kind of sexuality. In Piltover, sexuality doesn't even exist. They believe that people will like who they want based on their nature and their own decisions. There is no need to place some kind of hard rule upon it.

This means, that if you decide you are a man, and you like men, that's your nature. They don't use the term gay nor do they box it in as saying this is all you can like. Sexuality and gender are fluid within Piltover and you decide what you are when you want. Another example is the idea that you are a woman but decide to be gender neutral (as in binary and use them). Again, this is a respected process. The concept of Pronouns does not negate femininism or masculinity. A person can express discomfort in being called she or her, however much of the time people in Piltover do not see any kind of gender exclusion to these pronouns. She/her, he/him, or they/them for example, are just a way to reference a person and NOT state you are a man or woman.

Another example is going to a brothel house. In Piltover, these brothel houses are called bathhouses, and when you go to them you do not speak of your gender wants or your sexuality. You meet with the people and decide who you want to be with. If you have no interest in being with someone with a penis, then you do not have with those people because you have no interest in that bodily part. Same thing if you don't want someone with breasts. It's not uncommon to have sexual interest in body parts, but these body parts do not negate your sexuality or your gender. There is no concept that someone doesn't like someone because they have this body part or that, just that they are not sexually attracted to it and do not have any interest to lay with that. It doesn't make anyone wrong, only that they have an interest.

Piltover does not need to place constructs upon sexuality or gender as they believe it is a neutral concept based on your nature. They do not label anyone as gay, lesbian, straight, trans, or any kind of gender-based constructed label nor do they believe in homosexuality, demisexual, asexual, or others. In Piltover, there are no labels and there is no construct. You are what you are by what you deem your nature to be.

[eclaire-went-bam]

hi can i post my kagepro lgbtq hcs at almost 3 am

Sorry guys i'm in a silly mood

am ok ty my fellow comrades in arms i hope u guys like

urrm i hope u guys like a tad bit of mogai

uhmm part 1 cus i ran outta tumblr room. maybe will make a part 2 idk

anyways happy thanksgiving if you celebrate

okok ayano hihii ayano consumed every gender it is pan² that is just what i have foreseen and she goes by she/her & it/its also i am so sorry if some of this is unreadable my eyes are Closing i have nearly dropped my phone on my face so many times now

now azamiii she is genderfaun & will go by she/he. does have a complicated relationship with gender because it is a human social construct. actually would not know about modern more complex gender identities but maybe if he did he'd vibe w this ??? urhm. also demisexual there's that too

rubs hands together ENE

advertfluid, ace and biromantic becauseee i felt like itt???? goes by it/its, cy/cyber, and en/ene. takane in life in the silly canon in my head was super into mogai, though never really was open about it and did not adopt the neos until en became ene. in life it would prefer not to be called by any honourific at all, though as ene cy doesn't care you can use anything

speaking of takane uhm

it told haruka of some of the Mogai Lore™ and he just kinda soaked it up. bro is. long word incoming. abalienobaonic because the definition and lore yay!! oriented aroace. he/him

congrats on hibiya for the most eyebleeding one i am so sorry

he's just a little boything. he/they. amanteromantic vibes but they probably wouldn't even know what that means honestly that's also a long one

by contrast hiyori's is pretty !!

demigirl she/him & trixic but for hiyori specifically she would not give two cents until highschool

konohaaa hihi

they are voidaroace (i couldn't find a flag for that so i just squished the voidaro and voidace ones tteehee). also gendervoid. it is actually perfectly fine with any pronoun but has greatest affinity towards they/it. bro is just vibing. so me fr ! ! (?)

heehee seto looks so silly in this photo

Anyways ri is froggigender (actually so upset he's covering the adorable frog on the flag) and goes by he/him and ri/rib. poly!! jazz hands

marryyyy isss a girlthing and ace multiromantic. mostly uses she/they but also finds it fun to experiment!! like azami, marry is also pretty unfamiliar with a lot of Gender Stuff™ but now she treats gender like pokémon and wants to collect them all they find it so entertaining

momo my belovrvfvfbxäisj

momo is aporagender bc she just is;; and angled aroace enbian. uses she/her, per/per, and fae/faer. maybe not the leader of the mekameka dan, but os the leader of the alphabet mafia (ilovehersomuch)

[seewetter]

(I thought these posts where a great way to discuss an unrelated problem in the trans community, so I'm hijacking the thread with a post that's inspired by this discussion but mostly a tangent. Sorry)

Here on Tumblr, some people have learned (correctly, in my opinion) that freedom of expression and association and general autonomy is important for trans issues. Which means that:

people can be (m)any gender(s) or none

people can have (m)any pronoun(s) or none or more

people can mix any gender with any pronoun

people can be any sexual orientation they want

people can define sexual orientation labels how they want

people can express gender how they want

people can use "microlabels" for gender expression (what does a butch look like? a butch looks the way a butch has decided to look)

people can do to their bodies what they want and use language toward their bodies how they want

at the same time (some) people on Tumblr have become "puriteens" or puritanical progressives:

some have adopted ideas from the Right in trying to stop kink at Pride to protect children from seeing nudity or sex at pride, which is likely engineered by right-wingers because... why wouldn't we ban kids at pride instead?

others have taken ideas that are politically bipartisan (opposition to child abuse) to misguided extremes (for example trying to stop fan fiction about adult characters 2 years apart in age)

others are taking progressive ideas and turning them into absolutes: trying to promote censorship of reactionary art ...is functionally conservative, for example.

