#and also none of this even MENTIONS me using neopronouns

[fennthetalkingdog]

It's Gendering Time Baby (aka Fenn's weird thoughts about his gender in essay form)

Okay, so it's really late at night while I'm writing this (not the same time that I'll post probably) but my brain's going on a spiral tangent thing so I wanna go down it while I can. So I'm prolly gonna ramble, I apologize in advance.

So anyway, I feel like my relationship with my gender is... unique? I don't know, I see a lot of people talk about how they feel like a man or woman or nonbinary person, or how they feel like nothing or something neutral or "just themselves" but from what I've heard the latter usually call themselves agender or neutrois or something like that. If I had to pick one, I legitimately don't know what I'd say. I know your experience as a kid isn't the end-all-be-all for your identity, but I tend to look back at mine a lot to make sure I'm not adopting a label that doesn't represent me at all—but when I was a kid, I had no conceptualization of gender. It just wasn't something I noticed. Hell, I noticed differences in height more than I noticed differences in gender at the time. If you asked kid me, they'd probably just say, "Huh? What do you mean? How can you feel like a gender??" So that's not particularly helpful.

I didn't really start noticing gender until I learned that trans people existed (high school; had Christian parents and was overall pretty sheltered). And I only really learned about it in the context of "some people feel so strongly about gender that they wish to transition." So of course little me, who barely noticed gender at all, thought that they must be a demigirl because they were born a girl but didn't really feel anything. (I know now that's not what "demigirl" necessarily stands for lol but give lil me a break.) But their parents rejected them and of course, since they now had no other way to express this potential side of them, little me went exploring more. They found labels like "agender" and "neutrois" that seemed to fit their experience so much better, and so the demigirl label was dropped. But it still didn't feel like them, and they still don't feel like me.

You see, my gender is a pretty complicated thing that I like to ignore most of the time. But there was one time I tried to give a friend a metaphor to describe it, and that's the best thing I've got even now so here it is. I have a slightly interesting physical problem when whenever I strain my shoulders too much, the skin on my back becomes really sensitive and if I move in the slightest, it feels like my shoulder blades will break through my skin (consequence of carrying too heavy bookbags in grade school). But sometimes I can feel it starting to get bad because it feels like a hole is forming between my shoulder blades, like a cavern, where muscles that should be chill and calm feel almost like they're being sliced. (I promise this isn't a medical problem.) And my gender almost feels like that cave: a wide, open space lined with smooth, water-worn stone and closed to the open air, with a massive lake at the bottom and a single stalactite hanging from the ceiling. Water occasionally drips down from the stalactite and into the lake, and that's my gender, except the lake feels like nothing and my gender is diluted once it hits the surface of Me. I have a gender, maybe, but it's in parts per million instead of wholes.

So I'm basically agender, right? Or I'm some sublabel like libramasculine if my gender feels important to me still, but problem solved, right? Well, those labels technically fit from a technical perspective, but they still feel wrong. I may not have a gender, or at least a strong one, in the sense of having strong preferences about how I'm treated or seen, but at the same time I do? But it comes more in the form of likes and dislikes. I like being seen as a masculine (gender-wise) person over a feminine (gender-wise) person. I like being seen as a feminine as fuck (presentation-wise) dude instead of as a girl who doesn't care for themself. These feel like they come more from my personality than from a gender, so my gender is still technically nothing, but it still feels wrong to label myself as agender or something similar when I have such notable feelings about the matter.

So what do I do instead? Well, I play gender, like how a toddler "plays" as an animal or how a kid "plays" as a character from their favorite TV show. Everything I perform is still me—it's my desires, dislikes, and personality—but I get to be a boy thing instead of what people wanted me to be. If my birth gender is old and crusty and doesn't fit, then I get to choose something cooler, a new role I can play. The difference doesn't really matter on a day-to-day basis, does it? No one can tell if I knew since birth or if I'm faking it or if I'm somewhere in between, so what does it matter? What I know for sure is what I want to do with my body: I want to lop off my boobs and I maybe want to take testosterone. And I like being a boy in a dress. So, technically I don't really feel a gender? But I still don't identify with agender or any of the adjacent "lack at least some gender" labels because it feels weird trying to put a label on something that isn't there. I just call myself a transmasc nonbinary boy/man and move on with my life, because if I stop and think about it I'll confuse myself all over again.

[olderthannetfic]

https://olderthannetfic.tumblr.com/post/737064447605096448/i-really-wish-my-countries-wannabe-queer#notes

To all the poor anglophones who feel personally offended that my languages does not do well with words starting with X in this case neopronouns, I deeply apologize from the bottom of my heart that my language doesn't use English pronunciations. How dare we not cater to the English speaking world? Afterall, they did their best to make the entire world speak it, how mean of us. And that because of that you felt so deeply offended that we find the use of x-based pronouns in our language to be complete shit because they simply do not work with our spoken language.

Foolish was it of me to expect people to infer the fact that I was indeed not speaking of the English language when I mentioned the issues with the flow of the language, and how people actually affected have at large found their own pronouns, -none of which include the X-pronouns because they simply are not that well suited for our languages phonetics nor even the writing-, and the fact that I mentioned "My country" and "the flow of the language" which could have been a simple clue that I'm not speaking of an English speaking country. Nay instead you built a straw-man and got angry because you really don't like remembering that the rest of the world exists. For anyone who's not so super special and does realize humans exist outside the English speaking world. THANK YOU FOR NOTICING! Geez.

I honest to God should've expected to see some people with those bottom of the barrel arguments, because those are so similar to the arguments the dreaded "my countries wannabe "queer representatives"" use constantly, while ignoring how people using NEUTRAL PRONOUNS actually decide their pronouns. (Which you'd call neopronouns, because they're neither male nor female nor objectifying, so NEUTRAL)

As to how the pronouns like Xie/Xir sound, you would have to specifically pronounce the X like you would when reciting the alphabet, then leave a pause, and then you have a choice of about 4-5 sounds you can just throw on. There is basically literally no way to use any of the X-pronouns because the letter X isn't used like that in our language, and the combination would just lead to random sound thrown in at the end.

There is a reason why languages don't all share the universal same spelling for pronouns, because languages have their own rules on writing, pronunciation, phonetics and how to understand all that. Why would you ever assume this won't also apply to neopronouns/neutral pronouns anyway? Ok, then your neopronounsin the Anglosphere are X-based, do you really think those will work in every language and will be useable in every other language? Or are you just so used to everyone being anglophone you never considered that some languages will just not be able to use them? Do you also think everyone in this world uses the term "neopronouns"? Just asking while we're at it.

--

[rjalker]

Word count so far: 35K

Complete. There will be a one-shot sequel.

You can leave anonymous comments/reviews on fanfiction.net if you don't have an account/are too shy.

You can also read the fic in Google Docs here.

You can feel free to download the document at any time to read off-line or save for later. You could even print it out if you wanted to (though it's over 90 pages even in size 12 font, so...make sure you have paper ready). The doc also includes the art I've drawn for this.

If you use Google Doc's download option to save it as an epub, you can transfer it to a phone and read it on any ebook app, though making it an epub does remove italics. I recommend the "ReadEra" app for android, it's really easy to use and free without any ads. I'm not sure what free ebook apps are available for iphones, sorry.

____________

Quick summary for chapter 1:

Adrien decides to adopt a feral cat, and this goes about as well as you'd expect. Character development ensues, with Adrien learning more about what it really means to take on the responsibility of owning a pet, and starts him on the path to learning how to treat other people better too.

____________

Summary for the rest of the fic:

It started with Adrien Agreste adopting a random cat off the street. This leads to Adrien getting in contact with a vet, to make sure the cat's in good health. And this leads to Adrien learning about words like "trans" and "nonbinary" and "otherkin", and the idea that you don't have to be a boy just because your parents decided you were one when you were born. You don't even have to be human. Ne doesn't have to be the "perfect son". Ne doesn't even have to be a son at all. Ne can just be...rixelf. Adrien Agreste is no more, now riv name is Pandora. And, overjoyed with riv new identity, Pandora decides that ne's going to tell everyone who will listen, starting with the cleaning staff. And then ne learns that riv father's cruelty extends beyond the confines of Agreste mansion, and blankets the city. Hawkmoth isn't the only villain in Paris, Gabriel Agreste and Mayor Bourgeois are in league, exploiting the labor of the working class in order to fill their own pockets, then taking what little they do pay the workers right back in the form of rent, bills, and late fees. Pandora is horrified to learn where riv allowance has been coming from riv entire life, and vows that ne's going to stop it. Ne needs to tell Ladybug what ne's just learned! But no sooner does Pandora meet up with Ladybug to discuss the threat than another bombshell is dropped on top of rix, and then riv whole world is turned upside down, and nothing will ever be the same again.

___

Warnings: Mentions of dead birds/mice in the first chapter, unsafe animal care/animal neglect that is corrected. Some villains and other antagonists/characters who are bad people die offscreen, including both Gabriel. Emilie dies offscreen, but the lead up to it is onscreen. There are also discussions of emotional child abuse, but it's not shown in the present.

If you've read it and think I should list out any other warnings, please let me know!

---

The main character figures out ne's nonbinary and otherkin, and starts using neopronouns 100% of the time starting in chapter 3. Multiple other trans characters are in the story as well, though none of them take center stage, since the story follows the main character with an extremely limited perspective.

This is an alternate universe from the show, with changes mostly in the background, not actually affecting this story. The main difference is that in this universe, there's no attempted romance between the heroes, it's 100% platonic. Because misogyny is bad, and this means that Adrien at least starts out with some morals as opposed to none.

Here's a link to the original writing prompt, which became the first chapter of this fic.

If you read all the way through, please let me know what you think with an anonymous comment on ff.net! Are the neopronouns confusing? Does the explanation for them make sense? Did this fic help you understand how to use new pronouns? Let me know! I wrote this partly to help people learn how to use neopronouns, so I want to see whether that worked or not! :)

[ourmondobongo]

Hi! Sorry to bother you, but could you please explain the Hange's gender thing? It's a bit confusing

Hello!

Sorry the lateness!

I'll put under the cut because this topic is already heavily saturated...

Ugh, tbh, this topic is one that always brings out a lot of heavy discussion, and believe me when I say the last thing I want is to get involved in it.

But the best answer is still what both Kodansha and Isayama himself explained: Hans's gender is stated as ambiguous, "being up to whatever interpretation you care to have" because she/he/they/Hans is thought as "a Mad Scientist with UNKNOWN gender - not bound by ANY real world standards." (2014, 2015).

And while many heated online debates (especially on Twitter) argue which pronouns Hans can or cannot be addressed, Kodansha (2013) stressed how difficulty it is to translate from Japanese because their language is very gender neutral, while English isn't. Additionally, they also released this note, back in 2014:

And Kodansha did avoid all three common pronouns in Shingeki! Junior High ( i.e. chapters 11, 15...), just using ALL of them as possibilities, and even plays with neopronouns but labeling Hanji WITH NONE.

Lastly, in the AoT Final Exhibition (2019!!!), Japan Kodansha went as far as avoiding ANY and ALL English** pronouns for Hanji, and simply repeating Hanji’s name over and over, even if the text looked a bit... abnormal.

Just so to FREE HANJI from imposed terms.

It's hard to imagine Hans being freer than this.

Lastly, Hanji's gender isn't a plot point for the character in the manga. As far as I know, the only time Isym mentioned anything regarding gender issues was when he talked about sexism in Marley Military.

And, tbh, after all those YEARS of debate, that Isym's last words on the matter was that Hans was of Mysterious/UNKNOWN gender, and not having real world standards makes it even sound Isym didn’t even though of Hanji being pressed into whatever "standard" we can think of. Hanji is Hanji, and could be in a category of it's own = where the readers decide what they want to see.

