#your assigned genders of male and female'

[genderqueerdykes]

Is it ok to not identify entirely with either binary gender categery but present as a binary cis-looking man most of the time at to work, for both safety and career reasons?

Is it ok no matter what what I was assigned at birth? Like, is it ok to present as male for safety and career regardless of whether I was asigned male or female at birth?

I feel sure you will say that, yes, it is ok. Nonetheless, I feel shame about hiding parts of my identity as well as about contributing to the constructed near-monopoly in the economic realm that binary presentation has.

yep that's fine!

how you present doesn't change who you are. people have to present certain ways in public for a variety of reasons. i don't always present the way i want to in every single scenario in public. sometimes i dress to try to pass as cishet man for safety reasons, like when i'm meeting with strangers who don't know i'm queer or trans. many people present/pass for male for safety reasons. due to how our patriarchal societies are structured, sometimes being "just some guy" is the safest thing you can be.

you shouldn't have to feel any shame, don't worry. it doesn't reflect who you are or how you identify. it doesn't mean that you identify with binary manhood or masculinity. it's just what you have to do to survive

hope that helps, take care of yourself! your health and safety always come first!

[transformationsproject]

Trans rights are still under attack in the United States. Please visit our website linked below to learn about your state and contact your reps. Here's a thread of today's updates:

Bathroom bills deny access to public restrooms by gender or trans identity. 

They increase danger without making anyone any safer and have even prompted attacks on cis and trans people alike. Many national health and anti-sexual assault organizations oppose these bills.

Tennessee HB0064 was filed yesterday. This bill targets school bathrooms, banning all trans people from using the proper bathrooms in schools.

North Dakota HB1144 was filed yesterday. This bill also targets school bathrooms, banning all trans people from using the proper bathrooms in schools, with a potential $2500 fine.

Healthcare bills go against professional and scientific consensus that gender-affirming care saves lives. Denying access will cause harm.

Providers are faced with criminal charges, parents are threatened with child abuse charges, and intersex children are typically exempted.

Virginia HB2146 was filed yesterday. This bill targets trans healthcare by allowing people to sue doctors for trans care up to twenty years after the fact. This is designed to punish any doctors who provide care to trans people.

Educational Censorship and Student Suppression bills force schools to misgender or deadname students, ban instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity, and make schools alert parents if they suspect a child is trans.

They remove life-saving affirmation and support for trans youth. 

Oklahoma SB413 was prefiled yesterday. This bill has several components and expands on previous sex ed bans. The most notable section requires all sex ed materials in the state to be picked by the state legislature, not by teachers.

Connecticut SB00036 was introduced today and sent to the Joint Education Committee. This bill bans classroom instruction on gender identity and sexual orientation from K-3rd grade and restricts it for 4th-12th grade.

Oklahoma SB348 was prefiled this week. This bill requires that all school textbooks must define sex and gender in such a way as to explicitly exclude trans and intersex people, regardless of modern scientific understandings.

Washington SB5136 was prefiled last week. This bill requires teachers and school staff to deadname and misgender trans students, which is effectively state-mandated harassment.

Trans Erasure bills create legal definitions of terms like “sex” designed to exclude or erase trans identity and insert them into various laws. This can have many different effects, depending on what laws are affected.

They can force a male or female designation based on their sex assigned at birth.

Some target anti-discrimination statutes, legally empowering trans discrimination 

New Hampshire SB38 was introduced today and sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee. This bill is a classic Trans Erasure bill, aiming to add an exception to the state’s Human Rights law allowing for discrimination against trans people.

Digital Censorship Bills describe any legislation that potentially targets Queer and Trans media/material for removal. 

They typically do this by using vague and broad definitions of "Obscene" or "Harmful to Minors" and then banning such content from being accessible to minors, which often either removes the material entirely or requires age verification methods in order to view. 

This includes online censorship bills, library book bans, and other such legislation.

New Hampshire HB293 was introduced today and sent to the House Judiciary Committee. This bill adds a filter to all electronic devices in the state, targeting queer and trans content. 

SD SB18 was prefiled on Monday. This bill adds an age verification requirement for social media as well as restricting queer and trans content online.

Most sports bills force schools to designate teams by their sex assigned at birth. 

They are often one-sided and ban trans girls from playing on teams consistent with their gender identity.

