#nonbinary people are trans and even if not everyone agrees with that term we must agree that nonbinary people are not cis

[mobliterated]

Okay me angy here I go getting riled up again! If I see any more pisscourse about ace/aro not being part of the queer community, queer is a slur, men are inherently evil monsters, I’m just gonna assume you’re a TERF. Ace discourse back in the 10’s is exactly how TERFs started their rise to power.

Start out by drawing a line in the sand that (awful) people agree with. Now there’s proof that you can start boxing in certain identities. That means (general) you can start making specific definitions for things.

Queer is now a slur again. Queer actually hasn’t been reclaimed. People agree with that. You’ve just torn down an umbrella identity that everyone was able to gather under and unite behind.

LGBTQIA+ is actually the Correct Way to talk about the queer community. Actually we need to drop QIA+ because queer is a slur, intersex isn’t a sexuality/gender and is just a weird medical condition, and A stands for allies (instead of aro/ace bc we already decided that they aren’t part of the community) and we don’t want those sick CisHets infiltrating our community.

LGBT is now the proper accepted term. That means you must be Gay Lesbian Bisexual and/or Transgender to be part of the community. If you aren’t doing LGBT correctly then you are trying to infiltrate the community and steal resources (and those resources are never defined). Only LGBT people are safe.

Oh, except bisexuals. They’re dirty cheaters bc they get to pass as straight and thus aren’t Oppressed Enough like us Pure Gays. How dare they be into men. Only Good Gays get to be into men. If a lesbian ever thought about a man in any vague romantic/sexual way then they are Impure. Men are the true evil of the world bc patriarchy. The only type of man you’ll be safe with is a gay man bc they don’t want to SA you when they see your shoulders/ankles.

All men are the root of all evil, except our good example gay men, who coincidentally are usually white and follow the good gay stereotypes, which are feminine in nature. Femininity is Good and Safe. You can trust anyone who is Feminine, and you can distrust anyone who is Masculine. Men only exist to take advantage of women. Women must be protected at all costs.

Wait. We allow transgender people in the community. That means either a Dirty Evil Man is cosplaying as a woman, or a Pure Innocent Girl got taken in by the evils of masculinity and patriarchy. Trans people are bad since they are being taken over by Evil Men, and/or trying to infiltrate the community, which we already decided is bad. Trans people aren’t Pure. The T in LGBT gets dropped.

Also if you’re nonbinary someone pulled the wool over your eyes. It’s just a phase and you’ll fall into Woman Lite soon enough. There’s no such thing as an amab nonbinary person. Men are evil, and nonbinary is Woman Lite. If you dress in any way that’s not feminine or androgynous then you are doing it wrong.

Congrats, you are now a TERF.

And before you say “that’s not what happened!” I saw every single one of these talking points come out in real time. It was slow. It wasn’t sudden. It was pushing the boundary little by little until you boiled the frog. And now with acecourse coming up again I can all but guarantee that this cycle will happen again. So! Some things to look out for and deprogram.

All men are not inherently evil. All women are not inherently good. Masculinity isn’t inherently evil. Femininity isn’t inherently good. Queer is not a slur and is an extremely useful umbrella term for those who don’t know which label they fit under, or who don’t want a specific label. Yes, queer can still be used as a slur (I have been called queer in a derogatory way) but it is one the community has reclaimed. Trans people aren’t trying to trick you. Amab nonbinary people aren’t “lesser” than afab nonbinary people. Nonbinary is not Woman Lite. There is no such thing as a morally pure sexuality. The queer community is welcome for all who identify as queer; yes, even that person. Policing and oppression olympics is not a litmus test for “pure enough” for joining the queer community. The queer community is for Everyone. That’s it. That’s all.

[foxfairy06]

Look I was like you before. I thought that there were only two genders for a pretty long time. That gender euphoria wasn’t a thing, that you had to suffer to be trans, etc. But I spoke with my psychologist and she said to me that the SCIENTIFIC CONSENSUS is that gender is more complex than male/female.

This was a hard pill to swallow but it’s real. I don’t hate you at all, after all that would mean that I hate myself from 1 month ago. I wasn’t transmed back then because I was a bad person, I just genuinely believed that I knew the truth and that everyone else didn’t.

And I’m not even super “radical” now. Stuff like alterhuman, otherkin etc. I still have some doubt towards.

If you’ve been in the transmed ideology for very long I can totally see how hard it is to even fathom that transmed doesn’t reflect how gender actually works. But I sincerely believe you can make that step.

Even if you don’t change your beliefs I still wish you a good day.

The entirety of your comment is inapplicable because you fail to realize that I'm nonbinary. I am non-binary and do **not** believe that there are only two genders.

1. Transmedicalist ideology does not mean that you believe that one must suffer to be trans or that euphoria doesn't exist. We as a community have a majority which agrees that any sort of incongruence is dysphoria, and that euphoria is just a positive expression of dysphoria.

2. There are a significant number of sources that suggest that transmedicalists are right about a lot of things. Such as Dysphoric trans women having very similar grey matter structures to cis women. The people who make avid claims about nonbinary not being real have likely not read the documents that hold a basis for our beliefs. In fact: the neurological gender perspective (which is THE transmed perspective), has several studies to boot that strongly suggest the sexual spectrum of brain sexual dimorphism. Even one study in particular marking the brain waves of people who call themselves "bigender" and experience different brain activity in specific halves of the brain when dysphoric or euphoric about specific parts of their bodies.

3. Transmedicalism isn't inherrently against nonbinary people there are many nonbinary centered transmedicalist groups. Most of us don't genuinely agree that there are only two genders. There are some bad actors and in general, we don't claim them as representatives of our core ideology. The only thing that transmedicalists believe, defining them as transmedicalists is "Dysphoria and transness are one in the same, and there is some kind of biological cause for gender dysphoria, which proves objectively that transness is not a choice, for no argument to make against that. This would be good for Nonbinary people such as myself who feel disadvantaged by the systems that tucutes support. Even then, the systems that they caused, regardless of whether they support them or not.

I believe you're confused about what transmedicalism actually is because you're talking to a transmedicalist who is nonbinary, seeking treatment for their dysphoria, believes that euphoria is an effect of gender dysphoria, and believes that gender is a spectrum far more complicated than simply "M/F". None of my ideas are antithetical to the core values of transmedicalism nor are they contradictory towards the main community. Transmedicalism at it's simplest terms is "trans men and cis women are different on a very fundamental biological level" and so versa for trans women and cis men. Therefore transness is not a choice, and cannot be taken on. One is simply born that way."

[cigaretteparfum]

ey mates. i found this post from a terf talking about their commonly used abbreviations and terms. i'll copy-paste it here, unedited (except the formatting for easier read), so yous know better what to look out for + how they think/justify the use of these terms. i'll put an archive link later in case the read more link breaks. also, this post is full of anti-trans and anti-nonbinary bullshit so ... just be aware of that.

post source is gendercriticalthinking. am not making a whole blocklist bc ... would you believe me if i say that i tried but gave up after the first, like, dozen names bc it got too depressing? lmfao. (feel free to click on the link and peruse the notes yourself though. whenever you can take it.)

archive link.

* TIM and TIF stand for "Trans-Identified Male" and "Trans-Identified Female". Basically, TIMs are what others usually call "trans woman", and same for TIFs and "trans man" (although these terms also cover non-binary-identified and neo-gender-identified people as well).

TIM/TIF are used instead to more accurately reflect the reality of the people in question without sidelining their beliefs/identities: we understand you identify as trans, but calling males "women" and females "men", even if there's a "trans" in front, does not accurately convey reality, and we oppose that.

* OSA and SSA stand for "Opposite-Sex Attracted" and "Same-Sex Attracted". Therefore, the label OSA people covers straight and bisexual people, while SSA covers gay and bisexual people. Basically, SSA women/men are what others usually call "wlw/mlm".

Because people who believe in gender identity and use "mlm/wlw" consider some males to be women and some females to be men, the "men" and "women" in "mlm/wlw" do not accurately convey the reality (similar to the above) of the sex and sexualities of the people in question, as a male who is OSA but identifies as trans would be considered by some to be a "wlw". However, OSA and SSA place the emphasis back onto the sex and sexuality of the people in question, which is, again, a more accurate description of reality when talking about people and their sexualities.

* TRA stands for "Trans Rights Activist." However, this is mostly used to mean "people who agree with/support gender/trans identities/neogenders/etc" rather than "people who are engaging in actual activism for those beliefs." The term gendie is essentially used the same way (although it has more of a connotation of "trans/nb/neo-gender-identified people" rather tham "people who support gender identity but may not necessarily identify as trans/nb themselves") and it has been used frequently more recently, although I and others feel like it's a bit juvenile and derisive.

* Gender ideology refers to the beliefs above, e.g. the validity of gender/trans/non-binary/etc. identities. This is usually used to refer to the beliefs about gender that are exclusive to liberals: that you can change gender/sex, that gender/sex are not binary, that everyone has a gender identity, that misgendering someone or pointing out their "biological" (a redundant word) sex is at best highly offensive and at worst a hate crime, etc. Whereas, gender or gender roles/stereotypes are usually used to refer to the more historical/"classical" concept of gender which lines up with conservatives' beliefs: you know, the whole "women like pink and should wear makeup and are naturally submissive, but men like blue and should be muscular and are naturally dominant" crap.

Although they seem different, they're actually one and the same, or at the very least the liberal/new gender ideology is firmly founded in classic sexism. Both conservatives and liberals believe wholeheartedly in gender: that it applies to everyone without exception ("all women must be feminine and all men must be masculine", and in gender ideology's case add on "feminine women and masculine men are cis while gnc people are trans, you must be either cis or trans" aka you must either enjoy your gender role or want to transition because you dislike it), that it must be rigidly enforced and supported to maintain order and understanding ("A girl who likes boy things?!? That's an affront to nature and must be corrected, girls should like girly things!!!" or "A girl who likes boy things?!? That's clearly a sign she he must be trans, because boys like boyish things!!!"), that it's genetic/inherently true rather than something that is imposed upon people due to misogyny ("Women are submissive to men because God made them that way to be men's servants" and "Everyone has a gender identity, it's something you were born with in your brain, and how you feel about your body [which you can change] and your gender [which you cannot change] determines if you're cis or trans. You must be one or the other."), etc.

* GNC stands for "Gender Non-Conforming", aka what technically applies to most people on Earth, to the dismay of the gender fandom. It's usually used, however, to refer to people who are very noticeably/starkly/deliberately GNC in almost every way and proud of it, such as butch women.

* Gender critical (oftenshortened to "GC" ) is an adjective that most-accurately describes how people like me view gender/gender roles: they suck. Get rid of them. We are, you could say, "critical" of the concept of "gender". Not all gender critical people are radical feminists, but because rejection of the misogynistic concept of gender is a defining belief of GC people, we are nearly always some variety of feminist.

This means we don't really fit in with either of the two most-common/vocal "sides" of the trans debate: conservatives who see a male person in a dress and makeup go "This is disgusting! Stop wearing that right now! You're a man, so dress like one!", liberals who see the same guy go "This is so gender! I'm sure you're a trans woman because of how you present yourself! You're dressing like a woman, so that's who you are!", and gender critical people who see him go "This is awesome, keep being you! It's wonderful that you enjoy being a GNC man! What you enjoy or wear does not define who you are, and who you are does not define what you should enjoy or wear!"… or at least we would more often if the previous two groups didn't end up causing most GNC people to either be closeted/repressed, or believe they must be trans and therefore not a GNC man/woman but instead a gender-confirming trans woman/trans man (or some type of enby, same difference: "you don't obey the gender stereotypes belonging to your sex so you must not be that sex/gender" instead of "gender stereotypes are stupid, and your sex is your sex").

* TWAW is short for "Trans Women Are Women," a common chant and circular-logic-nonanswer from gender ideologists, the popularity of which in stark contrast to the lack of saying "trans men are men" (something only ever said after first saying TWAW, never on its own) surely has nothing to do with the coincidental fact that the beloved, supported, face-of-the-movement group are males and the forgotten, neglected, secondary-to-men group are females.

* While these are of course words used commonly by everyone, I think it would be helpful to lay out the gender-critical definitions of gender and sex here: "gender" is short for "gender roles/stereotypes" (see "gender ideology" above) whereas "sex" is used to refer to the biological realities (chromosomes, gametes, hormones, secondary characteristics, etc.) of being female or male.

Basically:

- Conservatives believe gender and sex are the same thing (or at least use the words interchangeably, as well as believe your gender should match your sex) and therefore believe "female = woman = feminine" and "male = man =masculine".

- Liberals believe gender and "biological" sex are different things (yet often confusingly use the words interchangeably or subconsciously believe they are the same [as seen in their frequent slips of the tongue when talked to] but claim to believe they are different because they want to be good allies) and therefore use "woman" and "man" to describe gender (because they believe "woman = feminine" and "man = masculine") while using "female" and "male" to describe sex (but again they often and confusingly use male/female as synonyms of man/woman, and again likely because they want to be good allies and believe anything that might contradict TWAW is horrific and transphobic).

- Gender critical people believe gender is an archaic, misogynistic system that is long overdue for being tossed out while sex is an accurate, scientific term (therefore making "biological/birth sex" redundant, it's like saying "meat-eating carnivore") to describe the reality of being a human. Women are adult female humans and men are adult male humans. "Feminine" and "masculine" are outdated, arbitrary, sexist concepts and should not be associated with anything: not clothes, not behaviors, and especially not one's sex. Your sex is just biology. It should never determine your behavior and lifestyle: neither to say your sex and behavior/lifestyle must match with gender, nor that if they don't match then your sex/gender must change to make them match.

[pastlight]

the local trans support group chat i'm part of has been skewing dangerously close to transmedicalism and gender essentialism. complaining about how our country's more liberal trans laws allow cis people take advantage and make us look bad, so trans people should be screened more thoroughly, cause this is why the trans laws in Hungary and Madrid were thrown away. it's the fault of people who aren't really trans. making fun of older queer people who may not identify as trans and instead still cling to terms like transvestite. telling one trans girl that of course she can't get a girlfriend if she hasn't "fully transitioned", lesbians can just tell and they all want that female je ne sais quoi. she must be delusional if she thinks she can pass (she never sent a pic of herself), testosterone makes you more confident that's why trans women who haven't done HRT think they look good when they clearly don't. and of course lesbians (/all women) aren't as horny as men, even those aloof bi girls that don't care about serious commitment, that's why she can't get a one night stand. at this point the fact one guy said he "doesn't believe" in nonbinary people and that we "bring consequences" to the community is the least of my problems. let's not even get into the lowkey racist jokes.

and the 2/3 people who defend those talking points seem to be always online and willing to fight over it to the point they'll dogpile and talk down to anyone who disagrees. one even joked she "enjoys the drama".

and man. im pretty good at letting things slide for the sake of community work, we don't have to agree on everything to get things done, but it feels like they just want to aggravate everyone who disagrees. today even the activist who created the group sounded uncomfortable with the tone the conversation was taking.

which really fucking sucks cause there aren't many groups like this in the city but idk if i can feel safe in it anymore.

