#with the whole 'bisexuals can't be attracted to nonbinary people/people outside the gender binary' thing

[navree]

Never miss an opportunity to drag Riverdale/RAS. Is this like when people were frothing at the mouth whenever others would say that Cheryl Blossom was bisexual?

Oh God don't remind me. I don't care if everyone else has forgotten, I remember when Madelaine Petsch said literally on her YouTube channel that Cheryl was bi after season 2, before they decided to make it canon within the show that she was just fully a lesbian (not a problem, and I'll give the show some minor props that they then remained pretty consistent with Cheryl being a firm lesbian for the remainder of the plot, but the amount of vitriol people would get in season 2 was just Insane).

What the whole "wow can't believe Alicent isn't queer anymore because she's gonna have sex with a man" and "Francesca Bridgerton is a lesbian guys her husband was just comphet" thing boils down to is just an inability to actually see bisexual people as, well, bisexual. It's a failure to understand that a bisexual man or bisexual woman is going to be interested in more than one gender, including potentially someone of the opposite gender, likely because people don't want to acknowledge that they view it as a "lesser" form of queerness. Like, there's a reason why half the time, a character being confirmed bi just means that if you even attempt to ship them outside of a same sex relationship people are going to act fucking insane. A lot of people just see bisexuality not as an actual queer identity in its own right, but as Homosexuality Lite, and treat it accordingly with the lack of respect and care and consideration towards real bisexual people that you then see echoed in fandom spaces towards bisexual characters, either canonical or coded.

With Francesca I'm finding it particularly galling because the show, from what I've seen, has already set up her relationship with her future husband to be one borne of genuine affection and clearly filled with love on both sides, mutually reciprocated. And from what I've been told of her book (I have not read these books nor do I intend to), her feelings of grief and lost love over the fact that her husband died and she was widowed young are a huge part of her story, and why the poignancy of her finding love again in Michael (or, in the show!verse, Michaela) hits especially hard, because it does show that you can have great loves in your life more than just once. So trying to make it seem that there was never any romantic love for John is literally a failure to understand the story and its meaning.

Also I will always bash Riverdale, one of the great building blocks of this blog is bashing Riverdale and RAS's ten million shitty writing decisions, and I shan't be stopped.

[shrimpmandan]

Actually, no, Freud did not coin pansexual. He coined pansexualISM, which is something of a paraphilic term meaning a sexual attraction to everyTHING. Basically, being indiscriminate with who, or what, you fuck. I'm not even sure if it's a real thing (for humans) besides him using it to describe rats.

The actual word "pansexual" didn't come about until the 1920s or 1930s, where it had a variety of different uses spanning the century. I can't name all of them off the top of my head, but there was of course the whole "attraction regardless of gender" thing (basically parroting bisexuality), but I also recall some more niche applications such as describing a person as having "pansexual appeal". It's not uncommon for sexual orientation labels to have originated as meaning something else-- if I recall correctly, "bisexual" used to largely be used to refer to hermaphroditic plants and animals. Saying that Freud coined pansexuality is 1) not really correct and 2) kind of a non-argument when you look at the history of literally any other LGBT term.

As for the whole nonbinary dysphoria thing... honestly, trans research in general is barebones. Scientists still can't agree on what "causes" transness. Neuroscientists can't agree on if brain sex is real or not. People argue all the time about the criteria for dysphoria. I don't think "binary" or "nonbinary" dysphoria even exists-- it's all dysphoria. Say what you will about it, but just looking at the actual DSM? What people describe as gender euphoria is dysphoria. You can just flatly not want sex characteristics and that would qualify you for a gender dysphoria diagnosis. You could want both but not remove anything and that would also qualify you for a diagnosis.

Hell, I consider myself a man and nothing more identity-wise, but the way I experience dysphoria could be considered "non-binary", I guess. Science is VERY far behind on what people experience. It's normal. You get used to it. Being gay, bi, trans, etc. existed far before scientists ever placed a name to it. Same with mental illness, or neurodivergence, or disability. The only difference is that gender isn't as immediately tangible, but the idea of there being gender(s) outside of male or female isn't a concept that the modern West just made up outta nowhere-- the concept goes back to somewhere around 400 BC, actually. I'm not necessarily trying to say "oh yeah nonbinary is definitively proven to exist scientifically"-- it isn't-- but we don't NEED hard neuroscience to see that trans people exist, or that gay people exist, or that any other group of people exist. I do think there comes a point where "trusting the science" slides way too hard in the other direction and makes you actively shut out experiences from people that science still hasn't heard out yet, which is a trap I fell into myself. Scientists aren't infallible overlords of divine truth, and in fact many of them are biased, privileged, or-- bluntly-- fucking stupid. It doesn't take a psych major to know Freud was cuckoo.

"Anti-terf/radfem" yet both of you don't like trans people who don't fit your gender essentialist boxes, don't like nonbinary people AT ALL or think our pronouns/genders are real, AND you hate mspec people which is separatist (as in radfem) bullshit ON TOP OF ahistorical AND bigoted. You're just radfems who don't claim it

I never claimed I didn’t like non binary people first of all, I can’t remember what Roxy put, but that is not what I put.

Number two, mspec is just plain stupid, theres no point in having fifty different labels that mean the exact same thing when you just have the term Bisexual

AND also where do we ever exclude trans people? Xenogenders just don’t exist I’m sorry,

“Faegender” and “Genderqueer” don’t exist, they are just for people who want to be quirky, same with neo pronouns.

Please don’t come to our inbox and cry that we’re radfems/terfs when you don’t have evidence to back it up ;>

[fite-club]

1. gender isn't a feeling, but how else do you describe "feeling" like a man? if you can "feel" like a man or woman, you can "feel" like both or neither. "feel" = "be".