So, you see, YOU ARE FREE TO SEE AND ADDRESS HANJI WHATEVER YOU WANT. Hanji is a snk singularity, and Japanese language doesn’t have the constraints English and other language have.

And let's move on from this.

Everyone is FREE.

And I don't wanna see fights under this post, thank you!

[vampish-glamour]

I think a lot of people, especially kids on the internet, see the whole pronouns thing (especially with regards to neopronouns) as something fun and interesting about themselves and another identifying label of sorts that will make them stand out amongst the crowd of other [Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram] users. Although I haven't seen it that much on Instagram, and I think it's because Instagram is less of a blogging platform than the other two. In the hordes of mutuals who are unsatisfied with their gender they, too, want to have that, because to be otherwise is a bad thing and you get insulted for it (even if you're trans and don't mention you are, people demand that you do for woke points..?). I just think it's like a game to them. Here's my carrd with a list of arbitrary things about me, and my pronouns so you can show me pseudo-respect on the Internet. I don't think many of them apply it to real life, and so they don't realize that when someone does, it ends up being laughable and inflammatory towards real issues trans people face. No one is going to call you it/its in real life unless they want to humiliate you... But maybe it's even more rampant where you're from? Do people demand you use meow/meows for strangers?

That’s exactly what it is. It’s no more than a way to stand out, and to be part of an online community.

They talk about gender as if it’s either clothing choices or some mystical magical feeling… something you can have none of or multiple of, and something that can be substituted for a personality.

I think that in real life, they’d apply it in their like-minded friend groups. But I doubt anyone is going up to their boss or parents or teacher and being like “I’m ForestFungi, I’m a mushroomgender fae person and my pronouns are shroom/moss/fairy/pixie/🍄self”. It’s just an online thing that makes trans people look like a joke, and lgb people look like we started a “slippery slope” by getting rights.

Online, it’s absolutely a game or just a way to be special and to have fun. It also seems to be a way to express their interests, and it’s really weird that they think they need a special gender to do so, and can’t just stick with the -cores.

[shaebyrnes]

Just a little lie

Ships: platonic Anxceit

Janus’s Pov

I sat down with the others waiting for Virgil to speak. He had told us earlier that week that there was something important he wanted to say to everyone. I have to admit, I was very curious. Even though, Virgil and I were quite close, he was still the only person I knew that kept their emotions as guarded as I did. I looked around trying to see if anyone knew what Virgil was about to say, but they all seemed to be as clueless as I was.

-Ok so hum, Virgil started, man this is harder than I thought. I’m just going to go ahead and say it: I’m nonbinary. Like I’m not a man, I’m a demiboy. So like partially male and partially neutral, if that makes sense.

No one said anything since we were all shocked.

-Please say something, he pleaded.

-What pronouns would you like us to use for you, Roman asked while walked towards Virgil and giving him a hug.

-He/him and they/them, Virgil replied hugging him back.

I immediately stood up and embraced my best friend.

-I’m so proud of you, I whispered in their ear.

Everyone soon joined in. We stayed like that until Vee started to feel uncomfortable so they pushed us off and everyone went back their seat to eat dinner. Everyone a part from me. When he came out, it brought back some feelings I had been repressing for a long time.

I went back to my room determined to figure out why my best friend saying they were nonbinary affected me so much. As soon as I entered my room, the truth hit me like a to a bricks: I was nonbinary and I had been suppressing that part of myself for way too long. To be honest, it wasn’t like it surprised me. I had always known that my identity wasn’t fully male. It wasn’t like I was uncomfortable if people called me sir or used he or anything, but part of me also wanted people to use other pronouns as well. In a way, I felt like my identity fluctuated but I was confused as to how exactly. For some reason the thought of questioning my gender was something that scared me. I would have to admit that I wasn’t who I said I was. That I was lying to myself. Which to be honest, shouldn’t be that strange. Right? After all, what else would you expect from the master of deception? It made sense that I would be good at lying. So I decided to do some research because I knew I would go insane if I didn’t. I ended up figuring out that the label that fit what I felt the most was Pangender. As for pronouns, I really wasn’t sure which one to use, so I decided I would try using any to see how I felt. Throughout the next couple of weeks, I slowly got used to feeling comfortable in my identity. I didn’t tell anyone about it though. I was afraid they wouldn’t believe me. Not that I thought any of them would be completely unaccepting, but it was just that they seemed to believe all I could do was lie, that I could never tell the truth. I really wanted to tell someone, anyone really but I was so afraid of their reaction so I just kept it inside.

Jan, Virgil asked sitting on the couch next to me, are you okay?

-I’m fine, I replied. Why are you asking?

-I just feel a lot of anxiety coming from you, they started. So what’s up? You know you can tell me anything right?

I wanted to tell him, but a voice in my head stopped me. Would they be angry at me? Would he think I was just copying them? Even though, I knew Vee wasn’t the type of person to react that way to someone coming out to him, I still couldn’t shake this irrational fear.

-Well, I stated simply, I don’t know where you’re getting that because I’m not anxious at all.

-If you say so, they replied not convinced. Just know I’m here for you if you need someone to talk to.

Then they walked away leaving me to ponder our conversation. I knew he would be accepting of my identity. I mean, they had never been unaccepting of any other parts of me, so why wouldn’t his acceptance also extend to my gender identity? Maybe it was my fear of not being taken seriously because I didn’t have everything figured out yet. That I wouldn’t have an answer if someone asked me what my pronouns were. All I knew was that I didn’t exactly like using any and all pronouns. I wanted one that would encompass all of my identity, but I hadn’t found one that fit me perfectly quite yet. For some reason, figuring that out was really important to me, so I did a lot more research.

I ended up spending more time on my own during the next couple of weeks. All I could seem to do was wallow in my own self pity. Somehow realizing that I was nonbinary didn’t bring me as much joy as you may think it would. On the contrary actually, it only seemed to make me even more ashamed of myself and I wasn’t sure why exactly. Maybe it was because I had always thought that since everyone around me told me I was a man, I had no right to question it. They clearly knew more about me that I did, right? At least that’s what I thought before. At the time, I didn’t know who I was, so I guess when someone told me who they thought I was, I just ran with it because it was easier than taking the time to actually figure out my identity. So in a way, I was glad to finally be allowing myself to explore who I was.

Even though it scared me, I knew I would have to come out to someone at some point. Otherwise, I knew it would prevent me from doing my job well. I couldn’t keep hiding it forever. Doing so would only result in me slowly descending into a pit of self hate until I wouldn’t be able to do the main thing I was created for, which was what I was trying to prevent. “Jeez, I thought to myself, way to be depressing Janus!”

I could feel all my fears come back to the surface of my mind as I knocked on Virgil’s door. “This is it, I thought. You can do it.”

-Jan, they said as he opened his door? What is going on?

-Can I come in, I asked calmly even though I didn’t feel calm at all?

-Sure, he responded leading back to his bed. Are you okay though? You’re very anxious.

I took a sharp breath before speaking.

-Vee, I started, I’m nonbinary.

He didn’t say anything. I told them everything. It took a while but I was glad I did it. When I mentioned my uncertainty about pronouns I wanted to use, Virgil suggested I look into neopronouns. I hadn’t heard of that before so I was interested. He decided to do some research with me at that moment. After spending some time looking at different pronouns, I ended up finding one that I liked a lot: Xe/Xem. As soon as I saw it, it was like everything just clicked. For the first time in a while I felt like I had found something that truly represented me.

-So, Vee asked, do you see any you like?

-Yeah, I answered, I think I like Xe/Xem. Do you think you could try using it in a sentence with my name so I can see how I feel.

-Sure thing, they replied with a smile. Le me just write a little something down.

He took a piece of paper and a pen from his desk and thought a couple seconds before writing something down. They handed it to me but I gave it back. I told him I wanted to hear them say it out loud see what it would feel like to hear someone using use this pronoun for me not in writing.

-This is Janus, he started. xe’s my best friend and has a wonderful personality. That smile of xyrs makes me really happy. I could talk to xem all day even though Xe can be distracted easily. Xe’s a bit of a reserved person but I can honestly say I’m so proud of xem for telling me about xyr identity because I know how hard it was for xem.

I tested to say bit at his words. I hadn’t realized how much I needed to hear that. I couldn’t speak so I just gave them a hug. I felt so lucky to have him in my life. Hearing them use that pronoun for me made me feel so happy. I felt like I had finally figured out who I was. I pulled away after a bit still feeling a bit choked up.

-I, I tried to say but I couldn’t continue. I...

-It’s okay, they said smiling at me. You don’t have to say anything. Just know I’m always here for you no matter what.

We spent the rest of that day watching movies together in his room. In all honesty, I was glad I had told Virgil but I was still apprehensive about how the others would react. Not to mention how Thomas himself would react. Would they be as accepting as Vee? Would they even believe me? They never did seem too pleased anytime I showed up in their side of the mindscape or when I showed up for videos. However, none of them were ever outwardly hateful towards me. Well, a part from Roman giving me some mean spirited nicknames, but those never really affected me much. I just wasn’t sure how they, apart from Virgil and Remus, felt about me.

I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to come out to everyone. I considered doing it in a similar way to how Virgil did it, but it didn’t exactly feel right. A part of me kind of wanted mention it casually and not make it a big deal, but I also knew that if I did that, I may not be taken seriously. Or at least, not as seriously as I wanted to be taken. So I decided to tell everybody the next time we had a meeting to discuss the next video. That way they would all be there so I could get it over with.

I popped up next to Virgil as everyone was in deep discussion about next week’s video. Vee gave me a small smile acknowledging my presence while I waited for the others to notice me which didn’t take long.

-Deceit, Thomas exclaimed when he turned to talk to Virgil. Why are you here?

He didn’t seem to pleased to see me. Oh well, I had come for a specific reason and was determined to do exactly that.

-Don’t worry, I replied calmly. I’m not here to cause you any harm or anything. I just want to share something.

I looked around and saw that they all looked apprehensive. Well apart from Vee who was giving me a reassuring smile.

-And what night that be, Roman asked?

-I’m nonbinary, I explained. I use Xe/xem pronouns.

I closed my eyes for bit bracing myself for the worst. I still didn’t think they’d be nice about it. Where were the: “ Is this a joke?”, “ Are you lying?”, “Why should we trust you?”? I couldn’t hear anyone say any of these things. Instead, I felt a pair wrap around my waist. Shocked, I opened my eyes and saw that Patton was hugging me.

-I’m glad that you felt comfortable enough to tell us that, he said happily.

I hadn’t realized how much I longed for Patton’s acceptance, so hearing him say that meant more to me than I could ever express.

-What, I asked still a bit shocked, really?

-Yes, Logan confirmed turning to me. If you say that this is your identity, then it is. We would have no right to contest it as I would assume that you probably know yourself better than we do.

-So you don’t think I’m lying, I asked again? Or that I’m copying Virgil? You actually believe me?

-Janus, Thomas answered, of course we believe you. Being nonbinary isn’t something that is reserved for only certain types of people. Besides, even though you may represent Deceit, I doubt you’d lie about something so personal. So yes, I’m completely okay with who you are.

I turned to Roman waiting for his reaction.

-It is my pleasure, he started in an very dramatic voice, to be welcoming another nonbinary royalty to our humble family.

I smiled brightly at his words, silently thanking him. All of it was so Roman that it was perfect.

-Does that mean I still get to called you J-anus or Double Dee, Remus popping behind the TV.

I chuckled a bit at that. Of course that’s what he thought about.

