[ID: a screenshot of a comment from reddit, with no username visible. The commend reads: This doesn’t make a ton of sense to me either. Setting aside the question of whether gender/sex is assigned or observed at birth, the gender I was assigned at birth was ‘boy.’ The gender I have now is ‘man’. Boys and men have different gender roles, and few adults identify as boys anymore. From this standpoint, every adult has a different gender than the one they had at birth. End ID]
Framing “girl” and “boy” as separate genders from “woman” and “man” is such an amazing take. it’s a framework that accommodates and explains so many trans experiences. Some trans people never were their AGAB. Some feel like they were their AGAB, but that that changed (usually when puberty hits, which is when you start “becoming a man/woman”. The accepted societal path is that girls grow up to into women, and boys grow up into men. But some girls grow up into men, and some boys grow up into women. This guy was a boy who grew up into a man, which generally works out pretty well for people. Some boys and girls grow up into people who aren’t men or women, even! It’s like this random cis guy skipped right over transgender 101, 102, 201, etc. and stumbled directly into Transgender Nirvana.
If a stranger misgenders you, please please please do not ever utter the phrase, “I’m a man.” It sounds very unnatural and immediately sounds overly defensive.
My advice? Just look at the person like they’re an idiot and, in the deepest voice possible, say, “Uh. Alright, then.”
Just act as though they made a huge and obvious mistake, and don’t get flustered. If you’re comfortable with it, handle the situation with humor and say something like, “Man, I know I’ve got a babyface, but I didn’t think it was thatbad.”
and if someone doesn’t believe u, say you have a hormonal imbalance + are on meds for it. it’s quick, believable, and most ppl are too uncomfortable discussing health problems with strangers to question it.
THIS POST, hang on somewhere is the notes is a sentence that changed my whole fucking life! I don’t have time to dig for it right now but
Can’t find it, going to just going to explain it. I’ve been out for like 4 and a half years. I saw this post when I was Freshly Out, and this post has been so deep in my fucking rat brain for actual years.
You have to react like you’re not expecting to be misgendered. It’s hard and it’s weird, because I know, you walk out into the world very aware and afraid of how the cis people are going to perceive you. But deadass there is a “Wow, that stranger has made a bold call there” mentality that, yeah it’s a fake it till you make it type of deal. But once I internalized that, I genuinely don’t even hear people misgendering me most of the time.
I’m nonbinary, most of the time my gender presentation priorities are Have Fun and Look Queer.
The first time I noticed that being misgendered slides off my brain like a wet duck I was in a 7/11 and a cashier tried to direct me to the cardboard drink sleeves while I was like 3rd or 4th in line (yeah it was kinda weird, I was holding a large hot coffee in my bare hand and I guess it freaked the dude out, but like my hands are actually really heat resistant I was fine, anyway) He said several variations on “Mam, would you like a cardboard sleeve for your coffee, they’re right there” and I legitimately did not process that he could possibly be talking to me until he tried something like “the one in the red hat” and then I tuned back in and declined the heat protectant sleeve. (I do not know why this human man was so insistent that I needed a heat protection cardboard sleeve, and I’m gathering that me totally zoned the fuck out to his multiple attempts to get my attention holding something that he apparently thought was made out of fucking lava probably had the exact Genderless Eldritch Horror effect that we all know and love)
I accidentally also did this to one of my professors a couple weeks ago, I was given an instruction with she/her pronouns in it, purely by accident, this professor genuinely does right by his trans students as best he can, but I legitimately did not even process that it was for me until he repeated it with they/them.
This compared with a couple years ago a different professor slipped up and used me in an example to the class with she/her pronouns and I literally barely held myself together until the end of the class, made it 4 steps out the door and started silently crying.
It feels fucking powerful in a “that should have hurt, and I didn’t even notice, cis people have no power over me” way. I have a little piece of the security that cis people have in the way that they interact with the world. And that is absolutely precious.
It takes untraining years of social conditioning, and pretending that you can’t fathom that someone would use those words on you, that no one has ever said that to you before and the words are so foreign that they mean nothing to you.
And yeah I started out begging my body not to flinch when a stranger calls out “mam”, and practicing a moment of confusion and unaffected disbelief when cashiers would ask if I found everything I was looking for “young lady” and deliberately ignoring the incorrect gendered terms. And you know op’s “Just look at the person like they’re an idiot, break out the deep voice and say “Um, alright then”” it will feel fake at first.
Butfuckat some point it stops being an act, and that feels fucking bulletproof.
(also, bbys, you have a right to bodily autonomy, make yrself at home in your body however that looks for you, gender is a choose your own adventure and I’m rooting for you, ily)
i need some of y’all to understand that being nonbinary is a complex relationship with gender and not just Binary Trans Lite™ like not every nonbinary person is gonna be ok with certain gendered terms in either direction and it’s shitty to assume we will
[ID: a screenshot of a comment from reddit, with no username visible. The commend reads: This doesn’t make a ton of sense to me either. Setting aside the question of whether gender/sex is assigned or observed at birth, the gender I was assigned at birth was ‘boy.’ The gender I have now is ‘man’. Boys and men have different gender roles, and few adults identify as boys anymore. From this standpoint, every adult has a different gender than the one they had at birth. End ID]
Framing “girl” and “boy” as separate genders from “woman” and “man” is such an amazing take. it’s a framework that accommodates and explains so many trans experiences. Some trans people never were their AGAB. Some feel like they were their AGAB, but that that changed (usually when puberty hits, which is when you start “becoming a man/woman”. The accepted societal path is that girls grow up to into women, and boys grow up into men. But some girls grow up into men, and some boys grow up into women. This guy was a boy who grew up into a man, which generally works out pretty well for people. Some boys and girls grow up into people who aren’t men or women, even! It’s like this random cis guy skipped right over transgender 101, 102, 201, etc. and stumbled directly into Transgender Nirvana.
