#or people who dont really identify with gender

[avenin]

Hey genderfluid people, how do you deal with your gender switching or being less easy to define?

And not "deal with" as in it's like wrong but more the internalized shame of it. Or how it can feel like experiencing one side of the binary over another can detract from your identity.

and also does your interactions with sex or porn or sexuality change how you feel about your own gender? How do you feel about those things? Do you like it or not?

[porcellune]

i find it kind of interesting that even among queer people it is difficult to treat trans characters with any sort of gender nonconformity ... i've noticed lately that there are other trans men who act like it is the worst thing imaginable to portray transmasc headcanons as feminine men, bottoms, or even pregnant - particularly with viktor arcane lately - despite these all being characteristics than we Can be.

i understand the aversion to that being the only way trans men are ever portrayed, but i feel like sometimes it is lost that these are not like, corporations or mainstream media portraying these characers like this - these are other queer people, very likely other trans men, portraying characters in a way that suits them and their perception of their gender and identity

like by all means if a cis person is out there only ever showing trans men as a fetish object to be feminized, then yea, get mad at them, but for a lot of queer afab people i think is generally pretty harmless lol

most of my OCs that are transmasculine are androgynous/feminine in their expression and bottoms. but my cis male characters are usually the exact same so LOL. it's just how i prefer to write my characters i portray and relate to.

idk i feel like we typically take the statement of "there should be more masculine/top portrayals of trans men" to mean "there should be less feminine/bottom portrayals of trans men" ... Which is like ... wrong. but it's also a general fandom attitude i notice from some people that in general having a feminine man in an m/m relationship is like somehow not woke enough and even harmful.

maybe if you are very blinded by being overexposed to portrayals of feminine men in fandom spaces you could think this is the 'norm' but in reality feminine men are still extremely marginalized ESPECIALLY IN THE IRL GAY COMMUNITY. it's so bad. masculine gay men are still considered the "better" version of gay men this has been the sentiment since fucking antiquity only a man who was masculine and on top and slept with other men was considered to still be a man and given respect

anyways i love fucking around with gender. these days my own gender's been weird. i still prefer being called he/him but i have never had any issue with fulfilling a "feminine" role in how others treat me i really don't gaf. i would just like to be treated as me and i sort of despite that the way people treat me and expect things of me has changed when they learn i am transmasc. like no nothing about me has changed except the pronouns and the tits i chopped off. im still a princess idgaf

[alchemiclee]

I think doing shipping through and aroace lens makes things complicated but also interesting. I think one reason I don't enjoy straight ships as much is because it's very rare for people write/talk about them with a queerplatonic dynamic. straight romance is so "normalized" in society, it's hard to get any other dynamic out of those ships from other people in conversation or writing. it's mostly always romantic. (especially when "guys and girls can't be *just* friends" is extremely common and has ruined mamy of my own friendships) but I enjoy a handful of a straight ship with that dynamic. it's just way more rare to see talked about than gay ones from my observation. anyway point is, more queerplatonic type ships and stuff please! those aren't explored enough!

[little-triboulet]

and of course it goes without saying i need to become a shapeless formless mirage of a blob to truly be able to explore my gender identity

[wingstobetorn]

I am still so confused on whether I'm asexual or not.

[magnoliamyrrh]

okay enough of the rants im logging off last thing ill say is that identity politics is largely a disease 👍 its point with the extremism its been taken to in part due to cia postmodernism being to wreck class conciousness though the wokeificstion of fragmentory policies and identity👍 bipartisan politics also serve to divide the country (all countries) incresingly so that people cant come together👍 having the worlds most stupid useless fragmentory identity politics discussions doesnt help it keeps us from coming together and focusing on real shit 👍wars pit the resources and labour of the working class against each other for the benefit of the rich 👍"im iranian youre american, you and i have more in common with each other than our governments with us, and our governments are more similar etc etc."👍 if racism stopped and if sexism stopped and if classism between the working classes (which, everyone has forgotten what the term "working class" means, its not abt economic bracket, low, middle, and higher class can all b working class yes including the doctor whose making a lot of money bc it is the exhange of labour for wages) stopped the working class could stand united not divided aginst the system 👍differences in race, class, and sex have Always been used to pit the working classes against each other, and to give people a sense of "well at least were better than Those people" (opressed middle class disdain for lower class, opressed mens disdain for women (at least they have power over someone!), opressed peoples disdain for other opressed peoples)

