#@ the same time im definitely nb and my presentation and id would be a lot more fem if situations were different

[flustersluts]

r u comfy being included in sapphic n lesbian attraction

yes i am i think !!

[soulvomit]

stuff with gender anguish about not fitting in with today’s current gender constructions

From another post I made: I need to talk about 20th century gender norms at some point as a living breathing 20th century fossil and how different it was. To most straight people, being gender non conforming meant gay, trans was on the far end of the gay spectrum, and gay was associated with being socially Not Normal at a time when you had to be Normal to get a white collar job. (The whole Normalhood thing im gonna talk about is VERY connected to mid-late 20th century construction of the white middle class.) Apropos of gender specifically... I’m not sure how 90s/00s genderfluid/genderqueer map to NB, or whether they do. It’s a big reason I am weird about IDing as NB - because it seems to mean something else than my particular understanding of my identity as it was formed in the 1990s. (Another thing is my social world being more people over 45 at this point and also I’m in a hetero relationship.) Part of 90s GQ stuff was that you could identify as a man part time, a woman part time, you could contain multitudes. “Woman-identified person with a male side” was a legit identity within that, so was “man-identified person with a female side.” You could be one person in the streets and another in the sheets. You could be several people in the sheets, especially if you were aligned with kinky culture. (And for a long time... I was.) There was a greater sense in the 90s and early 00s in genderqueerness culture that you could be GQ for no other reason than wanting to be and it wasn’t assumed to be bundled with physical dysphoria or even desire to change your public social identity. Some spaces - like West Coast geek culture and goth culture - had enough flexibility baked in that we didn’t really need to go to LGBTQ culture to explore our identities, and there was a whole geek queer sensibility that was evolving alongside of the broader LGBTQ culture that was definitely its own... thing.  And while people *say* that NB doesn’t mean any one particular thing or any of these things, that’s not always the message I get when visible NBs on TV/in film are almost always at present one very specific image or “type” of person, and that doesn’t resemble me. NB representation on TV amounts to presenting NB as a third gender with very specific codified behaviors (androgynous AFAB person who binds and has body dysphoria).   The message I get is that whatever my experience is, is better described some other way. Also the discourse around relationships with NBs is that a relationship with an NB is necessarily a queer relationship yet having been in relationships in and out of LGBTQ culture, I’m not really sure how to distinguish “a queer relationship.” My relationship is non-traditional in lots of ways and we’re both gender non-conforming in lots of ways though it doesn’t parse to most people because it’s along the lines of stuff that shouldn’t have ever been gendered in the first place. What my partner does not ever question however is his actual gender identity.  The thing is, actually publicly identifying as anything but a woman would create weird problems in my life in terms of social dynamics, and other stuff, and probably an unpredictable series of ripple effects downstream. But - that... just means I’m closeted, right? And closeted doesn’t mean your identity doesn’t exist or isn’t as unreal as someone who isn’t? And what if - as a “shapeshifter” - my relationship to myself within my relationship *is* part of that shapeshifting?  One of the things is that I’m in a heterosexual relationship. My relationship *is* one of my few spots where I’m happy in my skin, let alone happy in the world and I have no complaints with how I’m perceived in this relationship, and part of it is that practically every assumption about my gender is true, or has been true at some point, including the fact that I’m fine with being seen as a woman in the context of my relationship.  It’s in other spaces besides the intimate, that gender stuff makes my skin crawl. My deep interior gender identity is “pixels floating in the ether, which can assume any shape or form.” My gender identity among other people in non sexual friend spaces is “friend.” My partner identifies as a cis het man. I don’t feel like my relationship has any special quality that’s different from queer relationships I’ve been in, other than identities people have. If my partner doesn’t feel our relationship is queer then I don’t feel it is, either... though it’s not exactly *traditional.*  I don’t feel like our relationship is different from our hetero neighbors’ relationships regardless of whatever history I have. I have no way of knowing what my ostensibly-female ostensibly-heterosexual neighbors’ interior identities really are, or what their history is. And because we’re monogamous, it just never ever comes up. Our social world is about half queer and half not so nothing has changed. After decades of only dating people who had LGBTQ identities, and having a particular social world, now I’m with a cis het man from that same social world and nothing really has changed about the shape of my life.   I’ve moved between different spaces my entire life, sometimes I perceived myself as a boy in a girl’s body, but sometimes I didn’t, and don’t. And gender is one of the spaces in which I feel like a chameleon. There seem to be a ton of gender expression based communities that disappeared since the 90s that either disappeared or were erased from discourse and that makes this weirder/harder to talk about.  Another thing is that a lot of the discourse around pronouns (if pushed I’ll say I’m she/they but I am literally comfortable in anything, depending upon context) makes me really uncomfortable. Even in LGBTQ spaces it makes me uncomfortable. There’s the me that my friends know, and some of my family knows, and it’s a big enough world to contain that part of me at this point. I would rather not put my identity under a microscope in any space that matters. It’s weird but I wish I could just be “they” in the work, creative, etc, spaces, without the loading of what “they” means. I wish it meant nothing about the people who love me, or who I love, or how I love, or how I live my life, besides what pronoun I use. But it doesn’t mean nothing. That is why I hope more cis identified people will actually identify as they in the public sphere. There are plenty of spaces in the public sphere that I don’t think should be gendered at ALL. My wanting to be a “they” is in some ways more about wanting public anonymity and having formed my sense of self - at a tender time - online, than about my gender identity. Which means I’d be potentially appropriating “they” from people for whom it IS a deep identity, and yet... haven’t I spent half of my blog talking about how I’m not exactly the gender identity I advertise?? Haven’t I spent a long time up to now advocating for “they?” Isn’t feeling like a they, evidence that I’m a they?  And the thing is, this is such a YMMV issue and the problem is that EVERYONE has competing access needs with EVERYONE ELSE. Anything one queer person wants or needs seems to oppress some other queer person, and it sucks. But sometimes I wonder if I even need to just recognize how cis het passing my life is and acknowledge my privilege. The thing is though at that point... is it how much oppression we’ve experienced or are currently experiencing, that alone makes our identity? That’s as silly an idea as saying I’m less of a Jew because I haven’t personally experienced a hate crime. And yes there’s a lot to shared oppression experiences forming group identities, but I’m not talking about group identity. I’m talking about personal feelings of identity.

