#people with complex genders don’t invalidate people whose genders aren’t

[thecommunityoftrustworthysinks]

didn't reblog this and covering op's url because these are 100% valid personal feelings to have, i just wanted to add a comment because i felt this way (and still do sometimes!) a LOT about when people would say cis butch women and trans men had blurriness between them and things in common, because my gender is not remotely related to women. but that's not what people mean when they say things like that. they're speaking to genderqueer and nonbinary and multigender people, and people who identify as trans women and gay men, people who identify as trans men and lesbians, people who have complex and multifaceted relationships with their genders, and how you can't determine someone's experiences from their gender, or their gender from their presentation. it's not saying at all that gnc cis people and trans people are the same thing! especially not to any individual person.

(and the post does say cis but it’s entirely possible for people to identify as cis and still have complicated genders related to their presentation or sexuality or anything. gender and queerness are fucky, and how we all operate in the world is not clear cut by identity)

my gender is completely unrelated to women, and there will be masculine women (including cis ones) who have experiences in common with me in relation to gender. that's fine. historically, there was tremendous overlap in communities of drag queens trans women gay men, and drag kings trans men and lesbians. that's one of the many beauties of queerness.

again, op's feelings here are completely fair and i understand them very much. this is something ive also had very strong reactions to. and there's a lot of truth in saying that you should not treat trans people as if they're the same as gnc cis people (unless that's something they've expressed being comfortable with). and that also doesn't mean that there are never any experiences trans and gnc people have in common, or that there's no one who straddles that line

[bottomharrykingdom]

Hiya. I’m a little confused. Is it okay for me to see Harry As just a guy playing with gender norms. Obviously if is closeted trans I 100% support him and if he comes out I still 100% support him. I just know a few of my gay and lesbian friends get really pissed off if they’re misgendered because of who they like or what they wear or how they act etc. I don’t mean to offend anyone I’d just like to learn about these things more x

Hi! Of course the whole world doesn't have to agree with us, but hopefully a transphobic line of thinking isn't behind it! For example, saying Harry having body hair, muscles, and a penis makes him a masculine cis man is extremely hurtful to trans women assigned male at birth. Saying that masculinity cancels the possibility of him having a connection with womanhood promotes stigma against masculine women, especially trans women whose identities are invalidated if they aren't meeting a hyperfeminine standard. And mocking his queer expression as being "basic" in comparison to other queer people who are "doing it better" is extremely hurtful to trans people who are "doing it" just like Harry.

Transhood(as an umbrella term for noncis) is about what's inside! You can compare Harry to straight cis boys who wear dresses to prove feminine boys exist, but it's completely irrelevant to all the actual reasons people think Harry is trans.

A lot of people misinterpret our belief in Harry being trans and say it stems from his clothes and behavior, but the truth is what really sparked the conversation was Fine Line!

Harry's known to be very meticulous and deliberate about the visuals in his projects, be it religious, about his family, film references, or sexuality. And while fans have been able to find these connections, Harry has never publicly spoken about any of them. That hardly means he didn't do it on purpose, and it certainly doesn't mean he doesn't want people to notice!

So when a lot of people saw that the album cover was three horizontal lines in the exact colors and shades of the trans flag, they began looking at the album through that lense. Of transhood, for some through their own.

Harry saying the album was about things he'd been wrestling with for years, a struggle he expresses in the titular song Fine Line,

how he described the lines of gender becoming ambiguous,

how the album is called Fine Line,

how the words "fine line" reference the song where he sings, "we'll be a fine line, we'll be alright", the same song where he expressed a struggle with separate entity, now together, sharing this experience of togetherness in ambiguity,

showing that it's all a reference to a state of being where there are no lines,

seeing his identity as separate, struggling with it and in need of a way to be together,

when there's a song called She where he sings about a woman who lives inside him who's the first one he sees, but only in daydreams, living a life he wants to abandon to be with her, because currently they can't be together, and live separately.

And as if that didn't show how the themes in Fine Line connect and reflect transhood, gender nonconformity takes a front seat in this album era! He could've picked any other time, but Harry chose this album about making peace with himself and finding joy in that acceptance, to be paired with gender nononconformity. Photoshoots where he publicly wears makeup, fishnets, dresses, and ballerina tutus, and his poses are more fluid and flamboyant. And often he's doing these things for the first time! As if to say he's settled something, and can now experience things he'd been holding back from.

And it was only after all of that that people began to look back at Harry's self expression through the years, finding once again that it all shows a reflection of the trans experience. Not the other way around! It definitely didn't start with the first time he wore a dress in 2017, but rather, it was all pieced together in hindsight. After Fine Line.

So hopefully that gives you a better idea of why people believe Harry's trans! It's a very complex thing to summarize. You're welcome to disagree with it, of course! It's just that when incorrect information is spread about Harry and gender, it's hard to find it believable.

Think of it as a beautiful plant! As the theme featured in the album goes, Harry is a sprouting plant being born again.

And the nail polish and dresses make up the many beautiful petals of flowers from that same plant. Even without them that plant is still alive. And it came as a shock to many people, but it had flowers after all! It just needed a little time to bloom 💖

[whimsucalcookie]

long post, beware rant slash info slash gender. everything’s under the readmore

bringing this back bc i’m petty and bored and op is a coward for talking shit about me behind my back over a post about a cookie run ad(of all things.....) and also i realised i’m nonbinary woohoo!!!💛🤍💜🖤 (op isn’t btw😶) he probably won’t see this bc he blocked me but starting off with a funny:

and now for some cool stuff!

pronouns =/= gender

nonbinary =/= using gender neutral pronouns

unspecified pronouns=/=nonbinary

third one is specifically aimed for fandom, anyways it’s lecture time with professor whim.

there are masculine enbies(i’m one😍). there are feminine enbies. there are enbies that are both or all or even none. some use he/him, some use she/they, some use neopronouns. the meaning of nonbinary is in the name - not fitting with what is the gender binary of male and female be it partially or completely. nb people may identify with binary aspects of gender but this does not invalidate their identity as nonbinary. this should be an obvious fact but you don’t have to look or act a certain way to be valid as nb. gender expression does not have to match with gender identity.

here’s some resources i found that are much better at explaining this than me👇🏻

please stop bothering and badmouthing people over characters that you have headcanons about. it’s really shitty behaviour and you should be embarrassed. let people have their fun. i think it’s cringe and immature if you block people for disagreeing with your headcanons but ofc you’re free to do what you want as long as you don’t hurt people. everyone enjoys fandom differently. some people like shipping, some people like creating complex aus and ocs. some people just want other people to talk about their interests with. theories and hcs are awesome(i have them too ;3) and they contribute so much to interest but instead of fighting people over fanon disagreements FOCUS ON HELPING AND PROTECTING REAL LIFE LGBTQ+ FOLKS. it’s very strange that one would get offended on the behalf of a cookie that they headcanon as nonbinary, and constantly whine about fictional characters(whose genders aren’t even specified sometimes😭) getting “misgendered” yet contribute nothing to benefit actual nonbinary people. it feels so very.......what’s the word i’m thinking of........ performative?