i may bitch and complain about kinds of people on here bc its a way for me to get my frustrations out, but ultimately i do think it is vitally important to have hope and to try to bring unity between people. ultimately i think it is unity which is the only way this planet, species, and every other species on this planet may see a better futute. ultimately, more than anything, i think despite everything we, for everyones sake, have to understand the deep interconnected nature of everything, have to truly understand that one cannot be free without all, and have to try to build bridges.... it is very easy both as both members of the opressive and opressed class (and yes most ppl occupy both in some way) to fall into disdain, fear, and wants of separatism. ive done it plenty myself and at times i still do. trying to "be better" is absolutely exhausting. but. i do truly believe that we have to try. i do not believe hatred is forever. not classism not racism not sexism not abelism not anything. it is not a curse people are doomed to from birth. people can change, we all can. we at least have to try

[2023austingp]

I was late to a 9 am lecture on funny enough homosexuality in the context of ancient Greece and if we can even call it but that this this that and the 3rd because i spent the night before agonising over weather i was bi lesbian or just have ab inability to love before remembering the promise i made to my self at 15 that i was not supposed to care actually.

idk if im actually bi or nit but i have an 8 am class tomorrow cant worry about that

[themindelectricdemo4]

Ok I feel bad I rbed some genders & they're cool but ops seem weirdly interested in policing plurality & listen the gender has nothing to do with plurality so.......I'm just rbing it anyways...sorry that's evil but idrc. For the record plurality is weird, identify however, I am just here

[v4mpyyr-exe]

DONT LIKE, REBLOG

so people who do this may see it.

The growing problem of "they" for trans people

Something I've noticed growing more common in my life recently has been people using exclusively "they" when referring to binary trans people who don't use "they"

Why is this a problem?

Using "they" when referring to someone when you don't know is seen as "better" in a lot of spaces now, which I can agree with as you don't know what their actual pronouns are. The problem I've noticed is that when meeting a trans person, a lot of people seem to default to "they" even after being told what pronouns they actually prefer. This can be for a lot of reasons, but the most common ones I hear are "I didn't want to assume" and "its not misgendering, they is neutral!"

Example situation

Person A meets person B, a trans woman. A doesn't know B's pronouns and so refers to B as "they." B corrects A, saying she prefers "she," but A continues to say "they" because its gender neutral. However, A does not do the same to cis women.

Do you see the problem now?

The use of exclusively "they" on trans people but not cis people, no matter your excuse, shows that you don't really see them as what they identify as and is quite transphobic since you're literally ignoring their identity and not seeing them as how they want to be seen.

"Okay, what should I do?"

Simple, just ask them their pronouns and then ACTUALLY USE THEM!! If he says he, DONT USE EXCLUSIVELY THEY! If she says she, DONT USE EXCLUSIVELY THEY! If they say they, well. yeah, use they, obviously. If xe say neopronouns and you don't know how to use those, just ask! If any part of someone's identity confuses you, just fucking ask them instead of assuming, for the love of god, and once they tell you, don't ignore what they said.

That's all. Just please stop calling people who don't use "they" by that.

Edit:

I got this comment and thought I should clarify and add on some MORE things you should avoid doing now that this post has aged a bit, and I've had more time to think!