All these groups are puritanical progressives, but it's not a unified group.

For our purposes it's just important to know that puritanical progressives as a whole will include some people that try to ban certain genders or pronouns from use!

People who are a bit more oriented around ensuring the maximum amount of gender freedom, perhaps even comfort are (rightly) suspicious of any ban of genders or pronouns. But that's what lead to people accusing OP of invalidating pronouns.

That serves as a nice example of why it's important to hear other people out before judging.

OPs statement: "Chat isn't being used by these young people as a new pronoun" only makes sense once you've really learned that pronouns are something else than "words used to address people". Meaning that people who haven't understood that are a bit like someone in Plato's cave picking a fight with some shadows.

Tangent: The Parallels with Gender Identity:

That problem also extends into the "how many genders are there" discussion.

Having the right answer to that question (that gender is socially constructed and there can be infinite genders) doesn't equip people for the more nuanced conversations.

For example, I would say the best way to describe what transgender people as a whole want is freedom of association: people in society ask you to comply with social rules based on biological measurements of your body. But if you reject these social rules, you are falsely told that you are rejecting the biology, not the rules.

What that means for (cis and trans) men and (cis and trans) women is that men and women are the people who not only wish to / desire to physically associate with others (join a women's group or men's group) but also the wish to / desire to fully belong to that group.

I use the movie Billy Eliott (about a boy that wants to do ballet among a group of girls) to illustrate the example:

Billy Eliott wants to be in the girl group, but is fine with being an included outsider, a person who is "a boy among girls" and is also fine with not being considered a girl.

But what if someone wants to? What if someone really wants to belong or disassociate themselves from men and women? That's what being transgender is all about.

Tangent continues:

Hopefully the tangent illustrates that the underlying freedom trans people seek is different from the popular discussion of being trans.

The popular discussion frames what trans people seek as authenticity, "being yourself", "being who you really are" and other such internal explanations. So currently a trans person is still described less as someone making a free choice and more as someone wanting the freedom to pursue an inner relationship to gender of some kind.

As a result, people get hung up on counting or documenting genders and validating genders ("you are valid").

Also as a result, trans people then often worry about the internal reality of their gender: "what if I'm really..."

The puritanical progressives (maybe I can find a better word, but the sort of people who have mostly progressive views but want a quick list of definitions of who is queer in what way and exclude everyone else), are on the other hand concerned with brute forcing trans liberation into existence and thus often resort to exclusion of those who are different and respectability.

Puritanical progressives also lack a developed concept of what kind of freedom should be guaranteed to trans people... so they assume that the freedom trans people seek is roughly equivalent to the freedom gay people seek, such as perhaps the freedom to transition or the freedom from cruel misgendering. I want to be 100% clear: misgendering is threatening and cruel and viscious and wrong.

But it's main function is actually to restrict trans people. To pressure trans people not to behave in certain ways. To scare people into the closet. To maintain that men and women "stay in their lane" or to intimidate people who are "exceptions" lest they alter men and women's "natural" path.

Right-wing puritanical trans advocates like Blaire White are not progressive puritans because they aren't progressive. Well, at least not part of progressive communities. And they promote horrible right-wing nonsense. But they are advocates for a certain form of trans activism and in that sense share some things in common with the puritanical progressives I was just talking about.

Folks like White focus almost exclusively on the freedom to transition (and try to discourage misgendering by telling cis people that misgendering a person who reads as cis female will just cause confusion) while the left-wing puritanical trans advocates (not sure there's a prominent example) will try to create firm rules for how being trans "works" in order to garner sympathy the "valid" sub-communities. So he/him lesbians will be attacked by puritanical progressives because each form of queer existence (like "lesbian") has to be documented, catalogued and given specific rules "so it can be understood, appreciated and valued", to paraphrase how zoos talk about endangered animals. A lesbian using he/him seems to some "progressives" to be a contradiction of the definition of lesbian and so must be stopped.

"Gender identity" is something that can't be measured. This is why conversations around animal life and gender identity are weird:

female lions can grow manes and take a male role

Yeah, but their bodies do that naturally. It's a physical automatic body change that happens from the outside.

We can hope that all lions who do this actually want to grow a mane and have their bodies change, but we don't know their internal life, so we don't know.

Since gender identity can't be measured, neither can authenticity. Being yourself can't be measured. Which is nice on the one hand: you can just say whatever and do whatever. But it also becomes a huge psychological burden. What if you thought you were X but now you feel you are Y and then you make up your mind again! How long until people pressure you to call yourself genderfluid (even if you don't feel genderfluid) or stop taking you seriously?

