#or whatever tf i should tag this idek; tl;dr it's complicated af

[charteredlibertine]

i'm not against your Q+ idea but with regards to the last bit of that post, nonbinary people are in fact covered by the T in LGBT

I agree…and also, respectfully, disagree.

While it’s true that “trans” is often used as an umbrella term to describe anyone whose self-identified gender is different than the sex they were assigned at birth (especially when it’s written as “trans*” with an asterisk) “nonbinary” is itself an umbrella term that includes a vast range of identities.

Just to name a few – nonbinary, genderqueer, agender, demigender, genderfluid, bigender, neutrois, androgyne, and third-gender are all examples of identities commonly included under the “nonbinary umbrella.”

Some nonbinary folks do consider themselves to fall under the even larger “trans umbrella,” and that’s totally valid. But other nonbinary folks do not. Some associate being transgender with a desire to transition (either socially or medically, through hormone therapy and/or surgery) and therefore don’t consider themselves to be trans. That, of course, is a misconception – not all trans people want to transition or define their identity that way. But each nonbinary person is entitled to define their identity however they choose.

Additionally, some people who identify as nonbinary don’t relate to or agree with the “gender-binarist” attitudes held by some trans people, and deliberately embrace the term “queer” or “genderqueer” as an alternative to the word “trans.”

The reverse is also true – some transgender individuals adhere strongly to the idea of a gender binary in which “male” and “female” are the only two options. These are the folks I was referring to, who sometimes use the acronym “LGBT” instead of “LGBTQ” as a way of stating their belief that the only “true” trans people are those who identify as “trans men” or “trans women” and want to transition from one sex or gender to the other.

There’s also another group – separate from gender-binarists, but often overlapping – commonly referred to as “truscum” or “trans-medicalists.” These folks believe the only “true” trans people are those who experience the medical definition of gender dysphoria and want to undergo medical transition. Some trans-medicalists view nonbinary identities as a “fake” concept invented by “trans-trenders” who make things worse for “real” trans people by muddling the definition of “trans-ness.”

I have stated here the facts as I understand them. I don’t want to get into an actual discussion about what I think about all this because…well, to be honest, because I just don’t want to. But you can probably guess at my feelings based on my liberal use of virtual airquotes.

TL;DR – Nonbinary people are only covered by the “T” in “LGBT” if they want to be, and there are some people who believe they are not and will never be covered by the “T” in “LGBT” and use that acronym with the specific intention of excluding them from the community.

I’ve answered this based on my assumption that you have the best of intentions, and I hope that’s reflected in my reply. If you’re interested in this stuff, you can plug any of the terms I’ve mentioned here into google, or even tumblr, and find plenty of articles and discourse about it all. I warn you, though, it doesn’t make for very pleasant reading.

Here are some I found from a quick googling, to get you started, but please note that I didn’t read all the way through these and I’m not vouching for their accuracy or objectivity:

TeenVogue: 9 things people get wrong about being nonbinary

Reddit: Does anyone else feel they are nonbinary but not trans*?

Everyday Feminist: 10 myths about non-binary people it’s time to unlearn

Quora: What is the difference between a transgender person and a non-binary person?

Let’s Queer Things Up!: Why aren’t more trans people denouncing truscum?

Let’s Queer Things Up!: This is what I wish people who identify as ‘truscum’ would try to understand