[banghwa]

Nb ask anon here, tysm for answerring the ask about how u came to terms with ur gender, it's always insightful to see what other trans people have to say about their experiences even if I cant relate to everything u said, I guess for me I started to notice that I wanted to present more masc than i used to, I've 'been' a cis girl all my life and a rather girly one to be honest (although I think part of that is because I've been forced to do so).

But when people call me women or girl smth just.. doesnt sound right to me to be honest, like I know I'm not a man but a woman seems also kinda.... "strong", I just want to put wlw as my gender to be honest ajsjkssks I know that doesnt make sense but it's the only thing I know for sure in my life and also they/them pronouns are cool too I guess lol but anything besides that seems so alien to me, like for example my name, it's not that I dislike it but I've always been reluctant to search for a new one, it's like taking a step in a direction, THAT direction u know what I mean

Ugh then there's the whole presentation problem of like I kinda like to look fem but not for certain people but I definitely wanna look more masc or even gnc, like I want people to look at me and not "be able" to assume what I am u know but also sometimes girly things are pretty so fml

Anyways this gender shit is so complicated jules like it takes so much experimenting and shit and I'm just like ugh why cant I just KNOW things right now

(Sorry for the rant but u just seemed very trustworthy and helpful in the 1st ask)

omg pls dont apologize, im more than happy that your trust me enough to talk to me about something to personal <3 but yess i rly love hearing how everyone defines their gender its so interesting how we're all so different but also the same, its very comforting i feel. (answered under the cut bcs it got long lol)

thats actually really similar to how i started exploring my gender! i am a very feminine person but when i started figuring out my sexuality i also started realizing how much i disliked being read as feminine by other people despite liking being feminine. and how much i liked more masculine compliments and indentifiers. i started out id-ing as a cis bi girl and then a bi nb guy and then bi trans guy and then gay nb and now nb lesbian so its BEEN a process lmao and i know how frustrating it is to feel like you dont have it all figured out or to think you have it figured out only for you to realize it doesnt quite fit anymore later on. it feels a lot like you have to restart the whole process, but in reality i think its more of a checkpoint, ya know? sometimes we have to make a lot of stops and try out a lot of things before we find something that fits and thats totally fine. for me it was like. when i realized i was not cis it felt like running as far away as i would from my agab and then slowly coming back to poke it with a stick kjgfhkj.