And that isn't fair, since people are doing what they are doing. Sometimes this is circumvented with truisms about how people are just "exploring their identity" but the whole point was the claim that trans people KNOW who they are better than the outside world. Exploring requires an UNKNOWN thing.

The idea that the freedom of trans people has to do with inner authenticity, with expressing an innermost true self... kind of sucks.

The idea that gender can be "valid" sucks.

What if instead, we look at gender externally? NO, NOT BIOLOGY.

But let's look at the motivations for people to say they are transgender and look at the relationship this motivation has both to the basic experience with gender and to the labels people tend to choose for themselves:

some people are men or women regardless of what society says. That's the group they are a part of, sometimes as rejected outsiders. It's their frame of reference and the thing that will tell you more about them than any biological evaluation. I'm aware I'm still telling you who they are, not their motivation, but you can see this as something other than their "an actual gender" but instead a freedom being pursued, a need being articulated, a group being joined or left, a series of attempts being made to fit in or not fit in but assert oneself.

Now imagine taking a multiple-choice quiz with only 2 possible answers:

If that quiz is anything like being told what gender you are, then humans are all going to respond to being restricted to 2 choices differently:

"Only 2 choices? Screw this test, I wouldn't pick either"

"Only 2 choices? Why can't I pick C?"

"Oh dear. I picked A and was certain but now I wish there was a C or maybe a D. You know what, never mind, B would have been right. At least I think it's right at the moment. Agghh, why did I hit Submit, why can't I edit my answer?"

"Only 1 choice can be picked? But I like both!" or "Picking B is only part of the answer. They should give me a C and D option as well" or various other desires to click multiple options

"Can't I pick like...a mix between A and B" or "A mix between A and some other option" or "A mix between 2 options not even on this silly quiz would be correct"

"Ok, I picked A. And it was more correct than B. But let's face it, the answer they included for A is slightly reductive and ...you know, I'd agree that A is pretty much the right answer, but it's also kind of not."

We can use other thought experiments: your hometown forces you to like their team and hate the rival towns team. Or tries to force you.

There's not just two choices. You can end up in conflict with your hometown not because you liked the rival team, but because you don't like sports or because you want your own team.

We can do this for lots of things.

But the point is that each of these captures a specific experience with exclusion and forced inclusion. A person fighting really hard to ensure their right to not be member of a club is different from a person fighting really hard to be a member of a club that won't allow them to join.

That's why words like "genderless, agender" are fundamentally different from words like "bigender, polygender, pangender". It's not just a difference in somebody's perception of themselves, it's literally a unique political struggle.

Why write this post?

That's why a debate around "is chat a pronoun or noun" is so troubling. "Rules of grammar" sounds like rules which sounds right-wing. So then it sounds really progressive to just... call chat a pronoun. If somebody in Plato's cave fought a shadow, they would probably think they were having a real fight.

That same problem plays out when people try to legally protect gender identities and end up with longer and longer lists of things to protect. It's like a freedom of speech law that has to protect each word and sentence individually, saying "that sentence you're also free to say" "and that one too" "oh, and this one".

If we talk about transgender issues like this: (picking fights with the rules of grammar because we imagine grammar is transphobic or trying to protect each gender identity one at a time) then there will be desperate trans people who think that autonomy and freedom for all is bad. These puritanical progressives will end up "carrying water" for the Right. All they wanted was to try and fix this absurdity, but it ends with them doing something far worse and far more absurd.

It matters that the struggle for non-binary people's rights usually doesn't split the non-binary minority. Genderfluid and genderless people fight side by side to ensure that the public knows that gender isn't biology based or binary.

Why is there this ...not solidarity, but unity? Because often the differences between non-binary people are not important. And when they are important, it's stuff like what I outlined above: a difference in how people answer the "multiple choice quiz" of what group they join. A difference in motivation and experiences made.

People who are fire-gender or deer-gender don't have much beef with each other, because they might have "different genders from each other", but effectively the restrictions of society not only don't make a hierarchy between these groups, they don't make out any difference between them at all. Not so for genderfluid and bigender people. Those groups are differentiated, because the thing they say seems absurd to cis people in different ways. Genderfluid and bigender are two of the most common labels not because they really describe who people are (there are so many differences between genderfluid people, for example) but because there is just a fairly small amount of sub-communities within the trans community that have unique struggles. The list does not go on and on. You can use the "multiple choice test" or the "rival sports teams" analogy to quickly identify most of them.

Just as "chat" is a noun (even among Gen Z) and it only superficially feels like it's now used as a pronoun (when Gen Z addresses a fictitious "chat" as if they were currently livestreaming), so too are the motivations trans people have to disagree with social norms about gender the actually meaningful differences between sub-communities, not our gender identities. The sooner we realize that, the more likely laws will protect the exact thing that our enemies are targetting.