[talon-dragonbeast]

i really dislike this take, for a couple of reasons. even though i agreed with the original post (hi Watcher o/), the additions are... well. i have Thoughts. and i was just going to add my two cents, i promise, but then the post kept getting longer and longer... and here we are now! so, buckle up.

first of all, no, non-alterhumans hating on us isnt anyones fault, and especially not the kid's. the community gaining visibility was inevitable, it was bound to happen eventually. blaming some kids for the hate we get isnt going to fix things, believe it or not.

and also, this is important. people were always going to hate us, no matter what. no matter how slow we were, how careful, how gentle, how watered down we made our experiences. that would never have worked, for a very simple reason: people fear what they dont understand. they hate the theriantok kids with the masks and the quadrobics, yes, but lets not forget that they also hated the tumblr fictionkin, the forum-dwelling elvinkind, the past life havers, the exclusively spiritual therians, the clinical zoanthropes. they think we're all the same.

But theriantok brought more harm than good, a lot of therians there bringing light to stereotypes [...]. Yeah, they didn't mean anything by it then, but they just gave away bullet points to haters to mock us. [...] I dunno man, it's like some creatures on the community just asked to be bullied (no hate on anyone, again), just misusing terms and bringing up stereotypes

i wanted to highlight this part because its the one that left the worst taste in my mouth. i know you meant well, Watcher, but you werent right here. what youre doing has a name, and its called respectability politics (with a little bit of victim-blaming thrown in for good measure), the process by which privileged members of marginalized groups comply with dominant social norms to advance their groups condition.

this is queer discourse all over again. "butch lesbians/feminine gay men are just stereotypes! real lesbians/gay men are just like straight women/men!" "nonbinary people must be androgynous and only use they/them pronouns, otherwise theyre just posers!" "neopronoun users are making a mockery of trans people! they make the community look bad!" "you need dysphoria to be trans! getting misgendered is your fault for not making the effort to pass" and so on and so forth...

we dont need to water down our experiences so people can accept us more easily. people just need to be more accepting of experiences they dont understand.

oh, one last thing. this one is for @maxxy-million, because your addition made me a bit mad ngl.

A lot of humans I encounter don’t seem to have the capacity to love. It’s a shame, really. We are all, at our core, held together by love. Whether we are human, wolf, coyote, cat, angel, eldritch being, fish, pony, elf, unicorn… all we really have in this broken world is love. And yet, humans always seem to choose hate when it’s not necessary, they treat any small divergence as if it were a crime. It sickens me to my very core.

first off, we're not all, as you say, "at our core, held together by love". this is called amatonormativity. not everyone (human or otherwise) experiences love, and that doesnt make them bad. and before you say "love doesnt have to be romantic! everyone experiences love in some way", no, sorry, thats amatonormativity again. some of us are aromantic, and while some aro people still experience platonic attraction, not all of us do. some people are aplatonic or afamilial, and some even identify as loveless, and its alright. love doesnt make us human, and its not a requirement to be worthy of respect.

and also, being alterhuman doesnt make us better than humans, what in the misanthropy? alterhumans can be hateful too, its not just a human thing. we all have the capacity to be good or bad; it is our choice to be either.

(by the way, this is not to shame you and i am not mad at either of you. whoever sends hate to Watcher or maxxy-million will be met with my fire, so be warned)

In one of my classes we're talking about respecting minorities, and my teacher listed some. We have lots of types of discrimination: Racial, homophobia and transphobia, against woman, against children, against poor people... Literally whatever you can think of.

It's kind of sad, that with all of the technological advances that we have today, how far we've come in terms of acceptance... People can't respect. It's a matter of literally not being a dick, not insult someone. It's literally just that. You can think whatever you want about anyone, of course, free speech and whatever... But if you know your opinions are going to harm someone, why share them?

For example, I don't like that most parents nowadays just shove a tablet in front of their children and call that parenting. I found that lazy, harmful. But I don't publicly shame those parents, because I don't know their struggles, their point of view on their situation. They may just need a break. Maybe they don't have time to spend time with their children. But at the end of the day is not my business, and is not my place to share MY opinions about THEIR situation. They didn't ask for it, don't need it. And I should learn to shut up about it.

That's kinda what I was able to teach to my roommates about therianthropy, why they accepted me: At the end of the day, it's my identity. I'm not harming anyone, I'm just being myself. They don't have a say in it, I know me better than anyone. It's not their business to shame me, because they are doing it with malicious intent, just to harm me.

I know it sounds difficult, but just ignore them. And most importantly, educate them. I'll say it now, I'll say it again and again: Education is the best tool to end discrimination and violence. Haters are just that, haters. They attack what's different, what they don't understand, because they are just trying to harm and divide us. We need to stick together, and advocate for what's right. That's the way to end it.

Run, howl, bite.

Watcher out

[loamly]

tbh this is why people need to more aggressively include nonbinary people in trans discussions because we’re already seeing (cis) people who think nonbinary is just a kind of visual self-expression and not a legitimate and distinct trans identity

[cranberrykissel]

GUYS I UPDATED THIS! (27.O9.21) i've seen some posts about Alex being unnecessary mean, caricatured, inaccurate, and as genderfluid person I agree with a majority of them as Riordan clearly messed up big time with her lack of character development, but think about why she's acting like this, why she's so defensive. guys, gals, and all nonbinary pals, it's victim blaming because

mcga is incredibly transphobic. it's ~everywhere~

a quick study of the case of alex fierro

and here a long post with me picking a few examples (there's more)

The amount of transphobia which definied Alex's whole live (her father threw him off the stairs, rings a bell?? and the man got away with child abuse, Rick?), ultimately forcing her into homelessness. Only to it not being properly adressed, no- while no one tries to (on-screen; we don't get to know what happened while she was homeless) assault him after her father, calling her names... continues? Argr means so much more than "unmanly". The characters are clearly aware (!!!) of this:

‘Literally, it means unmanly,’ Mallory said. ‘It’s a deadly insult among big loutish Vikings like this guy.’ ‘Bah,’ said Halfborn. ‘It’s only an offence if you call someone argr who isn’t argr. Gender-fluid people are hardly a new thing, Magnus. There were plenty of argr among the Norse. They serve their purposes. Some of the greatest priests and sorcerers were…’

According to this logic, calling a cis person a tr**ny is bad but when it's a trans person, that's fine? It's justified? Alex rebukes them for it numerous times, and they act like Alex feels offended for no reason ("was not an Alex-approved term"), as they had done nothing wrong. She's misunderstood and, what's worse, ignored. That's not how you treat your friend (trashtalking, insulting each other a day after first meeting as a love language?) And Magnus, who has had met many non-hetero-normative peers before, and knows how abuse works, does nothing to stop his ignorant neighbours?

Even Jack, who has been there for the longest, says this:

‘I LOVE argrs!’ Jack somersaulted with glee, nearly slicing off my nose. ‘Frey’s Fripperies! We have an argr across the hall? That’s great news.’

...Did Riordan just turn historical trans folks into comedic relief? Trying to be supportive? Try walking around telling everyone how you loves tr**nies because that's what Jack did... also Halfborn, who we know isn't as open-minded as he claims, straightway sexualizes gnc ppl while being portrayed as straight:

‘You know, Frey’s priests were very fluid. During the harvest festival, they used to wear dresses and do some amazing dances–’

TJ's story of a transgender person he met in the past begins the narrative that a transgender person must prove their worth to compensate being somewhat "flawed", which Riordan continues to drag through the story over and over; in his narrative gender non-conformity and fluidity is strongly associated with being untrustworthy, tricky, coward, weak, not suitable for fighting, and incapable of heroism- which Alex have to break through and prove wrong on a daily basis.

"[...] [Loki] He’s fluid, unpredictable, untrustworthy – I don’t want to be like that.’

"[...]You can’t trust an argr in combat."

"[...] They serve their purposes. Some of the greatest priests and sorcerers were…’

‘I still don’t trust an argr to do this job–’

She has to be something extra in order to be accepted.

‘Not only that,’ Helgi added, ‘but such heroism from an argr!’

‘Ow!’ Halfborn complained. ‘You hit hard for an argr.’

‘The larger point,’ Thor butted in, ‘is that you’re not even a proper girl! You’re an argr!’ The air became still, like the moment before a thunderclap. I wasn’t sure which possibility scared me more, Thor attacking Alex, or Alex attacking Thor.

To note, canonically there hardly are any gnc people at Valhalla- suggesting that these stereotypes had been real in the past. She impresses everyone at Valhalla because they don't expect her to be able to such brave acts, treating trans (fem) people like a different human species. Magnus too, is fascinated with her because he finds it

hard to believe that a few hours ago those same delicate fingers had taken down a dragon – and cut off my head – with a wire.

And guess what, she's not the only trans character introduced! Here comes Loki- together they play GOOD TRANS vs BAD TRANS. Loki is like every negative trans stereotype introduced incarnated, no jokes. Good trans has to be nice (looking at u fandom), brave, sass, and help the main character. Bad trans tries to kill the main character, mind controls his kids, and tricks people to bed them.

Moreover, Alex has the ability to shape into any sort of animal, which is fine (and cool). But only given to transgender characters? Poor choice at best- it leaves the door open for headcanoning a trans character shape-shifting to solely fit society's mold of what a woman or man looks like. I've no problem with him being very gnc in appearance in terms of clothing, but "petite", "delicate fingers", "sharp and beautiful facial features" (Magnus is smitten I get it)... raise the bar pretty high for trans ppl as a representation, which is what I'm not 100% okay with. And-

Her genderfluidity and shape-shifiting are very strictly connected, believed to be hereditary (like how!! why it's canon!) and have some sort of a cause-effect relationship? Samirah looks down on her own shape-shifting (and why it's wrong- 'Oh no, fluidity is bad, makes you treacherous'):

‘Magnus, true shape-shifting isn’t like my hijab’s camouflage. Shape-shifting doesn’t just change your appearance. It changes you. Every time I do it, I feel… I feel more of my father’s nature trying to take hold of me. He’s fluid, unpredictable, untrustworthy – I don’t want to be like that.’

We don't really get to know about Alex's human form. Has she any control over it? When introduced everyone assumes she's a boy when she's clearly a girl. Even the (unfortunate) pronouns dialogue suggests she can't:

‘But you’re a shape-shifter,’ I said. ‘Can’t you just… you know, be whatever you want?’ Her darker eye twitched, as if I’d poked a sore spot.

But then she drops this:

"I can look like whatever or whoever I want. But my actual gender? No. [...]"

Rick, you tell me Alex can shape-shift into a different person but never does it for some reason? Have you ever heard of gender dysphoria? Does this mean she's probably able to voluntarily appear male while being a girl and vice versa, or can she take the shape of Magnus/Samirah/anybody? (Why didn't she make use it during the "suicidal bridal mission"?) Magnus notices his hair seems longer when he's a boy. In "9 from nine worlds", he noticeably "sounds male" to Amir (and that isn't impossible, voice manipulation is a thing)... This feels like a middle finger to trans people who don't have any control over their physical appearance/anatomy. Shape-shifting is cool but I'm tired of lazy storytelling where character's supernatural abilities validate their trans identity.

Again, looking at you fandom- stop shaming Alex for being confident! A tRaNs PeRsOn wOuLdN't CoRrEcT tHeIr PrOnOuNs LiKe ThAT my ass. Sometimes it's self-harmful to remain humble, patience is virtue etc. If she wasn't 'strong' enough nobody would ask and respect her, because, apparently even nordic undead warriors and gods are assholes: and that's what living as transgender person taught her, first in her own house (!!) and then on the streets. Her rough attitude is a coping, defensive mechanism. Guys, victims come in all shapes as everyone deals with trauma differently. She literally DIED and STILL gets misgendered. She owes them nothing. There are times when she appears unnecessary rude and defensive- which made me dislike her during my first read (internalized transphobia, self-hate, jealousy over her confidence, etc.):

‘Call me she? I’m gender fluid and transgender, idiot. Look it up if you need to, but it’s not my job to educate–’ ‘That’s not what I meant.’ ‘Oh, please. I saw your mouth hanging open.’

It's called 'defensive offence'. She assumed the worst based on her previous experiences, and decided to strike at Magnus. Despite of being unwilling and uncomfortable with this, till the rest of the story Alex's treated as a living dictionary because Magnus doesn't take time to look it up, and neither does Halfborn, TJ, or Mallory. Coming to her gender identity, Alex's her own prosecutor, judge, and defendant. Unfortunely, it comes out as a "trans person will eat you alive if you misgender them" trope.

Rick clearly didn't try to contact anyone to check his facts or look over imporant Alex's lines, as if he understood how it works. Maybe he 100% unironically listened to Alex (and thus his own advice, jokes aside) and looked it up himself, huh? Here's the comedy peak of his ignorance (Alex's pov in "9 from the Nine Worlds"). I'll never end cracking up over this:

Now I returned to my wheel. As I worked the slick spinning clay under my fingers, I felt myself undergo a subtle shift. I’d been identifying as male when I was with Mallory and Halfborn, and earlier, when I was with Samirah and her fiancé, Amir. Now I was female. And yes, the change really is that simple sometimes. Hence the term gender fluid. I was deep into my new pot when Jack suddenly leaped up from his stand. The runes running down his blade pulsed an alarming red. “Señor! Señor!” he cried. Then he paused as if looking at me. Again, hard to tell because of the whole no-eyes thing. Regardless, he picked up on my gender change. “Sorry. Señorita! Señorita!”

Now not only Magnus but also a talking sword can miraculously pick on Alex's gender without exchanging a word with her. "Undergoing a subtle change." ... WHAT. Can't say for other genderfluid folks but personally I've to be very self-focused and on time to be able to immediately tell something has changed (there were like two times in my entire life when I was hyper-aware when it happened (and it blew my mind). Most of the time it's a itchy feeling when I incorrectly gender verbs, and that's due to my native language) And you know what's wrong? Alex is treated as a trans representation, making it her main. character. trait. when canonically she's not comfortable with educating others, and does it out of necessity- as many trans people have to in real life, suffering from the pressure of a constant need to be prepared to defend their existence. Don't shame ppl for knowing their worth.

UPDATE: I said we don't know how Alex was treated outside of his home, where he was verbally and physically abused by his father. In fact, we get an idea of what it was like: that's what Magnus expects to see when he heals Alex. Last time, it was exactly what he saw as the most 'relevant' memory (showing how deeply hurt Alex was because of this, as a lot of time has passed since this). (Magnus remembers this, and 'gets' that Alex's been hurt and mistreated, which tbh tells a lot about his empathy.)

I steeled myself for more painful images. I was ready to face her awful father again, or see how badly Alex had been bullied at school, or how she’d been beaten up in the homeless shelters.

But what Magnus finds at the top of Alex's memories? Himself acting dorky. It's a hopeful moment, and leaves me with a thought maybe that's how Alex heals and makes peace with his past.