and its definetly so complicated when you feel like the terms you want to identify with are "contradictory," we don't really have the vocabulary in english to describe how we experience our gender properly most of the time and some things just dont fit and its hard to explain exactly *why* to someone who doesnt Get It. but maybe its partially a blessing in disguise, bcs it lets us really test things out and play around until it feels right. you can definetly id your gender as wlw, i personally describe my gender as "lesbian" bcs i feel thats the only thing that still ties me to "womanhood." i do get what you mean tho, it was really scary for me too to start using "contradictory" identifiers, like im a lesbian but i use he/they pronouns and i like presenting fem but i hate when people assume im a woman or straight because of it. it really is frustrating trying to figure all this out when everyone around you treats gender like something they get to project onto you and feeling like you need to play into that in order to feel "real." i still have a lot of trouble detatching my gender identity from other peoples assumptions and expectations, so it feels a bit hypocritical to try to give advice on that lol, but i think it all comes back to figuring out what *you* want first and foremost, having trusted people who you can talk to and experiment with, and seeing it as a learning opportunity more than a "goal" or "destination."

it definetly is so frustrating but you're not the only one <3 im sorry happy that you're taking the time to explore what feels right to you even though its daunting to admit that to yourself. some steps like trying a different name can ESPECIALLY be really challenging and scary and it takes so much courage to admit that thats even a potential, im so proud of you honey and i wish you all the best <33 im always here and happy to talk if you want to

[uncloseted]

lately i've been VERY confused about gender and sexuality (not mine, just in general, although more on that later). so i always called myself a lesbian because it made sense, im a girl i like girls. about 2 years ago i had a lot of internalized homophobia and i tried to be as feminine as i could so people would think i was straight. and i remember one time i thought "what if i'm a trans man and i'm doing this because i feel like i have something to prove". +

but then i thought "nah, i can't be a man (or non binary) i like girly things too much". but that's awful too. ellen always wears suits and has short hair and she's still a woman. jeffree star likes girly things and he's a man. but now i don't even know what IS a girl/woman. i mean i didn't choose to be a woman and i never had a chance to be anything else. but i don't think i ever wanted to be. even if i identified as "agender" and i still looked and acted the way i do know, society would still

be seeing and oppressing me as a woman, so at least to me, personally, it feels useless. but also, a lot of nb people (most of them are afab) identify as lesbians. it's very confusing. i never had any kind of dysphoria although i felt uncomfortable with my body, periods, and sex but i always thought it was because of shyness, anxiety, internalized homophobia, insecurities and beauty standards. and i have a friend who's studying psychology in university and she told me dysphoria does not exist

trans girls. i think it depends on, like, how "far" they are in their transition?. i think i could be attracted, physically and emotionally but i couldn't have sex with someone with a penis. and i know even the most trans-positive people will tell you that it's ok to have a genital preference and not want to date trans people. but it still makes me feel horrible because it's like i'm seeing nb people as "more woman" than trans women. but also in all honesty it's very hard to "tell" cis people

from nb people. if you showed me a picture of jeffree star and jonathan van ness (or elena and syd from one day at a time, or amandla stenberg and king princess, or sam smith and harry styles) and asked me which one is nb, i wouldn't know. i would probably say jeffree. so i agree that monosexual (straight/gay) people will inevitably be attracted to nbs because nb is a spectrum, and also some people (I think all of us, in some way? maybe it's a controversial opinion) are gender non-conforming but

but don't identify as nb. does that mean we should change the definitions of gay/lesbian, since any gender could have any type of body and look as feminine and/or masculine as they want? do sam smith, jvn, vander von odd/sasha velour/gigi goode (all genderfluid drag artists) have male privilege despite not being men?. should we change the words feminism, sexism, misogyny, male privilege, etc for something more accurate?. honeslty i think a lot of this confusion is actually intrusive thoughts

and me just being an overthinker in general but it's been causing me so much distress that now every pronoun feels wrong and i can't even masturbate. please forgive the rambling, the buts, the incoherence and the ignorance. thanks in advance. oh and please tell me if this comes through in pieces and i will send them again

So there’s a ton to unpack here, but for the record, I’ve had this exact train of thought, too.

