#nonbinary cis

[mejaydee]

You can be binary and trans

You can be nonbinary and trans

You can be binary and cis

You can be nonbinary and cis

These are labels, not definitions. Some people’s nonbinary and trans identities are directly linked, but others are not. Nonbinary is not inherently a subcategory of trans. As soon as you start defining someone else’s labels and telling them how they should perceive themselves you have gone back down the wrong path. Quit it.

[firminfollowing]

Hey, nonbinary people? Nonbinary people who don’t identify as trans?

I just wanted to make a post for you. I’ve been seeing a lot of “well, nonbinary people are still trans so they’re okay” posts and it’s so important to include the nonbinary people who DO identify as trans, but I’m not seeing anything about y’all who DON’T.

It’s awful to be identifying with an umbrella term only to be told by a bunch of people that you don’t really fit the criteria. For an umbrella term. That is self identified.

You’re not trans enough for this, but you’re not cis enough for that. Maybe you’re cis and trans, maybe you’re just cis.

But nonbinary people? Nonbinary people who are cis?

I love you. I love you and I’m sorry the world is trying to make labels so small that no one will fit.

[asternomikal]

happy pride month transfem eclipsers

[buddieinmybeddie]

LGBTQ+ folk what was your gender/sexuality pipeline?

[castielfucks]

theres actually no rules to transitioning and youre allowed to want contradictory things for your transition. it's fine if you only want some of the changes that come with hrt and take preventative measures for the rest (like wanting bottom growth but not body hair or vice versa). you can want to have vagina AND a dick. you can be a woman and want top surgery, or wear a packer. you can be a man and want to have a pussy. you can change your transition goals one or a million times or not have any goals at all and just take things as they come or as they feel right.

there are no rules.

[sexypeople-contests-2025]

I just thought about that one time in middle school when two girls tried to bully me by telling me that I was so flat chested my male cousin had a bigger chest than me and I got really happy and thanked them and bragged to my friends about it and in hindsight I don’t know how everyone didn’t know I was trans before I did because I don’t even think I was in the closet, I think I was just staring out an open window thinking no one going by could see me

[spiderbitesandvampirevenom]

once again asking: can we PLEASE put chaser humor on the high shelf? im really tired of getting met with "based" "haha so?" "who cares" and shit every time i point out chaser shit. like you folk realize that chasing is a form of sexual violence right. these are people who look at vulnerable women being abused by basically every part of society, even ones that claim to be safe for them, and see an easy score before they see a real human being in need of love and support. you NEED to be able to distinguish between genuine interest and care and someone saying what they know you want to hear so they can get in your pants. and its hard! but its even harder when half the damn jokes on this site regarding trans women are straight up chaser tactics but "totally a joke i swear." im sick of it. so fucking tired. join the war on chasers

[forgivenessissupposedtobeearned]

anyway. i remember a 'progressive' show i was watching had a trans female character who wasn't super prominent but was in more than one episode. this same show had an episode involving a mental hospital where one of the patients was a 'girl who's insane and thinks she's a man'.

so anyway if you think trans men don't need representation, you can go bite a brick

[isabellascarlett1]

Your Intersex Awareness Day reminders that:

- Micropenis jokes are intersexist and not funny

- Intersex genital mutilation (IGM) is still allowed in nearly every country

- AFAB TransFem, AMAB TransMasc, Cis Trans, and Cis Non-binary are important terms for many Intersex folks

Include Intersex folks in your activism.

[visenyaism]

stop being a terf and laugh at a joke good lord

terfs are literally the loudest and most obnoxious about women needing to be tiny and hairless and dainty and childlike and incapable delicate waifs and cisgender and hyperfeminine (and white) to be “real women” because they are reactionary.

Me saying that I find it unfunny and unacceptable to either make or laugh at girl math girl dinner I’m just a girl jokes where the punchline is that women are all tiny delicate incapable little waif-children because those jokes are reactionary IS me being a buzzkill. I don’t find that reactionary shit funny and I won’t let anyone else around me find it funny either. That punchline and what it communicates about women is especially harmful to trans women and transfemmes. Me being a buzzkill about this is NOT me being a TERF and I think you’re nasty for putting that shit on me.