[uncloseted]

saying "people who identify as girls are girls" is not simple. at all. i mean ok i am a girl. why? because i identify as one. but why? there's nothing that unites all girls. which doesn't mean that all girls have to be exactly the same but they at least need to have ONE thing in common. i mean if people say yeah i like women, when i'm in the street i look at women not men. how do you know? how do you know who's a man and who's a woman and who's anything else? and even woke people look at someone

1and think "girl" then think, or maybe they're non binary! but they never say or maybe they're a man. never. a person who looks like me has two options: girl or one of the hundreds of non binary identities. but to be a man, I'd have to try harder. it's not enough to IDENTIFY AS. ffs I can't be the only one who sees this. and just to clarify, i sent the joke about Emily being transphobic and i sent the first two of the three asks that you answered together i forgot this. you seriously thinl that if you raise a baby completely gender neutral, like one of those "theybies" and you tell them a girl is someone who identifies as a girl a boy is anyone who identifies as a boy nb is someone who identifies as neither, that they will deep down, without taking into account any stereotypes or biological essentialism, know what gender they are? even if they end up saying I'm a girl/boy, it will be because they will be exposed to girls and boys and "choose" the one they relate most to, or even because they like how the word "girl" or "boy" sounds.

I think you're asking some really good questions here. You're raising a lot of very philosophically interesting questions about the metaphysics of gender (what does it mean to have a gender, what does it mean to be transgender, is gender a social construct or is it innate to humans, etc) and how gender, as a social construct, impacts our lives on a day to day basis. Better philosophers than I have struggled with these questions for decades, but I'll do my best not to get too into the weeds on their different theories in this post. Instead, I'll offer my thoughts on what gender is and then investigate how we interact with it on a practical level. This is likely to be a long post, so apologies in advance, but it's a complicated issue that touches everyone's lives and I want to be mindful of that while writing this. Also apologies that this is going to be a pretty binary post. I don't mean to exclude nonbinary identities from this conversation, but to illustrate the points I'm trying to make, I think it's easier to talk about binary identities first. Just know that I do think nonbinary identities are real, valid and worthy of recognition and respect. Lastly, I'm not attached to any of the views expressed in this post. They reflect my thinking at this moment in time, but that might change as I learn more about these topics. I apologize if any of the views presented here are inadvertently hurtful. That's not my intention at all, but I recognize that regardless of intention, some things can cause harm. My goal in this post is to explore some ideas, and I would love to hear other people's opinions on this topic or criticism of these ideas. The Metaphysics of Gender So, to start out with, what is gender? Why are you a girl? Why do you identify as a girl? Why does anyone, and what links those people who identify as "girls" together? Is identifying as a girl enough to be one? These are complicated questions, both philosophically and culturally, and they've become more visible as we've become more culturally aware of gender variances (recently in the West. Third genders have always existed, and do continue to exist, in many cultures around the world). In biology and philosophy, there's a concept called "homeostatic property clusters" (stay with me here, I promise I'm going somewhere with this). "Homeostatic property clusters" is basically just a fancy phrase for the idea that if a creature has enough of a certain set of characteristics, they can be defined as part of a larger category, even if they don't have all of the traits that creatures in that category might have. In the PhilosophyTube video "Social Constructs", Abigail offers the category "mammals" as an example of a "homeostatic property cluster". Mammals are creatures that have warm blood, produce milk, and birth live offspring. Humans are mammals based on these characteristics, and so are seals and giraffes. But platypuses are also mammals, even though they lay eggs instead of birthing live offspring. These three properties, having warm blood, producing milk, and birthing live offspring, tend to "cluster" together, but they don't have to all be present in order for the creature to be "a mammal"- in this case, two out of three is fine. I think gender is similar. It's a homeostatic property cluster that includes biological, psychological, and social traits. Not all of those traits must be present for a person to "be a girl" or "be a boy", but enough of them have to be present in order for the person to be considered as part of that category ("girl" or "boy"). That cluster of traits is what all "girls" have in common, even if those traits aren't exactly the same for each individual. So, then, in the context of gender, what are those traits? "Biopsychosocial traits" is all very good as an academic term, but what does it actually mean? Let's start with the biological traits, since I think they're what most people default to when talking about gender. Biological Sex and Gender One trait we might consider when talking about whether someone "is a

girl" is sex characteristics. Sex and gender are fundamentally separate concepts, but for many people, they're linked. Many cis people consider themselves cis because they were "born in the right body" or lack the desire to medically transition. They have a "subconscious sex" that matches their physical body. So I think this is a good place to start. We might ask the question, "does this person have primary or secondary sex characteristics associated with being "a girl"?" It feels like the answer should be obvious- do they have tits and fanny, or don't they? But in reality, "biological sex" itself is kind of a homeostatic property cluster. Female sex characteristics include XX chromosomes, ovaries, estrogen and gestagen, a vagina, uterus, and fallopain tubes, breasts, and a menstrual cycle. But there are people without some of these traits that are still "girls". For example, some girls don't have a menstrual cycle (due to menopause, hormonal birth control, low body weight, PCOS, etc), but they're still girls. Some girls don't have a uterus (for example, if they've had a hysterectomy), but they're still girls. Some girls never develop breasts, but they're still girls. Some girls are born with Swyer syndrome, where they have a uterus, fallopian tubes, a cervix and a vagina, but have XY sex chromosomes. They're still girls. Any one of those traits by themselves can't be enough to decide if a person "is a biological girl" or "isn't a biological girl", but if a person has enough traits in that cluster, then they can be considered part of the larger category "biological girl". That by itself is kind of a TERFy take, so I would offer that the biological trait in the cluster "girl" is "has a cluster of female sex characteristics, either naturally or artificially, or gender dysphoria resulting in a desire to acquire those sex characteristics." But that alone can't be enough to determine if someone is or isn't "a girl". If it was, it would exclude pre-medical transition trans boys, even pre-medical transition trans boys who are living their lives as boys. It's also a transmedicalist take- it would also exclude trans people who never medically transition. To me, that doesn't feel right. People shouldn't be considered "a girl" or "a boy" based on biological essentialism, the pain of gender dysphoria, or their access to medical transition. So there have to be other factors at play- other traits in the cluster. Gender as Identity On the other side of the spectrum, some people say that gender is identity. You are "a girl" or "a boy" because that's how you identify- it's how you see yourself. In this viewpoint, gender is something innate to a person, that they instinctively know about themselves. It's perhaps a "female soul" in a "male body". In your ask, you express some scepticism about this view, and I'm inclined to agree. If humans have souls, I'm inclined to think they're not gendered, since what constitutes gender varies so widely across cultures and time periods. But I do also think that "identifying as" is an important element of "being a girl". Identifying as a girl is a basic criteria for being a girl. No person who doesn't identify as a girl can be a girl. It's an innate property of "girlness", the same way that an innate property of triangles is that they have three sides. But I do agree with you that I'm not convinced it's enough to only "identify as". Other traits in the cluster have to be present, because without a physical or social transition (or at least, the desire for a physical or social transition, particularly in cases of people for whom it's not safe or possible for them to transition), a person's identification doesn't have much practical value. Gender as a Social Role If "identifying as" isn't enough, then perhaps an important part of the gender conversation is the social role that gender plays in our lives. A gender is put upon us when we're born, and people continue to expect us to fill our assigned gender role throughout our lives. Maybe what's important isn't our body

parts or our internal identity, but instead, the gender role society lets us adopt. Perhaps society has to let you adopt the gender role you identify as. Either you're perceived as a woman or you aren't, either you "pass" or you don't. Perhaps those expectations that others have of you are what defines your gender. Intuitively, this seems to be tapping into something that feels true, at least to me. "Identifying as" isn't enough because society has to acknowledge that we are who we say we are. As you say, perhaps we have to "try harder" to "be a girl" or "be a boy" than just "identifying as". But this, too, has its problems. What about trans people who can't or don't pass? Does their transness get revoked for not appearing like they're trying hard enough? And what constitutes "hard enough"? Is trying at all "hard enough", or is there a point at which you "become" your gender? How many people need to reach a consensus on your gender before that's who you "are"? Does it get revoked by one person who misgenders you? And what about people who are cis, but occasionally put into an opposite gender role because of the way they present themselves? It seems to me that relying on other people to confer gender onto us is at once too limiting and not limiting enough. Gender as Gender Expression Going off of the idea of gender as a social role, then maybe gender is how you physically express yourself to the world- how you look to others. Maybe if you choose to express yourself as a given gender (through hair, clothes, makeup, voice, etc.), that's the gender that you are (or a reflection of the gender that you are), because that's how society will gender you. But that seems insufficient as well, for a lot of the same reasons that gender as a social role does. There are people who express themselves in stereotypically "masculine" ways but who identify as girls and who are understood to be girls by those around them. Their "girlness" is not culturally taken away from them based on their gender expression (unless there's another trait within the cluster of "being a girl" that they appear to not have). A girl can wear a full face of makeup, a dress and high heels, or have a pixie cut, no makeup, and wear a flannel and Doc Martens, but that alone isn't enough to say that she's not "a girl". This is especially true now, where very few ways of presenting are viewed as inherently gendered. Dresses and skirts are no longer exclusively "a girl thing" and pants have long been gender neutral. And what constitutes "presenting as a girl" and "presenting as a boy" changes across culture, time, and based on other characteristics an individual has (like class, race, size, or level of ability). So gender expression doesn't seem sufficient by itself to determine gender identity. Gender as Behaviors and Actions (aka Gender Performativity) Okay, so gender isn't just gender expression. But what about gender as a set of behaviors, something that you do? Gender performativity is a theory presented by Judith Butler in 1990 (sorry, I know I promised I wouldn't namedrop philosophical theories, but this is important to the conversation). Butler says that gender is constructed through a set of "acts" that are in line with societal ideas of what it means to "be a girl" or "be a boy". This performance of gendered acts is ongoing, even when we're alone, and is out of our control. Butler believes that there's no such thing as a "non-stylized" act- that is to say, everything we do is an act, and there's no such thing as an act that is not perceived as being somewhere on the spectrum of masculinity and femininity (at least, not in the current world we live in). The way we stylize these acts have the possibility to change over time. So Judith Butler believes that we "do" gender rather than "being" gender- that a girl "does girlness" over time. Put another way, a girl does behaviors, actions, and expressions that are stylized as "girly", which is what makes her gender identity "girl". And this gender, "girl", is constantly being

produced as the girl produces more of those "girly" acts. Instead of having an innate gender or expressing our internal gender through the way that we present, Butler thinks our outward gendered acts create our inner gender identity. Those acts and the way we perform them are shaped from the minute that we're born, when we're thrown into a pre-existing gender category and taught that "people like us" do things "in this way". This theory offers an answer to the question we asked in the previous section about gender as presentation; someone who is dressed "masculine" can still be "a girl" because they're performing "girlness"- they're doing acts that are in line with what we think of as "a girl". Because Butler doesn't believe that you're born with an internal gender, her work is controversial in trans spaces and are sometimes thought of as being trans-exclusionary (although Butler herself is a trans advocate). But I think disagree. Presumably, a person could change the stylization of the acts they perform. A person who was performing "boy" can begin to instead perform "girl", although they did not grow up performing "girl". It may be difficult, as they haven't had the performance of "girl" thrust upon them their entire lives, and have not experienced the "oppression experiences of girlhood" that can shape the performance of "girl". But gender performance and gender socialization are a lifelong process, and so the more a person "does girlness", the more they will be perceived as "doing girlness", and the more they will be expected to "perform girlness." I think it becomes something of a feedback loop where performance feeds socialization and socialization feeds performance. What about the "theybies"? What would happen if you raise a baby completely gender neutral? What would happen if a baby wasn't thrown into a pre-existing gender category upon birth? Would they identify as a gender without taking stereotypes or biological essentialism into account? This is essentially a question about social constructs. If we raised a baby with the understanding that some people have male sex characteristics, some have female sex characteristics, and some people have a combination of both, but removed the social constructs we have around gender, would gender still exist to this child? What you've created here is a "Twin Earth" thought experiment- a hypothetical where there are two Earths that are identical in every way except for one. Our Earth has the social construct of Gender, but Twin Earth does not. Would our Theyby still have a gender if they lived on Twin Earth? I think no. They wouldn't have a context to understand the social systems that we've created around sex characteristics, and so they wouldn't be able to place themselves within those systems. They wouldn't understand why we've based our whole society around sex characteristics as opposed to something else. They would be able to identify that they have the sex characteristics associated with "boys" or "girls", but not what it means to "be a girl" or "be a boy". (If you want to dig further into this idea of Social Constructs, that PhilosophyTube video I linked above is a good place to start). They could learn, but it wouldn't be innate to them. We, however, don't live on Twin Earth. We live on Earth. And on Earth, we do have the social construct of gender. So even if you raise a child completely gender neutral, they still have a concept of what it is to "be a girl" or "be a boy". They might learn that "girls" have long hair, or wear dresses, or are nice and caring, or are emotional, or walk and talk a certain way, or wear pink, or whatever other social constructs we ascribe to the gender "girl". They might learn that "boys" have short hair, wear pants, are mischievous, are aggressive, or walk a different way, or wear blue, or whatever other social constructs we ascribe to the gender "boy". Kids who are raised gender neutral look at the physical characteristics of other kids, the gender expression of other kids, the performance of "girlness" or

"boyness" that other kids do, and compare them to the physical characteristics they have, the gender expression they like, the gender expression that's expected of them from others, the performance of gender that they gravitate towards, and the performance of gender expected of them from others, and they tend to pick the one that feels more like their category. Most kids start conceptualizing their gender identity around age 3 or 4, and that's true for kids who are raised gender-neutral as well. When they start spending more time out in the world, they notice that they're different from some kids and similar to others, and they learn the language to describe those differences. But all of this is kind of beside the point, because raising a child as a "theyby" doesn't ultimately have the goal of the child not having a gender or growing up to be agender or genderqueer. It has the goal of allowing children to develop their likes, dislikes, and views of themselves without the contribution of harmful gender stereotypes. And I think that's actually a really great goal- how many of us that were raised female were discouraged from pursuing certain interests (especially science and technology related interests) because those "aren't girl things"? Kids will be exposed to those harmful stereotypes eventually, but if a kid is raised until age 3 without them, they might be more resilient to them when those ideas are presented. And for kids who do end up being transgender, being raised without gender lets them know that they'll be accepted by their family no matter their identity. Okay, but give us some answers... what is gender? So, we've gone over a lot of things that gender isn't, or at least, a lot of things that can't exclusively constitute a gender. But where does that leave us? What does that make gender? I propose it's something like the following: There are lots of ways to have or experience a gender. In order to have a gender, a person must:

1. Identify as that gender and: 2. have a cluster of sex characteristics matching the biological sex associated with that gender, either naturally or artificially, or gender dysphoria resulting in a desire to acquire those sex characteristics AND/OR 3. socially inhabit that gender, through gender expression or gender performance, or have a desire to socially inhabit that gender