I want to preface my answer by saying that I’m not a gender scholar and I haven’t read nearly as many academic works as I’d like to on this subject, so this is coming very much from my personal opinions and less from an evidence-based/academic place. I also want to say that if pressed, I would describe myself as a pansexual gender anarchist (as in, attracted to people for who they are instead of their parts and I think we should get rid of the concept of gender entirely), but I think that sounds a bit wanky, especially since it has almost zero bearing on my everyday life. So I think the concept of sexuality and gender is maybe different to me than it is to other people, and my perspective on this topic might be unusual in that sense.  If anyone reading this thinks what I’m saying is bullshit or problematic, please join in the conversation! I would love to hear what you have to say.

For me, the more I think about gender and sexuality, the more i don’t really “get” either concept. Gender has begun to feel (to me) like one of those Buzzfeed quizzes where you answer a bunch of questions and they’re like, “you’re rocky road ice cream” and you’re like, “I have no idea what that implies except for it’s the collection of traits I chose from the options above”.  

What I mean by that is that gender is a social construct. No traits are inherently masculine or feminine- things that are considered masculine in one culture can be feminine in another and vice versa. 

Especially now, when we’re really moving towards disentangling gender from our world, I wonder what’s left to take the place of those items to define what gender is.  Gender used to be like “feminine is cleaning, nurturing, creating (or Barbie dolls, dresses, and makeup), and masculine is destruction, being powerful, and being ambitious (or football, beer, and video games)”, but clearly that’s not what it means anymore. Ellen’s suits are feminine suits by virtue of the fact that she IDs as female, even though suits used to be considered a male thing.  Jeffree Star’s makeup looks are male makeup looks by virtue of the fact that he IDs as male, even though makeup used to be considered a female thing.  I’ve heard some people say that there are as many genders as there are people in the world. At that point I think we’re just using the word “gender” as a synonym for “personality”, which is fine, but I think we need to be clear about our definitions and what these words now mean and imply about a person.

Going along that train of thought, if gendered words don’t really mean anything anymore, I don’t see the point as identifying as a particular gender, at last not in the abstract.  In practice, our world still sees gender and cares about it, and other people’s interpretation of our gender has very real consequences.  As you say, even if you identified as agender, society would treat you as a woman because you present in a way society considers to be “traditionally feminine”, and as a result, you would be oppressed in the same way women are.  This is why I said that my position on gender impacts my life zero percent.  I can identify as a gender anarchist all I want, but at the end of the day I still get passed up for opportunities because the way I present is read as female.  Likewise, nonbinary people who were assigned male at birth do have a degree of male privilege (or at least, can access male privilege), depending on how well they “pass” as a man.  Sam Smith likely still experiences some male privilege, because they look (most of the time) like what society might consider traditionally male.  Someone like JVN probably passes less frequently, due to his long hair and frequent wearing of what we might think of as traditionally female clothing (skirts and dresses and high heels).  However, the flip side of that is both Sam Smith and JVN risk being even more marginalized than female identifying, female presenting people when they do dress in a gender non-conforming way, because nonbinary identities are less understood and less accepted than female identities are. 

So now that we’ve considered what gender means in relation to society, maybe let’s consider it in relation to our bodies and sexuality.  This is a bit of a minefield so I’m going to try to tread carefully, but again, feel free to call me out if I say something problematic... 

I don’t think being uncomfortable with your body, especially feminine features of your body that are widely looked down upon (for example, periods) or sexualized (physical features like boobs, butts, hips) necessarily makes a person trans or nonbinary.  As you say, those feelings can be a result of shyness, anxiety, internalized homophobia, insecurities, beauty standards, and dozens of other things.  However, it is something many trans or nonbinary individuals experience.  So the question then becomes, where are those feelings of discomfort coming from?  Are they internal to you (as in, your body physically feels like there’s something wrong/those features shouldn’t be there) or external (you feel shame for having those features because of the society you grew up in)?  It can be really hard to detangle internal influences from external ones, given that people who are assigned female at birth learn to hate our femininity and female bodies from a very young age.