2. obviously not every GNC person is nonbinary, but you seriously can't tell me that gender roles have nothing to do with gender. they are connected. it's not "too many contradictory things", because there are lots of different ways to be nonbinary. there doesn't need to be a strict wall dividing "GNC" and "NB", they are similar experiences, and that's okay.

3. there ARE multiple definitions of nonbinary. there are some people who may feel closer to a binary gender while STILL not completely identifying with/as that binary gender. in fact, many nonbinary people do this to make it easier for the people around them.

4. nonbinary people who are "gay" are attracted to other nonbinary people, or are aligned enough with a binary gender to consider their attraction same-gender. there literally are no "rules", it's up to an individual and how they feel is the best way to communicate their gender and sexuality.

5. "outside the binary" =/= "3rd gender". i guarantee that there are some two-spirit native americans and indian hijra who consider themselves nonbinary! you literally say in point 2 that gender is different by culture, and these are cultures with genders that are NOT BINARY genders. they are not ALL "men forced into sex work" (something people say about trans women btw). if these things aren't hard to find, do more research yourself and read actual first-person accounts of people with these identities.

6. /i/ used to identify as nonbinary before i identified as binary trans. i also used to identify as bisexual before i identified as gay. but you wouldn't say most bisexuals are people who haven't "picked a side yet", would you? there are literally no rules to being nonbinary, that's the whole point. it's not "confusing" anybody (but yourself apparently) to explain that you don't have to be 100% man or 100% woman. many nonbinary people are dysphoric over the fact that they can't "pass" as nonbinary, and over being seen as their AGAB. not identifying as your AGAB doesn't automatically mean you DO identify as the opposite gender.

i can say the same things here about the asexual community. "treating sexual orientation as something that can change on a whim, and many people change the rules as to what does and doesn't count", and not addressing concerns. there are such infinite ways to be nonbinary, that of COURSE discussions around it are going to have many different points of view. it seems like it bothers you that there is this identity that can't be categorized or strictly defined, and i get that, but it's an experience shared by many and should be respected. i won't deny that there are some nonbinary people who spread transphobic ideas, but nonbinary as a gender identity itself is not transphobic. some nonbinary people consider themselves trans, some don't. ultimately, i think criticizing and being skeptical of nonbinary genders is more harmful to the trans community. viewing gender as black-and-white with no gray area is what we as a society need to move away from. there is plenty of space in the community for nuanced gender identities, and their voices are critical in the movement to accepting and normalizing transness.

i don't understand how you don't "believe" in nonbinary genders. you might say "show me the scientific research that proves it exists" but like, doesn't the fact that many cultures around the world have recognized genders outside of the binary for centuries prove it exists? it's just so surprising to still see "there are only 2 genders" people these days, the world isn't so black and white.

For me the issue with nonbinary as a concept isn't "there isn't any science behind it" but rather the way it conflates gender to gender roles as well as how it is described.

It's often times described as 1. A feeling. This doesn't work since gender isnt a feeling. I don't feel like a man. I am a man. There is a similar issue with the trans community doing this too.

2. Not connecting to gender roles. This is not a gender thing at all. Many MANY nonbinary people describe their gender via gender roles and not conforming to them. This is bad because gender itself has nothing to do with gender roles, is different depending on the culture, and also pushes the idea that anyone who goes against gender roles is nonbinary which isn't true at all. I've seen people treat it like a social movement against gender roles while others treat it as a full on gender with gender dysphoria and everything. It's way too many contradictory things. Not to mention the people who insist anyone who is gender nonconformiting is nonbinary, including binary trans people-- which is pretty shitty. It ain't your place to tell someone they aren't their gender.

3. Many saying they're not apart of the gender binary while also saying they are binary. Ex: people who id as a non-binary women. It's like there are multiple different definitions of non binary.

4. The push to use binary terms for people who are not apart of the gender binary. Ex: people who are non-binary calling themselves lesbians/gay. Those are terms based off of binary genders. It doesn't make sense for someone who isn't apart of the binary to use them. Again, it just feels like the rules just don't actually exist or they keep changing.

5. Uses really awful examples of "3rd genders" from other cultures. For example 2 spirit in native american culture (literally how they decribe anyone who's LGBT in their culture and has been pointed out by so many native americans that it is NOT another gender). But I've seen so many people say it's some 3rd gender. There are a lotta other examples too where the supposed 3rd gender is less of a 3rd gender and more gnc men being forced into sex work as the only way to survive and being treated as less than human. I don't remember the exact names of all of the examples cuz it's 2 am right now and I don't feel like doing a buncha research right now. But these aren't hard things to find.

6. Of the gender dysphoric nonbinary people I've met, they seem to describe their dysphoria in ways that feel more like they just haven't realized their gender yet, just that they aren't the one they were born with. I've met many a people who used to ID as non binary but now as a binary gender. This isn't to say that there aren't actual dysphoric nonbinary people, I can't say there are or aren't. But there is something to be said with how all the different and changing rules of what non binary is and what it's like has caused confusion for trans people to discover themselves. And I never see that addressed within the nonbinary community.

I don't have any actual problem with the idea of having more than 2 genders. My problem is how this discussion has been approached. It's treating gender like something that can change on a whim based on culture and many people within the nonbinary community seem to constantly change the rules of what does and doesn't count. Not to mention the doors it's opened to the mogai community which adds on stargender and a lot more ridiculous and transphobic shit.

There's a lot of issues that stem from within the nonbinary community that when someone brings up are ignored and the person demonized. I won't tell someone they aren't non binary. It's not my place and my issue again isn't the concept of nonbinary. It's how it's been treated and how many different directions it's been defined that don't make sense as well as a lot of really shitty shit that's been used to back up their claims.