Some egregious bills even force invasive genital examinations on student athletes.

Virginia HB1809 was introduced Monday. This bill targets school sports from K-12 and in higher education, banning trans women and girls from participating.

Maryland HB156 was introduced today and sent to the House Ways and Means Committee. This bill targets school sports from K-12, banning trans girls from participating.

In other bills that either fit multiple categories or stand on their own, we have:

Connecticut SB00136 was introduced today and sent to the Joint Government Administration and Elections Committee. This bill prevents the state from requiring anybody to use specific pronouns, which would make it so that anyone can misgender any trans person in the state. 

It's not too late to stop these and other hateful anti-trans bills from passing into law. YOU can go to http://transformationsproject.org/ to learn more and contact your representatives!

[brothersonahotelbed]

that was a horrible class i want to dissipate and never be put in situations again

[gnotknormal]

You only think that most nonbinary people are afab because you refuse to trust amab people when they say they are nonbinary.

[lionblaze03-2]

sometimes I think about writing and singing music not because I’m an incredible singer but because no one has my fucking voice, especially in popular music, and its disheartening to be born a girl, told you’ll only get girl roles or try to voice match other girls, or ‘sing with the girls’ and then only be able to match male voices because you’re a fuckin tenor and not anything higher. I can’t think of any girl Broadway roles I can hit all the notes on. Most songs I love I have to pitch down for myself or use falsetto for singing along to. It bothers me a lot less now because I’m an adult who’s more secure in myself but as a teen in kids musical theatre it FUCKED with me, BAD style. And I know for a fact that even now when I hear people with a voice like mine singing I get excited and immediately invested in their work because they’re like ME, finally, for once. A brother in this world of being afab and having the voice of a recently pubescent boy forever. Maybe I should be that brother too.

[vacantgodling]

at some point i'll sit down explain why even though by our standards, tsokhizhe and his father are both "trans men" how that's not the case at all actually.

[werewolf4vampire]

why did my therapy place suddenly hit me with brand new questionare to fill out (Insisting i do it before the appt or else it would eat into appt time soo... a threat?) and it's like weirdly really invasive??

[rainthetrain]

I think this is exactly what scientists were thinking when they assigned every androgynous skeleton as male and then realised that assigning people male or female based solely on bone structure was stupid and not how society operates.

[pandoratheprocrasticreator]

like honestly just give your non binary characters traditionally "gendered" features. just do it. it's not like being androgynous ever stopped non binary characters from being misgendered.

frisk undertale and kris deltarune were androgynous and are only ever referred to by "they/them" and ppl are still arguing over how the "main character is not the player but their own person" message didn't apply to their genders bc they refuse to wrap their head around different pronouns. raine owlhouse was paraded around as "disney's first ever nb representation" by everyone and their mother but bc they have short hair other countries dub them as male. this also happens to most anime nb characters bc of how japanese pronouns work. halara raincode literally has the color scheme of the non binary flag AND their in-game profile says that they, and i quote "have no specified gender" AND several characters remark on it in the actual game but bc theyre voiced by a female voice actor ppl still call them a woman.

like literally at this point just give your nb characters huge tits and a massive beard. if ppl refuse to accept the existence of non binary characters in media, then there is no way to make a character non binary "enough" to convince them otherwise. no matter how much you hammer in their androgyny in an attempt to detach them from "male" and "female," there will be people determined to assign gender roles to any trait you give your character.

creators being hesitant to give their non binary characters traits that could be associated with a binary gender is why every goddamn genderqueer character that the creator wants you to take seriously in popular media has shoulder length hair and a board-flat figure and a perfectly neutrally pitched voice. like. just do what you want at this point. the character is non binary because your story said so and people who misgender them would have done that no matter how androgynous they look.

[windienine]

as a trans man, i don't think i have any clue what it's like to grow up as a cis girl being treated like a cis girl. i have no "female socialization." people tried to beat "girl-ness" into me and it didn't work. i mostly know what it was like to be a weird little gay boy that most adults avoided talking to or about on principle and most people hesitated to assign any gendered terms to out of raw discomfort. i overheard people using "it" towards me on a regular basis.

i spent time with and befriended a lot of other young weird or gay girls and boys because they were the only people who were kind to me, at the time.

nobody's ever fought me on those points.

so... when a trans woman in your life tells you that she's never been a boy, never been a man, that "male socialization" is a malicious lie... believe her too, please, okay? treat girls like they ask you to treat them.