the state of arkansas is trying to pass a bill that would criminalise gender-affirming healthcare. three states have passed bills that bans mtfs from participating in girl’s school sports, tennessee being the most recent. every day people are harassed, attacked, even murdered for being gay/trans/nonconforming. complain about things like that. complain about real-world things that causes actual harm instead of being like “this person doesn’t think a character is (insert gender/sexuality)! BIGOT!!!!!1!!1”

op you likely won’t see this but roguefort cookie will not come out of my phone and tell me off for referring to them/him/????? as a he. roguefort cookie is not real. gender is not real. you are a weirdo who’s nitpicking for things to be upset over. if you want proper nb representation then don’t expect it to come from a game about sentient cookies.

anyways that’s all i have to say,

TLDR: i’m a transmasc enby and i want people to actually understand what being nb is. also fandoms are fucking stupid. big kudos to you if you managed to read this whole thing, my head hurts and i’m gonna go take a very long nap✌🏻

[jcmorrigan]

Do you support anti-harassment and pro-shipping?

Short answer: Yes.

Long answer: This is an issue I’ve been monitoring and grappling with for a long time, and I feel like while my core philosophy has been the same for a while now, the nuances I’ve held shift every so often. I don’t identify as an anti. I just don’t. I think shipping things - be it incest, adult/minor, or one of the many flavors of abusive - is an ENTIRELY separate issue from wanting to do that IRL. I think sometimes people just want to write taboo topics for various reasons. Because the topics themselves are taboo and that’s interesting, because they offer methods of coping, even because some people are kinda into projecting upon the person on the losing end of the power dynamic and being dominated and kicked around, since that’s not something you should really chase in real life (unless it’s during a roleplay with a network of safewords).

There are many ships I think are gross, but I don’t want people to stop shipping them because I don’t like them. I don’t like ships that involve anyone under 13 with anyone over 18. I don’t like ships that involve anyone under 18 with anyone over 30. (Aging up is a whole different matter; if you write the younger character older and legitimately have them behave the way you think they would as an adult, it’s all good.) I REALLY don’t like ships where a character is either confirmed homosexual or only shown onscreen to be attracted to the same gender in a big-deal reveal sort of way (if the character has crushes on many genders or the creator uses Word of God to say they’re bi/pan, it’s fine) and the ship involves putting them with someone of the opposite gender (shipping them with enbies is fine). And no, I don’t think it’s a double standard that I sometimes like to do same-sex ships for characters who are coded very very straight. But this is all to do with my tastes and beliefs, not with what I think the rest of you all should do. If you like something that falls in my personal no-no category, then go ahead and do it. I’ll decide how much I want to interact with you, and that says more about our potential chemistry as a unit than it does about you as a person. And if you have boundaries yourself - if age-gap ships skeeve you out - then that doesn’t make you a bad person or even an anti! Just block as needed, talk to friends if you feel betrayed by them, and recognize what it is you don’t like and that you don’t have to like it.

Selfshipping? Do what you want. Again, I might personally have reservations about shipping with somebody too young (I actually perceived my own main f/o as in his twenties when I first watched his source, then saw Word of God say he was NINETEEN actually, even though that invalidates many many jokes about how he’s bad at adulting, so I just said “fuck it” and he’s at least 24 to me because that makes more sense and is more of my comfort zone). But what I like shouldn’t dictate what YOU do. I might give you a little side-eye if you’re shipping with somebody young, but I don’t know your reasons for doing so and I don’t have the right to judge. I might distance myself from certain situations if I’m feeling skeeved out. Or I might not feel skeeved out depending on how it’s handled. I also again would raise a brow if you’re selfshipping with an opposite-gender gay character, but same principle: you have your reasons, you shouldn’t stop because some rando (me) has an issue with your ship, and if I have a problem with how you handle it, I’ll just peace out on my end and not make a deal out of it.

A lot of this comes from the fact that I have mega OCD and I already try to moralize everything I do and hyper-analyze my choices to make sure I am being a Good Person. If I try to follow the “rules” to make my ships palatable to everyone, then I start worrying that any deviation makes me unforgivable. The vast majority of ships in my deck are squeaky-clean and have no problems, but sometimes I’ll get, like...Ventus/Papyrus, where Ven is 15, and Papyrus is in age limbo but I always thought he was at least 18, and then I don’t want to spiral into a moral crisis because I really think it would be cute to put the anime boy with the skeleton and I think they’re both asexual anyway. Or when I aged up Zevon from Descendants in order to make him make more sense as Yzma’s son, and then I had to give him a ship with an adult and I found one I really like (Kamdor from Power Rangers). And this is not even scratching the very complex issue of “The writers of this piece of fiction were ACTUALLY horny for incest and I can see the subtext for it and now I gotta figure out what to do with this mess because I like the series and I do want the characters to have partners who will treat them right.”

That said...up until recently, I looked up to the more extreme proship community, even so far as to kinda be more of an “anti-anti.” But as time went on, that...didn’t seem to fit. I’ve unfollowed a few of those blogs now because first of all, proshipping as a “political party” seems to come with some things I don’t believe in, such as forming a parasocial relationship with AO3 or saying that freedom of fans to ship what they want means the creators of mainstream media should be allowed to portray whatever they want and that being “critical of media you consume” is an automatic dogwhistle for bullies. More importantly: I have at least one friend who I know leans more anti, and I value her a lot and I think it’s valid for her to have her boundaries. After a while, the things that anti-antis did to protect themselves from bullying started to feel a little bit like bullying right back. I can’t really call myself a traditional proshipper anymore, even though I’m definitely not an anti. But I don’t want to be an “anti-anti” either. Because actually, I USED to be an anti on a different social media platform long before Tumblr, and though I can’t tell you exactly why I was that way, I can understand what it’s like to feel that strongly about things that gross you out and want to get them out of your face. I don’t want to say I’m against a whole bunch of people who are probably as varied in intensity as proshippers are.