-Yes, I stated smiling at him, Remus. You can call me whatever you want.

I knew that even if I tried to stop him, it wouldn’t work. Not that I minded though. I found it endearing in a way. I was glad that my coming out wasn’t such a big deal to everyone. That seemed to ease a lot of my fears. To be honest, even though I was grateful for it, I was still surprised that they all accepted me so easily. I had spent so much time telling myself that no one would believe me when it came to who I was. It was like I didn’t realize that in reality, the only person I needed to prove my identity to was myself.

[antiresperidoneclub]

i havent posted anything in awhile but happy pride month yall! and, very much in me fashion imma take this time ta make another informational post! this installment is called

why assimilation is overall harmful to the queer community + the damage of pseudo-right wing ideas spread thruout the trans community!

CW: queerphobia, transmedicalism, bl*ir wh*te, k*lvin g*rrah, violence against queer ppl.

so, where do we start?

assimilation, what is it?

assimilation is a deliberate effort made by a minority/ marginalized group to (instead of become free) join the majority/privledged, which is wildly more accesible ta abled nuerotypical cis white lgb folks.

now, how does that apply ta th queer community? before that, we hafta look at th stark distinction between th LGBT community and th QUEER community.

because sadly its now different

imma make this as short as possible but basically,

despite its intentions when it was formed decades ago, th LGBT communiy an th way it functions is percieved is different. case in point, th term LGBT has been heavily gentrified and commodified especially by corporations tryina sell it to non-lgbt audiences. youll notice a majority of LGBT voices an advocates are usually white cis lgb ppls or are assimilationists. th term LGBT aswell has been heavily diluted and decontexualized from its roots, such as fightin for rights wit riots an demonstrations, bein heavily tied wit black an indigenous liberation, socialist ideals and memorializing th struggle for our freedom. its also (as apart of its gentrification) is bein forced ta be more 'family friendly' in an effort of control an ta make cash off of us an further assimilate us.

the QUEER community is a somewhat niche nowadays as it sticks fairly close ta th original goals as th LGBT community once had. such as wantin an willin ta fight for liberation rather than succumb ta assimilation. its also seen as a threat as it directly challenges th authority (capitlism, cops/military, goverment, white supremacy, fascism) for its mistreatment an oppresion against queer ppl and other marginalized groups. if th LGBT community is th privledged assimilations that can be proffited off of, then th queer community is more alike 'outcasts' or 'rejects' that arent as palatable ta a cishet majority ie; trans women/ trans/queer ppls of colour, more radicalized queer folks, or those impoverished.

so, with that said, how has/does assimilation harm queer ppl?

as i said, assimilation is disspraportionatly accesible ta able-bodied, neurotypical, cis, non-poor white LGB ppls (shocker) meaning th majority of queer poc, trans people, impoverished, and diasbaled/neurodivergent folks get left behind and continuosly stomped on in an attempt ta eradicate us. and it should be noted theres 2 types of assimilation

1. forced assimilation; forced assimilation is where marginalized ppls thru cultural eradication/genocide r forced ta strip themselves of their identity an join th majority which results in oppresion, discrimination, an further erasure of th ppls themselves. this is heavily seen within th queer community wit th AIDS crisis where those who survived were later branded as 'brave' by th very system that sought their demise in th first place, leavin our community in shambles.

2. chosen assimilation; chosen assimilation is where usually a small group/ or a singular person will disregard their people in an a attempt ta be spared from oppresion or discrimination. in terms of queer ppl (especially trans folks) th main contendors r blair white, kalvin garrah, an buck angel. blair is a stellar example of attempted assimilation. she not only rejetcs, but constantly puts her own people on blast publicly ta her audince of white cishet conservatives an (more often than not) fascists. not only that but she deliberatly associates wit th very ppl who seek her erasure an oppresion in an assbackwards attempt at salvation. more concrete examples include 1. showin herself as 'one of th good ones' or 'normal' 2. acting as if shes cishet 3. constantly self-hating ta appease those mentioned above 4. spewing dangerous an misinormed rhetoric aimed at trans ppls which directly affects trans poc an non-passing trans women. next, kalvin garrah. i was gonna write a whole thing on him but instead ill (below) link copshatemoe's videos about him.

so, now that we know how assimilation both forced an personal harms queer ppls in general, what about trans ppls an th trans community?

transmedicalism and its disasterous effects towards the trans community.

transmedicalism is a belif system of sorts that follows ideals such as

beliving trans ppls must be suffering from dysphoria to be trans

a trans person must want to transition to be trans

being trans is a mental illness/ neurological condition/ birth defect cause by unbalanced horomone levels or th existence of "male and female brains"

belivies HRT or surgerys are a 'cure' for dysphoria/ 'transness'

that neopronouns or non-lesbian, gay, bisexual, or binary trans folks are invalid or 'wannabes' who see th "lgbt community as a club of sorts to join jus because"

borderline or blatant rascist, transmysoginistic, ableist rhetoric.

intentional or not, that assimilation is key an becomin 'as close ta bein cis as possible' is th goal of transition.

now, i could spend ages rantin about how these belifs are blatently wrong but however rather than disecting them lets jus go over th direct harm these belifs have caused th trans community.

lets start wit nonbinary folks. nowadays as ive seen transmedicalism has become more open ta acceptin nonbinary folks but regardless they were one of th first punchin bags. since bein nonbinary in any facet isnt exactly 'medically sustained' its already seen as bullshit, but past that it opens th gates for neoprounouns an non-convetional identitys. enby ppls would be attacked constantly or called "trenders" in an attempt ta discourage them from even existing. this 'highschool bully' type of mentality along wit th superiority complex behind transmedicalism created a stark divide between "normal" trans ppls an th "weirdo, faker" trans ppls. not only did these attacks further stigmatize an already oppresed minority but also forced ppl ta hide themselves from they own community ta avoid ridicule an bullying. this type of harrasment has left these ppls wit trauma an fear of they identity bein challenged not only online but also in IRL queer spaces while they already hafta stay hypervigilant around cis ppl, now it seems th same around binary trans folks. not only have nonbinary ppls have been impacted however, binary trans ppls were left wit insecurities, wonderin if they dysphoria is 'rlly that bad compared ta others' and worrying about things they usually didnt care about. probably th biggest of those is 'passing'. passing is th action of looking as cis as possible ta blend in an avoid general treatments sustained by cishet ppls. i as a transwomen was directly affected by this rhetoric which caused me years of my transition spent not becomin myself, but becomin as close ta a cis girl as possible. this lead me ta become embarresed by my own community also factored in by havin virtually no trans friends IRL. this was th shared experince of many binary trans folks an nonbinary trans folks i know an am friends with. in conclusion, transmedicalsim has not only ostrasized an traumatized queer folks, but has also left insecurities an damage ta binaty trans folks aswell.

so, with that in mind, how do we combat, well, all of this an much more?

liberation

liberation is th action of freeing a marginalized group from its oppresive chains. an how would this look/work for th queer community?

majority of cishet ppls think that queer liberation ended wit marriage equality but thats very much not true. multiple basic human freedoms have been stripped from not only cis lgb queers but also trans people aswell. rights such as affordable housing witout discrimination, medical options for trans people being completly accesible or downright free, safe spaces or areas where were able ta exist free of fear of persecution or discrimination, better healthcare treatment towards queer ppl, things sometimes neccisary ta ones transition bein more accesible such as name/document changes, and many more things. but remember, none of this is possible witout ingigenous liberation/land back, black liberation, or under capitlism

anyways, i have 0 way ta end this so happy pride month an a very happy juneteenth!! if ur black ur more than welcome ta leave any gofundmes, cashapps, venmos etc in th notes or reblogs!

also, if you have any additions or points/topics i shouldve made or covered pls reblog wit them!

-alexis

[writeanapocalae]

A Guide for Writing Trans People

Written by a Trans Man. 

I’ve seen a lot of different posts on how to write trans characters (absolutely none on how to write cis characters and I am so lost on how to do that oh my goodness) but maybe I’ve got a different perspective and maybe I’ve got something you haven’t heard before. Let’s go! 

Terminology

There are a lot of different genders out there, not just male and female. Some people think Trans men and women are some outside of the binary extra gender, which is very much not true. While many trans people do fall outside the binary, there are a lot who are strictly male or female. Therefore their genders are male and female. The trans part is not part of the word, it is a definer to state that the person is transitioning, that is all. So when you write trans man or trans woman the words are separate, not transman or transwoman. 

A trans man is someone who is transitioning his appearance for society to view him as male. 

A trans woman is someone who is transitioning her appearance for society to view her as female. 

The reason I am wording it this way is because they were already their genders. They have always been their genders. Transitioning is greatly influenced by the way we are treated by society, the same way that beauty standards influence people to contour and get surgeries and whatnot. 

Demi means mostly in terms of gender so a demi boy is someone who is male most of the time and a demi girl is someone who is female most of the time. 

Agender is someone who has no gender

Genderfluid is someone who shifts from gender to gender

Genderqueer is someone who’s gender is nondefined by other terms

Two Spirit is a third gender that encapsulates masculinity and femininity (according to Wikipedia) that is only used by Native Americans 

Third Gender is a gender that can encapsulate or be a completely different solid gender like male or female

Nonbinary is someone who is somewhere on the spectrum between genders and their gender is defined by them 

Pangender is someone who has all genders

Androgyny is not something that actually relates to gender as much as it does presentation. Presentation does not inherently tell you someone’s gender. Being androgynous just means that someone fits right in the middle of societies expectations of male and female and their AGAB cannot be guessed by onlookers. 

AGAB AFAB and AMAB mean Assigned Gender At Birth, Assigned Female At Birth, and Assigned Male At Birth. At birth someone will often assign a gender to a baby based on their genitals and parents tend to show off what sort of genitals their baby has with accessories and colors. Pretty creepy if you ask me. 

FTM and MTF has been deemed problematic but many still use them. They mean Female to Male and Male to Female. The terminology states that the person’s AGAB is their initial gender and they are becoming the opposite when, as stated before, it’s more that they were always their gender and now society has to catch up. 

Gender Nonconformity can be practiced by anyone regardless of gender. It just means that they do things that aren’t expected of someone of their gender like men wearing skirts (for some reason?) or women growing beards or a nonbinary person not being androgynous (for some reason that’s become an expectation)

Intersex is not a part of the trans umbrella, even though it is often lumped in and people who are intersex can also be trans. It is a sex (different from gender) in which different parts of genitals and chromosomes and hormones are produced in a way that deviates from the norm. Many intersex people undergo genital reconstruction or reduction surgery when they are infants (and can’t consent) in order to fit the mold better. Intersex people can be cis. 

Cis just means that someone agrees with the people who assigned them a gender when they were a baby and how society treats them. 

Slurs: Don’t use them. There are a lot. If you see it in a porn category you probably should stay away from it. 

Pronouns

Pronouns are highly personal and can be a myriad of things so I will not be going over all of them. They do not always match presentation (a long haired man with breasts is still a man) and many people will use multiple sets of pronouns or fluctuate between them for what they feel most comfortable with. 

Common pronouns are: they/them, he/him, she/her

Less common pronouns are: xi/xir, fae/faer, it/its, e/em, per/pers, ve/vir, zie/hir

Neopronouns: People make up pronouns all the time since they are personal and these new pronouns are just as valid as any others. Someone made up his and hers after all. When making neopronouns the main thing to be aware of is consistency. You want the different forms of conjugation to make sense and you want to spell them the same way every time. 

