#nonbinary folx

[therealarrogantbastard]

Thursday morning PSA: you do not owe anyone androgyny. Gender expression =/= gender identity

[seraphic-sapphic-safehaven]

Dear Cis People,

Stop saying "folx." Stop saying "womxn" and "mxn." Stop saying "Latinx." Stop trying to be gender inclusive like this and attempting to make words gender neutral in the worst way possible.

Stop adding an "X" to words that are already inclusive of everyone, such as "folks"!

Stop adding "X" to words that don't need it because, newsflash, nonbinary people ARE NOT binary trans people! We are not binary men and women. We have terms like AFAB and AMAB to use instead of forcibly being lumped together with binary men and women! You wanna talk about women and AFAB enbies? SAY THAT! You wanna talk about men and AMAB enbies? SAY THAT! But please stop including us all together all the time!

Stop anglicizing languages like Spanish to make them gender neutral when there are better options, like saying "LatinE" or "Latin." And options like using an "E" instead of an "X" to neutralize gendered terms! Stop using an X when it literally doesn't make sense and is hard to pronounce anyway!

I get it; some of you wanna be inclusive of everyone. But this ain't it. It really is not. This isn't helping anyone and is so unnecessary. It is performative and, honestly, racist and transphobic/enbyphobic, whether it's intended or not. Please stop!! And PLEASE talk to actual nonbinary people on how to be gender inclusive towards us instead!!

[fever-pitches]

There's something so visceral about The Blue Eyed Samurai that really resonated with my identity as someone non-binary, aromantic and asexual.

It feels very genuine in its expression of the experience of a purpose outside romance and love, despite how much everyone insists those are the only options.

Allowing their assigned gender to dictate their life experience is just not an option.

A moment, brief and bitter, where Mizu forces themself to play the role they was born into and trying to find their peace in it, even succeeding in those momentary joys.

But as always, those moments are tainted by dissatisfaction, knowing that that life, that future was not made for them. Or rather they were not made for it.

No room for love or romance, no craving for power or money.

In the moments where carnal instincts could take precedence they will turn their head away as many times as it takes.

They will find their peace in nature, in the sound of crashing waves and soft breezes, make physical contact only when it truly matters. Mizu will never waver. They will never look back.

My body will not dictate the life I choose to lead. It will not sway me from my purpose. I see myself in that.

[silverskye13]

Winning today! The binder I haven't worn in a year still fits!

[darlingfella]

I don’t normally post full body content on here. Please be kind 💙

(He/They)

[topsurgerystuff]

Okay I’ve never actually posted my own, brand new post on the internet before so I’m kinda nervous but bear with me. I guess I’ll start by putting all my little links and such. I’m sure most people already know about these but fuck it what do I know.

The GALAP is where I got the therapist who gave me the little letter that tells them I’m trans. It’s got a list of therapists who have agreed to give out free letters that iirc are sorted by state. It’s down as of right now but it says they hope to be back up by April 30th 2024. I live in Texas so there was only one for me but she was real cool, she did the evaluation but made it clear that it was only because she legally had to and that she would give me the letter regardless, it was 100% free and it was over telehealth so I didn’t have to go anywhere.

https://www.thegalap.org/need-a-letter/directory

Folx Health does all kinds of stuff. They do gender affirming care as well as just regular doctor shit and they have guys in every state and they take a lot of insurance but their membership is SO GODDAMN EXPENSIVE. If you’re Jeff FUcking Bezoso well here you go I guess.

https://www.folxhealth.com/

Legacy Health is the same as Folx but much more affordable and only in Texas. Sorry if you don’t live in Texas.

https://www.legacycommunityhealth.org/contact-us/

Trans in the South is a directory of all kinds of trans-affirming health and legal service providers. It also has a guide on how to fund your transition and its got a list of grants you can apply for too. Never noticed that before, might do that shit.

https://southernequality.org/resources/transinthesouth/

Trans Legal Aid of Texas has volunteer attorneys that will help you get and do the paperwork to change all your legal info but you gotta live in Texas sorry sorry.

https://translegalaidtx.com/

Also I don’t have a link for them but Dr. Daniel Freet and Dr. Rachel Goldstein did my top surgery at Memorial Hermann. They did a great job, they were so nice to me, they didn’t question my decision at all and the whole experience start to finish was pretty nice. The wait was forEVER but they are really fucking busy and they’re booked like crazy so. Understandable. Unfortunately, the full cost of my surgery is ~$17,000 and my insurance, who initially said they would cover it, decided they would actually wait until we get the bill before deciding to cover it and since the bill arrived they’ve been dead silent but [screaming in agony] its fine. My incision scars are nice and straight, I have very little dog earing going on and its flattened over time. I’m a little chunky so that’s impressive. It’s only been 5 months and I have full mobility, it only took me about 2 months to get there. My nips are a little ugly but they are intact and they are recognizable as nips. More on that in a later post though. Overall, 10/10, would recommend. End post.