Brainstorming pour améliorer l'écriture de genre neutre en français
Bon j'écris ce post parce que j'étais en train rédiger un petit truc sur Judith Butler et en fait je me rends compte qu'écrire “le·la” je trouve ça insupportable (et je suis nonbinaire !). “iel” ça marche bien faut juste s'habituer, les accords en “é·e” aussi parce que de toute façon ça ne change rien à l'oral, et les autres accords doublés non plus ça ne me choque pas, mais alors “le·la” par contre… je trouve que c'est juste un mot de tête quoi ! Je pense que c'est parce que le mot est tellement court et simple que ça paraît absurde de le doubler. Je propose donc qu'on essaye de trouver une solution. J'ai vu “lea” écrit une fois mais je ne trouve pas ça bien, je pense que ça ne renvoie pas assez clairement à un équivalent neutre de “le” ou “la”, parce que mentalement on pense forcément d'abord au prénom.
Du coup moi j'ai envie de proposer “li”. Avec comme proposition additionnelle de garder le point médian comme marqueur de nonbinarité donc: “l·i”.
Exemple:
“Pourl·i philosophe etthéricien·nedu genre Judith Butler, l'idée même que le [blablabla]. En effet ielthéorise que [blablabla].”
Qu'en pensez-vous ? Y a le “i” du “iel” qui revient mais sans renvoyer au “il” masculin pour autant, et ça ne fait pas ‘faux mot’, on dirait plus un “i” comme résultat de fusion des accords finalement grâce au “·”. Et surtout : c'est facilement prononçable à l'oral ! Est-ce que ça vous paraît cohérent et intéressant ? Si on pouvait commencer à lancer le truc peut-être que ça prendrait ?
Avez-vous d'autre mots qui vous bloquent pour écrire de manière neutre ? D'autres propositions ? J'ai envie de lancer une conversation car l'Académie française ne risque pas de le faire de si tôt lol
Making that post just now motivated me to finally block “Chess TERF,” who I refer to as “Chess TERF” because she followed me when I was posting a lot about chess last year and that appears to be the only thing we had in common.
Given that my bio does have “choice feminist” and “they/them” and a link to the tag where I defend BDSM a bunch, I’m like, “what are you doing here. are you lost?” But she just kept occasionally reblogging unrelated stuff from me and not seeming to notice. I suppose with my gender stuff she maybe thought I was a wayward sheep who just needed the right nudge to be convinced to renounce being nb and start hating trans women? Either that or she’s just clueless. And I got tired of wondering which, so I blocked her.
attempting to erect iron clad boundaries between transness and butchness is as fruitless as trying to snuff out the stars. and either way ur left with a lot less light
It doesn’t need to be proved to other people. It doesn’t need to be approved or called “valid” by other people. It doesn’t need to be performed publicly for others’ benefit. Your identity is yours to explore and label, according to your own feelings, experiences, and preferences. If you feel like involving other people in your exploration and journey that is your decision, but proving yourself to others is NOT obligatory.
Beware of anyone who demands that you jump through hoops to prove yourself to them, or who tells you that opening your identity up to critique is a requirement to access community. Gatekeeping is common, but common doesn’t mean correct or kind or helpful. Learn to trust in your own judgment and intuition, without depending on others to tell you you’re “valid”. Develop the assertiveness to tell gatekeepers and demanding people who feel entitled to your life story to shove off. You’re the master of your own Self and the way you choose to label that Self - don’t let people take that power from you.
its important to me as a detrans woman to be vocal about it. its important to me as a detrans woman who initially only had radfems to talk to about detransition, because i couldnt find a single trans inclusive detrans person for over a year, to make sure other people know they have options.
radfems arent your aly if you’re questioning your gender. they dont have your best interest at heart. they dont care about helping you explore who you are, theyre only interested in sucking you in to be another transmisogynistic pawn for their violent ideology.
if you’re trans/nonbinary now, but are wondering if it isnt right for you, know that you have options. you can talk to me. there are people who have not done a 180 into bigotry who are here to support you.
please reblog, do not just like, this post.
i dont have a large platform. i want this to get spread. i want to remove terfs from the forefront of detrans/reidentification awareness & support. they cannot continue to be the first contact for questioning people.
i am begging you, yes you personally, to please reblog this, and comment or reply in the tags if you’re a safe, trans-inclusive detransitioned or reidentified person to approach.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with giving something a try and deciding “ah, this isn’t right for me after all.”
I wore my binder for the first time in front of my sister the other day, and when she asked what it was she warned me that “body trainers are dangerous” and “I don’t have to live up to beauty standards.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell her I was a guy that day.