Thanks for taking the time to read this monumental essay. ILU <3

I keep seeing the "chat is a fourth person pronoun" post and it's getting increasingly hard to avoid starting discourse in the notes of it. chat I don't think they know what these linguistics terms they're using mean

[solstices-dreams]

𝐦𝐲 𝐟𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐦𝐲 𝐭𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐝𝐫 𝐩𝐭. 𝟏.

𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭. 𝐦𝐲 𝐭𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐞 𝐝𝐫. ᝰ.ᐟ

— 𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐚 𝐫𝐨𝐬𝐬𝐢.

16 years old (aug. 23), she/they, 5’4

She was my first friend ever, we’ve been friends since elementary school so we’ve been through alll the cringe phases with each other. She’s definitely my best best friend, no shade on my others but she’s the one who gets me. I think we’ll have matching bracelets, not sure what kind but we’re matching.

She has a hispanic mom who can be strict but she loves me and her food-!! omg!! Her dad’s black and he’s pretty tall and big and he likes me too, probably calls me by some nickname b/cuz i’m so close with Maria. And he’s the good cop, so if we ever get in trouble we’ll tell him, not her mom.

Her younger brother is Matteo, (NOT mattheo riddle). He and I are also close just bcuz of Marie. He loves food and is lokey a popular kid in his grade but he still hangs out around our grade and we text somewhat often.

Maria’s usual nicknames are Marie, Mar, Mari. She’ll be the type to call you out on your bs like Angie, she also makes a couple race jokes but she never means them. I’m her token white girl when she takes me to the bsu (black student union.) She also does volleyball for a sport. She’s somewhere on the bisexual/pansexual spectrum of liking a lot of genders.

She’s in all the same type of classes as me, honors and APs and she’s best at english and history. (not better than me tho, we tie or I do better… but no jealousy !) But she’s my fav, my homegirl and also a potential s/o… She also calls you “girl” regardless of gender, unless you ask her not too. And she also makes sure to switch up your pronouns if you go by a couple.

they remind me of : dark red, scarves, soft blankets, brown color palette, hello kitty, nose highlighter, a good book with a warm fire

— 𝐲𝐯𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐞 𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐨.

15 years old (june 6), she/they, 5ft

She has two older brothers who are both blonde and pale like her. Her family is academically driven and she’s super smart, (honors & ap classes) especially in math. She’s pretty soft spoken and quiet and definitely a bookworm but you can have really indepth conversations with her. If you want to vent to her she’s awesome because she gives good constructive criticism and I have her sometimes check over whatever I’m writing for school or fanfic… b/c yes, i’m a fanfic writer in my teen life dr.

She’s super organized and has really neat notes, like angie, so if I ever miss a class I’m asking them for notes. We became friends in middle school, she was an 8th grade transfer then ended up going to the same highschool as me. I don’t really think she’s do any sports, maybe track? I think she might do yearbook or matheletes, a more strict club ig? Probably photography club and an Asian ethnicity clubs and she would def run a position, maybe secretary so she doesn’t have to talk too much. It’s not social anxiety on her part she just doesn’t like having to be told to speak up all the time. She’s also crazy levelheaded, all my other friends get passionate about stuff, but she’s chill.

She has cool pins on her bags too and she’s a thrift queen, i know me and the gals are gonna have so much fun thrifting !! And Yvette is aro/ace and rarely experiences attraction, also maybe demisexual-? I don't know a ton about nonattraction terms but she doesn't get crushes or feel attraction often and when she does it can be any gender.

they remind me of : light green, neat notes, mochi, organized pantries, sterile, white, pressed sheets, glasses with thin frames

— 𝐦𝐚𝐱𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐝𝐞𝐛𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐜.

15 years old (oct. 3), she/they, 5’6

Holy shit- this girl… she has energy constantly. I met her in highschool. We usually call her “moxie” instead of maxine and occasionally “max.” She’s also an emoji abuser and she def has cheesy pick up lines and she sends you a shit ton of tiktoks and she uses the tiktok [proud] emoji a ton. “What’s cookin good looking? [stomps light up sketchers] [proud]”

She’s the one jumping around at parties and saying “oh my god I love this song!” Not organized at all… miss gurl is always losing stuff so I make sure to take a copy of all my homework because no doubt she’ll come asking for an extra. She does soccer, softball, and basketball. She’s pretty smart, she’s in only honors or ap history or english, she hates math so she and yvette make a funny pair.

“Y’all i’m not even joking- i just flunked that test, the only thing I got right was my name-“

She has a dad who’s like… really rich. She doesn’t really care though but sometimes she can totally forget how rich she is compared to others in the group. I love whenever she invites to do stuff because it’s always cool and paid for. She has a step mom she doesn’t particularly care for and is a little blunt with her but she’s not a bad person, just doesn’t like the step mom feeling like a replacement. Unlabeled sexuality queen, girls, guys, if there’s a will there’s a way,

they remind me of : party girl, champagne glasses, sparkles, gold, energy, party city, gold/silver tinsel

— 𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐚 𝐝𝐚𝐰𝐬𝐨𝐧.