[self-winding]

The terms afab and amab are very much about the social construct aspect of gender, as in, they refer specifically to the letter on your birth certificate that was assigned to you, not any trait you innately possess. Yet I routinely hear people using these terms as a euphemism for biological aspects of sex, because I guess they think it sounds more progressive or something.

"afab tweens get very emotional at this age due to hormones," "archeologists think this skeleton belonged to an amab individual due to hip measurements," stuff like that. I keep waiting for someone refer to a wild animal as afab or amab.

"afab" is not synonymous with "has a uterus" or "has two X chromosomes," intersex people with XY chromosomes can have an F on their birth certificate.

If you're talking about something biological it's fine to just say "male" or "female" in contexts where that makes more sense.

[qweerhet]

"no children are being forced to take hrt or have surgeries that change the appearance of their genitals" intersex children are, actually

"everyone was assigned a gender at birth" there are intersex people who were not assigned a gender at birth

"trans women are amab trans people and trans men are afab trans people" there are intersex people who were assigned male at birth and later transitioned medically and socially to male, and intersex people who were assigned female at birth and later transitioned medically and socially to female

"assigned gender at birth is a 1:1 predictor of tma vs tme experience" there are intersex people who were assigned female at birth and experienced violence for being a woman with a penis + testes + secondary sex characteristics like facial hair + having a testosterone-dominant hormone profile, and had to transition medically and socially to be socially and medically recognized as women as adults

"bodies born with sex variations are medically nonbinary" no, they are intersex, and intersex people can be a binary gender if they want to be

"nonbinary people who want non-cisnormative sex variations are mentally ill/diseased for wanting a disordered body" no, bodies with sex variations are not disordered, and it harms intersex people for them to be seen as disordered regardless of if the body in question was born that way or created through surgery

"cis women don't experience transphobic body policing/will never understand how it feels to have your womanhood constantly in question and subject to violence over things you can't change" intersexism overlaps heavily with transphobia and an intersex woman can both identify as cis and have a penis, testes, be testosterone-dominant, etc, and have visible signs of those traits. an intersex woman can also have been amab or be currently legally designated as male by the government and still identify as cis.

stop saying intersexist shit in your trans discourse thanks

[oarfishing]

Alright, I'm sick of seeing TERFisms on my dash, so here's a handy list of TERF dogwhistles and talking points to think about before you reblog a post.

I've seen a few of these before, but it doesn't hurt to make more. Especially when we're seeing a lot of radfem rhetoric popping up in LGBT spaces from people who might not know better.

SCREENNAMES: these are terms that commonly appear in radfem usernames across the web

rad or radical

fem or femme

vulva, clit, uterus, womb, ovary, vagina, etc.

febfem

anything along the lines of "angry woman"

xx or chromosomes

wombyn, wimmin, womyn, etc.

LGB

feminist

BIOS: things that show up in radfem bios

♀ or ⚢

febfem

female separatist

female, human female, adult human female

xx

something along the lines of "the scary feminist you were warned about"; being an angry woman, being sick of being silenced, being an evil woman, being an angry lesbian

detrans (NOTE: detrans people are absolutely not always transphobic)

dysphoric female

males/men do not interact

LGB✂️

misandrist

feminist (NOTE: again, very few feminists are actually terfs, but this is commonly in terf bios alongside some of these other terms)

TERMS: terms that radfems use in their circles

TIM - trans-identified male, a way of saying transfems, trans women, and other trans people

TIF - trans-identified female, same as above but the other way around, less commonly seen

DSD - disorder of sexual development, a way to avoid saying intersex and to categorize intersex people as "still male or female" (you might see "males with DSD" or "females with DSD" for example)

females or males instead of women and men

alternatively, women and males to dehumanize men

"peaking" or "peaked" - referring to becoming radicalized as a radfem or TERF

womyn, wombyn, wimmin, wo**n, and any other spelling that takes "man" out of the term woman

mentally ill men/women

sex-based oppression

gender critical

"TIRF" - trans-inclusive radical feminist (don't be fooled by the name, they're very much not)