At the end of the day, what I want is for us all to CHILL OUT. Can we please, PLEASE just focus on having fun in whatever way that comes - problematic ships or no - so long as people IRL aren’t getting hurt? Can we respect that there are probably a LOT of people with OCD on social media who spiral easily if shamed too much (which is probably how the anti movement rose in the first place - I’m sure my anti phase was fueled by my secular scrupulosity)? Can we not assume that people who ship weird age gaps are Actual Pedophiles, which is an entirely separate issue? (Listen...I grew up in the Age of AkuRoku. I hated AkuRoku. But if all the AkuRoku shippers turned out to be pedos, well, the news sure didn’t cover it. I’m saying the majority of them didn’t. And it’s been a decade.) Can we not spread the fear of being cancelled or that having a certain fictional preference will ruin a budding friendship? Can we communicate with one another in private if a friend says or does something that makes you uncomfortable, such as shipping something that makes you question their moral stance? Can actual legitimate creators of media not take sides in the goddamn pro/anti war, thereby making groups of their fans feel alienated from being welcomed by the source? Can we just have fun PLEASE?

Also, just...stop fighting about Reylo. That’s the dumbest thing to fight over and we managed to somehow get the actual SW crew in on that dumbass fight. Some people like Reylo and some people hate Reylo and THAT’S IT. WE’RE DONE HERE.

It sure says something that I worry, before hitting the Post button, that this might ruin some of the relationships I have or inspire a mass exodus of the followers whose names I come to like seeing in my notifications. But it’s ultimately better for all of us if I’m honest.

[whetstonefires]

Your post about romance was so spot on and this is from someone who really likes reading romances some of the time. I just wish there were more books where friendships (which after all make up the majority of people's relationships!!) were given the same weight and importance as romance gets unthinkingly. Like, I want books or fic which show the development of two (or more) new friends *as the plot and main part of the book*, and the same thing for the progression of pre-established friendship.

Human relationships are varied and complex and interesting and limiting writing to mainly concerning romantic or dating ones is infuriating! I enjoy reading character driven stuff, which is why I like some romances but I really want to see similarly detailed deep studies of friendship. Friendships are so important, and romantic relationships do not supersede them.  Obviously there is gendered bias against romance as a genre but that is not the only reason to be uninterested in romance damnit!

Sorry for ranting in your inbox about romance and thanks for the post

Hah thank and welcome. Very true!

Yeah, the problem is not just how ubiquitous romance is but the inevitability of it. So many people are so much in the habit of hanging their emotional investment on ‘couples getting together’ that not putting one in is a risk, as a creator, and the faint suggestion of a possibility that a romance might eventuate between two characters constitutes a promise that the audience will be outraged to see not followed through.

So making a story focus at all on a relationship between two people who are considered valid potential romantic partners means having to go through incredible backflips and contortions as a writer to get away with not pairing them up, or there will be outrage. There will be outrage anyway, but hopefully on a contained scale that doesn’t have people throwing your book away.

(The easiest way, of course, is to give one or both of them an alternate partner, but then you either have to build up that relationship as the central focus instead, because you aren’t allowed to love anyone that much and not be romantically involved or be romantically involved For Real with anyone but whoever you love most, or accept that you’ve plastered on a beard of some kind in a way that at this point makes your main duo look even more romantic to people who are looking for that in the first place, even if it lets you write a plot that doesn’t acknowledge this.)

This has contributed enormously to the cultural truism ‘men and women can’t be friends.’ They aren’t allowed to be. And this weird intense romantic pressure is now increasingly extending to same-sex friendships, and it’s like...it’s good that gay visibility and acceptance are growing! That’s great!

But it means that all relationships are increasingly exposed to this honestly fucked up set of expectations. That every single love of any intensity is romantic and probably sexual. That that’s the only love that’s real, or that really matters. With occasional exemptions carved out for parents.

And that’s cultural, I want to say. The inclusion of and an interest in the romantic lives of characters in fiction is definitely natural and practically inevitable, but the outsize role it occupies in our current media culture is abnormal and totally non-compulsory. The central role of romance in so much of narrative is just...a pattern, a narrative schema that currently holds sway, born of an assortment of historical accidents and trends, and I don’t think it’s a good one.

I think it would be better for us as a culture and all our individual relationships for that particular social construct to be broken down.

Because this cultural obsession with The Romance in media mirrors and continually recreates the obsession with The Romance in real life. You know how many people are making themselves miserable by either being in a relationship predicated on the need to have one, any one, rather than actual mutual affection, or about not having a love interest currently at any given moment?

Like, quite separately from the actual frustrated romantic feelings themselves, people feeling like they are less or failures or just...unfinished somehow, because they don’t have a romantic partner. It’s so harmful and absurd! We all know this!

And there are of course a lot of sociological factors that have led to that point as well, but it’s linked particularly closely I think to the atomization of modern society.

You’re not likely to retain any particular community for long--we move around so much over the course of our lives, anything you have is designed to be taken apart. School friends are only rarely retained after school, work friends are only until you get a new job, family is quite often something to be avoided or something you have to leave behind, and not usually an extended network anymore anyway.

We are always moving into new contexts, or knowing we might be moved, and holding onto relationships from one context into another is generally regarded as an unusual feat betokening particular, though not lionized, devotion, and leaning on these relationships ‘too much’ or pursuing them with ‘too much’ energy is regarded with deep suspicion.

This, too, is not particularly normal in the human experience. We are not psychologically designed for this level of impermanence. And we have developed very few structures as a culture thus far to make up for it, which is why the modern adult is so famously, dangerously lonely.

But we have all these social protocols for acquiring a person and holding onto them. A person who’s just yours, all yours, who it is promised will fulfill all those gaping needs all by themselves, and if they don’t it’s because you or they are wrong, and need either a different partner or fixing.

The fact that this is insane and not how romance works over 90% of the time is irrelevant to the dream of it, and the dream overwhelms and controls the reality. I agree that codependency is really fucking romantic, and having a kind and supportive mutual one is a lovely fantasy! It’s just...

A lot of harm eventuates from pursuing this fantasy in reality with a media-based conviction that it is 1) a reasonable thing to expect and 2) a necessary precondition for wellbeing and worthiness.

But we have poured so much cultural freight and need into this one single relationship format. At this point having need in any other direction is regarded as disordered and suspect and probably a misdirected application of sexual desire.

The law, too, has put a lot of energy into supporting the focus on seeking the romance as life goal, because the nuclear family is built on the codependent marriage, and capitalism likes the nuclear family very much. The nuclear family is extremely vulnerable to market pressures and bad at collective action, and tends to produce new tiny humans whose main social outlet has been within the school system, which is specifically structured to condition you to accept abusive workplace conditions as a normal precondition of existence, and not to attempt too much intimacy.

Ahem. Spiraled there. But! It’s all connected! Many of the privileges piled onto the institution of marriage were put there specifically because the nuclear family was considered desirable for the expansion of the economy. That’s clearly documented historical fact.