15 years old (dec. 3), she/her, 5’7

She’s so annabeth chase and angelica schyuler. She’s so SMART LIKE OMG. She’s all honors and then AP lab classes so if I’m not doing well in a class i got to her. She’s the smartest in the groups (besides me 🌝) She is mother.

She’s such a queen and can explain stuff so well, she wants to be a doctor or lawyer to earn a lot of money and I have feeling she’d be really good at either. Argumentative feminist queen, I am her #1 fan girl. And she’d look so good in a lab coat, like, YES MOTHER! I trust you with my life.

She’s also very mature and she’s the tallest in our group of girls, she has so much patience for putting up with Moxie and Maddy and then me and marie’s out-of-pocket shirt and a Diego and danny’s gremelin behavior. NASTY SIDE EYE. she literally looks you out of the corner of your eye and you *knowww* you’re in trouble.

She does volleyball (she’s so gorgeous in the uniform) dive and softball with Max. She literally has amazing fashion sense, all dark and pretty with her skin tone and her MAKEUP? BARK BARK I’M SO GAY. (and she’s bi!) And she gets her braids done and humors me when I ask her a ton of questions about the process.

they remind me of : dark academia, annabeth chase, cabin 8, thought daughter, red lipstick, angelica schuyler

— 𝐦𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐠𝐫𝐞𝐲.

15 years old (mar. 21), she/her, 5’4

I know her the least since she and angie are really close, also Moxie a bit. She’s got energy, not as chaotic as moxie but she’s usually talking and smiling. She does volleyball and softball, she’s not as accident-prone as Angie but rarely a week goes by without her saying she hurt something at practice.

she reminds me of light pink glitter and kind of like warm sunlight through windows, not quite the burning heat of the sun but how it warms the wood if that makes sense. She definitely gives youngest sibling vibes, cuz… she is!!

Like I said… know her the least but she’s still important to the gang.

Volleyball and softball. She and angie are pretty close.

they remind me of : baby pink, crayola markers, pink eyeshadow, white mice, alice in wonderland, peonies

[teamcuriosity]

Can you guys tell us about pronouns? I see that some of your admins use some neopronouns!

hihi!! I'll take this one!! ^^

so, pronouns!! when people talk about pronouns in this context, they're talking about the ones they use to refer to themselves—personal pronouns! with only a few exceptions, everyone uses pronouns!!!! in many languages, the most common ones are a "masculine" and a "feminine". in Unovan and Galarian these would be he/him and she/her. I'll kinda just?? keep using Unovan and Galarian as the standard for this post since they're the most widely understood languages on Rotomblr, but it should be noted that some languages can shift dramatically in structure based on gender while others don't even see gender as a necessity in most situations!!! pronouns and gender as a concept vary a lot from language to language!!!

note: just because he and she are considered masculine and feminine pronouns that doesn't mean that you can't use them if you're not. The Right Gender™. words being gendered is a social construct. if you're masculine and want to use she/her or feminine and want to use he/him, there are no laws stopping you and even if there were like. break them!!!!!!! it's so dumb to police what words people use to describe their own selves!!!

ANYWAYS while he/him and she/her are the most common, there's also the neutral singular they/them that everyone forgets has existed for like. Ever????? there's also it/its as a neutral which CAN be derogatory if you use it against someone without asking if it's okay but!!!!! just because someone uses it/its for itself doesn't mean it's being self-hateful!! so be nice okay?? your other option is to perish.

and then there's NEOPRONOUNS!!!!! I can't list them all here because there are SO MANY and honestly I have so many of my own since I'm a bit of a pronoun hoarder ^^''''' I just put my main three sets up to keep things concise y'know??? BUT YEAH some people consider it/its as a personal pronoun to be a neopronoun, but the ones that come to mind to most people when thinking of neopronouns are xe/xem, ze/zir, and fae/faer!!! nounself pronouns like kit/kits and pi/pika also fall under this umbrella!!! these are pronouns that exist outside those commonly taught in schools and they're mostly used by nonbinary and genderqueer ppl but!!!! guess what!!! same as she/her and he/him you don't even need to be trans to use them!!!! if you're a cis man and you wanna use neos then there is literally nothing stopping u!!!

I know I just said it and I've said it a lot in this post but I'll say it again because a lot of people Just Don't Get It!!! pronouns are restricted by a person's PREFERENCE not GENDER!!! no one is ever ever EVER "the wrong gender" to use ANY pronoun. a cis lesbian can use he/him and that doesn't make him a man!!! a nonbinary person can use he/him or she/her without being either binary gender!!!! a transwoman can use they/them or it/its or any neo under the sun and still be a woman!!!!!!!!!!!!! gendered language is fake do what u want!!!!!!!!!

as a final note bc I've seen this shit happen before: pronouns are a matter of basic respect. even if you don't LIKE someone, even if they're outright EVIL, you should still use their proper pronouns. if we start misgendering people we don't like then that paints someone's correct pronouns as something to be Earned and not just. something you do when you want to treat someone as another human being, good or bad. which is a horribly dangerous precedent to set btw!!!!!!!! so don't do that!!!!!!

anyways I hope this answered any questions you might have had!!! I can go into more depth if you want but I figured I should just cover the basics for now ^^'''

—Prof. Violite Schist (it/they/fae)

[blossoming-witness]

I don't like the mocking attitude that some drag queens have towards womanhood (specially if they start making jokes related to the female body like refering to vaginas as "fishy" and stuff like that) but I think that the concept of drag and being transvestite is much more critical than the concept of trangenderism.