I think that covers pretty much every case I can think of. People who identify as a gender and have the sex characteristics matching that gender are cis people, regardless of their social presentation. People who identify as a gender and have gender dysphoria or who have medically transitioned are the gender they identify as. People who identify as a gender and socially inhabit that gender are also the gender they identify as, and so are people who identify as a gender and would like to socially inhabit that gender but can't due to financial constraints or safety concerns. They're just experiencing trans identity in a different way to medically transitioned people. Gender as a Social Construct Okay, so that's the metaphysics of gender, or at least, an approach to the metaphysics of gender. I want to make it clear that I'm not attached to this theory, and I don't necessarily think I'm right. This is just where I've landed in my thinking right now, and I'm open to hearing other people's opinions and criticisms. In any case, it's very abstract, very philosophical, but maybe not super practical for the other questions you're asking here, and definitely not simple. So why, in my original answer, was I making the claim that "people who identify as girls are girls" is simple, then? I was making that claim because the way we interact with other people isn't metaphysical. It's practical. And practically speaking, all you need to do is acknowledge a person the way they ask to be acknowledged. Does someone say they're a boy named Jack who uses he/him pronouns? Great, call him Jack and use he/him pronouns. Does someone say their name is Sarah and use she/her pronouns? Great, call her Sarah and use she/her pronouns. Does someone say their name is Alex and they use they/them pronouns? Great, call them Alex and use they/them pronouns. Does someone say their name is Cloud and they use ze/zir pronouns? Great, call them Cloud and use ze/zir pronouns. You don't have to understand their relationship with their gender or what their gender means at all. You can even think their gender is "cringe". But you do have to respect the way they view themselves, and acknowledge them how they want to be seen. Think about it this way- if you were at an event and someone had a nametag that said, "Hi! My name is Taylor", but when they introduced themselves, they said, "I know my nametag says Taylor, but actually I go by Riley," what would you do? You'd just... call them Riley, right? You don't need to know why they have the wrong nametag to respect that their nametag is wrong. You probably wouldn't insist on calling them Taylor because that's what the nametag says. You probably wouldn't even ask how they ended up with a nametag that was wrong. Trans people are people, and they deserve respect just like anyone else. That's why this is simple- all you have to do is listen and be respectful, even if you don't understand. Wrapping up, here's my question to you. What is it about trans people that makes you uncomfortable? Think about it honestly, and try not to default to, "it's political correctness run amok! People are offended if you breathe too loudly!" Does it feel like a challenge to your own identity, either your gender identity or your sexuality? Is it a discomfort with society changing? Is it a fear of getting something wrong and offending someone? The vast majority of trans people I've met just want to be acknowledged for who they are. They'll politely correct people who misgender them or accidentally say something transphobic. And the ones who are the most aggressive or militant are the ones who have been hurt the most by a system that won't acknowledge them for who they are. It's a plea to be seen in a world that denies them that visibility. Maybe it isn't trans people that need to become less sensitive, but us who need to become more accepting. Some resources that you might be interested in if you liked this post: The Aesthetic | ContraPoints Social Constructs | Philosophy Tube "Transtrenders" |

ContraPoints Gender Critical | ContraPoints Judith Butler's Theory of Gender Performativity, Explained

[henshengs]

About Rule 63 fanworks

I was asked yesterday to elaborate on my genderbend opinions, as a trans person, which I’m happy to do, and I’ve thought about it a bit today to make sure I’m not saying something off the cuff and not thought through. Still, this is a sensitive, complicated topic, and I’m open to discussion on it.

This also got long, so I’m putting it under a cut.

So, obviously I can’t speak for all trans people. No minority group is a monolith in our opinions and this is particularly the case for the transgender community because our experiences are so very diverse and individual.

I am very rarely hurt or offended by genderbends/genderswaps/rule 63 fanworks. I know people for whom this is not the case, and I believe the pain involved is very real. The thing is... living in this world is inherently kinda painful when you’re trans. This world’s not built for us. All kinds of random things can cause me pain throughout my day. Store mannequins. My own reflection. Lesbian poetry. Pictures of other trans people. When something triggers my dysphoria or feelings of alienation, I have to stop, acknowledge the feeling, and then consider whether the thing is, outside of hurting me, contributing to the ignorance of and hatred of people like me by its very existence.

I don’t think the basic act of asking, “What if this character who is a cis man, was a cis woman instead?” does that. I think if anything, it opens the door to then ask “what if he was a trans man? Or a trans woman? Or nonbinary?”

Asking “what if this story was about a cis woman” lets cis women talk about their experiences and see themselves in stories, something I think is valuable! and also can lead to stories exploring sexism and misogyny, things which affect all trans people too!

In the rest of this post I’m going to use the terms “rule 63″ and “genderswap” to refer to the act of creating a fanwork changing a cis/presumed cis man to a cis or not-specified-to-be-trans woman, because this is the vast majority of the work under that label, because most fictional heroes and iconic characters are cis men, and because people who create cis man->trans woman or cis woman->trans man content, in my experience, usually use terms like “trans headcanon” instead.

(A lot of rule 63 fanworks don’t explicitly specify that the now-female character is cis. We can presume that most artists aren’t even thinking about the possibility of the character being trans, but we can presume that for 99.99% of all art, anywhere. It’s not a unique evil of rule 63.)

The claims that rule 63 is inherently transphobic, rather than just something where it’s good to be extra careful to avoid transphobia, as far as I’ve seen, use two arguments: A) that making the character a cis woman is wasting an opportunity to make them a trans person, and this is transphobic, and B) that rule 63 fan art is gender essentialist and cissexist, because it ties gender to physical characteristics.

Argument A doesn’t hold up for me, 

because couldn’t one then say that reimagining an abled white cis character as an abled white trans woman is racist and ableist? that reimagining them as an abled trans woman of color is ableist? No transformative reimagining can cover every identity. We say “write what you know” and talk about Own Voices, and that includes cis women who want to write about the experience they know. 

It’s also not fair to tell trans people that we must always think about trans experiences, even in our fiction. A lot of the time we don’t want to have to write or think about dysphoria and discrimination and we want to live in the heads of cis characters or even just characters whose AGAB is not mentioned! 

And it is also, imo, not a great idea to pressure people who may not be educated about trans experiences to write about trans characters just because they want to explore sexism or write about lesbians. 

many, many trans people first begin exploring their gender identity through creating cis rule 63 content, because it’s ‘safer’ than directly engaging with trans content.

With argument B, I agree that a lot of rule 63 art looks like this

and this sucks. To me, though, it’s important that it’s not the genderswap aspect that makes it suck. Artists who do this are also designing original characters with sexist, gender essentialist designs. Artists who don’t draw sexist art in general, also don’t draw sexist rule 63.

(yes, I know She-Hulk is not a rule 63 of regular Hulk. But you guys know the kind of art I’m talking about.)

I’ve also noticed a genre of fanfic that’s like, “if these characters were girls, they’d be sensible and conflict avoidant and none of the plot would happen!” or “what if these violent, tragic male characters were Soft Lesbians who braided each others’ hair” and again, I assume these authors write canonical women the same way. The genderswap part isn’t the bad part, the sexism is. 

Non-sexist rule 63 actually, in my opinion, fights gender essentialism and cissexism. When a character is exactly the same except for the ways a gender essentialist world has shaped and pressured them based on their AGAB, that’s a strong statement on the constructed nature of gender! 

But the argument that making /any/ change is gender essentialist, is... I understand where it’s coming from. I am a trans person who presents androgynously and I am a hypervisible freak because of it. I would love to live in a society where visible gender markers weren’t a thing! Unfortunately, we don’t live in that society. We live in one where we are constantly under pressure to conform to one of two profiles. There are almost no gender non conforming male characters in popular media. And changing a gender conforming cis man into a gender conforming cis woman seems to me to be a neutral action at worst. Not to mention characters from historical canons, who would be under a ton of pressure to conform. 

For physical body type characteristics... 65% of all speaking roles in Hollywood are cis and male. It’s harder to get statistics on other forms of media, but it’s undeniable that overall, most stories are told about cis men who do not have breasts or wide hips. Changing the story to be about a cis woman who has those features is introducing more diversity! 

I typed “rule 63″ and “genderswap” into the tumblr search bar today, and I saw a lot of art of women with a variety of aesthetics and body shapes and characteristics, who looked like people I’d see out at the mall.

Again, I sure do wish we lived in a post gender society. But we don’t, and in our society, everyone, myself included, looks at a picture of a person and gender categorizes them based on appearance. It is not wrong for someone to draw “Geralt the Witcher as a hot butch woman” and give her some physical markers generally agreed upon to denote ‘butch woman’ rather than ‘gender conforming man’ to tell the viewer that that is what they have drawn. Just as it is not wrong to draw “my OC who is a hot butch woman who fights monsters” and give her those markers. 

Finally, both arguments against genderswaps are, in my opinion, flawed because they implicitly posit the act of creating fanworks of the original, cis male gender conforming character design, as neutral. I think this is incorrect. I think that if you’re going to argue that drawing a cis male character as a cis woman is transphobic, you have to also argue that drawing the character as a cis man is transphobic. But I’ve only seen people do this when a trans headcanon becomes extremely popular in a fandom.

Again, I’m just one person. I’m also biased, because firstly, as I mentioned, rule 63 doesn’t usually trigger my dysphoria; secondly, I almost always come down on the side of “don’t limit what people can explore in fiction; ask them to explore it more sensitively or with more content warnings instead.” 

I definitely encourage creators to seek out and listen to a variety of trans opinions. But this is mine: I love rule 63, I make a lot of it myself, and I think if no one created it we’d lose something awesome. 

At the end of the day, what I really want is more trans content*, but I’d rather have cis rule 63 than just stories about cis men. 

Also: I personally have nothing against the terms genderswap or genderbend. I don’t think it reinforces the gender binary to acknowledge its existence by saying you’re ‘swapping’ the character from being cis with one AGAB to being cis with the other. But I can definitely see the argument against it, so I don’t blame anyone for going with rule 63 instead.

If you made it this far, thanks for reading; I hope you have a nice day, and have fun creating and consuming the fanworks your heart desires. I’ll end by linking this comic, which is just eternally relevant.

(*by which I mean: trans content created by other trans people, that matches my hyperspecific headcanons, likes and dislikes, and doesn’t set off any of my often changing dysphoria triggers. See what I said at the start, about transgender existence being constantly mildly painful. There are many awesome aspects to being trans! This is one of the less awesome.)

[sanderssidesfanfiction]

We’ll Carry On - Chapter Fifty

We’ll Carry On Tag

General Content Warnings: Sympathetic Deceit Sanders, Substance Abuse, Abandonment, Minor Character Death, Transphobia, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Dissociation, Bullying, Homophobia

July 13th, 2018

Roman didn’t understand. There was a woman walking down the street, and people were laughing and jeering at her. She had a bit of a five o’clock shadow, and her jaw was a little more square than most women, but she was wearing a dress and she had breasts, so she had to be a woman, right?

He didn’t say anything as she passed him, but he smiled kindly at her and mouthed, “You’re beautiful.”

She lit up like he had just hung the moon and signed something, that Roman thought was a “Thank you.”

“Roman!” the horrible woman shouted. “Don’t socialize with those types! You will not be that in my house!”

Roman cringed, but he stood by his words. He thought the woman was truly beautiful.

June 16th, 2020

Roman was excited. Some might say a little too excited, but no one could really blame him. He was going through his freshman orientation at the local high school, and had signed up for all his classes, making sure to pick Drama as one of his class choices. As his backup, he had put Drawing and Pottery, because both of those could be pretty cool, too, but he really hoped he got to have Drama as his art course.

The high school was a big place, but right now, he was just eating lunch with Chad and a few of the kids they had gotten to go on a tour of the buildings with. All of them were talking about what classes they wanted to take and clubs they wanted to join with wide eyes. Roman knew he had a bit of the excitement bug too, but his was curbed somewhat. “Trust me, guys, it seems cool now but there’s gonna come a day where you can’t wait for summer break,” Roman said. “Logan insists that he’s ready for winter break by October.”

“Your older brother is hardly a paragon of knowledge,” one of the girls, Ellie, snorted.

“True, but he’s going to be a senior next year, so I think he knows what he’s talking about,” Roman said. “Anecdotally speaking.”

“Mm, I agree with Roman,” one of the boys, Rocky, said. “My older sister can’t stand going to high school by November.”

“Wait, is your brother Logan Picani?” a third kid, a girl by the name of Maria, asked.

“Yes? Do you know him?” Roman asked. Suddenly he felt like he needed to be on guard and he didn’t know why.

“My older brother knows her. She’s the transsexual that was in his calc class,” Maria said. She wrinkled her nose. “Personally, I don’t understand why anyone would make that sort of life choice.”

Roman blinked once. Twice. Saw red for a couple seconds. Took a deep breath. Laughed with ice and venom blending together in his voice. “Okay, first of all, he is transgender, not transsexual. Transsexual is an outdated term that many people in the community find offensive, from what I’ve been told. Second of all, being transgender is not a choice. He wanted to be true to himself and because his parents disagreed, he was kicked out. So my dads adopted him. Being transgender isn’t easy. It brings all sorts of unwanted attention, and Logan has told me that if he had the chance to be cis, with either gender on the binary, he would take it.

“He gets all sorts of rude comments, from people who are close-minded bigots like your brother. And if you point me in the direction of your brother, I’d love to knock some common sense and LGBT terminology into his head. Especially considering that I’m bi and would like to be respected that way. So, let’s see: my dads are a gay couple, my older brother’s trans and queer, I’m bi, one of my younger siblings is nonbinary. Is there anything else I can say about my family that would disgust you into leaving this group and never calling my brother a transsexual again?”

Maria stared at him, shock and disgust warring for control on her face. “How could you possibly encourage that sort of thing?! Don’t you know you can go to Hell for that?”

“Provided that even is true, which I severely doubt, Hell will be fabulous and I will happily live with my brothers, my sibling, and my two dads there for all eternity. But if you can go to Hell for being gay, why would a higher power even make gay people? Huh? Riddle me that!”

“It’s obviously a test,” Maria snapped back. “Proving that you’re strong in your faith, and you won’t give in to the temptation of sexual desires!”

Roman blinked. “Wow. I...just...wow. I feel really sorry for you, Maria. Your parents must be real pieces of work for you to believe that.”

Maria huffed and crossed her arms. “Whatever. I don’t approve of your choices, but we can still be friends. Love the sinner and hate the sin.”

“Uh, no, we can’t be friends, because the ‘sin’ you’re hating is literally a piece of me. Frankly, if you believe all that BS that you just spouted, I wouldn’t want to be friends with you anyway. That’s just wrong on so many levels.”

Maria growled, grabbed her lunch, and stood. “Well, then. I hope you enjoy Hell, because that’s where you’re going!”

“God is dead, and the gays killed Him!” Chad hollered after her back, laughing.

“Oof, I’m glad we avoided that one early,” Ellie said.

“Yeah,” Roman agreed. “Honestly, I don’t think that Hell...is a place? Exactly? And you certainly don’t go there for loving someone who’s the same gender as you.”

Murmured agreement came from the whole group. “What does nonbinary mean?” Rocky asked.

“Oh, it just means you don’t feel like you’re a boy or a girl,” Roman said, returning to his lunch.

There was a beat of silence before Rocky asked, “There’s a word for that?!”

“Yes...?” Roman asked. “Do you feel like that fits you?”

“Yeah, a little!” Rocky agreed. “I always felt like...kind of a boy, kind of not? It’s confusing. But I don’t have to be a boy, I can be nonbinary!”