Please do not attack this person, i dont think they meant it in any bad way

Clarification on the term 'misgendering'

While yes, 'gender' does not directly tell you someones pronouns or what terms they're comfortable with, but misgendering doesn't only mean calling a man a woman or a woman a man. Misgendering is usually thought to only mean using a trans person's assigned sexs' pronouns or deadnaming, but it's actually more than just that, it includes what terms you use for them, how you group them, and what societal expectations you put onto them based on their assigned sex, not just their gender.

Other things you should avoid

* These DO NOT apply to every situation! These are just general rules UNTIL YOU KNOW THE PERSON, then do what they ask

Calling all gender non-conforming people 'it' (again..not. universal.)

Deadnaming, obviously

Using gendered pronouns for a non-conforming person

Arguing with someone over the validity of their identity

Automatically introducing someone as trans

Assuming someone is out to other family or friends

Using incorrectly gendered terms, including when referring to a group

Exclusively using gender neutral terms/compliments

[genderqueerdykes]

something really important to keep in mind is a lot of people who have rad fem beliefs dont identify as rad fems themselves or even call it rad fem ideology. a lot of people think that's just what being a lesbian or a feminist is. that being a lesbianand/or feminist means hating men and being hostile towards trans lesbians and all lesbians who aren't/just women. a lot of people think that lesbians inherently feel this way because of rad fem's roots in lesbian separatism and political lesbianism. but it's important to point out that none of this has anything to do with actual lesbianism and feminism.

some people think this is also what being a feminist in general is. a lot of people think that feminists are supposed to hate men without realizing that feminism also empowers and liberates men. we need to point it out when people think that being a lesbian and/or feminist means you have to hate men and trans lesbians of all genders. you dont have to be a hateful person to be either of these things.

[luxiomahariel]

small rant, ive never really been a fan of the most popular transmasc and transfem flags tbh

these ones:

my biggest gripe with them is that they look too visually similar and i often get confused as to which is which

but my other problem with them is that they exclude intersex people, especially when i saw the original posts that they came from:

it heavily relies on a persons agab/asab and thats obviously gonna be a problem for people who are intersex to male/intersex to female, amab transmasc/afab transfem, mtm transmasc/ftf transfem, agab-less, agab-punk, etc.

gender-canvasser redesigned them here as a more inclusive variant:

and changing the meaning of the colors slightly as well:

the transmasc flag has more blue than pink to represent having more masculinity/transitioning to more masculinity and the transfem flag has more pink than blue to represent having more femininity/transitioning to more femininity. the colors of the outside stripes are the same as the outside stripes on the original transmasc and transfem flags. i kept them as one does not need to lose all of their femininity to be transmasculine or lose all their masculinity to be transfeminine. masculine transfems and feminine transmascs exist and are cool as hell and should be represented. there’s just more blue on the transmasc flag because transmasc people (generally) identify more with masculinity than femininity and more pink than blue on the transfem flag because transfem people (generally) identify more with femininity than masculinity. the center stripe is white for intersex and non-binary people, as a representation of something “different” from the usual norm (the norm being the binary that there and men and women, and that you’re either a trans man or a trans woman).

i really like the change, though i still find it a little difficult to differentiate the two

similary inspired to make a more inclusive variant of the popular transmasc/transfem flags, spoiledlbleach made these two which i really like as an alternative though theyre sadly not very well known:

recently a couple new transmasc and transfem flags have started becoming more popular, these four-stripe variants:

and i like these ones a lot, especially since they dont rely on an assumption of someones agab/asab or if that person still retains some femininity/masculinity as part of their transmasc/transfem identity

i just wish the original creator of these flags was known and what each of the stripes represent, if they have meaning that is

[talon-dragonbeast]

weird rules, social expectations and Being A Woman

you know, something that really pisses me off about Society (tm) is how normativity is just so mindlessly, happily rewarded, even by the most tolerant of people. specifically (but not exclusively) regarding to gender expression.