[sjw-cafe-mew-mew]

Still completely lost as to how people still think "folx" is a gender thing and not the contraction of letters that it clearly is? Like no, it's not some weird attempt to make an already gender neutral word somehow more gender neutral. It's taking two letters ("ks") and changing it to a single letter ("x") because they sound the same and one is less than two. Sometimes people do that to words. It's not new.

[cheekyzeeky]

To any and all people on HRT like me: DO NOT FALL FOR THESE SCAMS!!

Do your reaearch!!

I feel the need to add a good company alternative to this terrible one so the one I use and highly recommend is:

Folx is a really good, trustworthy company if you are desperate for HRT help and they are available in all 50 states last I checked and are very transparent. They also help you navigate your state laws. They also have an amazing library of knowledge for those on a learning journey of any kind.

Don't Fall for this scam.

Transgender community, please please please do NOT use this product! It will kill you if used, please do not use it whatsoever.

Please reblog and spread the word

[vaguelydefinedshapes]

gotta say it is SO funny to me that 'X' has just become the "nonbinary letter". like IDs can have M, F, or X, which makes sense bc the X is like crossing that part out. N/A.

but then you also have Mx being the genderneutral honorific. What are we crossing out here? Mr, Ms, Mx? "r" and "s" are not gendered options, theyre a result of shortening a full word. Mx isnt a shortened version of a real word, it's just M + x

and of course, my least favorite useage of the gender neutral X is "folx". It's entirely unnecessary, because "folks" is already gender neutral. It's taking a gender neutral word and tacking on an X to emphasize it's inclusivity even though the original word is inclusive

[xanadufoyerwaterwheeljr]

Howdy! Today marks my first anniversary on testosterone ! One whole year I've been slathering boy juice on my shoulders and stomach and thighs sometimes. Where ever is most convenient at the time. It doesn't matter much.

I really can't believe it has been a whole year. I made the decision over the course of 2022 and got my first appointment at Planned Parenthood on the 3rd of January 2023. And then my first dose was the next morning!

I got started on gel application right away but it was a low dose. During my last appointment in November I was prescribed a higher dose (one more full pump each morning) after talking with my new doctor about still having period symptoms 11 months in. Every trans person is different but it was still bothering me. She instantly allowed me to up my prescription and over December I haven't had a period at all !!! Huzzah !!!!!

One thing to note is the aggression is real. I get mad easily but its not a bad thing sometimes. I feel like its easier to stand up for myself with strangers or jerks that come into my job. I feel like I can speak my truth 😌 I am self aware and keep my cool but its hard to always do that. I'm happy I am good at stepping back and allowing myself to feel anger but not being too irrational and letting things blow up. But sometimes the anger mixes with my anxiety and that has caused some panic attacks. When it feels uncontrollable. But I'm human so that's allowed.

I have a good support system and am trying to help my mom understand who I am as a nonbinary person. I want other trans people to feel the same way. The small amount of friends i have understand me and thats what everyone deserves. If you're trans and reading this theres hope on some other end of whatever you're dealing with!

I'm still growing. I need to be able to live freely in my body. And so do you! We deserve happiness and calm. If you're trying to persist im proud of you! ❤❤❤❤

[sunsoak]

I’m sorry I just hate the phrase guys gals and nonbinary pals so deeply but I can’t explain why

[shaylogic]

Queer Experience Watching Barbie - AFAB Masculinity

I started to go into this in tags on another post but I wanted to type this up separately and try to develop my thoughts a little more. . .

Ryan!Ken’s arc in Barbie (2023) has been buzzing in my head for days.

I got fixated on it for a couple of major reasons:

1) We rarely have seen a feminist movie take time to address men with compassion in how patriarchy harms them too.

2) As a trans masc person, I think it hits a specific part of my identity that I don’t consciously let myself think about for too long. Something about being raised in a female world with sisterhood and community. Then being isolated in adult manhood without the tools to prepare you for that. Conscientious of respecting women and being unbothered by feminimity around you, but not knowing your place in the world.

How do I put it?

I know it’s not the direct intention of the film itself, but I’ve seen other trans folks (especially transmasc), reacting similarly to the feeling we get from it.

Ken’s arc feels pretty reminicent of the struggle afab lgbt folks go through when considering masculinity in their identity (butch lesbians, afab nbs, trans men, etc.)

How to make peace with masculine aspects of yourself without losing the women in your life? (One can argue Kate McKinnon’s Weird Barbie has aspects of this as well.)

Of course, then Ken goes off on the adopting patriarchy ride, which IS the point of the movie, and may skew a bit from the transmasc read on it--though I have known a trans guy here and there who avoids being misgendered so hard that they can become somewhat sexist. To which I say: “You don’t need to have a dick to be a man, and you don’t need to BE a dick to be a man.” But I digress.