“Yeah! Look up nonbinary stuff online, you’ll learn a bunch, and you might find a more specific label that you like,” Roman encouraged.

Rocky pulled out his phone with a grin and Chad laughed. “Well, today is a day full of discoveries, huh?” he asked. “I think I see my parents pulling up, though, so I’ll have to say goodbye for now. I’ll see you guys around this summer, and at school in September!”

“Yeah, see you!” Roman said, as everyone else bid Chad goodbye, too.

Soon after, Roman saw Logan pull up in the school parking lot, and get out of the car. Unfortunately, Maria was walking over to a car two spaces down, and a guy who looked like he could be a linebacker for the football team was waiting for her. Roman said his goodbye’s quickly and jogged over to Logan. “Hey, man, let’s get out of here,” Roman hissed. “That girl with the freckles? Massive transphobe, and her brother—”

“I’m well aware of who her brother is,” Logan said coolly. “Jeremy has seen fit to torment me ever since I legally got my name changed. Insists on using it only because it’s what’s on my papers, but claims that because I’m still ‘Female’ on my birth certificate-which he doesn’t even know for sure-that he can use ‘she’ and ‘her’ for me. He’s a brat.”

Roman pulled a face. “Gross.”

“Indeed,” Logan said.

Maria caught a glimpse of them and stalked over, her brother following behind. “He’s the one! He’s the one who said that I’m wrong!”

“Well, yeah, you are wrong,” Roman said. “I’m not going to Hell. Even if I were, I would be happy to go.”

“Should have known he was the brother of the tranny, here,” Jeremy sneered.

Roman scowled and balled his hands into fists, sucker-punching Jeremy hard right below the ribcage. Jeremy crumpled inward, gasping for air. “Don’t call my brother that word ever again!” Roman bellowed. “C’mon, Lo. Let’s blow this popsicle stand.”

“No complaints from me,” Logan said. They both got in the car and drove away. Once they were on the road, Logan said, “You realize Dad and Ami are probably going to get a very angry call from either that idiot’s mother or someone from the school?”

“Eh,” Roman said with a shrug. “Worth it.”

“I certainly hope so,” Logan sighed, “Because you just put a giant target on your back.”

Roman shrugged again. “I’m not going to stand by while you get insulted, Logan.”

“You sound just like Jack,” Logan said with an eye-roll. “It’s annoying. Cute, in a way, but definitely annoying.”

Roman gave Logan a grin. “That’s a high compliment you know. Sounding like your boyfriend.”

“Keep telling yourself that,” Logan said, shaking his head and smirking.

“Oh, so I guess I should tell your boyfriend your highly-esteemed opinion of him?” Roman asked, snatching Logan’s phone from the cupholder it had been residing in.

“Roman!” Logan shrieked indignantly, using one hand to blindly grab for his phone even as he kept his eyes on the road. “Give me that!”

Roman gleefully held it out of Logan’s reach as he dictated what he was typing. “Hey Jack...Roman here. Your boyfriend thinks that comparing someone to you...isn’t...a...compliment! Ha!”

“Give it back!” Logan exclaimed, lunging for the phone and yanking it free of Roman’s grasp, at the price of nearly swerving off the road.

“Too late, it’s already sent!” Roman exclaimed.

Logan locked his phone and dropped it back in the cupholder. “I hate you.”

Roman laughed unapologetically. “This is Jack, Lo. I doubt he’d break up with you over that. If anything, he’ll probably just respond with a ‘mood’ and be done with it.”

“I’m not worried about me, I’m worried about you,” Logan said.

As if on cue, Roman got three text alert messages in a row, and he could see they were all from Jack. More kept coming, and he arched his eyebrows. “How many texts is Jack going to send?”

“Probably around fifty,” Logan said casually. “Most of them about stealing my phone to send text messages, a couple calling you a snitch, some memes, at least one asking if I’m driving and that’s how you got to send the text, and the final two will probably be a ‘thank you for telling me’ and ‘but mood.’”

Roman watched his text count go up and his blood pressure with it. “This is ridiculous,” he muttered.

“This is Jack,” Logan said with a laugh. “It’s how he is always.”

“Doesn’t that get exhausting?” Roman asked.

“Well, he’s always tired, but I doubt that’s the reason,” Logan said. “If that’s the only life you ever know, and the only attitude you’ve ever had, I doubt it would be as exhausting as it is to you now.”

Roman made a huh noise. “Don’t you ever get overstimulated talking to him?”

Logan glanced at Roman. “I mean, sometimes, I guess. But not usually. I’ve gotten used to his energy, as it’s grown as both of us grew. To me, he has the same energy levels as he did when we were in kindergarten and he asked if he could call me ‘Jessie.’”

“Did you slug him for that?” Roman asked.

“Well I didn’t know I was trans yet,” Logan said. “So I wouldn’t have punched him over that. I just really hated the nickname. Though I don’t think I punched him for it. Because he asked once and then never again. Apparently I looked completely disgusted at the thought of being called that.”

Roman got quiet, all of his current questions answered. A thought occurred to him, along with a new question. “Do you think of yourself as...you know...your deadname, when you think back into the past?”

Logan hummed. “You know, I try not to, but when I think back to before I realized I was trans, I almost always think of myself as either ‘Jessica’ or ‘pre-Logan.’ I know most trans people eventually adjust and they say, ‘When I was a little boy,’ or ‘This is a picture of a tiny whatever-their-name-is.’ I haven’t made that adjustment. I’m not sure I’m ever going to, at this point.”

“That’s fair,” Roman said. “I don’t ever think of you as...as that, but—”

“Roman, you can say it. You can say Jessica, it’s not a dirty word,” Logan said. “So long as you don’t call me by that as if it were still my name, you can use it around me. It took me a while to distance myself from it, but now I can hear the name without flinching. You don’t ever think of me as Jessica. Just the sentiment behind that means I trust you to use that name, just never on me.”

“Yeah. I don’t ever think of you as Jessica, but it’s weird seeing traditionally feminine clothing on you. Jack showed me some old yearbooks, and I nearly got whiplash,” Roman said. “And I’ll always use Logan when referring to you, even as a little kid. Because the whole, ‘back when he was a she’ or ‘when current name was deadname’ thing is just scummy, especially if you don’t have permission to out that person.”

Logan smiled. “You’re one of the good ones, Roman. Thank you. Would you be willing to go to the GSA next year?”

“Definitely,” Roman said, nodding. “Especially because you’re Vice President.”

[neighbours-kid]

The Truth

I am tired.

I am so tired. So tired of trying to live a truth, my truth, while everything— everyone around me continues to believe the lies of perception, of “what has always been like this” without even questioning if they are still, or were ever, true.

I am so….so fucking exhausted.

I was watching this British show on Netflix about a murdered boy and with every new episode of characters lying to each other to save themselves some pain or to gain something for themselves, I got more and more restless. I felt like I couldn’t breathe.

So I put on my jacket and my shoes and I went out, walking around in my neighbourhood, trying to breathe in the cold winter air and just….calming down. And I couldn’t.

I just…. I need to stop living in this perception everyone has of me. I can’t fucking go on like this anymore. On my walk I was so close to just….trying to punch my fist through a tree or a wall just so I could feel something else than this perpetual dread of exhaustion and living in these perceptions people have of me that are just not true.

I can’t do it anymore. I am done living in these lies. I want to live my truth and only my truth.

We lie all the time and I can’t do that anymore, not about something as important as my own life.

While I was on my walk, I thought about calling my mom and just telling her, because then at least somebody in my immediate family knows for sure. Even if it is the one person who I know pretty much for sure will not like my truth and will try to change my mind about it. It’s not her fault and I have hope that she will learn how to live with it as well, but if I know anything, I know that it will not fall on ears that like hearing it. But I thought, who cares, I just need somebody to know. Just somebody.

But then I thought what good is it to have the one person to know be one who will probably not support me. That’s just stupid.

I have wanted to tell my dad so, so, so many times. But thing about my dad is, I am not sure how he’d react. And I can’t lose him. I can’t. I already know my mom does not agree with this thing, but my dad? I have no idea. And I am afraid to find out. I am so afraid.

I thought about calling my brother. Because he is the only variable that I can’t….I don’t know anything, I have no clue how he’d react. But I know, if he even payed a little attention over the last years, he should know, or at least, he should not be surprised. I was *this* close to calling him, or at least leaving him a voice message. But I couldn’t.

I can’t just tell them. I can’t only tell them, because it won’t change any of the other situations. Everyone needs to know. Everyone. The lies of perception can only be shattered if there is no single believer left, and I need them to see what is true and what is not.

…

I have a few friends who know. Who know and have been supportive. Aside from them, I have no idea how any of the other people will react. Not a clue. And honestly, I am terrified.

But I am tired of letting my life be controlled by fear. I care deeply what those people will think, but I am gonna stop letting that keep me from being happy and living my truth out in the open.

It’s not fair, that I *have* to do this. It’s not fair that I have to tell people something that I have always known to be true, but just because I have finally learned the vocabulary to express it, people who have known me for most of my life now get to decide if they like this or not. It’s garbage.

But I just can’t go on like this anymore, I need to live this truth.

So here goes nothing.

…

When I went to see my doctor this past December, she immediately picked up on why I was there, without me really having to say a single word. I was not planning on telling her as much as I did, I only wanted to get a general check-up to see if I was healthy, and to get a referral to a psychiatrist so I could get my brain checked as well.

And then she asked me if I felt comfortable in my body.

And I said no.

I talked with her for a while, I explained my point of view, and she told me she would refer me to someone she knew. I am currently waiting for this person to get back to me so I can get an appointment.

For something over a year now, I have been binding my chest, because nothing has ever made me as comfortable in my body as having a flat chest.

My friends know that I have been exclusively shopping in the men’s section of clothing stores.

I have had short hair since sixth grade.

None of this actually matters, because that’s only aesthetics.

What matters is that I have never, not since I can remember, not as a small child, understood the concept of “male or female”. I have always thought of me and my brother as being the same. And I was asked numerous times over the last, at least, 16 years, by strangers and by people I met repeatedly, this one inane, stupid fucking question: “are you a boy or a girl?”

I will say this: I DON’T FUCKING CARE AND IT DOES NOT MATTER BECAUSE THE BINARY GENDER IS A SOCIETAL CONSTRUCT AND DOES NOT EXIST. Also, sex isn’t binary either, but I’m not gonna go into a biological discussion here, because this is about me, and not about how uneducated the world is about these things.

What matters is this: I have never felt comfortable being categorised as a woman or a girl. I don’t feel comfortable having boobs and I will have them removed/made more masculine at some point.

There are days on which I feel like throwing up whenever someone calls me girl, woman, she, her, daughter, sister or any other female thing. There are days on which I want to go scream in the woods for an hour because I feel trapped in this perception of myself that is not, has never, and will never be true.

On most days, I don’t identify with any side of the spectrum. That is what we call nonbinary. This word has been in my instagram and twitter bio and on this blog for a long time now. Some people have picked up on it and I am infinitely grateful for all of them. Some haven’t, and that’s okay.

The other thing that matters is this: I am trans. And I will explain this exactly once, and then you can go google this stuff yourself. Being trans, for me personally (the experience is different for every individual), means that I want to get Hormone Replacement Therapy and chest surgery, maybe more. Once I get my appointment with the psychiatrist, I will figure out with this person what is best for me, and I will hopefully be able to take testosterone in some form and become more of who I am, which means in my case, more masculine and less feminine.

What this DOES NOT mean, is that I want to be a man. Being trans does not negate the fact that I am nonbinary and that I do not identify with either side of the gender spectrum. I would say it is like this. If gender is a line with one end being female and the other end male, I am somewhere in the middle, but on the male side of it, and not the female.

What does this mean for YOU? Well, for one, please stop calling me woman/girl/female. Another thing that would be nice, is to just accept this. You don’t have to understand it, you don’t have to agree with it, you don’t have to like it or even support it. All you have to do is accept it and that’s all. And respect my choices, because this is my life and not yours.

For you religious/spiritual folks: No, I don’t want to hear your “BUT THE BIBLE SAYS” things. I know what the bible says, I know what my God says, and I know what I know and how I feel about it. I have been having this conversation with Yeshua for around six years now, and he has never once shown me anything but love and understanding and never once told me that this is not my way. I know what I’m doing, God knows what I’m doing, and that’s all that matters. If you try to give me your religious/spiritual insight on it and it is in any way negative towards my decision, I will shut you down, because I do not need or want to hear it. This goes for you too, Mom. Especially you.

I know this may be hard to understand, but I just can’t go on like this anymore. It will destroy me if I did. It’s already tearing me apart every single day, and I refuse to go on like this. I am tired.

A few more things:

You can still call me Andrea. I don’t mind that name. If you want, you can also call my Alex. I’ve been also called Adrian once, which I also don’t mind. Just don’t call my girl.

The pronoun thing, well, that’s difficult. In English, I do very much prefer they/them. In German, well, it’s not as easy. If you must use a pronoun, use Er/Ihm please. If anyhow possible, just don’t use pronouns. It’s possible! It might sound wrong at first, but if we want to change something in German grammar for people like me, we can’t just say “oh there is nothing we can do” and carry on how it is. We have to change things for the better.

I am open to talk more about this, because this post is just the necessary bit of it. If you would like to know more, don’t be shy. I will take the liberty to not answer certain questions though.

As for my sexuality, I still like men. If that makes me gay in your eyes, so be it. I prefer the term queer, but you know, everyone’s a bit gay, and it’s alright. (I have bible related opinions about this too, so, you know, can’t change my mind). I also think Cate Blanchett is incredibly attractive. That’s all I’m gonna say about that.

You know, when I started writing this, I was still restless and felt like I was suffocating. Now? I’m good. I’m at peace somehow. Shows how much I needed to do this, doesn’t it?

Anyway, that’s all for now from my side.

Be strong out there, people. Live your truths. I’m trying to do the same.

Onward, with pride.

[nancydhooper]

I’m Nonbinary. My Passport Should Show That.

My driver’s license is just like yours. It has my photo, date of birth, and other standard descriptors. Under gender, however, you’ll find not M or F, but X.   In 2017, I became the first person in the country to obtain an official nonbinary, gender-neutral X-marker on my driver’s license. I live in Washington D.C., which was among the first jurisdictions in the U.S. to officially offer an X marker to recognize nonbinary people as well as those who simply want a gender-neutral form of ID. At the same time, D.C. also removed requirements for a medical or third-party certification of gender to correct a gender marker. I’m proud to have joined LGBTQ+ activists in D.C. in making these policies happen.

Movements for trans and nonbinary equity have made significant progress since I got my nonbinary ID in 2017. Across the country, more than 124 million people live in jurisdictions that are now issuing state IDs with X markers, and over 93 million live in jurisdictions that issue birth certificates with an X designation. Still, only 11 percent of trans people nationwide have an accurate name and gender marker on all IDs and records. Sixty-eight percent do not have any IDs displaying their accurate name and gender. And at the federal level, the government still does not permit gender neutral or nonbinary markers on passports, social security records, and most other federal documents. It’s time for our federal government to catch up. The Biden administration has an opportunity to affirm trans and nonbinary rights by permitting X gender markers on all federal IDs. The first time I used my nonbinary driver’s license was to pass through airport security, and I prepared for the worst. I brought copies of the D.C. policy and newspaper articles about it, so if somebody were to question me or say I had a fraudulent ID, I would be able to show them that it’s real. But nobody even seemed to notice or comment upon the X listed for gender. I was glad. I have flown many times since then without ever having someone question the gender on my ID.