i am a woman. i was born a woman, i live as a woman, i am perceived as a woman, and i even identify as a woman. ill admit i also have some gender fuckery going on in here, but my internal identity is, frankly, nobodys business; im happy to be assumed a woman, because i honestly dont care how others perceive me in this regard. but. this doesnt mean that i am happy to do the whole nonsense routine that is required to be considered a Real Woman by almost everyone in this god darn planet. i dont do makeup, i dont like to style my hair, i mostly stopped shaving, and you couldnt pay me to care about clothes.

my mother is always telling me about how pretty i am. growing up, i heard it all the time. you have such beautiful curls, if i had hair like yours i would let it grow a lot longer (thanks, i like it shorter tho). im so jealous of your eyes, they are so blue! (haha yeah, i was born with them). i bet this dress would look so pretty on you, why do you never wear skirts? (they just make me uncomfortable, i like my own clothes anyways). if you wore makeup more often you would look so much more beautiful (i like how my face looks, thanks). you should shave your legs, they look bad like that (you never tell [brother] to shave his legs).

it is infuriating. i hate it so, so much. i am a woman, not a doll to play dress up with. and if i have to pretend to be a human, the least that society could do is to just let me exist in peace! it drives me crazy that all this is even expected. worst part, it is fucking Everywhere.

this christmas one of my cousins got me a new pencil case. it is pink and green, and has some cats and snakes and bugs and moons drawn on it. it is beautiful, and although i wasnt too thrilled about the color, i figured it was cool so i began using it. one of my friends saw me take it out during class, said oooo [name], thats so pretty! and gave me a Look. i dont know how to explain it without sounding crazy, but i swear it was like she was saying, so now you like Woman Stuff! you know what Look im talking about, right? when you finally cave in and do the feminine thing, and its like everyone is so happy that youre finally filling your expected role in life. it is weird as hell. i dont like it.

but like, this is my friend, who supports me being aroace and autistic and IS BISEXUAL HERSELF! something something, leftism leaving peoples bodies when a gender non-conforming person does something that is stereotypically associated with their gender. idk, its a bit like dog training when you think about it for a second. in animal training (and i mean proper animal training, not beating your dog until it stops barking), good behavior should be rewarded, while bad behavior is supposed to be ignored so the animal learns to only do the good behavior. you do the feminine thing, and you get smiles and compliments; you stop doing it, then suddenly gender presentation doesnt matter. and this... training behavior is, of course, mostly unconscious, with its perpetrators unaware that theyre even doing it. if i asked my friend what she meant by that, she would say that she didnt mean anything, she just liked the case. if i asked my mother why do i have to shave while my brother doesnt, she would say that its just how things are.

its just how things are. its how it always has been. its how it always will be. so just shut up, smile, and pretend it isnt happening. pretend youre not being trained like a dog to salivate at the sound of a bell. it doesnt matter, it isnt happening, so why bother thinking about it? dont think about it. stop thinking about it.

[transmaverique]

you're assuming a lot about binary trans people, and if anything it makes me think that our understandings of our genders aren't actually that different? Not every binary trans person wants to pass as a cis person. I don't want to pass as a cis woman, I want people to understand me for what I am, a collection of internal beliefs and thoughts that I've constructed an identity with. It sounds like we both have created identities for ourselves! If you think that non binary people are the only people capable of creating their own identities and striving to be seen as them, that's on you

im gonna try one more time. i cant really tell if youre being sarcastic or not so im gonna assume youre being genuine when you say you think we have similar understandings of gender. but to me it sounds like you are deliberately ignoring the Actual Words i am saying.

we need words to describe our experiences, both different and common ones. those words may be in themselves faulty or somewhat inaccurate, but they are what we have to discuss important concepts, and they function well enough if they have a generally agreed-upon meaning. right?

so. the dominant culture of the imperial core is one of strictly binary sex. anything that breaks this, is deviant of the "rules of nature", to this dominant culture. right?

so then we call people who are NOT of this binary system multiple different things depending on cultural context and personal identity and personal circumstance. right?