Something about Ken being comfortable in a woman’s world but not understanding why he’s being shut out from socially bonding with them (in any sense! Romantic, Familial, Platonic Friendship. . .)

The overall theme of the movie for both Barbie and Ken--in an allegory of heavy gender roles harming all--leading them each to have to figure out who they are in themselves, regardless of others. . . 

Trans masc folx can relate to both Barbie and Ken’s arcs.

I don’t want to detract from Barbie’s arc being the main point of the movie.

I think the reason why we get hung up on Ryan!Ken’s character is because. . . we’ve related to the Barbie plot in other movies and shows before, thinking back to our “girlhoods” as children.

I have never seen the arc Ken has in this in any other story!!!!

There are some Man Movies that have attempted to discuss the struggle of Being a Man--but they often come off as too dismissive of feminine experiences, and are therefore as offputting to transmasc people as women.

Because of the nature of the two worlds exhibited in this movie, and Ken’s backround in his setting, personality, and purpose in relation to the Barbies, he’s a Man living with Female Socialization, in a Woman’s World; he’s a male character that inherently admires and respects women in his nature (until the real world influence distorts it).

This isn’t a perfect example of a transmasc experience either, but it’s a lot closer than most of us generally get to see! That’s why so many of us are getting caught up in this.

Please, other trans folx (transfems, too!), I really need us to have a discussion about this. What were your experiences and thoughts around this movie?

P.S. Yeah, we kinda get that nonbinary allegory from Allan (not a Ken, not a Barbie, siding with Feminism in the Gender War), but he wasn’t in significant focus of the plot the way Ryan!Ken was. If I try to read into Allan, I don’t have much to work with.

[catastrfy]

happy nonbinary week!

for some people nonbinary is a specific identity label, for some it’s an umbrella term, for some it’s both.

some nonbinary folx are trans and some aren’t.

and just like with all gender and sexuality minorities, the only one who gets a say in who someone IS is the person themself.

i’m genderqueer & genderfluid, both terms i learned in the 90s (a loooong time before i ever heard the word nonbinary, either as its own identity or as an umbrella term)

sending love & support out to all my nonbinary siblings and niblings who’d welcome it.

[cipheramnesia]

Hey, just say your tags about TME/TMA language being problematic. Genuine question: what is the issue with them? Is it that transmisogyny can be directed at people who aren't considered "TMA"?

I've talked about it here and there, but maybe this will be the time my thoughts are organized.

Up front, let me note there could be more elements involved the TME/TMA than I'm familiar with. I also feel it could be a useful tool in the right circumstances (for example, if you pursued research specifically focused on transmisogyny). My subjective experience is that TME/TMA are not used in this way, and the functional use of them isn't beneficial in general to trans people.

For those unfamiliar, TME means "transmisogyny exempt" and TMA means "transmisogyny affected." Now, as a thing that happens, these make sense. However, as commonly used, TME/TMA describes innate traits, which is where they stop being useful for me.

To start at the broadest scale, TME/A is often used reductively, with the principle that general bigotry against trans folx is in effect all derived from transmisogyny. I'm simplifying a little bit, but if we cut through some of the theory mechanics, we end up left with a broad generalization of transmisogyny as the primary and defining feature of the effort for trans rights, transphobia, and such. And, not to undermine the substantial effect transmisogyny has on the whole community, but this is not completely different from treating misogyny in general as the defining characteristic of all inequality. Misogyny is a significant form of inequality, but reducing all inequality to misogyny is kinda radical feminist territory. What with radfems generally wanting to wipe trans people off the map, I'm not comfortable standing on an ideological platform that close to theirs.

Related to this, there's no terms like "Transandrophobia Exempt," nothing at all addressing what kind of exemption / effect would apply to anyone off the gender binary - if it's going to be used to examine different kinds of bias against different kinds of trans people, or if it's meant to represent a state of being for trans people, there should be versions of it which apply to other people affected by bigotry who aren't trans femme. I suppose it can be argued that it's only to define one category of people (TMA) versus any other people (TME), which is true but again defines away the experiences of a large number of different trans people, or necessitates other trans people's experiences being defined through transmisogyny. To me that's not useful, because it excludes a significant amount of the complexity of the trans experience for the sake of only understanding a narrow band of it.

This leads into some further difficulties with the term. As a group, trans people have a great deal of insight to share with one another about our positive and negative experiences. The great variety and range of experiences in our community is fantastic, because I can find the experience of people who are trans men, agender, genderqueer, nonbinary, or anything else very relatable. I don't need to limit my understanding of gender via my specific experience as a trans woman either to share in how other trans folx view gender, nor to share my experience with the trans community at large.