Appearance

As has already been stated, there’s no correlation between gender presentation and gender and many trans people are unable to present the way they want to due to the economy, genetics, health, or community. Still, people do what they can to pass or feel comfortable in their body and these things need to be in mind during descriptions. People tend to think of the slight things that make people not pass are unattractive and will point out a woman’s 5 o��clock shadow or a man’s high pitched voice as flaws. These things do not necessarily need to be skipped over but they can be described in a way that doesn’t distract from the characters gender. 

Try to stop thinking of an hourglass shape as an intrinsically feminine trait and height as an inherently masculine one. There are cis women with full beards and cis men with round jaws. Exploring different features, combining them, and seeing how they meld will give your characters more depth and help with differentiating them from one another. A good rule of thumb is, if you mention something that people don’t immediately clock as the characters gender, describe it as gender accurate. 

Misgendering

This is another one that I would say don’t do but there are characters who the writers don’t always agree with. Misgendering is extremely harmful, puts trans people’s lives in danger, and can out them without their permission. The narrator should never misgender a character unless the character does not realize they are trans until the story is underway but this should be rare. The trans character would have no reason to ever misgender themself and may talk about how they presented in the past but will, most likely, still refer to themself with the correct gender. The POV character may misgender a trans character upon meeting them but after being corrected should fix their behavior unless you want your audience to dislike the POV character. Friends of the trans character should not misgender the character unless they are in a situation in which being correctly gendered would bring them harm, otherwise they’re not good friends. Family may misgender the trans character if they are not out or if the family members are terrible people. 

Dysphoria/Euphoria

Dysphoria is when there’s a painful discrepancy between mind and body, like when someone knows they are one way but they don’t look the way they feel. Misgendering can be a large cause of dysphoria, as can hearing a recording of their voice, reflections, binding and tucking not hiding what the individual may want to hide, height, muscle structure, bone structure, etc. 

Euphoria is the exact opposite of this. It is an extreme sensation of peace and joy in personal gender presentation. This can be caused by hormone replacement therapy, correct gendering, presenting in a way that feels natural, and acceptance. 

Dysphoria is not necessary for being transgender. 

Social Groups

Look around your friend group. Notice anything eerie? Notice how most of your friends are similar to you in a lot of ways, especially IRL friends? They’re people that you trust and expect to keep you safe while having a fun time with because you share interests and experiences with. Same for trans people. This is why, if you look at my friend group there’s 2 genderfluid, 1 agender, 1 nonbinary, 2 trans women, 1 trans man, and 1 cis man (who’s a cousin). If you have just 1 trans character in a group of friends it is going to read as a need for diversity points and that character is less likely to feel safe with discussing trans issues due to no one around them being able to relate.

Outing 

This is one that a lot of people have a hard time with and even trans writers mess up a lot. We all know the infamous scene of someone walking in on a trans person changing and, hopefully, we know that this is not only cliche but actually harmful as it tends to lead to the idea of “lying” when it’s really just not anyone’s business and that trans bodies must be on display. I would say that you shouldn’t have to out your character because coming out is dangerous for real trans people in a lot of situations and it normalizes the idea that trans people must doxx themselves at any moment but due to the lack of representation and the nature of novels, you pretty much have to out your characters. No amount of subtext will be as beneficial to a trans reader as cementing the fact that there’s someone they can relate to in canon. Luckily outing a trans character is a lot easier than people think. 

Some of us can’t shut up. A lot of trans people will hint at it a lot and just flat out say it if they’re in similar company. If we see people who we feel confident are also queer we often drop hints that we understand we’re safe, they can come to us (especially in a retail setting), because we want a community. The amount I bring up my masculinity is very very often, to the point I’m surprised people aren’t annoyed with me. I don’t pass very well so I wear a lot of brightly colored buttons that explicitly state my pronouns. There’s also this very strong urge to correct people who use gendered language for things that don’t need gender (like sexual organs and menstrual cycles). There’s nothing wrong with just saying that a character is trans. 

Resources

The best thing you can do for your story is research. The trans people you know are not google and they do not deserve to be treated like google. You can use google. Here’s some stuff I found on google: 

Dummies | Transequality | EverydayFeminism | Scriptlgbt

But no matter how much research you do it’s not going to be as useful as a sensitivity reader. Once your story is complete ask people to read it as beta readers and sensitivity readers and listen to the people that fit your minority characters. 

Some musicians to check out for inspiration

I have to recommend music. I wouldn’t be myself if I didn’t. 

Agender: Angel Haze | Mood Killer

Androgyne: Florian- Ayala Flora | 

Genderfluid: Aja | Miley Cyrus | Dorian Electra | Jana Hunter | Ruby Rose |  Sons of an Illustrious Father | Eliot Sumner | Maxine Feldman | Chester Lockhart 

Genderqueer: Sopor Aeternus | CN Lester | Planningtorock | Chris Pureka | Sam Smith | Rae Spoon | Vaginal Davis | Ezra Furman | Randa | Vivek Shraya

Genderneutral: Grimes | 

Nonbinary: Arca | Mal Blum | Justin Vivian Bond | Adore Delano | Grey Gritt | Rose McGowan | Shamir | T Thomason | Beth Jean Houghton | Openside | Fraxiom 

Pandrogyne: Genesis P-orridge 

Trans Man: Alexander James Adams | Bettens | Little Axe and the Golden Echoes | Cidney Bullens | Meryn Cadell | Ryan Cassata | Quinn Christopherson | Beverly Glenn Copeland | Quinn Marston | Clyde Peterson | Schmekel | Lucas Silveira | Billy Tipton 

Trans Woman: 1.8.7. | Nadia Almada | Vacancy Chain | Barbra Amesbury | anohni | Estelle Asmodelle | Backxwash | Mykki Blanco | Namoli Brennet | Tona Brown | Sara Davis Buechner | Mya Byrne | The Neptune Darlings | Simona Castricum | Lili Chen | Jessie Chung | Coccinelle | Jayne County | Bulent Ersoy | Deena Kaye Rose | Bibi Anderson | Marci Free |  Teddy Geiger | Gila Goldstein | Laurie Jane Grace | Romy Haag | Ai Haruna | Juliana Huxtable | Mila Jam | Christine Jorgensen | Lady | Left@London | Amanda Lapore | Liniker | Jennifer Maidman | Michete | Trevi Moran | Angela Morley | Ataru Nakamura | Octo Octa | Dee Palmer | Kim Petras | Axis of Awesome | Katey Red | Patricia Ribeiro | Danica Roem | Jackie Shane | Breanna Synclaire | Sophie | Ramon Te Wake | Terre Thaemlitz | Cindy Thai Tai | Titicia | Venus Flytrap 

Two Spirit: Tony Enos | Cris Derksen

[littleoddwriter]

A Day in the Life... | TransMasc!Victor Zsasz x Roman Sionis | ZsaszMask

"hey!! could i have anything to do with transmasc (nonbinary) he/it/ zsasz? its a personal headcannon he uses he/it or maybe some sort of dog related neopronoun like dog/dogself or pup/pupself or something so understandable if not!!" anon

A/N: 1) I absolutely love that headcannon, amazing, show stopping, I actually fucking love it, thank you! Also, this is canon, now, thanks. /gen /lh 2) I actually tried to incorporate all those pronouns because, lbr, Victor is a disaster (doesn't mean everyone who uses multiple pronouns is a disaster, but also, it's not meant as insult, y'all are fucking amazing after all) and just absolutely would. So, I really hope that was okay and you like what came off it! I'm also quite unfamiliar with using and writing neopronouns, so it might be wrong sometimes, or make less sense, but,,, I tried my best. Thanks so much for this request, it's absolutely delightful!!

summary; Just a short Slice of Life kind of fic of ZsaszMask, where Zsasz uses the above mentioned neopronouns. So, Victor goes by he/him/his, it/its, dog/dogs/dogself, and pup/pups/pupself pronouns in this fic!

notes; Implied Murder; Scar Mention; Mention of Sex; Domestic Fluff kind of; Slice of Life; Neopronouns, so if any of y’all have a problem with that, you better fuck off, I don’t want you on my blog.

During breakfast, Zsasz told Roman about some gang that tried to expand on their territory and had converted some people Sionis owned to achieve it. Naturally, that upset its boss a lot, so to calm him down Victor got up and behind Roman's chair, laying pups hands on his shoulders and digging into the tense muscles there soothingly.

"They won't fucking get away with it. Isn't that so, Zsasz?" Roman rasped, his face still twisted with anger, but he wasn't about to explode, so that was alright.

"They won't, I'm already working on it," he replied.

"Good! Fuck, I want their stupid fucking heads on a platter and their faces pickled!"

"I can do that for you," Zsasz answered calmly, still massaging Roman's shoulders thoroughly.

A frustrated sigh tore itself from Roman, the anger bleeding out of him and his shoulders sagging. Victor promptly stopped kneading his progressively relaxing muscles slowly, easing up on them gradually before stopping completely.

"What else was there you needed to tell me? You weren't quite done, were you?"

"Well, Batman and his little birds have prevented our shipping from leaving the port. I'm already working on that, too. I promise, we'll get it back and then out there."

Roman grumbled something unintelligible that pup couldn't quite get, and crossed his arms in front of his chest.

"Always this fucking Batman. Fuck's sake! You've also got some good news for me, I'm sure. Right?" Roman looked up at its with a pleading look.

Victor bit dogs lips. "Sorry, Boss. Got nothing."

"Ah, fuck. Well, then we've got to make sure that today is successful nonetheless, 'kay?"

"Sure fucking thing, Boss!"

Roman grinned at his partner and grabbed the back of its neck, pulling dogs down to press a kiss to his lips.

"At least you've always got my back," Roman murmured against pups lips.

Victor grinned, kissing him once more in assurance.

Later that day, Zsasz did come back with some good news. It and some of Roman's men were able to retrieve a third of the shipping's load already. The rest would probably follow soon, too.

When pup told Sionis about this, he couldn't suppress his relief and kissed its in front of some of their staff carelessly. Victor smiled into the kiss fondly. None of the others dared to say a thing, of course. They knew they'd be dead the second a word left their stupid mouths.

"You're such a good little puppy for me, aren't you?" Roman whispered into dogs ear.

It shivered, nodding. Victor loved when Sionis acknowledged pups like that, praised him, called dogs a 'good little puppy'.

"Someone's earned dogself a treat, hm? What do you think?"

By now the other men were gone, and Victor couldn't suppress a shiver, even if it had wanted to. Fuck, Roman always knew exactly what to say to pups.

"Yeah, I think you're right, Boss," he rasped, its cock stirring already.

At night, Victor had acquired two new scars on its body and was also sexually sated on top of that. Dog was delighted to no end, Roman kept spoiling him even after so many years of being together.

Zsasz had to admit, that it had never thought to find an owner like Sionis. Someone who didn't question its choice in pronouns and identity, who just accepted it and went with all of that and indulged pups so much, so that he sometimes even felt sad about the pending freeing of dogs owner. Yet, so far it still had a lot of time with Roman that he would enjoy and use to its fullest potential. 

[sleepless-in-starbucks]

Cry

Ao3

Summary: All Patton wanted to do was cry. And yet, that was the one thing they knew they shouldn’t do. So they didn’t. Warnings: Self-deprecating, bottling up/repressing emotions + reactions to said emotions, making fun of someone’s interests, considering animals to be disgusting, purposeful misgendering, calling someone a ‘special snowflake’, crying Pairing: QPR Mosleepxiety Notes: We’ve also got agender!patton, nb + neopronoun using!Remy, and transmale!virgil because You Can’t Stop Me

~~

    Patton was having a great week.