[justagaymoth]

Friendly reminder not at least trying to use someone’s neopronouns is transphobic

Even it/its and nounself like cat/catself

You are choosing to not use someone’s pronouns out of convenience

“It’s too hard to use neopronouns”

“ it’s too too difficult to use your new pronouns”

Transphobic people have been using that as an excuse for a long time

I understand it is difficult to use them

It’s okay if you make a mistake

It’s okay if you mispronounce them

It’s okay if you accidentally use the wrong pronouns and try to do better next time

It’s okay if you accidentally use neopronouns that they don’t you and make a mental or physical note on the ones they do use

Everyone makes mistakes especially when learning something new

You mispronounce a new word sometimes even if you use the word all the time mistakes are common

[nothorses]

after having an entire hour long conversation with my coworkers about what "degendering" is, and the importance of using trans people's pronouns when you know them- rather than always defaulting to "they/them" no matter what- and still getting "they/them"ed by people I trusted not to fucking do that to me, I have decided that the name and pronouns circle of introductions for new additions to the group will now include the very clearly stated boundary that they do not use "they/them" pronouns for me.

your move, cowards!

[genderqueerdykes]

so something that was more common in the past in queer spaces was ally pride. people were often very proud allies! they were often family members, best friends, partners, neighbors, co-workers, anyone really. maybe they just support queer people regardless. there's a lot of reasons why people support us, there's no reason to judge.

i feel like there's been this exhausting outlook on things where we have to immediately take things in bad faith because there's no way someone else had our best interest in mind. people have become very resistant to the idea of interacting with people who aren't exactly like them and it's disturbing. that is not how to approach community. that fosters arguments and drama.

also i don't like that some people don't like the idea of allies being at pride or calling themselves "proud allies" or whatever like that's not embarrassing, they should be proud, because they're refusing to hold us down. how's that embarrassing? we have to be kinder to one another. it's really over. this hostility is not where it's at. this is not the spirit of things at all. in the past it was not like this at all

there was a lot of diversity in queer spaces because they didn't really have the largest physical locations possible and often had to deal with minimal resources, so specialized groups were not always possible. generally you were mingling with everyone. you would have to just sort of talk to people and socialize. the first people i met at my college's pride group was an agender transfem person, 2 cis gay drag queens, 3 cis gay men two of which were asexual, a cis butch lesbian, a cis femme lesbian, & 2 cis bisexual women.

you just kinda talked to whoever, and that was a good thing. i saw parents, friends, kids, relatives all the time. it was super normal. like nobody was pestering you for your identity. legitimately i never came out the whole way about my gender when i was there i just tried to be gender vague and people understood. i didn't get heckled for my terms or pronouns i mostly told people i was genderqueer and they'd be like oh yeah totally. and then we'd go get sandwiches at a restaurant after the meeting was over.

there's a severe lack of connection we're having as a community right now. there's a breakdown in communication and it makes us suffer for it. i think it's time to shelve the needless hostility and just have conversations. i'm guilty of it it too. i dont want to say im excluded from this. but we need to just talk and then maybe we can get to the part where we go back to living as queer people and eating food together instead of interrogating people for everything down to what their genitals were at birth or are right now. it's time to shelve it.

we seriously do need to make room for pride and joy. the anger and rage isn't helping if it's being directed at each other- it need to be directed at people who are oppressing us, not the people we target right now. men who are allies, trans men, transmascs, male lesbians, transfems, trans women, intersex men, gay men, bisexual men, men of color, and disabled men, aren't the people who are holding us down, your target is elsewhere.

let us express joy and pride for once. it's okay to do so. it's constructive and healthy.

[elexuscal]

I watchrd the murder bot show. I heard some book fans think it’s nonbinary and some argue it likes it pronouns. Why? Isn’t it dehumanizing? And is the guy who forced it to Murderbot to make eye contact, via orders ableist? I can see why book readers think it is autistic coded. I feel weird calling a nonbinary-coded, autistic-coded lifeform it. Does it really prefer those pronouns? I read on tumblr thay apparently it does. I personally don’t prefer it/it’s pronouns, but not all enbies are the same.