We're getting deep down into it now, but related to the above and your note, I see TMA/E used as interchangeable with AFAB/AMAB, while being affected by transmisogyny isn't particularly limited to your assigned gender at birth. Bigotry expressed against trans people is not complex - it's a matter of a person or person who thinks any expression of gender they perceive as out of sync with what they assume is an intuitive understanding of innate gender characteristic should be must be resisted in the strongest possible way.

Or, more succinctly, transphobes do not care your agab, where you fall under the trans umbrella, or if you're trans at all. If a transphobe sees a cis woman and thinks she looks like a trans woman, they'll be transmisogynistic. If they see a trans woman and thinks she looks like a trans man, it's transandrophobia for them. They don't believe they ever have or ever will encounter anyone intersex, because they're really bad a statistics (fun fact, a small percentage is still a huge amount in any kind of city or town population). Bigots do not slow down to decide what kind of specific form of hate they're expressing, because the only thing important to them is that they're seeing someone who deviates from their internal belief system, and that person must be penalized for deviation.

We can certainly dissect how bigotry affects us all after the fact, the particular and (importantly) varying social lenses people are experiencing when they direct prejudice based on gender. I think that's a very complex and interesting question but it can't be examined via transmisogyny alone, because it's not limited to trans feminine people. Gender is one component of the many facets of how society can exert controls over disenfranchised groups, and it's tied into race, income, religion, nationality, and so forth. It's not impossible to examine one facet, it's just important to recognize that one facet is neither universal nor exclusive.

So far, the issue I have with TMA/E is that in a broad sense it seems to be used in an exclusionary way, as well as used in a way that re-creates a gender binary, and limits understanding bias towards trans people clearly. But all of this overlooks one very important issue.

We don't define who we are by how we are hated. I don't want to define myself as TMA. I'm a trans woman, I'm awesome. My gender isn't defined by someone who hates me for my genitals, my gender is defined by how much I love who I am, how much better my life is for being a trans woman. I do not find it useful to define myself by whether some specific kind of hatefulness is directed at me. To me, that's the component of TMA/E I cannot find a way around.

I am a depressed lady with massive anxiety, sometimes to the point I can't function, okay? I don't want to designate myself by another reason to be unhappy. So I don't find it useful, I kinda get why it's used, because it feels like a more inclusive way to talk about being trans and being expected to conform to an idea of femininity but not doing so. I do not think it succeeds in that capacity, and my overall experience with the term is that it does not usefully serve the trans community. My personal feeling is that it makes me uncomfortable. Despite being TMA by technicality, I haven't experienced much in the way of transmisogyny, and I would rather use a positive term to describe who I am.

(i haven't checked this for typos or spelling or inconsistencies)

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Lex McMenamin at Teen Vogue:

Trans healthcare – and life in general – have been the subject of countless headlines and several hundred examples of proposed legislation since the last presidential election. In advance of the 2024 Harris-Trump matchup, digital healthcare service FOLX HEALTH offered Teen Vogue exclusive access to their new polling on how trans and nonbinary Americans are feeling about the political climate. The survey got the perspectives of over 1,500 trans people, half of whom resided in states that voted Red in 2020, the other half in states that went Blue. “I won’t mince my words. Our community, myself included, is concerned about the increasing attacks on LGBTQ+ rights," FOLX CEO Liana Douillet Guzmán tells Teen Vogue.

In the last year, 1 in 5 trans people surveyed lost access to healthcare “as a result of anti-LGBTQ policies and laws” and 58% of respondents considered moving to a different state; respondents in states with more anti-LGBTQ policies reported higher rates.

55% were “unable to access mental health treatment when needed, primarily due to difficulties in finding LGBTQ-affirming providers.” 2 in 3 respondents “experienced frequent mental health distress this past month,” which is higher than reported national estimates.

9 in 10 believe the 2024 election will have “a major impact on access to healthcare for LGBTQ people nationwide.” 67% “have made or are planning to make changes to their use of gender-affirming care due to concerns about the election.”

92% are anxious about the presidential election. According to FOLX, “Enthusiasm and hopelessness about the presidential election remain low, but have increased three to four times since Biden left the race.”

When it comes to Harris vs. Trump, only 8% believed that Trump addresses LGBTQ concerns “very much so,” versus 28% for Harris.

90% are registered voters. The top three issues in order for the trans adults surveyed were LGBTQ+ issues, including healthcare access; threats to democracy; and the war on Gaza.

According to a new poll from FOLX Health/Teen Vogue conducted between July 17th and 28th that surveyed trans Americans, 90% of those fear that the 2024 election could have major ramifications on their healthcare.

The top 4 issues were as follows: LGBTQ+ issues, threats to democracy, inflation, and the Gaza Genocide.

See Also:

FOLX Health: Trans Perspectives on the Upcoming Election