    Sure, maybe it was only Monday, and it was too early to judge the whole week, but still! They had woken up on the right side of the bed, they had had a good and easy day at work, and now they were hanging out with friends they hadn’t seen in forever. Patton knew this was just going to be the awesome start to an equally awesome week.

    At least, that’s what they had thought.

    That was before the conversation between the group had turned from various miscellaneous tidbits and topics to Patton’s life in particular. They had all been going around, talking about how their lives had been, so Patton wasn’t surprised the conversation turned directly on them.

    They were surprised, however, when their talk of working at a pet store was met with what they almost would have described as disgust. When they spoke of loving to take care of all the animals and how they were always happy to see pets brought in with their owners to shop, most of the group sneered, one going as far as to ask Patton how they put up with having to be around so many animals all day.

    Though by then their stomach had started to twist uncomfortably and unhappily, Patton answered truthfully- they thought the animals were cute, and being able to see and interact with so many without having to take on all that responsibility full time made them happy.

    More scoffs, a few odd glances, and a quick change of subject was all Patton got in response. The group didn’t even bother to ask about the rest of their life, about whether they had met anyone or their hobbies or anything. They had fully dismissed them and their life for the sake that they liked animals.

    And damn did that sting.

    Their eyes did, too, after a moment, upset at being ignoring and having their interests mocked pooling together. They bit their tongue, however, and blinked a few times to clear the unwelcomed water from them. Later, when they were home, they could cry; but not here, not while they could still see.

    Later turned out to be much later, however, and by the time Patton was home the need to cry had passed, leaving them only feeling hollow and hurting. They dropped their bag by the door, resolving to put it somewhere nicer later, and made their way to the kitchen.

    There, they found Remy mixing what was sure to soon become dinner. When dae noticed Patton standing in the doorway, dae smiled at them.

    “Heya, sweet cheeks.” Dae greeted. “I see you and your friends really hit it off, huh? You’re back later than I expected- not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course. You had fun, yeah?”

    Barely a moment of consideration passed before Patton was plastering on a smile. “Yeah, I did.” They lied effortlessly, their words only catching in their throat for a moment. After all, it wasn’t like any of this was a big deal- it was just one bad interaction. Nothing a nice night with their partners couldn’t resolve. They didn’t need to mention it, or do something as silly as cry about it. They’d be fine if they just pretended it didn’t happen.

    They’d be fine.

    ~~

    Patton was having a good week.

    Yesterday hadn’t been the greatest day ever, yes, but it hadn’t been awful, either! Unpleasantness aside, work had still been good, and relaxing with their partners had been good too. They weren’t ready to write this week off just because of one bad moment at the beginning!

    But it seemed that Tuesday was after them as well.

    It was around midday when a brash customer came in, looking for a fish for his daughter. None of the options available seemed to appease him, and Patton’s attempts to assist him weren’t helping either.

    Being yelled at for not being able to magically add more colourful fish into the store’s stock was bad but not unusual, and Patton bore it with a forced smile and as calm a manner as they could fake. It became harder to uphold the facade when the man, having decided he’d rather yell at a manager, took a closer look at Patton’s name tag, discovering not only their name, but the neatly written out ‘they/them’ pronouns note.

    The man made a face of open disgust at that, and Patton tried not to flinch as they pointed him in the direction of their manager. She wasn’t too far away, and even still standing in the fish aisle Patton could hear their conversation.

    “-he was being blatantly disrespectful!”

    “They were simply informing you of the facts of the matter, sir. While I’m sorry we don’t have what you are looking for, it’s not as if they can-”

    “Oh, enough of this ‘they’ bullshit! He’s clearly a boy, albeit a special snowflake of one!”

    Patton moved away from the fish aisle after that, hurrying towards the front of the store and away from the conversation. Tears were already stinging at the corners of their eyes, but they brushed them aside impatiently, unwilling to be caught crying in public. And it wasn’t as if they hadn’t been misgendered before! They knew how to deal with it! This shouldn’t be the end of the world when they’ve had to put up with it before!

    Before Patton could decide if disappearing into the bathroom and crying for five minutes was a good idea or not, the bell by the door rang, indicating a customer entering. They looked up on instinct, slightly surprised when they recognized the person coming in. Virgil was known to pop in for a visit around lunch time every once in a while; Patton just hadn’t expected him to visit that day.

    With one last wipe at their eyes, Patton put on a smile that was only a little realer than the one they had been using for the customer earlier and went to approach him. “Virge!”

    Virgil smiled- really smiled, genuinely smiled, unlike Patton- when he saw Patton. “Hey there, Pat.” He greeted as he met Patton, kissing their forehead.

    Patton’s smile warmed at the gesture, feeling more real. “Hiya honey. How’s your day been?”

    “Wild.” Virgil answered with a smirk. “Some lady made me chase her when she suddenly broke into a run on her way out of the museum. I thought she had stolen something- turns out she just realized she was late to catch her bus.”

    “Oh wow.” Patton said, laughing once before saying, worriedly, “But you-”

    “I already took my binder off, don’t worry.” Virgil assured them quickly. “It wasn’t that long of a run either. I’m fine.”

    Patton let out a little sigh of relief. “Good.”

    “Mhmm.” Virgil hummed neutrally. “And you? How’s your day been?”

    “It’s been good.” Patton said automatically. It wasn’t a total lie- the day hadn’t been that bad, really, it was just the one interaction that had them on edge, which was hardly enough to make it a ‘bad day.’ Even if it had been, it wasn’t like telling Virgil would help anybody. He would just have to go back to work knowing Patton was upset, and Patton could be stuck knowing they had made Virgil’s day worse.

    So they stuck with the half-lie and the half-smile. They could always tell Virgil the truth that night at home, could cry then and be comforted then and deal with it then.

    Of course, when night came and the numbness had once more set in, Patton didn’t tell Virgil anything. They didn’t cry either.

    But that was fine. They felt better, already, after all! And Virgil seemed happy, and it was nice to see him happy, and his happiness made Patton happy. There wasn’t any need to cry or bring up the day’s incident. So long as Patton ignored it, everything'd be alright and they’d be happier than ever by tomorrow.

    They’d be alright.

    ~~

    Patton was having a fine week.

    Monday and Tuesday hadn’t been stellar days, but Patton knew how to work with that. They had still had good moments, of course, and they weren’t one to let two bits of mold ruin a perfect good loaf of bread! Besides, today was their day off, and they were going to make the most of it!

    They had started by cleaning the house, putting everything in order, and the resulting neatness of everything alone was enough to lift their spirits. They decided to reward themself, happily adding ‘ice cream :)’ to the bottom of their shopping list before they headed to the store.

    They got through the shopping list alright until they got to their added reminder to grab ice cream because, upon arriving in the section for ice cream, they found their favorite flavor of ice cream to be sold out. Completely sold out. Not a pint of it to be found anywhere on the shelf. To add insult to injury, it was a speciality flavor of the brand- which meant Patton couldn’t just pick a different brand with the same flavor.

    To their annoyance, Patton realized that tears were trying to poke their way past their eyes, trying to slip down their cheeks unnoticed as if that would make it so that Patton hadn’t ‘really’ started crying. Patton just wiped them away.

    It wasn’t like this was anything to cry over, after all. It was just some ice cream being out of stock! They could always just grab their second favorite flavor and that would be just as good. It didn’t make sense for them to be so upset over this, to feel as if the only proper response to the whole matter was to cry. That was just stupid.

    Patton kept that in mind as they turned away from the frozen section and headed for the cash registers, no longer in the mood for any ice cream. All they wanted to do was go home, put away their groceries, and take a nice long nap.

    Maybe, if they slept long enough, the once more returned numbness that had settled into them would go away and leave them alone. Maybe if it did that, Patton could be okay, could get past the ugliness of the week so far.

    (Maybe) They’d be okay.

    ~~

    Patton was having a week.

    They had woken up tired, likely the result of their nap from the day before leaving them doing more tossing-and-turning than sleeping. That had also meant they had missed having breakfast with their partners, and while the quick good morning and goodbye kisses each of them had planted on their forehead before leaving had been sweet, Patton still couldn’t help but feel bad they had messed up their usual routine by sleeping in a bit.

    The morning seemed to have set the tone for the day, as, so far, they had done little more than lie about the house, occasionally moving where they laid about to give themself the impression of not being completely lazy. That tactic had done little to make them feel better, but they still continued with it, figuring that, if nothing else, a little exercise was better than none at all.

    But just as it had every other day of the week so far, that mindset ended up betraying them. Because it was during one of their random treks across the house to a new spot to do nothing in that they stubbed their toe.

    The incident alone should have been harmless- Patton was relatively clumsy, they had stubbed their toe countless times before and would likely do so again many times in the future. But as the shock of pain registered with Patton, their reaction was anything but normal.

    Almost immediately, they started crying.

    Despite the amount of tears that had welled up in their eyes more or less at the moment of impact, only one managed to escape, quickly running down their face and leaving a small trail behind it. It wasn’t much, but it counted. It counted as crying.

    Angrily, Patton smeared their hands across their face, wiping all traces of the one escaped tear from their face and forcing the others back as they pressed their palms against their eyes. They couldn’t believe it. After everything they had dealt with that week, that was what they cried over. Stubbing their toe.

    Pathetic.

    They didn’t remove their hands from their eyes until they were sure the chance of crying was gone, ignoring how their chest ached and how their stomach twisted. They moved to walk again, ignoring the spark of pain from the stubbed toe as they put weight on it. It was just the slightest sting, after all, nothing to baby or fret over or goodness forbid cry over.

    Still mentally berating themself, Patton arrived at the couch and promptly flopped down onto it, planning to stay right there for the rest of the day. No more moving about and risking breakdowns over silly stupid things.

    Pressing their face into the nearest throw pillow, Patton didn’t even bother trying to lie to themself about tomorrow.

    ~~

    Patton was having a bad week.

    There was no point in trying to convince themself that they were just having an off day or moment. By now, the whole week was rotten and Patton was feeling rotten too. It hadn’t helped that they had gotten their partners concerned, both of them clearly worried after finding them on the couch refusing to move. Eventually, Patton folded to their concern, getting up for dinner and the like, but them blaming their original legarthy on tiredness only slightly lessened the worry in both their partners’ expressions.

    Work had been nothing special, with no good moments or bad ones, but the day had felt ten times longer to Patton, and by the time they were home all they wanted to do was take a nap and not wake up for many, many days. Despite seeing the light in the kitchen, Patton headed towards the bedroom, taking half a second to kick off their shoes before they sat down on the bed, leaning against the headboard, closing their eyes even though they knew they’d never fall asleep in that position.

    “Hey there, sugar.” Patton opened their eyes and tilted their head to find Remy leaning in the doorway, smiling softly at them. Daer tone was gentle, and it didn’t take a genius to guess dae was still worried about Patton. “Tired?”

    Patton nodded. “Can we have dinner in here?” They asked, feeling silly even as they asked. It wasn’t like Patton couldn’t move to the table to eat, they just… didn’t want to. Table meant sitting up and sitting apart and trying to uphold decent conversation. Patton just wanted to snuggle up against their partners and try to drown out the cold feeling of melancholy with their warmth.

    “Yeah, of course.” Remy agreed readily. “We can eat now, if you want- Virgil called, apparently some paperwork from his false-alarm capture got lost. He said he’s gonna be late home and that we shouldn’t wait up for him.”

    It was a simple matter, both what Remy had said and how dae had said it, and it wasn’t an uncommon event either- Virgil’s workplace was horrible with keeping track of paperwork. He had been late home before.

    So, of course, Patton immediately wanted to cry about it.

    They resisted the urge to wipe at their eyes, knowing that would make Remy suspicious, instead simply pressing their eyes closed to fight back the waterworks as they said, “Okay.”