Hiya!

I suppose it's not surprising that an ask like this would show up, if not in my inbox, than somebody's! Murderbot's pronouns are something I've consistently seen lots of questions about over the years, and with an influx of new folks being introduced due to the show, there's going to be more than ever.

First of all: thanks for asking these questions. I think when first being introduced to a new idea, such as a set of pronouns you're unfamiliar with, asking open and honest questions shows great intellectual curiosity and interest in understanding others.

There's a few different questions in this ask, so I'm going to try and break this down into sections, and to tackle them one by one. (And for the record, most of my answers here will be in reference to the books, not the TV show, because a) I haven't seen the show [yet] and b) there's only 2 episodes of it out right now anyway. I have no idea how closely the two texts are going to align, but I certainly hope it doesn't take away the book series' queer themes and representation.)

1. What's Murderbot's gender, and what pronouns does it use?

Murderbot is agender/non-gendered, and uses it/its pronouns.

For the record, I don't think this is just a reading or an interpretation. Rather, this is canonical, and on the same level as saying, "Bruce Wayne is a man who uses he/him pronouns."

Admittedly, there's never a place where the character says "My name is Murderbot, I'm non-binary, and I use it/its pronouns." In my opinion, one of the the strengths of the books is that it has much more subtle worldbuilding than that, both in general and in regards to casual queerness. However, throughout its first-person narration, Murderbot consistently uses "it" to refer to itself, and shows a general alienation and distaste for gender stuff in general. Its friends/allies, even after long acquaintance, continue using it/its.

Textual examples include:

Book 1: Yes, talk to Murderbot about its feelings. The idea was so painful I dropped to 97 percent efficiency. Book 2: To initiate the meeting, I’d had to make an entry on the social feed, too. The system was extremely vulnerable to hacking, so I had backdated my entry to look like I had come in on an earlier passenger transport, listed my job as “security consultant,” and my gender as indeterminate. Book 5: "No, it says it's fine," I heard her relaying to others on the comm. "Well, yes, it's furious." Book 6: I posted a feed ID with the name SecUnit, gender = not applicable, and no other information. Book 7: I was as indifferent to human gender as it was possible to be without being unconscious.

And while I think it's unnecessary, given the textual evidence, we can bring in Word of God too, courtesy of the book's author Martha Wells:

So, okay, Murderbot uses it/its pronouns! Which leads into the next question...

Why does Murderbot use 'It/Its' pronouns? Isn't that dehumanizing?

Yes, and that's just the way Murderbot likes it!

I think the reason this is often a stumbling block for folks is that a main focus of the early series-- especially book 1, or as the case may be, first episodes of the new adaptation-- is establishing that Murderbot Is A Person. From there, it's an easy leap to go: Therefore, Murderbot Is Human. After all, it has a human face.

But the second part of the central theme is: Murderbot is a person, but not a human person.

It is half-bot, half-human, all SecUnit. It has things in common with both of those halves, and emergent properties unique to itself. More than that, Murderbot is deeply alienated from the human experience. It spent the majority of its life being treated like an object, and appliance, and a weapon.

Murderbot chooses to embrace those aspects of its identity by continuing to use it/its pronouns. And yeah, it's clear that this often makes other folks feel uncomfortable. But that's a big part of it too. Murderbot's arc is about learning how to exist, as itself, unapologetically. It doesn't need to sand off those uncomfortable parts of its existence that make the humans around it uncomfortable. They just have to deal.

Okay, but that's Murderbot, a fictional character. What about actual real people?

That's a great point! And indeed, I don't care so much about Murderbot's pronouns for its own sake. It's a fictional character, it can't and doesn't care what real world people call it. But I think respecting its pronouns is an extension of respecting real living folks who DO use it/its pronouns, so let's talk about it!