So yeah, the modern cultural obsession with the romance is a symptom of collective emotional disorder, and it chugs along at the expense of the more complex emotional support infrastructures most of us need and deserve.

It’s not just about me wanting representation, wanting an image in the narratives of my culture where I can see myself with the potential for happiness. Everyone needs this. We learn so much about how to be, how to relate to others, from media at this point, since the school system and other weird age-hierarchy stuff keeps us largely segregated from human society for a majority of our growing years and limits our exposure to live examples.

So the paucity of in-depth explorations of friendship, of mutual support, of widespread narrative acceptance that you can have a good life without a romance as its central support pillar, is harmful to people in general.

-

It’s funny, I get frustrated about this periodically, when a piece of media lets me down, or even when I’m following along a funny piece of meta and then the punchline is ‘and the ace character is obviously in denial about how they’re already dating their favorite person’ or whatever.

(The meta is annoying on a surface level and distressing on a deeper level because it’s a threat; so many times a good platonic relationship will buckle under public pressure and it doesn’t matter how asexual, how uninterested in romance, how emphatically platonic the affection has been established as being, The Romance arrives in the next installment of the story because it’s what people expect. Which reinforces the general perception that any other love is illegitimate, lesser, and as soon as it’s meant to be taken seriously it has to be crammed into that one valid shape, and invalidates future insistences in the same mode.

Seriously people stop doing this, we long since reached the point where a character saying in words ‘I have no romantic interest in [person]’ is perceived as a glaring neon sign that they’re destined to get together and that does not do good things for fostering a culture of consent. Obviously people are in denial sometimes but it should not be understood to be the rule.)

But I don’t get upset about it until someone starts in with reasons I’m bad and wrong for not liking these norms.

Like, whatever, media does not cater to my needs, I’ll cope, but when people start trying to get in my head and make me not only responsible for my own discomfort that I’m managing thanks but dishonest and malevolent I...get upset. There’s history there, okay.

‘You don’t care about this ship because you’re homophobic’ ‘you don’t want a love interest in the sequel because you’re racist’ ‘you don’t like romance in stories because you’re a misogynist’ fucking stop.

And occasionally it’s like ‘i guess you have the right to feel that way but how dare you talk about it where other people might hear’ which...well, is particularly common and particularly ironic in the context of people hung up on gay representation.

If we as a society had a healthy relationship with romance, there wouldn’t be negative side effects to that crowd’s pursuit of their worthy goal of applying that schema in places it has been Forbidden, but as it is we don’t, and there are.

[pasta-abomination]

I don’t even know if I should post about this but I feel like I have to say something because it is so profoundly painful that I think it needs to be said, and I’m carrying a lot of anger around with me as a result, and no one who’s saying these things (at least none of the people around me) deserves anger.

But I struggle to put into words how completely fandom has been ruined for me by completely arbitrary rules/discourse about fandom activities that I don’t even engage in.

The absolutist, hard-line defensiveness of lesbian-identified (it exists everywhere, but I have not run into it nearly as often in other spaces) fans in saying “you cannot ship these other ships because one of these characters is a canon lesbian—” (and oftentimes they aren’t, and the interpretation is based mainly on the fact that people identify with those characters) “—and if you ship this character with a male character that is lesbian erasure” is incredibly alienating and painful to me as someone who was assigned female at birth, grew up exclusively attracted to women, learned the vast majority of my politics from lesbians, share many experiences of erasure and trauma with lesbians (including the erasure and belittlement of my feelings for women & the importance of my relationships with them), and identified as a dyke for years (and I’m still more comfortable with “dyke” than “lesbian” because of how successful TERFs have been in hammering in that lesbians are women full stop, even the non-binary identified ones)

I don’t think the people saying these things realize just how deeply and clearly it sends the message that my not identifying as a woman all the time, my taking testosterone but not identifying as a man, my genderqueerness, my butchness, my navigation of my sexuality now that my physical hormone levels have changed—that it means I don’t get to write about complicated experiences or desires because I’m “erasing” other people. That I’m the “invader” in “their” space (which, that phrasing sets off my TERF alarm tbh) when this is the only place I’ve ever belonged. That it invalidates my identity, and in its own way, erases my experience by pretending that there is One Correct Way to be a lesbian, a dyke.

That I am too far to the masc side of the spectrum to have a voice or be part of this community when for years my understanding (based on my interactions in IRL lesbian spaces, with other lesbians who also ID’d as genderqueer) of this community was that it was a place for people with complicated relationships with their assigned sex and with their gender and with how gender operates in our culture—and yes, that includes sexuality and sexual & romantic attraction, because those things are inextricable from how gender operates in our culture.

You are saying that I don’t belong anywhere. You are saying that I’m too much of a minority within a minority to get to explore or express my feelings because someone I’ve never met who has no idea what my life is like might be reminded of painful experiences—experiences that we share. You are claiming that any expression of those complicated desires and embodiments, from the perspective of someone who experiences them and is sympathetic to them as a queer person, is literally the same as Hollywood and the entertainment industry’s demeaning and malicious portrayals of lesbian sexuality.

And I think you are wrong, and I could argue about that, but right or wrong doesn’t matter when it comes to things like this. More importantly, what you are saying is hurtful and damaging to the point that I cannot participate in fandom anymore. Fandom was a space for me to explore parts of myself that I do not get the chance to live in my daily life. To celebrate everything being queer could mean. To be my whole self.

But that is not what it has become, and I never expected to say this about fandom of all places, but I no longer feel welcome, because I no longer feel whole here. Even though nothing about the way I identify has truly changed. I am, and always have been, genderqueer and butch. I have tried other labels, but those two have never gone away.

But fandom no longer feels like a celebration of queerness in all its forms. It feels like I’m constantly walking on eggshells and cutting bits and pieces off my identity and my experience to avoid being lumped in with the very same people whose work I’m in here to celebrate, to queer (verb), to make more whole. The people who I am anything but, because I am and always have been queer, and even when I engage with M/F works, my approach has always been from a queer standpoint.

The irony is that so many of the people saying these things identify as non-binary lesbians. As in, at least by my understanding, having a complicated relationship with womanhood and gender as a whole.

What’s even MORE fucked up is that I don’t even engage in the kind of fan activities for those ships that they would consider “erasure”. They’re not really on my radar except peripherally. But I know that I have a relationship to those ships and experiences too. And being told I have to swear off even thinking about those experiences or I’m A Bad Invasive Transgender Who Needs To Man Up And Transition Fully And Stop Telling “Real Lesbians” what to do hurts. It feels like being asked to cut part of myself off.