I would say that if those feelings are internal to you, then that’s what referred to as gender dysphoria.  Gender dysphoria is a real, ICD and DSM diagnosable condition, and there’s some evidence to suggest that there’s a neurobiological basis for it.  My (very controversial) hypothesis is that gender dysphoria is like other body integrity identity disorders, where there’s a mismatch between the brain’s map of the body and what the physical body actually looks like.  I want to make it clear here that I don’t think being trans is a disorder.  I don’t think it’s bad or that all people who are trans have a body integrity disorder.  I don’t think you need to physically transition to be trans, or that we should pathologize gender/gender expression, or that gender is a binary (hopefully that last one is obvious).  I just think if society has less stringent gender divisions and a less binary understanding of gender, fewer people would physically transition, but some people would still experience a mismatch between their idea of how their body’s sexual characteristics should look and how they physically are.

So then, what does that mean for our terminology?  I think in the context of a world where the meaning of gender is changing, gay and lesbian just refer to genitals (people with penises attracted to people with penises and people with vaginas attracted to people with vaginas, respectively).  Or perhaps we need to separate it out further- maybe you can be romantically and physically attracted to female and male presenting people, but sexually attracted to only vaginas.  Maybe that would fill the gap between being interested in a person romantically and being interested in having sex with their genitals, where you’re attracted to someone without yet knowing what’s in their pants?  In general, though, I think labels should exist to be useful.  I don’t know how useful it is to have a term for “I'm attracted to you, given that you have the genitals I’m sexually attracted to.”

I think under that framework of centering labels like gay and lesbian on genitals, a lot more people are pansexual than would identify that way if you took a poll right now.  In general, I think a lot of people never recognize that they’re pansexual because they aren’t in contact with nonbinary or trans people that they’re attracted to frequently enough to know they don’t actually care about genital preferences.

When talking about other labels like feminism (the advocacy for AFAB and female-identifying/presenting rights), sexism (prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination, generally towards female identifying/presenting people. but also towards gender nonconforming people), misogyny (dislike of, contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against AFAB and female identifying/presenting people), male privilege (the system of advantages or rights that are available to men and male identifying/presenting people solely on the basis of their sex/gender presentation), etc., I think those terms refer to the societal construct of sex/gender that is still prevalent in our culture.  We perhaps need to start using other words to describe discrimination against nonbinary people, but I think the existing terms continue to serve a purpose and it’s not time to retire them just yet.

I don’t know if any of this is at all helpful or if I’m expressing my thoughts clearly.  Maybe it will just add more confusion to your existing thought process, but I hope it helps to minimize your distress at least a little bit.  Ultimately, all of this is kind of made up, so don’t beat yourself up too much while trying to unravel all these different threads. People spend full academic careers and sometimes their entire lives trying to figure out what they believe on these issues.  It’s okay to not have it all worked out or to not be sure in your ideas.  Even for me, this is just where my thinking is right now.  Maybe in the future it will change with new information I learn or as my feelings towards myself change.  Try to let yourself think of this as a journey instead of something you have to already have figured out.

[radiqueer]

I’ve been trying to figure out how to contribute to the “born this way” conversation, but I’m not fully sure how to articulate my ideas. For me I feel like my identity... like I feel I was “born this way” like I’ve had intermittent dysphoria for as long as I can remember. But also as far as mspec labels go I could ID as pan, or poly, or Omni, but I’ve always felt bi fits and that’s the identity I choose. My partner tho, feels that they, more than anything, chose to be bi (1/2)

My partner feels that they had no inclination towards being anything other than a straight man until well into their thirties, when, due to a lot of factors, they decided any company was good company and decided to see if they liked being with men. They had a good experience, and they feel they could have left it at that but CHOSE to continue to pursue their attraction to men, and then much more recently, in doing their own research about gender identity and being around me (2/3 oops)

They chose to question their gender identity (which as of right now is inconclusive), and my partner feels happy as a bi questioning person, but also felt happy as a straight man and could have remained so but chose to be happy a different way. Idk it’s complicated/messy and I don’t really get it but it’s how my partner feels and I believe them. And then Political lesbianism is a thing. Idk it’s hard for me to wrap my head around I wish I could contribute more. It’s def not one size fits all tho

this makes a ton of sense, thanks for sharing!