'nonbinary' is only one of those words. to each individual it may mean any one of hundreds upon thousands of different things. everyone has their own personal identity, and while we may use the same word to describe said identity, no two people will have the same definition.

this is true of 'manhood' and 'womanhood' as well. every individual, cis trans both neither intersex perisex and so on and so forth, every single one of them has different PERSONAL interpretations of these words and the concepts they are meant to describe.

but 'woman' has to mean something in order to function as a real concept. it has to have some semblance of shared meaning, shared experience, shared conceptual feeling and vibe, for it to work within the imperial core as a means of systemic control and oppression, for it to work as a communicable identity, and for it to function as a word in a language.

in the same vein of thought, 'binary' is a word we are using to describe someone whose gender, in some way, shape, or form, fits into the schema of 'man and woman'. your internal definition of your own gender does not actually matter very much to other people who do not know it exists.

for me, it matters that i am percieved as a binary gender no matter what i do. it matters, and hurts, a lot. and for some people, it matters and hurts less. for some people, it matters and hurts not at all.

whether you consider yourself binary or not is entirely up to you and how you interpret your own navigation of the world. its very strange to act as if im saying anything otherwise. YOU defined YOURSELF as binary in your responding to me. you said you were also agender, so, like i said in my prev tags, i dont think youre the target audience. but the way youre reacting, it seems you think you are. i am also going to reiterate that 'binary' is not a bad thing to be - binary trans people and for that matter, binary cis people, are not my enemies. but i deserve to have the language to talk about my experiences as they compare to binary people. that's all it is.

[doubleca5t]

not that this is ANYONE'S business but as a person in a similar situation im gently curious: frenzy seems like theyre experimenting with their gender a little more! and potentially masculanizing a bit! im really happy for her, but im curious if it has impacted how you think of your sexuality at all? like obviously the gender of your partner does not dictate your sexuality, but i wonder if its changed your self-perception at all? i know i get lots of weird questions from people who dont understand how i can identify as a lesbian with a masc-leaning nonbinary partner, and its something im still kind of sorting through personally

So my personal thoughts on this is that I view both heterosexuality and homosexuality as being exclusive attractions with an asterisk and that asterisk is non-binary and gender non-conforming people. Because non-binary gender identification and presentation is such a broad spectrum, even if you are exclusively attracted to one gender, there are always going to be people who do not id as that gender who you still find yourself attracted to. So for the sake of not being overly letigious about the boundaries of sexual identity, I choose to view these instances as not being in conflict with an exclusive attraction to one gender. At that point the only potential conflict is if the person you're attracted to is comfortable being categorized alongside the gender you're typically attracted to. This isn't an issue in this specific instance because Frenzy still IDs as a lesbian and takes no offense to the fact that I identify as only being attracted to women. I am aware this is probably more words than necessary to explain this but people get very particular about these things so I wanted to make sure I was being specific.

[smowyashe]

talked to the school councilor about gender stuff today, and honestly it really helped, i need to get my ass into therapy lmao, anyway she said something that i think a lot of yall (neurodivergent creatures) need to hear since this is the pronoun palace

she told me that people who are neurodivergent are less likely to be held down by societal conctrainst and things that neurotypical people consider to be normal, they just cant really comprehend it, and thats awesome because there's so much more freedom for exploration

because they arent as concerned with societal rules, they're more likely to experiment with their identity (be it gender, sexuality or otherwise) than neurotypical people, and at a younger age than most neurotypical people

thats why neurodiverse people are more likely to be genderqueer or polyamorous or alterhuman, and everything else considered by neurotypical people to be "weird" or "unusual"

experimentation, especially at a young age, is so important for a child's development, and we all experiment, for example, you may have been an emo in middle school but you're not emo now or you might still be emo

the only way you can know if you are something is to try it out

and if that means you use one label (like genderfluid) but then switch to another label (transgender) later on, you're not "going through a phase", you're doing somethign fundamentally important to your identity and growth

experimentation with your identity is important and you should never feel ashamed for changing what that identity is, because life is a journey and you dont need to have it all figured out before you turn 20 or 30 because some people dont figure it out until they're 60 or even 90

if you dont know whether or not something is truly for you just try to take it a step further (like getting a haircut or wearing gear or different clothe) and see if you like that, if you dont then its not for you and thats okay, if you do take another step and another and another and you might move onto something new or you might feel happy with who you are

and even if you are happy with who you are that can still change, and thats also okay!