I had a similar experience when I tried to use my first birth certificate with an X marker, which I got from Connecticut in 2019. I decided to try it out on my way home from a cruise trip later that year. Again, I planned for the worst. I made an emergency plan, alerted some friends, and put a 24-hour legal hotline on speed dial in case I was detained. And again, despite all my fears and all my preparation, the immigration officials did not seem to notice the X gender marker. My X-marked ID means a lot to me, especially as a U.S. citizen of Japanese descent. In Japan, the term x-gender (x-jendā) has existed since the 1990s to describe gender nonbinary people. Other countries recognize X designations under international passport standards, and a growing number of countries include an X designation option on their passports. But my U.S. passport still does not have an X marker.

Applying for My First Nonbinary Passport

President Biden promised to support X-marker IDs when he was running for office, but I’m not going to wait around for that promise to officially materialize. I believe I have a legal and human right to access accurate ID documents. All my other documents say I am nonbinary. So why shouldn’t my passport reflect the same? Anything else would be a lie.   On Inauguration Day, I went to a passport acceptance facility to apply for an accurate, nonbinary passport in person. To prepare, I assembled various documents to support my case, including my nonbinary birth certificate and driver’s license, as well as a court order that declares I am nonbinary. I also provided medical certification, which is something that the Department of State currently requests of all transgender people applying for a corrected gender marker, but which presents massive barriers to accessing accurate ID. Getting medical certification could mean finding and paying for unnecessary medical appointments just for a provider to fill out paperwork. Even the American Medical Association says the gender on our IDs should be “as reported by the individual and without need for verification by a medical professional.” Medical certification is a waste of time and money. We are in the midst of a horrifying pandemic, and forcing healthcare providers to go through unnecessary appointments and paperwork is ridiculous. It also forces trans people to make difficult decisions about potentially spending hundreds of dollars on medical appointments and having to come out to a physician, which is not always the safest and best choice, especially when many providers still have little to no training on trans and nonbinary issues.

When I first came out to my physician as nonbinary and asked for his support, I was terrified that he would say no, and that it would deteriorate the trust in our relationship, or even end it. Fortunately, he gave me a fierce yes, and told me he agreed that the government’s requirement of medical certification for this matter is absurd.   In my doctor’s certification letter, he explained that my access to nonbinary ID is important for my health and wellbeing, which is his priority. He also explained that it aligns with contemporary medical standards, and it’s important for the accurate counting of nonbinary people in government demographic data. Whether it’s for the U.S. Census or for social research, we need to know the differences and disparities in our communities. When trans or nonbinary people are not included in demographic data, it means our communities do not get the funding and support we deserve. That’s one of the reasons why the federal government should ensure access to accurate gender markers not just for passports, but for Social Security and other records as well. As a nonbinary person, I want to be counted.

I have a lot of privilege that has allowed me to break barriers and move through the world: I have had access to higher education, a certain amount of time and resources, networks of activist friends, and lawyers who can help. And yet, I’ve experienced street harassment and even physical assault because of being nonbinary. I’ve also seen editorials written to demean me, and horrifying comments on news articles saying that nonbinary people should be sent to a “guillotine” or “gas chamber.” All of these acts of violence seek to erase me. I do not need the federal government erasing me, too.  It’s a depressing and degrading experience for your government to deny your existence. I am lucky to have had a positive outcome with my physician and IDs, but for many trans or nonbinary people, being forced to get medical certification just to have an accurate passport can be devastating to their health and finances. Nobody should be forced to present documents that tell lies about who you are, and trans and nonbinary people should not have to endure cruel legal confrontations in order to access our human rights. The reality is that cisgender people are not forced to get these same medical certifications when they apply for passports. It’s a discriminatory policy.   I have long said that gender markers should not be necessary on IDs, and there are human rights principles that agree. We will keep working with the government to evaluate where they can remove gender markers, but the first steps are to ensure everyone has access to an accurate ID and remove unnecessary barriers such as medical certification requirements and other expenses. The Biden administration must issue an executive order directing all federal agencies to add a nonbinary and gender-neutral X designation to all federal IDs and records, and to remove documentation requirements for updating gender markers. We must make sure the administration follows through on ensuring our right to an accurate ID that represents who we are.   In the meantime, I’m not waiting around.

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8247012 https://www.aclu.org/news/lgbt-rights/im-nonbinary-my-passport-should-show-that via http://www.rssmix.com/

[blessedarethebinarybreakers]

Yesterday me and my mom were talking about if everyone viewed God as their "father." I mentioned to her that some refer to God as "She" or "They" , but she thinks that most people do that to be politically correct, and that because the Bible refers to God as the Father, it would be an offense to God to call God anything else. I personally love the idea of referring to God as "Them", but I don't think my mom would agree. Do you have any rebuttals/ways to introduce her to it?

Hi there! A lot of people respond similarly to how your mother did when they first are introduced to the notion that God might be called more than “Father,” more than “He.” Hopefully with time she’ll get it a little better. 

Here’s a passage from God’s Tapestry: Reading the Bible in a World of Religious Diversity about a not-dissimilar conversation between the author, W. Eugene March, and their mother (for the entire passage, see this google-books link):

‘ Some years ago I received an unexpected phone call from my mother. She was clearly agitated and thought I would share her concern, a theological concern. She was agitated about the language that had been used in fashioning a prayer to God in a study book that she and other women in her congregation were using.

…The issue was a prayer on which feminine metaphors were employed to describe God’s love for Israel. Wombs, labor pains, and nursing at nurturing breasts were used in a prayer to God. When Mom and her Bible study friends read this prayer, the explosion was not pleasant. And not surprisingly, an unofficial ‘denominational’ publication circulating widely in her congregation fanned the fire of my mother’s zeal to denounce perceived heresy.

It took me several minutes to get her calmed down enough for us to talk reasonably. When I did, I asked her to read the offending prayer to me. As she did, I recognized the clear influence of Isaiah. I said, “Hey, Mom, that language is straight out of the Bible.”She said, “It is not!”I said, “Yes it is!”“Is not!”“Is too.”

Finally, I asked her to get her Bible and we had a long-distance Bible study of some selected verses from the book of Isaiah:

For a long time I have held my peace,I [God] have kept still and restrained myself;now I will cry out like a woman in labor;I will gasp and pant. (Isaiah 42:14)

Can a woman forget her nursing child,or show no compassion for the child of her womb?Even these may forget,yet I will not forget you. (Isaiah 49:15)

Rejoice with Jerusalem, and be glad for her,all you who love her;rejoice with her in joy,all you who mourn over her –that you may nurse and be satisfiedfrom her consoling breast;that you may drink deeply with delightfrom her glorious bosom.For thus says the [Holy One]:I will extend prosperity to her like a river,and the wealth of the nations like an overflowing stream;and you shall nurse and be carried on her armand dandled on her knees.As a mother comforts her childso I will comfort you;you shall be comforted in Jerusalem. (Isaiah 66:10-13)

After she had read those verses, there was a long pause, and then she said, “When did they put that in there?” “It’s been there all along,” I replied. “Well,” my dear mother continued in a somewhat subdued tone, “why didn’t anyone ever tell me?”

“Why didn’t anyone ever tell me?” That is one of the questions that prompted this book. There are so many misconceptions about what the Bible does and doesn’t say, so much ignorance among otherwise well-educated, capable people. In my experience, the people in the pews are often well ahead of the clergy when it comes to the matters that really count in the way we order our daily lives and structure the communities in which we live. Their attitudes are usually based on what they recognize from their own experience of life. But they need knowledge about the support the Bible can offer and encouragement and permission from their leaders. They often think that what they believe must be heretical or offbeat, since no one assures them otherwise. ’

[end passage]

God exists beyond human language; They will surely not be offended to be called by a variety of terms. God has been called mother and midwife and Woman Wisdom for millennia, in Hebrew scripture before Jesus was born as well as in the earliest of Christian communities.

So when it comes to the fear of causing offense over different words for God, whom are we scared about offending? God? or other humans?

Here’s a post that talks about why we might call God other things beyond “Our Father” (we can keep calling them our Father as well!)

Here’s another post with similar stuff, including links to Bible passages. Because the Bible certainly does call God father, but also mother, and midwife, and rock, and light, and so much more. Lots of gendered language, lots of abstract and non-anthropomorphic language. The more variety we use, the closer we may get to just how big God is.

Here’s a post arguing that God is a woman, God is nonbinary, God is trans. (This one might be a little bit beyond what your mother’s ready to embrace right now, so I’d save this one for her for much later or just enjoy it for yourself.)

And my whole God beyond Gender tag contains even more stuff! Good luck helping your mom explores this. God is so much vaster than our human minds can fathom, but starting to explore many ways of thinking of Them helps. 

[cassolotl]

Gender and sex are [not] different

Content note: Article refers to transphobia, TERFs, sex essentialism.

~

I have recently seen nonbinary people, even high-profile nonbinary people like Asia Kate Dillon, saying that gender and sex are different. This is bothering me a lot, for reasons I’ve struggled to articulate, but I’m gonna try anyway damnit.

Disclaimer: This is just the way I see things. I’ll back up my assertions where I can, but please do understand that I am the internet equivalent of some dude you met in the pub last week.

~

AN OVERVIEW / SOME CONTEXT

Sex and gender are both social constructs, which basically means they’re ideas that humans created. A penis is just a penis, but only a human would say that a penis (or a person with a penis) is inherently male.

The definitions of sex and gender are broadly agreed to be subtly different: sex is purely anatomical, whereas gender is an experience, a combination of physical, behavioural and psychological things that no one is really able to pin down.

I live in the UK, and here there is no legal difference between sex and gender.

The “sex” marker on your birth certificate can be changed with a gender recognition certificate (hormones and surgery not compulsory), and birth certificates are not connected to medical records at all. Getting that sex marker changed is very difficult and expensive.

You can legally have a different gender or sex marker on all your state-issued IDs and at most it’ll cause some bureaucratic confusion.

You can put any title on any record and some people will probably frown at you if you put Mrs if you’re an unmarried person but those people are legally speaking in the wrong.

Basically anything is legal as long as you’re not doing it to deceive or commit fraud, and the Gender Recognition Panel is way outdated and about to be dismantled anyway.

To put it another way, what the UK calls “legal sex” is actually just legal gender, misnamed. Even the sex marker on medical records is a gender marker misnamed.

To add to the confusion, linguistically speaking sex and gender are generally described in the same way - because until very recently, English-speakers have largely been unable to change their bodies and therefore unable to change the way the world treats them. Words like “female” can describe someone’s body and/or someone’s gender, while also describing the reproductive capacity of non-human lifeforms, the shape of the connecting end of a computer cable...

Because of the body/mind distinction, people who say that only we can define our genders will often comfortably say that sex can be objectively determined by an educated professional.

Doctors generally agree that sex is defined by:

the number and type of sex chromosomes;

the type of gonads—ovaries or testicles;

the sex hormones;

the internal reproductive anatomy (such as the uterus in females); and

the external genitalia.

Since finding out someone’s sex chromosomes takes months and is very expensive and largely unnecessary for most people, unless your doctor has found a pressing reason to test your chromosomes (such as signs that you may be intersex and it may affect your physical health in some way), you do not know your own sex. Yes, you. You have, at least, a (probably but not necessarily accurate) guess based on the information you have unequivocal access to: external genitalia.

This blog post assumes that misgendering people is harmful. It may not harm everyone, but it harms enough people that it’s a good idea to behave in a way that prevents that harm.

~

SEX AND GENDER ARE THE SAME

1: Sex --> gender

The idea that gender is defined by sex is an obvious wrong thing, so it seems like a good place to start. That’s the idea that your gender comes from your body. If you were born with a penis and testicles, you are a man, whether you like it or not.

Who does it: Some people (eg: TERFs) say that hormones and surgery simply “mask” your “true” sex/gender, and you can’t change your chromosomes or the way you were born. Some people (eg: some outdated gender recognition systems) say that your body must be changed in order to change your gender.

Why it’s harmful: It sucks for trans people. Either you can never be correctly gendered by other people, even when you pass, or you can only be correctly gendered by other people once someone has inspected your genitals or judged your facial hair or whatever.

What to do instead: Don’t say that gender is irrevocably tied to one’s body. Support the idea that people know themselves better than anyone else can, and trust them when they tell you what their gender is.

2: Gender --> sex

Who does it: If you’re on Tumblr you’ve probably read blog posts that say things like “I am female, therefore my penis is female.” A lot of us feel this way about our own bodies, and taking ownership of the language used to describe your body is a very positive thing. In the UK it’s supported by the medical system, which lets you change the gender/sex marker on your medical records just by asking the receptionist.

Why it’s harmful: It’s not - unless you start to impose it on others. It’s not universal. Some of us strongly feel and identify with the sex of the body; for example, Asia Kate Dillon is nonbinary but strongly identifies their body as female.

And then there’s Big Freedia, who says she’s a man because she has a man’s body. Her name and pronouns and presentation, everything that we use as gender cues, are decidedly feminine - but she is very open about her body being male.

What to do instead: Don’t assume stuff about people’s bodies or the language they use to talk about their bodies based on their gender, pronouns, presentation, etc. Don’t say that in general, for example, a body is female if it belongs to a woman. Respect everyone’s right to bodily privacy. Support the idea that people know themselves better than anyone else can, and trust them when they tell you what their sex is. But like, don’t ask, okay? Don’t even hint. It is none of your business.

~

SEX AND GENDER ARE UNCONNECTED

This is the one that’s been bugging me lately.

Who does it: I’ve seen nonbinary people go out of their way to correct people who equate gender and sex (or man and male, woman and female), and in doing so they state that sex and gender are never connected.

And it’s understandable! The idea that someone can be born in the wrong body has been central to the campaign of visibility and understanding aimed at cisgender people for quite a long time now. It counters the idea above, that sex defines gender, that has been socially prevalent for basically all of living ciscentric memory. A lot of us probably learned about what being transgender is by hearing the idea that your mind can be one gender while your body is another, and said, “damn, that could explain a lot for me.”

Asia Kate Dillon takes this to an extreme. I mentioned above that their gender is nonbinary and their sex is female, but they have also stated that sex and gender are entirely unconnected, for everyone. They insist that male and female are words used to describe sex only, and that it harms them when trans women call themselves female. They said that sex is defined by those five characteristics I listed in the overview, and if any of those characteristics doesn’t match the others then your body stops being male or female at all; a person who’s had a hysterectomy can no longer be called female in terms of sex.

Why it’s harmful: When people say to a trans person, “well you might be a man but your body is not male,” they are implying that someone’s biology would be relevant to anyone but themself, the people they may be physically intimate with, and maybe their doctor. On this level alone it’s personally very intrusive, in a way that no cis person would have to tolerate.