    Despite it being all of two syllables, however, Patton’s voice broke on the word, Remy’s expression drawing into a frown before they had even finished speaking. “Love?” Dae asked, tone terribly gentle, as if speaking too loud might cause Patton to break. Patton let out a watery laugh. These days, they probably would.

    “I’m fine.” Patton said, even as their voice broke again, their every word sounding choked. “I’m fine, really, I’m fine, just tired, nothing to worry about, I’m fine,”

    Patton didn’t realize Remy had started approaching them until dae was sitting on the bed beside them, taking one of their hands in daer own. “Love?” Remy repeated, a hint of worry seeping into daer tone this time. “What’s wrong?”

    “Nothing.” Patton answered immediately. “Nothing’s wrong, I’m fine, just tired, I’m fine, really, just fine,”

    “Hun, you’re spiraling.” Remy pointed out gently. Patton shut their mouth immediately, ducking their head as they did so. Remy sighed lightly, running daer hand over Patton’s arm as dae pulled out daer phone. “I’m going to tell Virgil to get home quickly.”

    “But his work-”

    “Can be taken care of later.” Remy finished for them, tossing daer phone to the side, sure that daer message would be read and heeded. Both hands now free, dae scooted closer to Patton, gently prompting them to lift their head and meet Remy’s searching gaze. “Right now, you’re the priority.”

    “I shouldn’t be. I’m fine.” Patton said, emphasizing the last word as if that would make it finally sink in for Remy that they were fine, really, just tired and a little numb but mostly just fine.

    “You can say you’re fine as much as you want, darling, but that doesn’t make it true.” Remy responded patiently. “Come on, sweetheart, you know there’s nothing wrong in admitting you’re upset. Let me know what’s bothering you.”

    Patton choked on a sob they just managed to keep down. “It’s stupid.” They said, miserably, still trying and failing to keep the broken tinge out of their voice. “Just small, little, stupid things.”

    “It’s not stupid to be upset over small things.” Remy rebuked gently. “Especially when they pile up, which I have a feeling is what’s happening here.”

    “I just-” Patton stopped as a sob made its way through their throat, only making them feel worse as they continued, “it was just my friends said animals were stupid, and someone misgendered me on purpose, and then the store was out of my favorite ice cream and I stubbed my toe and all I wanted to do was curl up with you and Virgil and pretend nothing was happening but Virgil was going to be home late and I-”

    Patton broke off to sob again, pressing their eyes shut as they did, trying to contain the tears that were fighting to spill. Remy cooed sympathetically as dae moved from cupping Patton’s face to pull them into an embrace instead, guiding Patton’s head to daer shoulder as dae wrapped daer arms around them and held them close.

    “I’m just so sick of wanting to cry.” Patton choked out.

    “Oh, honey, of course you are.” Remy said understandingly, daer hands running up and down Patton’s back, the motions comforting and grounding. “How much have you been crying, hun? Once a day? You must be so tired-”

    “No.” Patton interrupted, shaking their head against Remy’s shoulder. “No crying.”

    For a moment, Remy’s hands slowed in their movements, Patton’s words clearly giving Remy pause. “What do you mean, no crying?” When Patton didn’t answer, Remy pushed, “Darling, have you not been crying at all this week?”

    “Wanted to.” Patton mumbled. “With my friends and the misgendering. But I didn’t want to cry in public, and by the time I got home I didn’t want to anymore. And then the ice cream and the toe, those were just- just stupid, stupid things to cry over, so I didn’t.”

    “Oh, Patton…” Remy said after a moment. Daer voice was much more concerned than it had been a moment ago, and Patton wanted to shrink into themself and disappear for making daem sound like that. But before they could, the sound of a door opening and closing rang out through the household, signalling the arrival of Virgil. He was in the room barely a moment later, worry etched on every inch of his face. When he saw the position Patton and Remy were in, some of the more manic worry fled from his eyes, though most of it still remained.

    He approached the bed quietly, stepping lightly as he took a seat besides the two of them. “Hiya, pattycake.” He said softly, one hand coming up to run through their hair. When Patton didn’t respond, he looked towards Remy, searching for answers.

    Remy quickly explained the crappy highlights of Patton’s week. “Had they told you about any of that?”

    Virgil shook his head, eyes wide. “Of course not! I would’ve told you if they had.”

    “I know, honey, don’t worry.” Remy assured him, briefly moving to press a kiss against Virgil’s forehead before once more placing daer chin on top of Patton’s head. “They said they haven’t been crying either.”

    Virgil sucked in a breath through his teeth. “Oh, Patton…” He said, tone nearly identical to Remy’s when dae had said the same thing. “You know why you shouldn’t do that, right?”

    Patton half-shrugged. “Don’t see any reason not to.” They murmured.

    “You’re not giving your emotions an outlet.” Virgil told them, voice gentle. “All of your sadness and frustration and upset… you’re just bottling it up and hoping it’ll go away if you ignore it. But feelings don’t work like that. They’re just building up beneath the surface, hurting you more and more every time you refuse to acknowledge them.”

    “I don’t want to acknowledge them.”

    “We know, sweetheart.” Remy told them, kissing the top of their head. “We know it’s not fun, especially after you’ve been holding them in so long. But you have to, or things are just going to keep getting worse.”

    Patton let out another sob against their will, and though their eyes were still screwed shut, they knew they wouldn’t be able to hold back the tears forever, especially not with Remy and Virgil like this, being so gentle and sweet. “Can I-” They stopped to pull in another breath, hating that it took so much effort just to do that. “Can I cry?”

    “Oh, baby, honey, darling… you don’t have to ask permission for that.” Remy said, sounding heartbroken even as they soothed Patton. “Of course you can cry.”

    “We’ve got you.” Virgil added as he scooted closer, pressing against Patton’s side even as his fingers continued to comb through their hair. “It’s okay. You can cry.”

    So Patton did.

    And it hurt, hurt as they shook and sobbed, hurt as their breaths hitched and they moved between breathing and choking, hurt as their tears stained Remy’s shirt and smeared across their face, hurt as they cried a week’s worth of tears and flushed out the ugly pit that had too long settled in the pit of their stomach. It all hurt, and Patton almost wished they hadn’t allowed themself to start crying.

    But for as much as it hurt, it couldn’t hurt more than the numbness that had plagued them since Wednesday did, couldn’t hurt more than feeling like everything was something to cry over, couldn’t hurt more than they had been hurting when they had been pretending they were fine.

    And with Remy still holding them close and Virgil beginning to hum a senseless but calming tune under his breath, comforting them as they sobbed, likely already planning what to do when Patton was done crying, to keep holding them, to keep comforting them, to remind Patton that they loved them even when they did nothing more than cry, Patton knew that, for as stupid as they had felt, their partners’ had been right.

    Sometimes, it was better to cry.

[captain-kit-adventuress]

I received an excellent ask from @the-gay-lady-of-ravenclaw-tower and I was happy to answer it, but because I am a Tumblr old I accidentally replied to the first part of the ask instead of the second, and now it’s gone. So I’m going to reproduce it and include my answer below. I hope this can help others, too! Fair warning that I am long-winded and the post is very long as well. If anyone has suggestions about how to make it more readable (I have ADHD and long blocks of text are not my friend, so I get it), send me a message and let me know!

Hi, Ryn! Sorry if this ask is intrusive, feel free to ignore. You're the first non-binary person I've seen on here who's really fully an adult (to me grown up = older than 30-35) and I was wondering if you had any advice you'd like to share with younger queer/non-binary kids. In particular I was wondering how you navigate using gender-neutral pronouns in the workplace and how you build a community/found family with other queer adults. (1/2)

I'm 18, and it's easy to see other queer kids around me in college, but it feels like a bubble. I worry about the world outside of this microcosm and how to navigate queerness in the future. Seeing queer adults like you who have successfully made it through their 20s and survived in the "real world" while building a community is really hopeful for me, especially considering the world was much more hostile in your formative years than mine. Thanks :) (2/2)

Let me first apologize for taking so long on this ask, I wanted to give a considered answer.

I’m honored that you would ask in the first place. I take advice-giving pretty seriously, especially when someone is reaching out to me because they’re hoping to take advantage of any experience I might have from being on the planet longer. I want to introduce a couple of caveats, though, so you can take my advice in the context it deserves. 

As you mentioned, I did grow up in a world that was quite a bit more hostile to queerness. On top of that, I’m sure you know we just didn’t have easy access to queer information, and it was a lot more visible when someone was seeking it. Because of this, I didn’t actually figure out my queerness (though I suspected for decades) until a few years ago. However, I’ve tried to throw myself into the queer community as hard as I’m able, and I was always a queer ally. So I’ve been on the fringes for a really long time, even though it’s only now that I’ve been able to experience it from a place of openness. On the other hand, I do think there’s value in that situation, as well, so, take all of this for what you will.

The other caveat is that I left the traditional workplace prior to my accepting my queerness. I have never had to deal with pronoun issues, and I also come from a place of having the luxury of a decent relationship with my original pronouns. I am non-binary, but I’m ok (for the most part) with people using she/her for me. That said, my background is in accounting, and the firms I worked for, on the whole, probably would not have been thrilled about neutral pronouns, much less neopronouns, especially with anything client-facing. Some of the feelings about this are changing, and some are not. It’s very industry-specific and employer specific, so I feel like the best advice I can give in this situation is to be safe, in whatever way that works for someone. 

I would love to just say have the conversation with your employer in terms of pronouns and presentation and that if they’re not willing to accept even the idea of it, you know that they weren’t probably going to treat you with dignity and respect about being outside of the binary, but because society hasn’t caught up in their understanding and acceptance of anything but cisgender and heteronormative ideals, it is still a privilege too many are excluded from. Why human dignity and respect are treated as privileges, I shall never know, but that’s how it is for so many at this moment in time. So all I can say is try your best to assert yourself in whatever way is safest for you, and to know that there are lots of adults rooting for you and willing to help when and where they can, even if we can’t change everything immediately. It still sucks that we have to couch it this way, but I do think it’s important to remember that at least in some places we can have the conversation. It’s not enough, and it will never be enough until we don’t have to think about it anymore, but change is always going to be too slow for marginalized communities. 

The found family is where I feel most comfortable answering. My peer group, the oldest Millennials, was really the first youth group to benefit from the presence of ubiquitous, reliable internet as a way to find new relationships, whether platonic, romantic, whatever. And I have to say, we found it in the same ways then as a lot of young adults do now: fandom spaces, very primitive means of social media (ah, the heady days of the message board), various websites and communities that we, along with a lot of other age groups, built. I personally met most of my found family through a fandom space, and while none of us really retain ties to that fandom anymore, our love for each other has only grown. The rest of my sort of extended found family, if you will, I met through in-person spaces, like the classes I took in college, things like that. I think one of the most important pieces of that puzzle is not being afraid to reach out through your interests. I also think that’s not so different from when I was around your age. The spaces themselves are a lot different to navigate, and I do not envy you with the sort of omni-present fight against purity culture, which we did not really have to address, but building a community is pretty much the same no matter if it’s online, in-person, formalized like a city, or anything else. It takes work and commitment and a willingness to see it succeed, and it will change and evolve a lot as you go on. Not all found family is permanent, and there’s nothing wrong with that, either. There are people who have passed out of my life, and rightly so, that I was certain at the time would be with me forever. But it’s ok. I grew as a person, and I grew in a different direction than worked for our relationship. I grew in a direction that brought me toward my found family. 