Do I ship, say, Adora/Bow or Catra/Bow or Adora/Glimmer/Bow? Not particularly strongly. Nor do I feel negatively. I don’t have any strong feelings about the ships one way or another beyond, “Okay, I can see how someone might think they’re cute”. I would so much rather spend time talking about Mara/Light Hope or Catra/Glimmer or literally any F/F ship. M/F just does not move me or connect with me the same way. I engage with it usually in the context of headcanoning a canon cis character as transmasculine, enby, genderqueer, BPQ, or gay; or to explore the nuances of sexuality and romantic or non-romantic attraction in the context of a poly relationship.

And that’s what’s so fucked about this. I don’t have anything invested in Adora/Bow (for example). But I know that if I did, I would be In The Wrong to express that. I would be the bad guy. I would be disowned, looked askance at, possibly harassed. I would be judged, and I would be judged to be something that I am not.

I’m not asking for you to ship things that you don’t like. I’m not asking for you to read fics that headcanon a character you view one way, another way. I’m asking for you to recognize that there is no one single “lesbian” experience or expression, even if there are overarching general patterns. I’m asking you to please think, for just a second, that the people you are accusing of erasure are real people, and a real part of your community, too.

I’m asking you to please consider, the next time something like this comes up—what is this person getting out of their shipping? What are they exploring? Why are they attracted to this ship? We act like these have simple easy answers that you can figure out just by looking at what people ship, but that’s not always true. What tropes are they engaging? What traumas do these characters speak to for them? What aspect of gender or gender dynamic are they exploring?

I am asking that you allow people (and characters, because that is where this seems to start in fandom) ambiguity and complexity. I am asking that you allow queer people to write queer things even if they are not your queer thing.

Ultimately, though, what I’m asking you to remember is that even though I understand where you are coming from, even though I agree in many cases, this trend in fandom is so incredibly painful and othering and broadly accepted by people that it is almost impossible to be active in fandom anymore

and that hurts so much.

[mxadrian779]

Abled Privilege within the Trans Community:

(a repost)

You have celebrity representation.

There are many openly queer and trans popular celebrities and more coming out all the time, but can you name two popular disabled celebrities? How about just one disabled actor or actress?

You can see or read about yourself in the media.

You can see or read about someone like you without their entire story revolving around their tragic life and inevitable death. Your character’s life is neither filled completely with bitterness nor bliss, and does not require the friendship of an ignorant outsider who tentatively reached out to help you overcome your life.

Oh, and you can find characters like you who have, you know, actual lives with romances, friendships, emotions, etc.

You’re allowed to fight for more, and proper representation.

You can say that we need trans actors/actresses to play trans characters without being laughed out of the room. But God forbid we should ask that disabled people play disabled parts!

And your characters are allowed to actually, you know, live.

You can find characters like you whose stories do not revolve around their deaths. See above.

You have campaigns dedicated to enlightenment and education about your identity.

Women’s studies. African-American studies. Queer studies. Disabled studies?!

Pride month. Black history month. Women’s history month. Disabled history month?!

We’re taught about the oppression, liberation, and ongoing struggles of women and POC in school, but remain silent on anything about disabled oppression and struggles. Hmm.

You have allies and social justice warriors who will respect you, listen to you, and defend you.

You have outsiders who will support you, fight for you, listen to you and share your words. There are no such people for the disabled community. We don’t have allies, advocates, “white knights” or “social justice warriors” helping to educate others about our needs and correct others’ problematic language and attitudes. We’re expected to be our own advocates, our own defenders, but when we are, we’re invalidated, silenced, and erased.

You’re recognised as a minority and your identity is considered in the diversity equation.

When you think “minority” or “diversity,” what comes to mind? POC. Women. LGBT. Immigrants. Religious minorities. The disabled minority is so far down the totem pole, it’s not even funny. We’re simultaneously the most and least visible.

You have access to transitional steps without health barriers.

You’re physically able to alter your appearance. Transition is more accessible to you, whereas people of disability have barriers to such transitional steps as binding, hormones, even just the ability to change clothing style.

You had access to your identity from a young age.

You can reach back into your childhood and find times when you distinctly knew you were different. You can find times you pointed to someone else and felt that you aligned with them—you knew you were more aligned with someone of a different gender, and therefore recognised your identity. People of disability have no such luxury. We have always been and will always be so held apart from mainstream society that we can’t possibly align ourselves with anyone’s identity. We can’t point to someone of a different gender and know that we aspired to be like them because we knew we never could be like them. We never had access to a normal frame of reference, so we had no way of being able to distinguish an identity based on anything other than our disability. We can’t identify certain discrepancies in our identity when our entire life is a discrepancy.

You have one dysphoria, and you know what it is.

People of disability often have dysphoria revolving around their disability. When compounded with gender dysphoria, it’s hell. It’s often hard to distinguish between them.

You don’t have to worry about people thinking your identity is a byproduct of your disability.

You had been allowed into the military.

This is where the military debate rubs me the wrong way. People of disability never had the privilege of enlisting. We were the first minority to be excluded.

You physically can access any restroom.

Again, this debate offends me. Sure, we should allow trans people to use the restroom they feel comfortable with, but we need to remember the privilege they have of even being able to physically access restrooms. There are still restrooms that are not handicap accessible, but that never enters the conversation.

You’re not the subject of pity, and you’re not exploited for others to feel better about themselves.

You’re not seen as grotesque and people are not afraid to approach you.

People aren’t patronising towards you.

When people approach you, they don’t treat you like a child and assume you’re less capable than you look.

You can stand up for yourself without being shut down.

You get to feel safe, heard, and understood in your own spaces, and you get to share your experiences and concerns in progressive crowds without them mocking and invalidating you and calling you oversensitive with a “victim complex.”

Your life isn’t expected to come with a disclaimer or a back story.

People respect your privacy and don’t expect you to tell them how you “got that way” or what tragedy you might have had in your background. You’re not viewed as the result of some horrific event, and you’re not seen as the lowest life form—no one ever worries about becoming transgender.

You have a solid, accessible community, both physical and online.

People of disability feel and often are isolated everywhere they go, and there’s a distinct lack of a sense of community even among our own, which likely owes to the lack of community extended to us from abled society.

How can you be a better abled ally?

Don’t use handicap restrooms or parking spaces.

Don’t block handicap entryways—don’t stand in the middle of a ramp, etc.

Be courteous. Don’t stare. Hold doors for people with mobility disabilities.

Listen to people of disability. Listen to our concerns, our experiences, and don’t speak over us with what you think you know.

Don’t use ableist language, and if someone corrects your language, listen, respect, and correct—don’t try to pretend what you said was acceptable. We know ret*rd is ableist, but so is l*me.

Make an effort to incorporate people of disability into your creative canon. Diversity is great, but it’s not diversity if it omits a crucial forgotten minority.