On a practical level, it allows people to exclude trans people from gendered spaces in which they belong on the basis of aspects of their body that may never even be visible, because their body is somehow more relevant (to gendered spaces like toilets and changing rooms) than who they are, and cis people can’t possibly cope.

There are two common excuses for excluding trans people from these spaces.

Random cisgender humans will accidentally see a weird body and be needlessly alarmed or frightened. (Frankly, not our problem?)

Some people are incurably violent or harmful because of their bodies; even someone seeing their bodies may cause harm. (That’s, at very generous best, insulting. In reality, if you are perceived as a serious threat when you walk into a room you become a target.)

What to do instead: Don’t make sweeping statements like “trans people were born in the wrong body” or “gender and sex are different and unrelated.” Support and respect people when they tell you about their own experiences of their body and gender. Encourage cisgender people to take responsibility for their emotional issues, improve and increase resources for victims of sexual violence, advocate for partially gender-neutralising spaces, and welcome trans people into gendered spaces where possible - and it almost always is possible.

~

THE MORAL OF THE STORY IS

Always respect people’s right to bodily privacy. Always.

If you feel like your sex is defined by your gender then great but it’s not true for every trans and/or nonbinary person. Similarly, if you feel that your gender and sex are independent of each other then that’s fine but don’t impose that on other people.

Barring unusual phobias, there is no need to ever consider the impact of someone’s sex on you personally. Unless you’re a doctor or you’re about to have sex or something.

In reality, there is a relationship between one’s body and one’s gender for a lot of people, otherwise gender dysphoria wouldn’t be a thing. What the connection is we may never fully understand, but that doesn’t matter. There is a connection for many people and it feels different for everyone, and that needs to be acknowledged and respected. At the same time, for many people there is no apparent connection between their gender and their body, but that doesn’t mean there can’t be one or that deep down everyone else is just wrong about themselves.

Gender and sex are complex individually, and their relationship to each other is complex too. Trying to logic it and sort it into boxes and make a flow chart of it just isn’t going to work. We can stop trying to teach each other, and start supporting each other instead.

[spirkism]

on why queer isn’t a bad word

I’ve read quite a few posts from either viewpoint and so far I’ve kept my mouth shut on how I feel about this because I didn’t want to polarize - but lately I’ve seen more and more of the “but it’s a slur!!!” arguments and couldn’t take it anymore. I went on a twitter rant but promised to make a more organized and put together post so here we go. (it got quite long, I apologize)

there are a lot of wonderful posts about this out there already but I decided to still mention the points made there because honestly the more people hear it the better. feel free to approach me and I’ll link you to some of those other posts!

as a little backstory: I’m from Germany - aka a non-English speaking country and that actually plays a part in it but more on that later. I’m in my mid-twenties and I’ve identified as queer for about 7ish years now. I used to be very well connected in the community, especially the trans community and had some older friends who were there in the beginnings of our (German) community. so I know the history.

okay so, I’m just gonna list some points now in no particular order:

1. yes. queer is used as a slur. so is gay. so are basically all the other identities we have. because some straight people are assholes and are afraid of everything that’s different. BUT. queer has been reclaimed AGES ago. our forebearers fought long and hard to take it BACK from the straight people who stole it to hurt us. freely handing it over to our opposers now would be nothing short of trampling on our community’s history and invalidating the sacrifices the generations before us have made. also. “queer history”, “queer cinema”, “queer studies” are all legitimate (academical) terms. academics don’t cuss in their descriptors (and college courses).

2. queer is so much more inclusive than lgbt(+) or any of those acronyms. sure you could go lgbtqiaapf... but honestly that’s getting a bit ridiculous and frankly confusing. so for the sake of this argument we’ll stick with the “original” acronym LGBT. it mentions all of four identities. FOUR. out of the multitudes there are. I personally happen to have one of my identities mentioned there. that’s not a lot. but still, it’s something. my aroace nonbinary friend doesn’t have any. “but there’s the plus!” you say. great. a plus. lovely. how would you feel being represented by a plus that doesn’t tell you anything about what it actually means? exactly. that’s not representation at all. who tf even knows what that plus means. no mention of nonbinary people, fluid people, pan people, ace people, aro people, and the list goes on and on.  that’s why it’s an amazing umbrella term. everyone can find a place in it.

3. it’s welcoming. this point is kind of tied to my second one but it’s important in its own right so I decided to give it its own number. it’s welcoming to questioning people. you know you’re different? not straight? but are you pan? are you bi? are you ace? or maybe aro? are you trans? are you non-binary? who the fuck even knows. it’s hard. I’ve been through multiple of these and it SUCKS. so having a community who goes “hey we don’t care how exactly you identify, we don’t mind if you haven’t figured it out you, you have a place here, you’re safe here and no one is gonna police your identity or gatekeep you” is super important. trust me.

4. it’s often easier. if I want to let somebody know I’m “not straight” without going into the details of my identity, queer is just a lot simpler and the other person will immediately understand what I mean. sometimes I just don’t wanna let somebody know all of my identities. sometimes I really don’t feel like educating people on all the terms I use. but I still want to let them know I’m part of the community. and honestly sometimes saying “hi so I’m a pansexual gray-aro gender-nonconforming trans guy” is too tiresome/long. “hi I’m queer” is concise and understandable to pretty much everyone. sure, if you’re a cis gay dude, lesbian or bisexual person you can just use one of those words - good for you (no really, it is good for you and I’m happy you have these terms). but who tf (that isn’t as deep in the community as I am and/or on tumblr) is gonna know what I mean when I talk about my identity? fucking no one. you can’t really use “I’m LGBT” as a descriptor for yourself. saying “I’m gay” doesn’t work either cause then a) I might feel weird cause I don’t actually identify as gay and b) there’s gonna be shouts of “but you’re not gay, you’re not allowed to use that word!” - well what am I gonna use then? exactly. QUEER. that’s where my nationality comes in as well. here no one knows what the fuck ace / aro, nb or even pan is. but they know what queer is. it’s like that in a lot of the non-english speaking world. get out of your US sometimes, folks.

5. this one is near and dear to me. queer is so much more than just an identifier telling people you’re not straight. it’s more than a label. more than a community. especially in the beginnings of our history it was most often used to denote that you’re different. you’re not the norm. and you don’t wanna be. you’re proud of being different. you’re celebrating being different and you’re not ashamed of it. it means you don’t want to assimilate, don’t want to emulate the “normal” lifestyle, don’t want to be that “well, he has a husband but you know, he’s not really gay, he’s just like us” guy. (nothing wrong with having a house with a picket fence and two children though, okay, I never said that! I actually want that myself) the celebration of difference has always been a strong suit in our community. and personally for many of us. this is where my other “oddities” and differences interwine with my queer identity. I suffer from anxiety. I’m kinky. I’m a witch, I’m questioning my religious beliefs, I don’t give a fuck about gender roles and I’m just a general oddball. and that’s how I LIKE IT. I’m good that way. heck, I’m fucking GREAT that way.

there are quite a few more arguments to be made for the word queer but these are the ones I feel are most important.

so yes, I’ve identified as queer for a long while and I will continue to do so. as well as use it as an umbrella term for our community. if you personally come up to me and ask me not to use the word queer for you specifically of course I’ll accept that - but don’t you dare tell me how I can and cannot identify myself and my community. as cis gays and lesbians you might not need the word queer. and that’s good for you. (no really, it is). but as someone who isn’t one of these things, for so many of us, queer is a word we desperately need (for the reasons listed above and more). so PLEASE don’t take it from us. a lot of work and love went into that word and it would be devastating to lose all that love and hope and sacrifice. we must not let this divide us. we must stay strong as a community, ALL of us, especially in the current times. 

so no, I have never nor will I ever tag my identity as a slur and I urge you not to either. if for personal reasons queer is a triggering word for you, there are countless ways to get around that (just like with any other trigger - use tumblr savior, xkit or any other of those options). but don’t ruin it for the rest of us.

this has obviously just been my very personal opinion - feel free to add on to this!  I welcome discussion about it - with people who agree with me but also people who disagree - the only thing I ask is to please stay civil and not to become personally attacking.  thank you. sorry for making such a long and personal post but I just had to after all this time.

so to end this with an all time classic: WE’RE HERE, WE’RE QUEER, DEAL WITH IT.

[pfs-peridot]

Acephobia, Allosexuality, and what it means to be Queer

I’ve been meaning to provide a comprehensive overview of the so-called “ace discourse” that seems to course through the internet every few years, like a UTI that’s survived 3 half-hearted trials of antibiotics, only ever fading- never dying. As an asexual individual that has been out in this world since the Year of our Lord 2010, there have been wild misconceptions surrounding this issue for as long as I can remember. Let’s start with some basics, just for fun.

Disclaimer: As an alloromantic person, I will not be speaking in regard to aromantics. Most of this stuff can be generalized, sure, but I don’t want to act like I know what it’s like to be aromantic when I truly don’t. Write your own analyses! Speak out! Smash the cishetallopatriarchy!

Asexual? Like a plant?

No, I do not experience a sexual attraction to myself. No, not all asexuals masturbate, nor do all asexuals not masturbate. I have never once woken up with a clone of myself nestled beside me, having reproduced as a microorganism would. These may seem silly things to think in this year, but this was the majority of conversation when I first began to come out. Figured I might as well get them out of the way early on.

Asexuality is defined as a non-normative lack of sexual attraction to anyone regardless of gender. “Normative” is a handy little word that means “outside of the spectrum which is considered “normal” by society”. For example, the construct of cisnormativity implies that being cisgender is the “normative” state for an individual to be. Thus, in the definition, you can hopefully begin to see what’s so queer about asexuality. Here are some more terms the community has!

Sex-positive Ace: An asexual individual who does not mind having sex

Sex-negative Ace: An asexual individual who would prefer to have no sex at all

Sex-repulsed Ace: An asexual individual who abhors all forms of sexual contact- for some, this includes activities like visiting a gynecologist.

Demi-asexual/Demisexual: An asexual that can experience sexual attraction once they have reached a level of closeness with an individual.

Grey-asexual: An asexual that experiences some level of sexual attraction, though not nearly enough to be considered within the “normative” range

Allosexual: A person that experiences a normative level of sexual attraction. Consider this term to be much like the terms “white”, “cisgender”, “abled”, “heterosexual”, and the like. It’s not that it’s necessarily bad to be this way, it’s just that being this way protects you from the discrimination that asexuals experience. Some dislike the term because “it groups me in with heterosexuals!”, but truly any adjective does that. I don’t see people saying “don’t call me white, it groups me in with heterosexuals!”.

It is truly not up to a bystander to determine whether or not someone is asexual. Personally, I knew that I was the moment I saw the term. Many said things along the lines of “Oh, you’re 15, you just haven’t bloomed yet”. However, I wouldn’t say that the analysis that you must be “of age” to identify as anything is necessarily true- Part of the reason I identified so heavily with the term was that I could feel how abnormal I was. 

My friends would talk about topics around sex, and I felt incredibly unengaged. I felt like the only person within my age group that felt the way I did. The sense of being an outsider was what caused me to gravitate to understanding myself as an asexual individual. Regardless of the sex-positive education I sought, despite having a friend group that adamantly put down any slut shaming, I could never find it within me to be sexually attracted to anyone. Many told me I was broken. I certainly felt that way. Finding a proper way to define myself helped me to embrace my difference instead.

Queer Enough To Ride

I would first like to reach out to those of you that believe that asexuality is not “queer” enough to be part of the LGBTQIA+ community- I understand why you want to gatekeep, that is- to staff the entrance to the community, deciding who is and who is not allowed within. Many of you are bisexual, nonbinary, and other queer folks that were once the subject of the “are you queer enough to ride” argument. 

I myself gatekept like you did. I quantified how trans a person needed to be to be considered part of the umbrella. I attempted to divide the bisexual community between “fake” and “real” bisexuals. I did this largely for one reason- I felt like I didn’t belong. I felt that, by providing a baseline, I could place myself squarely into a place of validity. If I could say where “not queer” began, I could say that I was surely queer! In my desperation to prove myself, I denounced the experiences of others. What I’ve now realized is an amazing concept: if we were to define all folks that felt ostracized for their presentations of gender and orientation (and wish to identify with the word itself, which not everyone does) as queer, that automatically does include us! As for using the word “queer”? I’ll turn to a very good friend of mine for this one -  @neurostorm​

Oh goodie, another fight over the operational definition of the word ‘queer.’ If you are taking the reclaimed slur approach, then NBs (which were largely unknown when the slur was at its apex and was strategically reclaimed), transmasculine people (whom the oppressor barely knows exist), and arguably even cis lesbians (who often had different slurs hurled toward them exclusively) don’t have a right to use it either; because the slur was disproportionately applied to gay men and transfeminine people (since the oppressor believed they were one and the same). However, it was agreed that by extension of a general oppression that all gay people and all trans people could “have” it. It was this same idea of general oppression that started the LGBT+ coalition, since on a 10,000 foot level, the oppressor saw them all as just different manifestations of the same thing. The redefinition of the slur to become synonymous with the political coalition was part of its reclamation. The strategy was twofold. First- use its deliberate fuzziness to capture all the edge cases, as gender and sexuality are highly individualized. Second - use this re-branding to neutralize the slur’s power further by completely transforming it to mean something else entirely in the hearts and minds of the cis-hetero world. Regardless of how one defines that term, there is one very basic truth. It has ABSOLUTELY NO BEARING on who gets to be considered a part of the greater LGBT+ coalition, whether or not the term is used to define it! So with that said, how SHOULD we define those who are included? Opinions vary, but strictly for the “sexuality” part of the equation of things, my personal definition I tend to fall back to is that it meets 3 basic categories. 1. Its a significant departure from standard sexuality. 2. It’s a significant departure from expectations placed upon you by society’s sexual defaults. 3. It has a major impact on ones life in how they relate to society’s sexual expectations. This doesn’t imply oppression a priori, and this is deliberate. Oppression is a byproduct of greater society being shitty to certain groups based on their identity, not a part of their identity itself (if it was, then that identity ceases to exist if the oppression against it stops, and I don’t stop being autistic just because I wake up in a paradise where abelism doesn’t exist). Oppression would be that there is a systemic pattern of mistreatment and bias that conforms to and is promoted by the power structures that be, disempowering and marginalizing the other group for their deviance from the imagined normal. So then, about the aces. Where do they fall in in regards to this criteria. 1. Asexuality is a significant departure from standard sexuality, as standard sexuality assumes a moderate-to-high level of libido and desire by default (less so for female perceived people, but less is not none). 2. Asexuality is a significant departure from expectations placed upon one because they are expected to perform sexuality and have a certain level of desire in order to be seen as good partners (and in the case of male-identified people, have their gender validated). 3. This has a major impact on ones life because the expectation and desire of sexuality (or at least the performance thereof for the sake of another) is seen as a default part of romantic relationships to the point where it is implicitly believed by some that it is the sole reason they exist. It has a major impact in that it is always assumed to be childhood trauma, shyness, and “not meeting the right person” (and you know what, even when that is the case it doesn’t invalidate the asexuality they have).