TRA - trans rights activist, derogatory

sex-based rights

female separatism/"women's land"

WBW - womyn-born womyn

autistic girls/children

troon - (ridiculous) slur for trans people

RHETORIC: general ideological themes in radfem rhetoric

men are inherently more violent than women

women don't or rarely rape men

(woman on woman rape is ignored by almost all radfems)

being nonbinary is a way to "stop being" your assigned sex while still acting as your birth sex

lesbians are not attracted to men/penises and can never have sex with men/penises (otherwise, you're bisexual)

men can and will never be lesbians

there is no such thing as a bi lesbian, only lesbians and bisexuals. labels are rigid and sex-based

all of the world's suffering is driven by men

women would be better off separate

an all-female society is utopia

sex is binary, and intersex people are "glitches" or "still male or female but DisorderedTM"

men should expect to be feared by women

female/female relationships are safer and more pure than straight or gay male relationships

men and women are more different than similar

intersex people should not be allowed in sports

intersex people and trans men are never in men's sports

terrible world events wouldn't have happened if women were in charge

men are stupid and aggressive

being a man is not a positive thing

men's problems are lesser than women's

penises are disgusting and vaginas and vulvas are beautiful

trans women are performing at being girls

trans men see themselves as above lesbians

attraction is sex-based

porn is rape

porn is inherently violent

watching porn makes you predisposed to inflicting abuse

BDSM is inherently violent and misogynistic

transitioning children (whether socially or medically) are being abused

"bitch" and "cunt" are slurs against women

only gay men can say faggot and only lesbian women can say dyke

When you see a few or more of these together, RUN! It's a terf.

[ofmiceandwomen]

As a physiologist let me say a few words.

I don’t care about sports. I don’t give a damn about the Olympics for other reasons I won’t talk about. But I’m pissed now.

If we are to disqualify the people from the Olympics, we should be 100% fair. No biological advantages allowed!

2-meter-tall basketball player? No way, that’s unfair.

That gymnast with hyper-mobility? BOO. Unfair.

Usain Bolt with the gene ensuring the composition of his muscles? How dare he?

Believe or not, the professional sport is based on anomalies and mutation. That’s the selection. It sucks and it’s not fair but it is what it is.

Also, having these mutations doesn’t mean you’re automatically great at sports - I’m shit at gymnastics while being hypermobile as fuck. So it’s still unfair even to us expressing these traits, lol.

There are XY AFAB women!!!

This happens during the pregnancy if the child has male chromosomes but there is not enough male hormones in the development of the baby resulting in the baby being assigned female at birth. It’s a form of intersex, but there is literally no physical difference between such child and XX AFAB baby.

Those are cis women. Not trans men. Not even trans men.

The people screaming about the Olympics being a disgrace and the proof of collapse of the society are literally the people who are usually like “there are two genders based on what’s in their pants”. Now it’s the chromosomes you’re checking?

Maybe you are an XY-woman, maybe your sister is. You don’t know.

Stop using biology for spreading misinformation about intersex people, transgender people and women in general.

[blubushie]

Why are intersex people called 'collateral damage'? What does that even mean

Giving an example–

"Hermaphrodite" is an intersex slur. It has always been an intersex slur. Trans people cannot reclaim this slur because while it's been used against them, it's always been used against them to compare them to US.

People—even, ESPECIALLY the queer community—often ignore blatant intersexism in favour of calling it transphobia, even when it's blatantly targetting us specifically—for example, the idea that children AREN'T being put on hormones or given top or bottom surgery. The queer community likes to promote this as a thing that's not happening when in fact it is—it just happens to intersex kids. We are FORCED onto hormones, FORCED into genital mutilation, by an intersexist medical system. But in the defence of trans people, we are "collateral damage". Our medical abuse is ignored in favour of trans people promoting a lie that these things don't happen.

I was born visibly intersex. I had surgery at birth and then again at 12 days old. I DID NOT LEARN OF THIS UNTIL LAST YEAR. I AM TWENTY-THREE YEARS OLD. When my body began feminising at 12, it took TWO YEARS before my therapist would refer me to hospital for gender dysphoria. It took another six months to be put on testosterone and to have my ovary removed. I ended up needing top surgery at 16 to remove the breast tissue I grew. Most intersex people have the opposite experience—instead of being allowed to exist in their natural intersex body, they're forced into the hormones that "match" their assigned sex at birth. They are forced into surgeries WITHOUT THEIR CONSENT to make them look "normal".