[bigendering]

My girlfriend is coming to terms with the fact that she/they are non-binary. I’ve identified as a lesbian for years but am I still a lesbian if i’m dating/attracted to a non-binary person?

People are complicated, and labels aren't very good at containing that complexity. I've seen lesbians defined as being attracted to/interested in/being with women, non-men, women and feminine-in-nature genders, women and partial women, etc, the list goes on. Depending on how you feel about the word, you may consider the label lesbian to encompass your relationship with your partner, or you may not. There's precedent for both. There are also people whose orientations don't include their relationship with their partner, and that doesn't need to invalidate the orientation, the partner's identity, or the relationship. However you want to conceive of yourself or your relationship is fine, as long as you're not misgendering your partner (which it doesn't sound like you're on track to do, so you should be good).

Hope this helps!

Sapphire

[myawrites]

HOW TO MAKE YOUR TRAVEL WRITING MORE INCLUSIVE

A guide to avoiding writing solely from the Western gaze.

BY MARIANA ZAPATA

2020 changed every aspect of how we travel, from our ability to do so to the safety measures we now take.

As the world comes to grips with the failings of many of its systems, particularly as they pertain to marginalized communities, especially people of color, who have been disproportionately affected by the double pandemic of COVID-19 and police brutality, there is one more aspect of travel that needs to change: how we write about it.

The origins of travel writing are frequently tied to colonizers meandering around the lands they’ve taken, reporting on the customs of the locals, who are often portrayed as less civilized or even as “savage.”

Our idea of travel today may not be all that different. Online travel groups are often filled with fantasy posts about laying on a beach while a sexy Brown person serves you drinks or pictures of White people surrounded by Black children whose lives they claimed to have changed on their two-week trip to “Africa.”

Travel writers aren’t responsible for the behavior of tourists, of course, but we are partly responsible for the images that inform collective perceptions of places. The beach fantasy and the white savior complex were most likely first concocted by travel writers of yore, then sustained by travelers.

When we write for a white Western audience that we assume to be cis, heterosexual, and able-bodied, we effectively close the door to everyone else – and that’s not acceptable. Here are some steps travel writers can take to ensure a wider, more inclusive lens.

Stop and consider

Hold yourself accountable at every step of the writing process, beginning on the road.

“Make sure that the places you’re exploring aren’t just white-owned and operated. Instead, seek out local businesses and places of interest that are owned by members of the community…and that are inclusive of people of all abilities,” says Priscilla Blossom, a queer Latina journalist specializing in travel, culture, health, and parenting.

But don’t tokenize these places in your articles to earn diversity points – authors need to treat them with the same respect as they would a white-owned space.

Before pitching a story, “consider if you are the right writer for an assignment,” advises Uruguayan-American travel journalist Lola Méndez, adding that writers should consider whether they should write about places they’ve never been to or have merely passed through.

Don’t promote places or tourist practices in your content that are disrespectful or exploitative. For example, as a Colombian-American, I find it painful and infuriating to see promotions for Pablo Escobar tours that glorify a mass murderer. Would mass-shooting tours in the U.S. ever be OK? Would you want foreign tourists coming to gawk at the poorest neighborhoods in your city? I hardly think so. Grant other places the same courtesy you’d want for your own community.

Diversify your sources

“Whose voices do you value in your trip planning and research?” asks Bani Amor, a gender-queer Ecuadorian travel writer, in the Bitch Media piece “Check Yourself Before You Wreck Someplace Else.” They add that “travel guides overwhelmingly reflect those who hold the most power in this world – white folks from the West.”

To combat this, Black travel blogger Kay Kingsman advises writers to diversify the media they consume. When you do this, she says, “your writing naturally becomes more inclusive.”

Award-winning travel journalist La Carmina from LaCarmina.com uses her personal experience to inform her approach to writing. “[I] think about the broad spectrum of individuals in my life and include perspectives that they would find most helpful and meaningful,” she says.

But you have to do more than follow a couple of bloggers of color and pat yourself on the back. While researching and interviewing, use local sources and experts who represent marginalized perspectives. Kingsman does this by reaching out to travel bloggers who are local to the destinations she covers on her blog, The Awkward Traveller, and actively smashing stereotypes and misconceptions in her content. Seeking the most authoritative voices to speak about a particular place is essential in travel writing.

Watch your tongue

“In addition to proofreading for grammar and flow, we should look over our writing carefully and consider whether our words are thoughtful to all,” says La Carmina.

Countries are not static postcards but complex webs of intersecting histories, cultures, values, and identities.

Blossom nails the heart of the language problem as “anything that really embraces white culture but ‘others’ the culture of non-white [people] or anyone/anyplace deviating from the standard.”

For example, American writers often use the word “exotic” to describe eating bugs, even though it’s a common global practice. Yet the word is rarely used to describe unusual European dishes like calf’s head. This sends a message that travel content is meant for a Western traveler.

The way we write can and often does erase and invalidate the culture, history, and experience of marginalized groups and locals. One of the best examples of this is the use of the word “discovered,” both in a historical context and as a personal claim of travelers. It is often said that Western settlers discovered the giant sequoias of the Sierra Nevada in California, despite the fact that indigenous groups had known about them for centuries. Likewise, travelers don’t “discover” a spot that locals have always known about, they simply become aware of it. Calling instances like this a “discovery” implies that something only matters when outsiders (usually Westerners) know and care about it. Local knowledge and perspective is not given importance and is thus erased.

It’s not enough to avoid problematic words. You can cut out all controversial words and still write a narrative that focuses on the Western gaze and treats locals as caricatures that simply provide flavor to the story. Again, treat locals with the same nuance and respect usually given to white Western communities.

Don’t glam things up

Countries are not static postcards but complex webs of intersecting histories, cultures, values, and identities. The tendency to glamorize destinations to appeal to fantasies of leisure effectively prioritizes the wants of Western travelers over the lived experiences of locals.

“Be honest about the complicated history that formed the place – colonization still impacts each and every place around the globe that was conquered by foreign forces. Don’t erase that history in favor of gushing over beautiful architecture,” says Méndez.

For example, many solo female travel writers tout their safe experiences in Mexico as proof that the troubles in the country have been exaggerated. This ignores the crisis of trafficking and femicide that local women have suffered for decades.

Black travel writer Teresa Lynn Hasan-Kerr explains that while we don’t want to perpetuate incorrect stereotypes about the countries that former President Trump would call “shithole countries,” we also shouldn’t use our limited experience in a country to gloss over its realities.

Acknowledging problems is also a way to keep readers safe, particularly travelers of color, who often experience discrimination and harassment around the world.