(So this started as just some reflections on the concept of performance that queer theory proposes and the differences between drag and transness, but I somehow ended up getting really dense into philosophy and self reflection. Also, it got really long, sorry about that.)

Radfems always get accused of wanting to erase or control people's lives and identities just because we're critical of gender and queer theory. When we say that a male person who dresses as a woman is not a woman, or we opt to use male pronouns to refer to them, we are undesrtood as wanting that person to change his looks, wanting that person to face danger and pain, and wanting to be actively disrespectful towards them.

But the thing is, a lot of radfems respect gender-noncomformity as long as the person in question acknowledges their sex. I think that's why butchness and some forms of drag are more accepted by radfems than transness, because they come from a place of recognition of sex while still mantaining that "playful" attitude towards gender expression that can be so important for people's self-image and personalities.

When we're critical of genderism we don't mean to control people's self-expression, that's why we always insist on stuff like "you can dress however you like but that doesn't make you a woman". We are sincere with both parts of that phrase, not just with the later. Specially because gender and gender expression vary so immensely from place to place, from time to time, and even within the same society individuals vary so much. Femininity is not the same in America than in any country in Asia, it's not the same now than in the XVIII century, my expression of womanhood and femininity is not the same than that of my mother. We can accept and even value gender-noncomformity as a form of self expression and performance, but what we cannot accept is the idea that gender identity is an ontological truth.

Gender is a social role, a social construct, a relationship with culture, fashion, and societal demands and expectations, but it is not a truth of the soul that triumphs over the body. If we accept that stuff like masculinity or femininity, which are based on sex stereotypes, have an ontological weight for trans people, it implies that sex stereotypes have an ontological weight in general. If dressing femininely makes a trans persona a woman, it implies that a "cis" woman that dresses femininely is closer to the ontological meaning of womanhood than a masculine woman, than a butch woman, than a woman that feels forced to perform femininity.

We as radfems view and define womanhood in an ontological level as a phenomenological experience related to our body, but not to our expression of gender. Of course gender it is important, both for people who find comfort in it, and to people that feel pressured into it. Gender relates to personal expression and so many people find comfort in the performance of femininity and masculinity. But it is not an inherent part of our identity, it is a costume, a play put on top of our bodies that can be both personal and influenced by society, culture, history, and family values. These ideas that queer theory proposes that "everything is a performance" and "everything is gender" and "everything is drag" are true. It's true that "cis" people practice "gender affirming" activities, rituals and procedures very often... because gender is not innate. Both trans people and cis people have to put on these costumes, these constructs, on top of our naked bodies everyday. The difference between queer theory and radfem is that we cannot see the patriarchal influence in gender as innocent. Yes, we all perform gender expression everyday, but the things we associate with femininity and masculinity are influenced by how our society values (and has valued historically) womanhood, manhood, and homosexuality as material realities.

As an artist, as a performer, I understand the value that a playfull personal expression can have, but I'm so glad I found radfem theory. It allowed me not only to question the patriarchal implications on what I was doing when I was trying to find myself as a teen, but it even freed me to build a personal expression beyond gender.

When I was a teen really into queer theory I would make choices regarding my personal expression based upon wether or not they made me look "feminine or masculine." I was leaning towards a nonbinary identity, and I would have conceived myself as an enby had I continued without radical feminism much longer. The thing is, tying your gender expression to your whole personality and even to your whole soul is exhausting. You have to second guess everything you wear, the manner you speak, the way you walk, the interests you express, just to fit with the performance of gender that you're supposed to align with. As a young feminist "afab" you don't want to be part of that frivolous and dumb gender that is "woman", but you're not a man either, so it's easy to want to be something else entirely. It's the whole "not like other girls" idea elevated into a category of the soul. If I hadn't discovered radical feminism I would still be trapped in that mess.

But now I feel free. Yes, my personality is a construct, it is indeed a performance that I put on, and I am pretty feminine. But the thing is, if you stop seeing femininity and masculinity as inherent truths of the soul, or as ontological aspects of the self, they loose so much weight. If, instead, you start seeing your self expression as based on your personality instead of your gender, this whole "drag" we put on is much less about sex stereotypes and much more about who you are.

I now choose how to dress, how to speak, how to behave, how to talk to others about them and myself, based on my likes, my values, my interests and my life history. Yes, of course we all do that, including trans people, but when you put a heavy weight on all of these actions being related to gender, it's like you're always scrutinizing your own personality. Specially because gender is a "social" construct, and that means it is dependent on what society makes of it... you can't have a social construct on your own. That's why I also feel like being in the mindset of queer theory makes a lot of people dependent of validation. It puts you in a mental space where you need to construct your personality based on whether or not people accept you as part of a certain class, a certain "gender" in the sense of genre of people. In a way I feel it is extremely voyeristic, because you're always thinking of how others look at you.