i was so happy when i identified as genderfluid and im also still super happy now that i identify as transgender

be yourself, unforgivably <3

[sparkbirdmusic]

I understand if I'm crossing a boundry but i was wondering how you knew you were non binary? I really like titles and the one given to me feels like it doesnt fit quite right. I understand if you dont respond because thats really personal.

I'm comfortable talking about it!

Part of it is that words like "man" don't feel accurate when applied to me. I used to think that was because of my sexuality, because for so long sexuality was kind of the focal point of queer identities.

Then I did this project for a queer studies class where I studied an online community project called Genderfork. Because Genderfork was a photo-based project, for the creative component of the assignment, me and my group took our own photos playing with gender. For the photos, my AFAB (assigned female at birth) classmates dressed in more masculine-presenting ways, and for some reason I (an AMAB person) found myself doing the same.

(I had always been clean-shaven up to then. Later I had facial hair for a while, and for a while that felt right, but now it feels strange to me and has for several years. idk, we're all in flux!)

As a kid I loved everything "girly," I wore body glitter, I played with dolls, everyone thought I was a girl, I absolutely wanted to be a girl... if I'd grown up with different parents, I'm 95% sure I'd be a trans woman. (And I know it's never too late, but I'm fine with where I've settled. For now! Who knows.) BUT I think I would still have come to the conclusion that gender is a social construct, and ended up nonbinary eventually. I think there's something in me that sees the ambiguity in everything.

Other aspects of my childhood seem like clues to my being nonbinary. I got along well with other kids who weren't gender-typical, especially tomboys. And my favorite stories were ones where girls cut off their hair and pretended to be boys (the Alanna series by Tamora Pierce, The Gentleman Outlaw and Me—Eli by Mary Downing Hahn, Mulan, etc.). I think I related so hard because it felt like what I was doing.

Several years into my relationship with my partner Adam, he started exploring his gender identity and presentation. He dressed very femme for a while, and it led me to confront aspects of my sexuality and my own gender identity. Eventually he settled back into identifying as male and dressing in ways that are more male-coded, though lately that's evolving again. (again, we're all in flux)

Somewhere in there, amidst my obsession with Steven Universe and a nonbinary storyline in the show Transparent, I started seriously questioning my gender identity. Then one day, at a moment when I was actively questioning my gender identity, Adam asked, "Have you ever questioned your gender identity?" And I screamed, "WHAT?!" because his timing was so uncanny.

From there I very quickly started using they/them pronouns. And I knew it was what felt right for me, but I was super nervous about being accepted by other trans people as Trans Enough. I decided to be brave and go to a meeting of a trans group on my college campus. When we went around the circle introducing ourselves, I told them my pronouns were they/them, adding, "That's the first time I've said that to anyone but my partner.”

Afterward, I nervously went up to the group leader (a binary trans woman) and said, "I hope it's okay that I was here." And she looked thoughtful and said, "Hmm. I don't know. I'll ask people and see if they were okay with it."

I went home crying. I'm totally fine now (this was 2017), and I only share this aspect of my coming out as an excuse to say: YOU ARE TRANS ENOUGH. If you don't exclusively identify as the gender you were assigned at birth, you are trans enough. People (especially in trans circles) are thankfully way more familiar with nonbinary as an identity now than they were in 2017, so I pray this doesn't happen as much now as it did then. But if it does (to any nonbinary person out there), please know that Sparkbird says you ARE indeed trans enough to go to the trans group.

Anyway that's a condensed version of my nonbinary story! 💚