I’ll return to their infodump in just a bit, as they did have more to say. No, they are neither cis nor het, if you’re intent in devaluing their opinion. In fact, they’re not ace! So I will add some of my experience to the meat of their argument. I currently identify as GenderVague (being on the autism spectrum, I don’t necessarily have the best grasp of structures like “gender”), bi/panromantic, and asexual. I did not come out as any form of nonbinary until 2014, as I didn’t have the terms to describe myself, and I did not come out as non-heteroromantic until I forced myself into a state of inebriation (read: became absolutely plastered) and, well, slept with a girl to prove myself. 

I knew that I liked girls, don’t get me wrong! It’s just incredibly hard to prove that, you see, when you’re asexual. I could say that I crushed on girls since the 3rd grade all I liked, but I was forever a “fake bisexual” until I could say that I had sex with a woman. That community mindset (and a desire to not disappoint my allosexual gf) led to me doing what I did, all in the effort to validate myself.

I guess I’m bringing all of this up to say this- whenever I hear people talking about those “cishet aces” always “trying to invade” yadda yadda, I see myself in 2012. To the majority of queer folks, I absolutely appeared straight, being closeted. I’m certain asexual aromantics also are devalued as “straight” for the same reasons. I don’t think any of us are any less queer, forcing ourselves to have sex or not. I also really don’t think anyone whose m.o. is not being interested in sex will get much of anything besides community from being recognized as queer. And for those that identify as heteroromantic in full spirit? I’m going to echo what asexual people of all orientations have been saying- if you say that they’re not welcome, but you say that I’m welcome, you’re specifically stating that my experiences as an asexual person are nothing. Since I personally received far more discrimination for being asexual than for being bi (I emphasize personally, as everyone has different experiences), I feel invalidated when people say I wouldn’t be queer without being bi. You can’t consider my asexuality queer while at the same time stating that asexuality as a whole is not queer.  Let’s go onto the second half of @neurostorm ‘s rant-

As for oppression, there is a systemic pattern of mistreatment and marginalization against asexual people that favors the power structure. The Asexual community can probably answer this in more detail, but off the top of my head, one example of systemic oppression is that society sees a low-libido as a kind of arrested development of maturation (which plays in to abelism in some ways too). Society will pressure asexuals to perform sexuality and force-spark development through things such as corrective rape. Society will flat out erase the existence of asexual people (I know many an evangelical who believe that there is no such thing as an asexual person, and that anybody who says so is just trying to virtue signal and hasn’t admitted their “sins of the heart” to themselves). All of these examples and more are promoted, encouraged, and tacitly accepted by greater society at large. All of these examples are born from and promoted by minor and major biases saturated in the consciousness of the majority of the population, and favoring the power structure that currently exists. That effectively MAKES it oppression using the definition I provided earlier. It is a “…systemic pattern of mistreatment and bias that conforms to and is promoted by the power structures that be, disempowering and marginalizing the other group [in this case, asexuals] for their deviance from the imagined normal.” So to recap. My argument is as follows. 1. The strategy to re-brand “queer” as a coalition name is deliberate and decided upon by the greater LGBT+ community in roughly the 1990s-2000s. If someone personally doesn’t want to be referred to that way, that’s all well and good, but it’s not their place to tell another how they should refer to themselves. This applies to any reclaimed slur, term, or identity phrasing (i.e. the argument of identity-first language vs person-first language in the greater disabled community [other disabled folks can refer to themselves however they want, but they don’t get to tell me I HAVE to use person-first language when I greatly prefer identity-first language to describe myself]). 2. Regardless of how 'queer’ is operationally defined, that has no bearing on whether or not asexuals can be part of the greater political coalition. 3. Going by what I feel is a reasonable set of basic criteria, Asexuals ARE qualified to be a part of the greater political coalition. 4. It can be demonstrably proven that asexuals are systemically oppressed by virtue of their asexuality.

There’s certainly folks that are attempting at this very moment to argue that allowing asexuals into pride will mean that ace voices will take over “more important ones”. I would like to introduce you to a concept that every pride I’ve been involved in fails to implement- prioritizing intersectional voices. Giving the mic to trans lesbians of color instead of white cis gay men. For the love of Marsha P. 

Hell, as a disabled, trans, bi, asexual, autistic immigrant I’m 10 times as intersectional as Tyler Oakley, so can we stop making him our first choice for a speaker? I’ll get off this tangent, but my point is that I am actively dreaming of a world where people that are only one letter of the whole acronym don't speak over all the rest of us. I don’t think it’s fair to be fearful of asexual folks taking up space when our community is so blatantly whitewashed and ciswashed as it stands. Speak out in favor of intersectionality for everyone, stop giving white cis gay men a pass to speak over everyone.

Acephobia

Acephobia, Acemisia, Aceantagonism- There’s a multitude of names to describe the systematic oppression and violence that asexual folks experience. I personally prefer “Acemisia” because it takes up fewer Twitter characters and doesn’t associate itself with mental ailments like agoraphobia, but I’ll call it acephobia since that’s what the kids on here are saying. Acephobia, like other forms of discrimination, is too wide to be wholly understood in a simple lesson, so forgive me if I don’t touch on some issues. In general, oppression exists on multiple levels-

Institutional violence- discrimination written into schools, churches, public offices, and other power structures that make up The State.

Social violence- discrimination carried out as an unwritten social rule through everyday language and encounters

Physical/sexual violence- murder, rape, the fun stuff! /sarcasm

I’m going to try to address each level the best that I can, so bear with me.

Institutions & Asexuality

Many queer folks will use religious texts and fundamentalist Christian views to outline why their oppression in society is legitimate, and this is because The Church is an institution that entwines itself in a lot of issues of morality and law, especially in regards to marriage and love. A common argument that I hear is that asexual folks face no such oppression in that system. However, as an asexual who has discussed this issue for the better part of 7 years at this point, I have discovered this- fundamentalist Christian people do hate asexuality, specifically because it throws a wrench in the idea that one has to consummate a marriage. For those unfamiliar, consummation of a marriage is the act of having sex after a wedding in order to prove the marriage legitimate. 

“But isn’t asexuality the same thing as chastity??” you ask, clearly illustrating that you don’t get the point that we are not experiencing any sexual attraction at all, no matter how hard we try. The problem is that asexual folks don’t “get over” this “phase”. Many of us are unable to consummate marriages, and to not consummate a marriage deems the marriage, in the eyes of the church, illegitimate. This isn’t merely a thought experiment- I do know asexual folks that legitimately were run out of their home for disclosing that they would never marry “the way God intended”. That’s actually a reason for marriage cancellation- “annulment due to a failure to consummate the marriage”. Thus, you can see that the institution of the church, which affects the institution of marriage, which we all know impacts relationships very intimately, has a very marked issue with putting its head around the idea of a sexless marriage. When the same-sex-marriage debate was still young in the early 2000s, many opponents claimed that the reason same-sex marriage was sinful was because the process of consummation would require, in their gross words, “sodomy”. I brought up that many asexual homoromantic couples were likely seeking the ability to marry, and this idea jarred them further- they were outraged that anyone could refuse to consummate a marriage, and stated that a sexless marriage was effectively more of an insult to God than a marriage that brought forth “sodomy” [blech].

There are other institutions where asexuality is actively discriminated against within- I was actually given an intervention in a liberal middle school for writing in health class that I had no plans to have sex, and I quote, “never never ever EVERRR!!!”. I know, mildly excessive, but I was completely sex-repulsed at that age. Multiple teachers were brought in to try to convince me, stating that at my age, “you really need to be thinking about sex rather than trying to avoid it”. Even though this program focused on encouraging students to abstain from sex until they’re ready, they found it problematic that I had no interest in “EVERRR!!!” performing the act. It spoke heavily to the hypocrisy that even abstinence-encouraging programs have when faced with asexual students.

Asexuality in Society

There were countless YouTubers that popped up around the year 2010 that discussed in depth the social ramifications of coming out as an asexual individual. One in particular that I followed was swankivy, who was immersed in discourse in the immensely queerphobic 2009 youtube and OkCupid community. She heard everything from “you’re clearly a lesbian in denial, come out of the closet and join us” to “you’re straight because that’s the default”. In fact, she has almost a decade’s worth of videos titled “Letters to an Asexual” that highlight the sorts of comments we receive on a daily basis. If you couldn’t already guess, many of the comments indicated that she wouldn’t be so controversial if she could pick a “real” sexuality, and stick with it. People often told her things like “it’s ok to be a lesbian” after she had already argued extensively that her asexuality was how she was made and who she was. I know that 2009 youtube videos don’t age the best, so take all of those low-quality films with a grain of salt- a lot of homophobia got launched at her in the early days, and nobody in 2009 was entirely unproblematic.

As the asexual community began to receive recognition from both queer and cis/het communities, their placement was treated like a game of hot potato. We didn’t fit in with the cis/het community, as we still got accused of being broken for not experiencing sexual attraction. The queer community hasn’t wanted us either, for largely the same reasons. We were too deviant to fit in with the mythical norm, and simultaneously too deviant to fit in with the counter-norm. Both communities had very staunch views on sex that we couldn’t fit into. 

Eventually, the A in LGBTQIA+ made space for us. By the year of 2011, I began to see space made in the queer community as a whole for asexual folks. Many empathized with our struggle to find a place of belonging, especially bisexual and trans folks that had been overshadowed by the L and the G for decades. This was a magical moment for me. I didn’t get queer theory at this point. I didn’t totally understand gender & sexuality studies at 16. There was just a piece of me that finally felt welcome. I was allowed to be myself, and everyone was expected to educate themselves on my lived experience to make that possible. I stopped being bombarded with questions and started being able to talk to asexual lesbian and bi girls, asexual trans folks, and everyone else that showed me that it just might be ok for me to be more complicated than society would like me to be. … I’m typically a person that speaks uniquely in logical & academic terms, but looking back at that moment in time is difficult for me to succinctly verbalize. It is incredible to find a place of belonging… I don’t think I would have survived had I not had a community. Being an asexual teen was only bearable the moment people said “You know what? It sucks that people are shitty to you for not being into sex. You can hang out here, we think you’re pretty cool anyways. If you wanna talk about sex we’re down but we totally respect how you were made and know what it’s like to be forced into being someone you aren’t”. I can prove to you with study upon study that unconditional love and acceptance is absolutely integral to a developing teen, but I don’t think even that would attest enough to how blessed I was to find a community who was ok with the way I was.

Asexuality, Sex, and Rape

This section contains sensitive content that details largely my personal experiences with corrective rape and coercion. If you may have a difficult time reading, give yourself a moment to prepare. I feel that this discussion isn’t nearly whole without this piece.

Firstly, we must discuss the term “corrective rape”. I hear often that it is impossible for me to have experienced corrective rape, as I do not identify as a lesbian woman. Let’s break this down as gently as possible- Firstly, if you’re going to claim that asexual corrective rape is “appropriation” of a lesbian term, I hope you also exclude white lesbians from using that term, seeing as a doctor coined it in discussing the corrective rape of black lesbian women in South Africa. Alternatively, we can understand that it’s a term that very succinctly identifies an experience in which someone is targeted for sexual assault in the attempt to “cure” them of an undesirable sexuality. We really ought to give more credit to black innovations of language in general, but I think you see the point that it’s easier to say “I was correctively raped” than “I was targeted for rape by a bisexual guy that believed that asexuality specifically needed to be raped out of someone”. Hopefully, we’re clear on this now.

In 2012, I met Eric Epperson at an anime-con sort of event. He was a bi cisgender allosexual man. He knew I was asexual, and promised that we could “go slow” if I agreed to date him. Seeing as this was my first ever experience with a relationship (and being autistic and easily manipulated), I naively agreed to date him. He, predictably, did not hold true to his promise and forced me to become sexual with him early on in the relationship by saying “well how will I know you really love me if you’re not willing to make love to me?”. He was very effective at discreetly threatening me with abandonment and slander (and more, later) were I to ever say no to his advances. 

Some months into the abusive relationship, I finally persuaded him to watch a documentary on Asexuality in the hopes that he would learn how uncomfortable I was with sex. He made multiple comments on how effectively raping the male star would make him give up asexuality (He was a “feminist”, though, so he never called what he did rape). He referred to asexuals featured as “creepy freaks”. He boasted about how he had cured me and turned me into a “normal person” by threatening me and guilting me into allowing him to do what he wanted to me. He commented on what a sad, empty life the male star must have, not knowing the joy of having Eric’s dick inside of him. He and his mother, a cisgender bisexual woman, were laughing by the end of the documentary about the “freaks who need help”. Eric later admitted that he targeted me specifically because he was interested in “curing” a “weirdo” like me. He had a phrase for it too. “I’ll turn you Epper-sexual”. He intended, from the start, to “cure” me. 

I’m lucky to have been set free from the relationship, even though it was only because he found a 13-year-old lesbian to “turn eppersexual”.

A month after being let go, I met a stunningly beautiful girl. I’ll call her M. She was incredibly effeminate and reserved and had long, brown, curly hair and freckles. I was smitten. Only being a month away from the abuse, I was in a very vulnerable position and asked her to be my girlfriend. Initially, she was okay with “taking it slow”, but eventually she confessed that she really wanted to have sex with me. Afraid that I would be discounted as a “fake bisexual”, I got incredibly drunk (I became severely alcoholic, but that’s another article) and satisfied her as best I could. It was fine at the time, but the aftermath is why seeing her on campus to this day tears my heart.

We broke up because I was way too traumatized by my abuse to hold together a relationship, and drinking and using all day forced me to drop out of college. We initially had planned to stay friends, until a mutual friend of ours broke up with their girlfriend because she was pressuring them to have sex with her, and they were asexual. They felt it better to break it off than to leave them wanting.

“If you’re asexual, you really need to give that up if you really want to satisfy your partner!” she said. “I mean, Ren did it!”

I called her out for that comment, and we haven’t spoken since.

I’m just one asexual out of millions. The fact that countless others can attest to having dated Ms and Erics should speak volumes- after all, the personal is the political. That is to say, I’m not an isolated case. What happened to me was bred from a culture that, at its core, devalues asexuality. I can only hope that M’s learned better since, but I know for a fact that Eric continues to be on the hunt for kids like who I was.

A Positive Note

That last section was totally trauma central so I’m going to end on a positive note.

To keep what happened to me from happening to others, we need a cultural shift. Rather than attempting to quantify how bad acephobia is compared to transphobia and homophobia etc, we need to realize that every human has an intersectional experience. It’s not a matter that an asexual biromantic black woman is oppressed more than a disabled autistic gay trans man- people living in intersections experience overlaps and magnifications of oppression in such complexities that to state something as over-arching as “any black person is more oppressed than any trans person” is not only devaluing but too simplistic to account for personal experiences. Instead, it would be more accurate to say that the woman and man mentioned earlier experience different disadvantages in society, not more or less.

Not one asexual person is demanding that all allosexual folks stay quiet on their experiences being involved in other intersections of oppression. All we’re asking is a place at the table and a room to feel safe in.

I hope that this article was able to provide positive insight regarding the discourse. Let me know if you have any other questions! 

As always, remember- progress > perfection.