Nowadays I still care a lot about how I dress, how I behave, how I present myself to others, but the choices I make aren't based on the question of whether or not "this thing is feminine or masculine." Instead I ask myself things like wether certain jewelry expresses my spirituality, if certain patterns on my clothes like flower patterns fit my general aesthetic as a "plant-mom", if the clothes I'm wearing are comfortable or not. If those choices are feminine or masculine I don't care. I also stopped thinking so much about getting validation from others, and have tried to think much more about how to make other people feel comfortable and happy with me. I ask myself how should I speak to my friends to make them feel comfort, and I ask myself how should I speak in my daily activities to be seen as an authority in my field, regardless of that manner of speaking being feminine or masculine.

We can't escape performativity. We all put an expression of our selves on top of our naked body, and sometimes that means expressing our relationship with gender, wether we want it or not. But I really think that it's freeing to see our body as a material reality that shouldn't have any demands beyond just existing, and then seeing our personality as an expression of everything we are and not just our gender, wether or not that fits with the social expectations that our patriarchal society demands of us. I have the body of a woman, everything else is infinite.

[whereserpentswalk]

So, to radykalny. All those biological differences are collections of traits that aren't certain. If being a woman means you can be impregnated, then that as an ability that can be taken away. Genitals and breasts can be removed. Estrogen can be replaced. All those male traits are things that could be made to be real in your body. If your fetus was injected with the right hormones before you were born, you would be amab, not a version of you with diffrent hormones or different DNA, but you, the body you're in right now, could have been born with a penis and testicles. Sex isn't binary, it's a social construct.

I agree with you that woman isn't an appearance or a personality trait. There are amab women who are as buch as you. There are afab men who like to were jewelry and dresses. Your arguments agasint biological essentialism is one that I've made agaisnt truscum in the past. These things aren't what makes you male or female.

When you say you don't feel like any gender you are expressing feelings about your body quite similar to mine. After a lot of exploring, and considering myself both cis and a demiboy at various points, I have ultimately decided that I am agender. Feeling as if I have no gender identity at all, that I don't have any feelings about my body's sex positive or negative, feeling absolutely nothing when it comes to my internal sense of maleness or femaleness, those are things that you share with me. I can't tell you what labels you should use, but I can tell you that your average straight cis girl doesn't see her womanhood as something only caused by the vessel of her body.

Those systems of gender segregation don't check your chromosomes or genitals any more then they check your pronouns. They exist to violently segregate people into ridged and unbreakable categories of male and female, and exclude anyone who refuses to be sorted from society. If someone doesn't fit those, even if it's just a woman wearing pants in a country where that's not allowed, that person isn't labeled as male for female, they're labeled as broken. They are just as brutal to gnc and intersex people as they are to trans and nonbinary people. When you support these systems, you support the systems that oppress you too. When you support the idea of men's and women's sports or men's and women's bathrooms you support systems where people are sorted into male and female and those who do not meet society's expectations of those things are punished.

If you went on testosterone, if you removed your breasts, removed your reproductive organs, gained a penis, even just if someone just saw you as you are now and thought of you as an androgynous man instead of an androgynous woman, you would stop being gendered as a woman by these systems. You'd either be gendered as a man, or as a deviant, and your chromosomes wouldn't save you.

To niiwa you talk like a conservative. You are an example of the worst of bigotry both non-Christians and neurodivergent people face. You are proof that mental hospitals have no place in a free society are should be abolished, as they are nothing more then a threat used by the bigoted against the marginalized. You will never be a leftist.

Don't you realize that male and female are social constructs? They're ideas. Scientists don't even believe biological sex is a thing anymore, we're all just people. Gender is almost like religion, it can change, some people are really sure on theirs and others aren't, forcing someone into one is always wrong. Do you know why you're cis? Do you ever think about the possibility that you're not, about what it would be like to be something other then what you were born as. Would you still feel like a woman if you didn't have a womb, if you didn't have breasts or genitals or estrogen? It was a combination of contemplating these things, and mystical experiences with the goddess Hel that got me to realize I was agender. I thought I would lose certain things when becoming nonbinary and genderless, but I didn't. I don't know about you, but know you can be happy as an enby or a boy, you can be loved, and cherished and comforted as an enby or as a boy. I don't know if you're nonbinary like I am. You might find you really do identify with womanhood, but if you do really want to be a woman, then know that that's the same feeling amab women have. I know what it's like to think the way you do, I used to think that way, and I've had bad experiences with men and with the expectations society has for people with bodies like mine. But you don't have to take your pain and call it womanhood.

I'm not cis.

I didn't choose to be a woman.

I don't identify as a woman.

I don't feel like a woman.

I simply am a woman.

And being a woman isn't a social construct or an idea.

Being a woman is a biological reality.

I was born with a female body. That's a fact. It's not something I can change.