(And for the record, I am not nonbinary. I'm also not not nonbinary? But I'm a sapphic butch with an often masc gender presentation, so it's like, an Overlap. My point being I'll do my best to speak to this perspective, but really, you're best seeking out the perspectives of actual it/its users and nonbinary folks.)

Various non-binary, agender, and other gender queer folks use it/its pronouns. The reasons vary hugely. Explanations I've seen are:

Generally feeling alienated from the human experience

Feeling a greater connection to non-human identities, like animals or robots

Connection to the many beautiful things exist in the world which (in English) have it/its pronouns applied to them-- think the ocean, or food, or celestial bodies.

A gender neutral pronoun that doesn't introduce the plural ambiguity of 'they/them' and isn't a neopronoun set folks need to learn.

Reclamation of insults they've received

and idk, they just sort of like it? Sometimes things aren't that deep.

And probably a whole bunch more reasons!

And really, at the end of the day, it doesn't matter what I think of it. While we can get deep into the theory of pronouns, at the end of the day, using the pronouns people prefer is just common courtesy. You can personally find it weird and uncomfortable, and you can work through it in your own time... But if someone asks, just use the pronouns they want!

Was the guy who forced it to Murderbot to make eye contact via orders ableist?

Okay, again, I haven't seen the show yet, so I don't have full context. But was the guy Gurathin? I bet it was Gurathin. While he didn't do that specifically in the book, he did pull some similar stunts.

In short, yeah, probably. It's a dick move regardless.

In long, I don't think he was being deliberately ableist. The guy is viewing the situation through a very different framework, namely, 'this SecUnit is a threat and a danger, and I am trying to control the situation'. Very likely, if he met a human colleague or acquaintance who asked not to make eye-contact, or just very clearly didn't like it, he probably would be chill and accommodating.

But the thing is, plenty of folks are ableist in day-to-day life without meaning to be ableist! You'll see folks be like "this person is so annoying because they do 'X thing', and it's not like they have an autism diagnosis or anything", as if the formal diagnosis is a magic wand to make certain behaviours okay. In general, things would be better if we just got better at accommodating benign behaviours that exist outside the norm without explanation.

[And frankly, my bigger concern here is less "ableism", and more "using his social power to force somebody who is a slave to follow his orders", but that's neither here nor there.]

Is it ableist to call a non-binary coded, autistic coded lifeform it/its?

Well, I mean, context matters?

A lot of shitty people will use it/its in a cruel way to various neurodivergent and queer people. They are deliberately intending to demean and dehumanize. That's shitty. Whether that's ableist or queerphobic would depend on the context, but it would be deliberately shitty.

And indeed, if you were to take another similar character... say Data from Star Trek, or Peridot from Steven Universe, and call either of them 'it', then again, depending on the context, I might call that shitty too! Their canonical pronouns are he/him and she/her respectively, and refusing to use those pronouns because "they're not really people" or "it's not a man/woman" would be a deliberately provoking move.

But if someone-- be it a fictional character, and even more so, a real person-- asks to be called "it"? That's their choice. The context has changed. It's not ableist, it's not queerphobic. That's just respecting them.

[puddleofpins]

Clinical Trial literally has EVERYTHING I like/fw

• neurodivergent, minimum-wage job having, NONBINARY mc

• yandere man love interest that absolutely fucking adores them

• accurate depictions of neurodiversity and nonbinary experiences

spoilers below for more

• they do cute fucking domestic shit together

• infodumping from both parties, especially about art history and bugs

• …….the shrine

• yandere love interest kills someone who hurt mc

• yandere love interest affirms mc’s gender even though they’re out to like barely anyone (there’s also this whole dialogue where he and mc get on the topic of angels and how they shouldn’t look like people and should instead be hard to behold by the human eye and then in the good ending he says “just like an actual angel” because mc accepts him and his feelings) (also the whole part at the end where he deduces their gender from all of these things he’s noticed. HE!!! SEES!!!! THEM!!!!!!)

AAAAUGHGUHGHG ITS SO GOODDDDDDDD

[friends-call-me-snow-miser]

reminder that intersex people exist and to include us in ur activism and attempts at inclusivity