I should also probably point out that my found family is, on the whole, not queer. A few of us are, or have ties to queerness, but there’s a variety of sexualities, genders, etc. I think you’re right to say that queerness can be kind of a bubble, but there are lots of people who want to embrace what may have started out as queer ideals because they recognize it’s how they want to live, even if they themselves are not queer. I think especially people my age and younger are realizing that they want families that are supportive and nurturing, and I am sorry to say it but that’s rooted in queerness in a way that most normative family dynamics are not. We’ve had no choice, we either had each other or no one else. Queerness, on some level, means found family—or at least queerness that doesn’t rely on trying to emulate the cisgender heteropatriarchy for acceptance. So the two ideas are really intertwined and it’s completely understandable why so many queer people gravitate toward families they built themselves. How to do that is as varied as any queer experience, but comfortingly, it’s still the same as any other kind of relationship at its core. Give it time, which is no one’s favorite advice, but that is the best I’ve got. Make sure you’re getting what you need in addition to helping others with what they need. Be kind and loving and supportive, and above all, bring compassion to the table every moment that you can. Empathy is good, too, but compassion and kindness will steer you better, I think, more often than empathy will. 

I know this is an incredibly long answer, and this is as concise as I could make it. These are big questions, and I am not a concise person by nature. :) Good luck, and I’m here to talk if you need, and that extends to any queer young adults that want advice. We have to band together, we all have so many wonderful things to contribute, and I for one am looking forward to seeing what you and your peers add to the discussion over the years.

[dwindlingashesburnt]

This is for Nonbinary November, I'll reblog this post with a link to the person who came up with this ask game and with a link to the blog I mention in a later question

1) Which labels do you use? I use nonbinary, trans, agender. I also use aroace but that's not really relevant to this month!

2) What are your pronouns? Honestly who knows. I use they/them, I MAY be interested in xe/xem but I don't know yet because I haven't been able to convince anyone to use those pronouns for me when I'm fine with they/them - it's possible the first time I heard someone refer to me as "xe" I'd realise I hate it. Or, realise I love it. Anyway rn I use they/them

3) How old were you when you came out to yourself as nonbinary? 15 or 16? I think 16

4) What's one thing you'd like to tell your younger self? hey I know you don't think you like yourself rn but I promise that's not true, you're okay, and when you figure out the real reason you're uncomfortable everything will make so much more sense. You'll be okay, there's nothing wrong with the situation or with you

5) is there a myth about nonbinary people that annoys you the most? Okay. As an agender person I would be part of the party benefiting from this I guess, but a lot of people seem to assume that there's only three genders: male, female, and agender. And that nonbinary is just a synonym for agender. This is obviously incorrect and even though I'm kind of mildly, guiltily glad that I'm not among the nonbinary people omitted by this assumption, it still pisses me off immensely because it's so dumb and it's just further bigotry and bullshit. Luckily this is one myth that seems to be almost entirely due to lack of knowledge rather than actual malicious intent!

6) is there a nonbinary celebrity you look up to? Nope, celebrities don't exist as far as I'm concerned.

7) if you're out, how did you come out? I'm out to my friends - I came out via a rambling, thinking aloud monologue to one friend then to all of them in a more coherent but still rambling announcement during a chat. I am also out to two of my family members but I honest to goodness can't remember how I came out - I do remember one hysterical conversation with my dad in which I was irrationally convinced he wouldn't love me anymore if I changed my name; I hope to fuck that's not how I came out to my dad and brother

8) is there a gender-related pun you like? Nah. I like all the misplaced my gender and traded my gender for x jokes though

9) Do you have friends who identify as nonbinary, too? Nope! Most of my friends are cis, a minority are binary trans people. I wish I had fellow enby friends

10) Do you have a favourite lgbt+ character? Are we talking canon or fanon? I love Crowley and Aziraphale because we can dump a whole lot of lgbt+ stuff on them: aro and or ace, gay, bi/pan, male, trans, nonbinary/genderweird....I also like some takes on nonbinary Beezlebub, but only some. Specifically the ones where they're not particularly evil/malicious but are most definitely a dick, because that feels very humanizing somehow which is nice.

11) Lgbt, lgbt+, lgbtqa+...which one do you tend to use? The last one, though if I'm tired and I've already used that once in convo I'll use lgbt after because it's less effort to say/type and they know what I mean

12) how do you explain the term "nonbinary" to people who have no idea what it means? Badly! With a lot of "um" and "uh" and eventually saying "well it's when you're not 100% male OR 100% female only"

13) Tell us a fun fact about yourself! (Gender-related or random) I used to be able to understand French and German pretty well but lost this a few years after leaving primary school

14) How did you find your name? I found my name several years before I even realised I was nonbinary. I was using a baby names website to look at potential names for a story I wanted to write, and was looking at unisex names "because it's more convenient cos then I don't need to change it if the character's a girl or a boy". Sure mate, sure, whatever you need to tell yourself

15) If you're in a relationship...? N/A

16) Do you prefer partner, datemate, significant other, something else? I like all of those? SO is a bit long to say though and datemate feels very playful, I think I'd say that to tease my partner if I had one but not seriously. So. Partner

17) A piece of advice for questioning kids? If you're really stuck, start in very broad categories and look at what you're NOT, then gradually close in on what you are. Like, do you identify as male? Do you identify as female? Work from there in more detail eg if your answer to female is "no" and male is "wobbly hand gesture" then you can either say hey, good enough, or start looking at smaller labels and stuff

18) Which flag(s) do you use? To be honest I mostly just use the aro flag, on the basis that being ace doesn't feel that big a part of my identity, being agender feels like too much of a given to celebrate/take pride in, but the aromantic flag is very pretty

19) Any tips for bad days? Take care of yourself, fall back on your support network, see if there's any small thing you can do that will help boost your confidence

20) Do you have a favorite nonbinary blog on tumblr? Not sure if it counts but I love the corvidwritingprompts blog because the prompts are inspiring and hilarious, and I love the normalisation of neopronouns and nonbinary people

21) Feminine, masculine, androgynous...or none of those things? I'm comfortable with long-ish hair but tend to aim at more masculine-androgynous clothing to try and balance out any chance of people happily assuming I'm a woman. I love button-ups

22) What are your three favourite things about yourself? I have very nice, straight shoulder length hair which I love because it's pretty, I personally think it's pretty androgynous, and I don't really have to do anything to make it look good. I like that I'm a person who likes making things and doing things to show people I like them. I like that I'm a pretty fucking average height, it's much nicer than when I was tallest in my year, and I am also generally happy with my height it's good

[gendercensus]

Gender Census 2019 - The Full Report (Worldwide)

This is a long post! You can see a summary of the big three questions here.

~

Hi and welcome to this year’s worldwide report based on the 11,242 responses to the Gender Census, which ran from 25th February until 30th March. It was mostly shared on Tumblr and Twitter, with some Reddit and Facebook and no doubt some one-to-one link-sharing too.

You can see the spreadsheet of results in full here, which might be helpful if you need to see graphs or figures in more detail. For the charts and graphs of statistics over time, the summary spreadsheet can be found here.

~

Q1. IDENTITY WORDS

As in previous years, I asked: Which of the following best describe(s) in English how you think of yourself?

Here’s the top 5:

nonbinary - 66.6% (up 6%)

queer - 43.0% (up 40.1%)

trans - 36.6% (up 1.8%)

enby - 31.7% (up 7.2%)

transgender - 30.4% (up 2.5%)

I put queer in bold because it’s new to the list, and the way it’s rocketed to second place is very unusual... and a little suspicious.

The wording of the identity question carefully avoids mentioning gender so that people without genders feel comfortable answering (or not answering), but it’s not really meant to include sexualities. The exception is sexualities that are part of someone’s gender identity, like this comment that someone wrote into the identity checkbox: “femme lesbian (sometimes i feel like lesbian *is* my gender)”

So anyway, last year queer got 2.9% (over the 1% threshold), and I personally know people who feel that their gender is queer, so I added it to the list. Usually when terms are added as checkbox options it might multiply their popularity by about four, but 43% is way too high to be explained by that. Queer is usually used to describe sexuality, so I think perhaps people who identify as queer in terms of their sexuality might have been selecting it too. I’m considering changing it slightly, to something like “queer (as gender identity)” to clarify it for next year. It’s possible that we won’t know if this percentage is due to bad survey design for a year or two.

(Edit: Some feedback on queer and my response to the feedback can be found here.)

Along those lines, several terms were added to the checkbox options this year because they were typed in by over 1% of participants last year:

queer

genderless

demiboy

demigirl

gender non-conforming

There are now 28 terms in the identity checkbox list, and as usual there were people expressing gratitude for the abundance of checkbox options in the identity question. However, there has also been an increase in people entering words into the textboxes that are already in the checkbox list. That means that people are missing or are not able to find the identity words they connect with more than last year, and it doesn’t help that the list is randomised to reduce primacy and recency bias.

Right now I add words to the checkbox list if they reach 1%, and this year for the first time I am considering adding another system for removing words that are not used as much. You can read a blog post I wrote about that here. I concluded based on the results of the 2017 survey (which asked for participants’ ages) that some words that seem to be used less overall are used more often by participants over 30, and since participants over 30 are underrepresented in online surveys generally I will be keeping any word that they enter over 3% of the time even if the word isn’t used as much overall.

Relatedly, I didn’t ask for ages in the survey this year, but I will be collecting information about age in future surveys to make sure that I don’t remove words and accidentally alienate underrepresented age groups. (The age question will be optional and will give age ranges rather than asking for an exact age, so hopefully that won’t make people feel too uncomfortable.)

This year someone complained for the first time that I was excluding words from other languages because I specify “in English” in the question, and if you know me from previous surveys you know that’s the opposite of my intention! Every word entered is counted, and I’m very aware that people use words from other languages while speaking English. So I’m considering rewording the question, but I welcome feedback on this since I’ve never had anyone complain about this issue before and plenty of people already enter non-English words.

And here’s this year’s top 10 words and their popularity over time:

Those two lines shooting up from 2018 to 2019 are two of the words newly added this year: queer and gender non-conforming. That green line starting near the bottom in 2016 and steadily increasing over time is more like what I’d usually expect - that’s enby, which is now up to #4 on the list.

There are no new identity words to add next year; the closest to 1% was butch with 0.7%. However, since I intend to collect information about age and since people often type, for example, “girl but not woman, even though I am not a minor”, I will be splitting girl, woman, man and boy into separate checkboxes next year.

2,021 unique identity words/terms were typed into the “other” textbox, including 413 that were entered more than once. The average number of type-ins for people who actually typed words in was 1.8, and the average words per person overall was 5. Most entered 4 words:

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Q2: THE TITLE QUESTION

I asked, Supposing all title fields on forms were optional and write-your-own, what would you want yours to be in English? I also clarified that participants should be currently entitled to use it, so they should have a doctorate if they choose Dr, etc.

There were 5 specific titles to choose from, plus a few options like “I choose on the day” and “a non-gendered professional or academic title”. Participants could choose only one, with the goal of finding out what, when pressed, people enter on official records forms and ID.

Here’s our top 5:

No title at all - 33.0% (up 0.6%)

Mx - 31.3% (down 1.3%)

Mr - 8.7% (up 0.2%)

Non-gendered prof/acad. - 5.5% (up 0.1%)

Ms - 4.7% (down 1.0%)

Here’s how that looks compared with previous years:

Mx and no title switched places again for the fifth year in a row! And this year I made a similar graph but without Mx and no title. They always get way more than everything else, and it makes it really hard to see what’s going on in the lower half of the graph!

That rollercoaster of a red line is because in 2018 I specified that “non-gendered professional/academic title” should be one that the participant should be entitled to use, which caused that significant drop.