Don't even get me started on the connotations of "assigned" sex. Perisex people have an OBSERVED sex at birth. Intersex people, if they have ambiguous genitalia like I did, are ASSIGNED a sex based on what the doctor thinks they can make them pass more easily for. Most are ASSIGNED female through mutilatory surgery as newborns, because it's easier to make a vulva and vagina than it is to make a penis. Do not get me started on how the brains of children process routine neovagina dilation (which must be done daily from the time the child is mutilated, usually at birth) as SEXUAL ASSAULT. That's right, for many intersex people, the medical system assigns you as female and then sexually abuses you until you stop growing.

In many countries, intersex people who identify as a sex different from their assigned sex at birth cannot seek out transgender care. If you are assigned female they will never allow you to go on testosterone, never be approved for top surgery, etc. If you are assigned male you will never be allowed to go on oestrogen or get bottom surgery, etc. The medical system ASSIGNED you your sex, and the medical system can never be wrong, can they. This in places where trans people can receive care. We are told it's transphobia, that intersex people are just collateral damage, when in reality these policies EXPLICITLY ARE MEANT TO AFFECT INTERSEX PEOPLE. When perisex people can receive trans healthcare but intersex people cannot, that is not transphobia, THAT IS INTERSEXISM.

Or for example someone calling a trans person a hermaphrodite, and a trans person trying to reclaim the term despite it being an INTERSEX slur. This intersexism is ignored, labelled transphobia instead, and intersex people are just told we aren't actually being attacked and that we're just collateral damage. It was an intersex slur first. They are comparing them to US.

Our experiences are ignored or outright erased. The queer community does not care for us. Even when we speak of blatant intersexism we experience, we are told that we are not the target and that we are just collateral damage.

[versegm]

Reminders:

"Intersex" means "someone born with sexual characteristics that don't fit quite well in the male/female sex binary."

"Intersex" is not synonymous to "non-binary". In fact, being intersex has nothing to do with gender at all. Intersex and trans people have many struggles in common, but if you're talking about trans-specific issues you really don't need to say "intersex and trans people".

Intersex people can be trans. Intersex people can also be cis. Intersex people, in the majority of countries, are assigned a gender at birth just like everyone else.

"Intersex" doesn't necessarily relate to genitals. When I say "sexual characteristics" it can also mean secondary sexual characteristics, hormone levels, chromosomes, and probably a bunch of other shit I forgot about. Please stop reducing intersex people to their genitals.

(On that note, having both working sets of genitals is at best extremely rare and at worst physically impossible. Sorry, intersex people can't fulfill your futa fantasies. Please stop tagging futa shit as intersex. The two are unrelated.)

Please. This pride month remember that intersex people like. Exist. Intersex folks are not hypotheticals they're not "that one letter we gotta tack at the end of every queer post and never think about any further" they're. People. Remember that they exist. Every year I have to make a post like this one where I explain the very basic things you can learn by reading the intersex wikipedia page because people see "intersex" and make assumptions as to what the word means without actually reading the dictionary definition. Please remember that intersex people exist, I looked up "intersex pride" on tumblr and half the posts I saw were a variation of "happy pride to people of all genders and sexualities!" when being intersex has nothing to do with either gender or sexuality. Please. I understand that you guys don't mean any ill, but I am very tired of making basic posts over and over.

And inb4 someone tries to strike dumb discourse on this post: I live in a country where it is legal and encouraged to perform surgery on intersex infants. Looking up "intersex athlete controversy" returned to me like three different cases of athletes who were coerced into surgery without being informed of all the risks and having to lead with lifelong consequences for it. When I say "remember intersex people" I don't mean "uwu intersex people are valid" I mean they're a demographic whose literal human rights are constantly spit upon. I don't give a shit if you think intersex people belong or not under the queer umbrella or what you think are the proper qualifications to identify as intersex literally everytime I talk to an intersex person I hear a variation of "my doctor straight-up lied to me to get me to undergo medical procedures to make me normal without my consent or input" I think people should be aware of that actually I think it's more important than arguing over labels.