Saying that scientists don't believe in biological sex is a blatant lie. I can't believe that it needs to be said, but male and female bodies differ not only on the outside. We get affected by different conditions & illnesses. We have different immune systems. We have different pain levels. We have different hormones & health issues related to them. We respond differently to drugs and their dosages. Not to mention our reproductive systems and everything related to them. Our bodies are far away from being just a concept.

Being a woman in itself doesn't make me happy or unhappy. Just like being white & Polish doesn't make me happy or unhappy. Those are just facts about me.

And being a woman doesn't mean that I have to look or act in a specific way. What is womanhood for you if you think that males can identify with it? Is it about wearing dresses and makeup and acting silly? If a man does that then he's a woman? And if a woman doesn't do that then she's not a woman? It's absurd.

If you claimed that one can identify with a specific race by acting & looking in a specific way, everyone would (rightfully) say that it's offensive. Racial stereotypes are not okay, but gender stereotypes are fine & valid? Both sex and race are in the same category of material reality.

Being a woman doesn't determine who I am as a person. Being a woman is not a personality trait, just as race isn't. I don't have to do certain things so I can call myself a woman. There are no certain things one can do in order to "become" a woman.

But being a woman does shape my position in society and it also shapes yours, whether you like it or not. You can identify as whatever you want. It doesn't change the fact that society sees you as a woman. You can't identify out of oppression. You can't stop identifying with pay gap. You can't stop identifying with your reproductive rights being taken away. You can't stop identifying with the fact that women are being raped and killed by men everywhere, everyday. Women in Afghanistan can't stop identifying with the education ban.

Goddess Hel won't help you once men decide to take your rights away. Identifying as agender won't either. Stop being delusional for your own sake before reality slaps you in the face.

[pain-in-the-butler]

Hello! This is KeensYourGears on ao3! I had a question about Coattails. Because I saw that the wiki has acknowledged Grelle's womanhood, I wanted to know what your approach of her would be in terms of her gender and the story should she make an appearance. Would the characters respect her as a woman or would it be a similar case with the first to seasons of the anime? (at least where the dub is concerned) That's all! Thank you and have a good day/night!

Oh, hello, KeensYourGears!! So good to see you by!

I actually do plan to have Grell show up in about three chapters! 🎉 I'm not sure how often we'll see her beyond that initial scene, but she's a character I really enjoy, so rest assured that if the plot allows, she'll come back for more.

This question was actually something that I wrestled with for a while, because while you and I know that Grell is a woman, in the canon it's not always clear if Local Idiot Sebastian knows it. We also know that misgendering Grell is largely an English translation problem and that Yana usually avoids having any character use pronouns for Grell at all, which is of course easier to do in Japanese (and that the act of avoiding gender pronouns is part of what led to the wiki using they/them for so long in the first place).

If we were going with entirely historical accuracy, I would say most of the Kuro characters wouldn't understand Grell or respect her pronouns. If we were to have a bit of fun with it, like Yana does, I'd say that most of the characters would at least have the capacity to use the right pronouns for Grell, even if they didn't understand her. But at least for the scene I have in mind, no humans are going to be around Grell, so that isn't something I'll have to fuss over. Sebastian is, however, going to be meeting with her.

In terms of the manga, I headcanon that Butler!Sebastian is a big stickler for rules, but only for humans, not for himself. He kinda loves when a human acts "proper" and with decorum and obeys social constructs, because doing all these things would mean that the human is masking a part of themselves. It's one of the major reasons why Seb's so interested in O!Ciel's soul: Ciel lowkey tortures himself every day with all this constant pretending he does. Therefore, Sebastian lacks respect for Grell partially because she doesn't pretend to be someone she's not. Seb judges Grell based on how he thinks her soul would taste, and he's decided it would taste bad. Hypothetically.

Demon!Sebastian however. He totally gets it. He's nothing and everything. He doesn't subscribe to human rules and he doesn't understand them either. Sebastian is a he, but not the demon behind Sebastian. The demon is every gender and no gender all at once. So, the fact that Grell is one of the few humans from England to grasp that gender is what you make it? She's kind of a galaxy brain for that. Not that he'd ever tell her he thinks so. He still wouldn't like the taste of her soul, after all.

So, with all of the above in mind, I think the plan right now is to use she/her pronouns for Grell when writing from Sebastian's third person perspective, and also to have Sebastian avoid using any pronouns for her in his dialogue. He sees Grell as a woman, but he isn't going to divulge that he does, because he's not interested in letting her know that. It would reveal too much of his demon side. And maybe make her like him more. Nope.

Does that make sense? Does that seem okay? I'm very open to suggestions and tweaks towards this. I've thought about this a lot, and I think it would be really hard for me not to use her pronouns. I also don't want to write an inauthentic voice, so maybe I'm just thinking wishfully here when I say Seb would recognize Grell as a woman. But Coattails!Seb is my Seb, so I can give him my views if I want, right? Anyway, I'm assuming no one is terribly upset with this decision, but I hope it doesn't come across as negligent of Grell's struggle either.