Before moving to Morocco, Hasan-Kerr thoroughly researched the country. None of the information she found prepared her for the anti-Blackness she faces daily. “I really wish someone had briefed me about the racial harassment [in Morocco],” she says, stating that having that information available would have been helpful to her.

Guidebooks already include disclaimers and warnings pertaining to the safety of female-presenting travelers, so extending the courtesy to travelers of color should be a given.

Inclusivity in travel writing goes well beyond the scope of writers’ influence. However, we do have some say in how we present our own work, in the sources that we use, and in the nuance we add to our content. The lack of diverse editors in the industry is not an excuse to continue writing from a Western gaze.

Mariana Zapata is a Colombian-American travel, sustainability, and lifestyle writer. She has lived and worked around the world, making a home in cities like Miami, Paris, Seoul, and Bogota. You can usually find her at street food stands, judging fashion inaccuracies in period films, or falling victim to her non-existing sense of direction

[shotfromguns]

I’ve been seeing some Fresh Shitty Takes over the past day or two revivifying my “butch/femme is exclusive to lesbians for Reasons (TM)” Discourse Headache. Some of them were articulated by folks whose writing in other areas I’ve very much appreciated and respected.

All of these posts—all of them—are at their hearts inescapably biphobic.

To be clear, when I talk about “biphobia,” I am making use of a shorthand for describing a set of experiences specific to bisexual people—in this case bisexual women—that grows out of the interaction of actual forms of systemic oppression like homophobia and misogyny. (Cf. lesbophobia, which describes the experiences that grow out of these oppressive systems that are specific to lesbian women.) There is no coherent “monosexual” class, there is no such thing as “monosexual privilege,” and anyone using this post as a springboard to claim that there is will have their lesbophobic/homophobic ass blocked as soon as I see them.

Long shit under the cut...

I’m not going to bother to touch on the individual inconsistencies (e.g., “these terms don’t mean anything anymore... but somehow simultaneously it’s important to me that bi women not touch them!”). I’m just going to highlight a few of the most egregiously biphobic assumptions that lay at the heart of the worldview that butch/femme dynamics are exclusively the purview of lesbians.

1. Butch/femme labels/identities/presentations/paradigms are for women navigating relationships with other women.

When this is your argument, what you are saying is, “Bi women do not need to navigate relationships with other wlw,” and, “I will never need to navigate a relationship with a bi woman.”

Like, if you’re a lesbian who just categorically nixes bi women as an option? Fine, your prerogative. But please just own your biphobia so we can avoid each other honestly instead of trying to couch it in The Discourse to frame yourself as the wounded party here.

2. Bi women are trying to appropriate lesbian experiences.

What lesbian experiences, exactly? Pursuing women? Being pursued by women? Fucking women? Being fucked by women? Dating women? Loving and being loved by women? These are wlw experiences; not lesbian-exclusive ones.

We can AND SHOULD talk about whether it's appropriate for, e.g., “femme” bi women in monogamous m/f relationships to continue to describe themselves in terms built around wlw relationships when they’re neither pursuing nor open to being pursued by other women. But that’s... not remotely representative of all bi women? It doesn’t describe me (masc-of-center, dating another masc-of-center woman, both of us bi, neither of us interested in actively pursuing men), and it doesn’t describe the vast majority of bi women I personally know, either.

The fact that the “butch/femme is lesbian-exclusive” side of this debate continually and continuously holds up that particular example to the exclusion of any other conception of how bi women exist—which fucking all of you do—boils down to a categorical assertion that bi women are a bunch of effectively hetero pseudo-queers claiming marginalization so we can cash in on that Hot Hot Gay Cachet while performing traditional femininity, fucking men, and enjoying what amounts to straight privilege with a rainbow flag draped on top. I hope it’s self-evident why that’s... inappropriate.

3. Butch/femme labels were developed by lesbians, for lesbians.

These labels were developed by wlw, for wlw. Many (probably most) of them at the time referred to themselves as lesbian. But the ways we view ourselves and talk about ourselves have changed over time, and wlw communities have always included women attracted to other genders as well.

There are exactly two scenarios where a wlw community doesn’t include women whose experiences map onto what we today call “bisexual”: (1) it’s, in the fine radfem tradition of last century, deliberately excluding us for being crypto-heteros and traitors to our gender for admitting any attraction to men; or (2) we’re there, but calling ourselves something other than bisexual.

Absolutely, we can’t and shouldn’t remap old sexual identities onto modern terms. Which is exactly why someone can’t claim that “lesbian” 30, 40, 50 years ago is the same thing as “lesbian” today. We need to look at the historical communities of wlw and recognize that they were just as diverse as they are now, even as those experiences were mapped onto different conceptions of how to exist as a wlw—which means that it’s equally inappropriate (a) for current bi women to claim that all historical “lesbians” who also had relationships with men would ID as bisexual today and (b) for current lesbian women to claim all historical “lesbians” would ID as lesbian today.

It’s ridiculous for either bisexual or lesbian women to erase the lives and identities of earlier generations of wlw (or older living wlw) because of some compulsion to cram the past into the new Balkanized model that grew up through the late 20th century. (Side note: It could just be Tumblr demographics in action, but I am not at all surprised that most of the people I see being vocal about this are no older than their mid 20s.) The only way it makes sense to say that “lesbians” created butch/femme for “lesbians” so it should only be used by “lesbians” is if you literally warp yourself back in time to that moment, set up a time loop, and live in it forever, so that “lesbian” will mean exactly what it did in that moment and continue to do so. You can’t map what it means to be a lesbian in 2017 onto what it meant to be a lesbian in 1967; or, rather, when you do so, you have to recognize that it’s not a 1:1 match, and you need to make space for those 1967 lesbians whose experiences were not yours and stop trying to claim the ones that aren’t purely by virtue of having inherited the same word that’s since gone through an evolution. We need to look at the wlw who helped build the culture we have now—whatever words they used to describe themselves—and recognize that ALL OF US OWN IT, AND ALL OF US ARE EQUALLY INVESTED IN IT. The fact that some bisexuals have straight-passing privileges some of the time does not invalidate that all wlw are oppressed by homophobia—even if we experience that marginalization in different ways and to different degrees at different points in our lives. Being invisible is safer than being hypervisible, but it is not the same thing as being privileged—and, again, many bi women are exactly as visible as and have no more passing privileges than lesbian women do.

4. Butch/femme labels/identities/presentations/paradigms belong to women who aren’t attracted to men.

This is what it really all comes down to: the misogynistic, homophobic idea that the single most important, most deeply defining aspect of bisexual women is that we [have fucked men] and/or [may theoretically in the future fuck men].

This drips with the insidious, misogynistic, biphobic framing of bi women as being "available to men." Yes, absolutely, it's vital to talk about the ways in which lesbians being categorically unavailable to men leads to unique experiences of misogyny and homophobia for them. But to take that important consideration and flip it around the other way is so, so dangerous—this is not a parallel, reversible idea.