The most popular five “other” textbox titles were:

M - 28 (0.2%)

Comrade - 17

Sir - 10

Mrs - 9

Ser - 7

As with last year, I invited people who chose “a standard title that is used only by people other than men and women” (2.5% of participants) to optionally suggest titles that they’d heard of. The goal is to find a popular title that is considered exclusive to nonbinary genders the way Mr is generally considered exclusive to men and Ms is to women.

243 people checked the “standard exclusive nonbinary” title option, and here’s everything entered more than once:

Mx - 16

M - 4

Xr - 2

Mrs - 2

Mx is generally considered gender-inclusive by people who are familiar with it, especially if their title is Mx, but it’s high on this list because Mx is very well-known generally. M in French is masculine, but in English it’s not gendered and I assume it’s pronounced “em”? (That seems to be what people have said in the notes, but please do tell me if I’m wrong!) It was also the most entered title in the “other” textbox. Xr is new to me, I’m not sure how it’s pronounced.

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Q3: PRONOUNS

The fourth question was actually a complex set of questions retained from last year, which started with Supposing all pronouns were accepted by everyone without question and were easy to learn, which pronouns are you happy for people to use for you in English? This was accompanied by a list of pre-written checkbox options. It included “a pronoun set not listed here”. and if you chose that it took you to a separate set of questions that let you enter up to five pronoun sets in detail.

As usual, everything that was a pre-written checkbox option got over 1%.

Here’s the top 5:

Singular they - they/them/their/theirs/themself - 79.5% (up 2.1%)

He - he/him/his/his/himself - 30.8% (down 0.4%)

She - she/her/her/hers/herself - 29.0% (down 1.9%)

None/avoid pronouns - 10.3% (up 0.2%)

Xe - xe/xem/xyr/xyrs/xemself - 7.2% (down 0.2%)

Here’s how that looks over time:

Because singular they, he and she always do better than everything else, let’s look at that chart without them. Every other specific pronoun set got under 8%.

Here’s the top 5 textbox neopronouns, none of which got over 1%:

ne/nem/nemself (singular verbs) - 27 (0.2%)

ve/ver/verself (singular verbs) - 24

ey/em/emself (singular verbs) - 23

ae/aer/aerself (singular verbs) - 22

thon/thon/thonself (singular verbs) - 18

(I’m going by the subject, object and reflexive, because that seems like the best way to collect similar sets together - eyeballing it, the most variations occur in the possessives.)

Half of participants don’t like he or she, and 9% like neither he, she nor they. 695 unique sets of neopronouns were entered by 574 people, of which 84 were entered more than once. The average number of pronouns entered was 2.2, and most people (39%) were happy with one set.

Overall it looks like there are no neopronouns really gaining in popularity, and even the checkbox neopronouns are being used less since 2015.

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THE QUESTIONS I ASK

What should the third gender option on forms be called? - Still no consensus, but nonbinary is at 2 in 3 people and it does seem to be gradually climbing.

Is there a standard neutral title yet? - Not yet. Mx is still consistently far more popular than all other titles, but just as many nonbinary people want no title at all. It’s really important that activists campaigning for greater acceptance of gender diversity remember to fight for titles to be optional, too.

Is there a pronoun that every nonbinary person is happy with? - No. The closest we have to a standard is singular they, and it’s important for journalists and anyone else with a style guide to allow it. It’s levelled out at about 1 in 5 not being into singular they, and 9% of us don’t like he, she or they pronouns.

Are any of the neopronouns gaining ground in a way that competes with singular they? - No. This year the closest is “Xe - xe/xem/xyr/xyrs/xemself” (7.2%, compared to singular they’s 79.5%). Users of these neopronouns will probably not reach consensus for many years - language and especially pronouns can be very slow to settle and gain ground. Even if one neopronoun does become very commonly used, many will continue to use other neopronouns for a long time to come.

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THIS YEAR IN REVIEW

Crowdfunding was successful enough that I have a little money leftover for costs next year. We had around the same number of participants as last year, but follower numbers and mailing list subscribers increased, which bodes well for next year.

I made some minor changes to the promotional illustrations to make them more gender-/sex-inclusive, and this year I got no complaints, so that was a good move! However, this year I did see a lot more confusion about who is invited to take part. I think the changes were probably worth it to make sure I’m being as welcoming and inclusive as I can be in the promotional stuff, so hopefully people will err on the side of caution and just jump in.

The way that the new survey software collects information, and my increased knowledge of Google Sheets, mean that I didn’t have to resort to MS Excel at all this year. This is really good, because working with unfamiliar software slows me down a lot! My formulae have been more efficient (thanks to my increasing Google Sheets skillz), so the entire sheet could be processed at once instead of being split into several questions. I’m really happy about that, because it means the entire worldwide results report came out less than 24 hours after the survey closed, instead of... *cough* eight months *cough* ...

I made an executive decision not to do a UK report this year, because the added complication makes it really hard for me to motivate myself. It definitely worked, look at that, it’s only March and the worldwide report is already out! I might still do a UK report, and I will keep collecting UK/not UK info about participants so that I always have that option, but for now I’ll just concentrate on the worldwide report and just do the UK report if I feel like it before 2020. And of course the spreadsheet is available to anyone who wants to download it and play with it, so if someone else wants to make some UK-specific statistics happen that is totally possible.

What I’ll do differently next year

In the identity question, I will keep queer as a checkbox option, but I will specify that it’s a gender. Maybe “queer (as gender identity)”? Feedback welcome on this!

In the pronouns question, I’ll change the wording of “none/avoid pronouns” so that it’s clear that it includes just using someone’s name. That’s because a lot of people tried to enter their names as neopronoun sets to express that, and I want to avoid people entering identifying information.

I will ask about age, to make sure that people over 30 are represented by checkbox options. Typically only about 10% of participants are over 30 so I want to make sure as many as possible are comfortable taking part. I’ll group ages into sets of 5 years (21-25, 26-30, etc.) to reduce risk of people being identified, and because entering an exact age probably feels a little more uncomfortable.

After 2020, any identity word, title or pronoun that is entered by less than 3% of participants and less than 3% of participants over 30 can be removed in future surveys. (I am a little concerned about this part, because it’ll make the work more complicated for me, and more work means more risk of epic procrastination. I’ll do my best!)

I’ve finally admitted to myself that I need to separate man and boy, and woman and girl. Currently it’s “woman (or girl if younger)” and “man (or boy if younger)”, and every year plenty of people skip those options in the checkboxes and type in “girl (but not woman even though I’m not a minor)” or something like that, and next year I’ll be asking about age so that’ll be an easy way to determine if there are any adults who are comfortable with one and not the other. This will increase the number of checkboxes to 30, which is pretty unwieldy and will make it harder yet again for people to find their words and increase the rate at which people drop out of the survey, so I’m glad for the under-3% checkbox removal threshold that I’m introducing from 2021 onwards.

Closing thoughts

I slipped up on a couple of things this year (ambiguity over the word “queer”, for example) - but overall I’m pretty impressed with how well I handled it all compared to last year. (I had recently moved house and was trying to rebuild my life, so I didn’t have a lot of spare energy in 2018!)

As always, I’m excited to pore through all your written answers and feedback, and I’m really grateful to everyone who shared the survey link! There were hundreds of RTs and thousands of reblogs, which never ceases to amaze me. Thank you everyone for sharing a small linguistic part of yourselves with me, I hope putting it all together helps you and makes a positive difference to the world!

See also

A list of links to all results, including UK and worldwide, and including previous years

The mailing list for being notified of next year’s survey

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SUPPORT ME!

I do this basically for free (the crowdfunded money goes entirely on survey software and domain fees), so if you happened to stumble onto my Amazon wishlist and accidentally fall on an Add To Cart button… well, I would be immensely grateful. ;) If you wanted to go and check out Starfriends.org too I reckon Andréa would be pretty chuffed!

[mr--spider]

Its below the cut, if i do it correctly

Think of a form of storytelling media. Most likely, you are picturing a movie, television show, or book. Some may even think of audio dramas or comics. It is the former of the two i would like to speak of here. When most people think of podcasts, they tend to think of either news or talk show adjacent podcasts such as NPR and BBC, or Ear Biscuits and Joe Rogan's. Perhaps a tabletop roleplaying one as well, such as Critical Role or The Adventure Zone, both D&D actual play podcasts. I tend to think of modern audio dramas myself, such as The Magnus Archives or The Secret of St. Kilda. Part of the draw of these podcasts, to me at least, is the diversity that is rarely seen to the degree it is exemplified in these shows.

Starting with the aspect of diversity that pertains to myself and my experiences, modern indie audio dramas have a wide array of sexualities and genders proudly expressed. Many of The Magnus Archives' protagonists are canonically queer, with the fandom taking some liberties, as fandoms are prone to do, in addition. The main character, Jonathan Sims is canonically biromantic asexual, having been mentioned to have had a relationship with Georgie in college, and over the course of the podcast developing a romance with Martin Blackwood, a fellow archival worker. Georgie doesn't just disappear though, in the fourth season she and Melanie King start dating, again a canonical queer relationship. The Magnus Archives is told initially as a "one story per episode", and as it goes on various threads from the Statements start recurring and even interacting with the characters. In this way, the series has plenty of representation, both of sexuality and of gender, with multiple non-binary and/or trans statement givers, none of which are read or spoken of differently by the narrator, Jon. Moving to a more indie podcast, Seven of Hearts is an audio horror ive recently begun listening to. Seven of Hearts tells the tale of mysterious murders occuring in a small college town, and follows six students (and a barista) as they get caught up in the web. I am not caught up with this one, unlike Magnus which I have finished. However, within the first minutes, a character is introduced with xe/xem pronouns. They are then used seamlessly throughout the podcast, showcasing the ease with which neopronouns can be implemented. I deemed this one more indie than Magnus due largely by its audio quality. There are times when the quality is excellent, but there are also times where you can tell they are recording it in different locations with different setups. This, of course, is due significantly to the global pandemic, but also ties into another point of the marvel of podcasts. They are accessible to create and publicise.

Recent apps, including one created by Spotify itself, to make podcasting possible with simply the use of a cell phone or website is revolutionary for podcasts' longevity. The message being put out is that anyone can make a podcast, and then anyone can listen to it. Perhaps it wont reach a large audience, but if you're passionate about the project it will likely reach a very dedicated one. That is a large portion of the charm of podcasts. There is a sense of importance, a sense of "this is the same application used to listen to big podcasts, so perhaps that could be this podcast some day." Regardless of how disillisioned that view may be, it is enough for people to give it a go. What podcasts have over books and movies is the ease of access. In order to publish a book, an author needs to go to a publisher, hire an editor (hopefully), do publicity, revise the draft to fit the image the publisher wants to give off, and several more hoops im sure im unaware of that must be jumped through. With movies it is very similar: you need a script, a script editor, a director, actors, props, sets, camera operators, CAMERAS, the list goes on and on. And thats just to have a shot at being published, being distributed, it really is a rather dismal outlook unless you've already got a foot in the door. Podcasting, in contrast, merely needs an app or two, a script and editor, and a sound editor. In its most bare bones form, that podcast can then be distributed throughout podcasting apps and websites, such as Spotify, Apple Music, Google Music, etc., the SAME sites used by the big leagues to distribute their podcasts. A thing

Podcasts, and audio dramas more specifically, are far more diverse than many other media, simply by virtue of accessibility and thought put in. Podcasts, more than many other media, are a labour of love.

God im so sorry for the uquiz person who left a fill in the blank question and had like a 2 hour time limit on it so i proceeded to write an essay about podcasts.

THE QUIZ WAS WHICH ENCANTO CHARACTER ARE YOU