Bisexual women are incredibly disproportionately victims of sexual violence and intimate partner violence. This 2010 report from the CDC, for example, paints a pretty horrific picture:

Bisexual women had significantly higher lifetime prevalence of rape and sexual violence other than rape by any perpetrator when compared to both lesbian and heterosexual women.

Bisexual women had significantly higher lifetime prevalence of rape, physical violence, and/or stalking by an intimate partner when compared to both lesbian and heterosexual women.

Exactly why bisexual women are so disproportionately abused is a complex issue with a lot of potential interwoven causes, but it’s absolutely undeniable that stereotypes like, oh, say, being “available” to men are a serious contributing factor. This is deeply gross language rooted in patriarchal bullshit. Bi women are not “available to men.” We are some of us attracted to some individual men in addition to women. That’s all it means.

There is literally no categorical conclusion to be drawn about how we interact with other women on this basis.

I recognize that it’s important for lesbian women to be able to articulate their identities and experiences as lesbians specifically (just as it is important for bi women to be able to articulate our identities and experiences as bisexuals specifically), outside of our broader shared experiences as wlw.

The problem with staking out butch/femme as exclusively lesbian is that there is nothing either in the history of butch/femme or in their modern meanings that reasonably restricts their usage to a smaller circle than all wlw who are involved with and/or pursuing other wlw—so the only way to do so is by artificially, biphobically excluding bi women from a shared set of experiences.

If anybody thinks they have a genuinely unique and non-biphobic contribution to make, I’m all for it. But at this point, having seen nothing but the same tired excuses to throw bisexuals under the bus like that’s in any way going to help lesbians assert a unique lesbian identity, I’m really, really doubtful.

[mxadrian779]

Abled Privilege within the Trans Community:

You have celebrity representation.

There are many openly queer and trans popular celebrities and more coming out all the time, but can you name two popular disabled celebrities? How about just one disabled actor or actress?

 You can see or read about yourself in the media.

You can see or read about someone like you without their entire story revolving around their tragic life and inevitable death. Your character's life is neither filled completely with bitterness nor bliss, and does not require the friendship of an ignorant outsider who tentatively reached out to help you overcome your life.

Oh, and you can find characters like you who have, you know, actual lives with romances, friendships, emotions, etc.

 You're allowed to fight for more, and proper representation.

You can say that we need trans actors/actresses to play trans characters without being laughed out of the room. But God forbid we should ask that disabled people play disabled parts!

 And your characters are allowed to actually, you know, live.

You can find characters like you whose stories do not revolve around their deaths. See above.

 You have campaigns dedicated to enlightenment and education about your identity.

Women's studies. African-American studies. Queer studies. Disabled studies?!

Pride month. Black history month. Women's history month. Disabled history month?!

We're taught about the oppression, liberation, and ongoing struggles of women and POC in school, but remain silent on anything about disabled oppression and struggles. Hmm.

 You have allies and social justice warriors who will respect you, listen to you, and defend you.

You have outsiders who will support you, fight for you, listen to you and share your words. There are no such people for the disabled community. We don't have allies, advocates, “white knights” or “social justice warriors” helping to educate others about our needs and correct others' problematic language and attitudes. We're expected to be our own advocates, our own defenders, but when we are, we're invalidated, silenced, and erased.

 You're recognised as a minority and your identity is considered in the diversity equation.

When you think “minority” or “diversity,” what comes to mind? POC. Women. LGBT. Immigrants. Religious minorities. The disabled minority is so far down the totem pole, it's not even funny. We're simultaneously the most and least visible.

 You have access to transitional steps without health barriers.

You're physically able to alter your appearance. Transition is more accessible to you, whereas people of disability have barriers to such transitional steps as binding, hormones, even just the ability to change clothing style.

 You had access to your identity from a young age.

You can reach back into your childhood and find times when you distinctly knew you were different. You can find times you pointed to someone else and felt that you aligned with them—you knew you were more aligned with someone of a different gender, and therefore recognised your identity. People of disability have no such luxury. We have always been and will always be so held apart from mainstream society that we can't possibly align ourselves with anyone's identity. We can't point to someone of a different gender and know that we aspired to be like them because we knew we never could be like them. We never had access to a normal frame of reference, so we had no way of being able to distinguish an identity based on anything other than our disability. We can't identify certain discrepancies in our identity when our entire life is a discrepancy.

 You have one dysphoria, and you know what it is.

People of disability often have dysphoria revolving around their disability. When compounded with gender dysphoria, it's hell. It's often hard to distinguish between them.

 You don't have to worry about people thinking your identity is a byproduct of your disability.

 You had been allowed into the military.

This is where the military debate rubs me the wrong way. People of disability never had the privilege of enlisting. We were the first minority to be excluded.

 You physically can access any restroom.

Again, this debate offends me. Sure, we should allow trans people to use the restroom they feel comfortable with, but we need to remember the privilege they have of even being able to physically access restrooms. There are still restrooms that are not handicap accessible, but that never enters the conversation.

 You're not the subject of pity, and you're not exploited for others to feel better about themselves.

 You're not seen as grotesque and people are not afraid to approach you.

 People aren't patronising towards you.

When people approach you, they don't treat you like a child and assume you're less capable than you look.

 You can stand up for yourself without being shut down.

You get to feel safe, heard, and understood in your own spaces, and you get to share your experiences and concerns in progressive crowds without them mocking and invalidating you and calling you oversensitive with a “victim complex.”

 Your life isn't expected to come with a disclaimer or a back story.

People respect your privacy and don't expect you to tell them how you “got that way” or what tragedy you might have had in your background. You're not viewed as the result of some horrific event, and you're not seen as the lowest life form—no one ever worries about becoming transgender.

 You have a solid, accessible community, both physical and online.

People of disability feel and often are isolated everywhere they go, and there’s a distinct lack of a sense of community even among our own, which likely owes to the lack of community extended to us from abled society.

 How can you be a better abled ally?

-          Don’t use handicap restrooms or parking spaces.

-          Don’t block handicap entryways—don’t stand in the middle of a ramp, etc.

-          Be courteous. Don’t stare. Hold doors for people with mobility disabilities.

-          Listen to people of disability. Listen to our concerns, our experiences, and don’t speak over us with what you think you know.

-          Don’t use ableist language, and if someone corrects your language, listen, respect, and correct—don’t try to pretend what you said was acceptable. We know ret*rd is ableist, but so is l*me.

-          Make an effort to incorporate people of disability into your creative canon. Diversity is great, but it’s not diversity if it omits a crucial forgotten minority.