I feel like - in a lot of ways, being queer and identifying as queer changed me as a person. it changed everything, from the way I think about and approach new topics, the way I see myself and the world, my politics, my tastes in books and art. queerness is fundamental to me, but I can conceive not being queer. if I didn’t know it was an option to identify this way, if I didn’t grow in a home that encouraged me to question and pursue new avenues, I would be a different person. and I cannot with any certainty say that I would definitely identify as queer at some point, if not at 14 then at 17, 19, 25, 40. I think I am happier for being queer, because it is relieving to share an experience and a community (things which have been difficult for me in the past) with people who love and support me. I like having a voice and an opinion on issues. I like my politics. I don’t like being discriminated against, but who does?

there are so many ways to have a fluid identity. you can be the same person all your life with the same experiences and label yourself differently over time. like your partner. one could be happy in one’s assigned roles but happier in a different set that they sought out and choose (kudos to your partner for keeping an open mind and allowing themselves to be happy in a non-normative way, btw), you can have a fluid identity that changes with time, you can be one thing and identify as another, you can refuse a labels on principle, you can be a political lesbian (or it’s equivalents, I suppose? I don’t know if we have something analogous to political lesbianism in other queer subgroups. I think certain parts of the ace community are the closest we’ve come) 

the problem is the idea that there’s only one way to be and feel about queerness and identity and labels. which, IME, is what the BTW crowd seeks to do - normalise us because we are an expression of naturally occurring human diversity. we deserve equality because we are people, just slightly different, and we didn’t choose to be this way any more than you did. it’s not our fault! give us some money! [/s]

people who are written over by this narrative, in no particular order:

questioning people who don’t even know whether they’re straight - they may or may not be

nb people who are often told we are special snowflakes, a symptoms of the excesses of liberal/left wing politics. that we wouldn’t exist if not for the internet [true of me if not for you / ymmv]

bisexual and mspec people

people with fluid identities

people who choose to present a certain way

political [orientation]

people who are choosing to not labels themselves out of fear

people whose identity is informed by trauma

etc

the problem is the dichotomy that seems to be essential to this debate - that you can only have one or the other, that people on one side keep trying to erase the opposing narrative. I frankly don’t know. I’ve only been a part of this debate for a few months and all my thoughts about BTW are informed by personal experience and what I have stumbled across on tumblr. not a comprehensive start by any means. but ime it’s always the BTWs who are trying to shove differing narratives away, and not the choicers. maybe @korrasera and i have different experiences! in fact, I think we have very different experiences 

The problem I’m trying to highlight, the whole reason I made this post, is that I’ve never seen someone suggest that only BTW is valid. In fact, the only times I’ve ever seen people discussing BTW was to specifically suggest that we have to do whatever we can to erase it as an idea because they perceive it as being inherently exclusionary, as though the existence of people who were BTW meant that people could not be queer, gay, lesbian, or trans without having been born in that state. I think it’s a reasonable assumption to consider such intentions as being somewhat noble, since they’re meant to criticize and deconstruct social constructs of legitimacy, but I literally never see the topic raised without it being ‘let’s get rid of the idea that BTW people exist, it’s not true and it hurts the cause’. 

[emphasis added all mine; taken from this post]

I have a different experience. I’ve seen BTW discussed as the only right way to be, and not only by exclusionists (I wouldn’t be able to find receipts on this - I remade my blog recently, and lost all my likes and the people I was following). even when I talk to people irl, I’m forced to resort to a narrative I don’t have any stake in to get my point across, a narrative that doesn’t help me. it’s frustrating and alienating. and I still don’t think we should do away with BTW. I think we make room for people like me to exist and talk, and define clearly what it means so more people can figure out whether or not they fit.

I read around some while I was writing this post, so here’s some stuff tangential but essential to my thoughts:

this post about the relationship of radfems to what constitutes essential womanhood

this post by the same user about why some people may choose a certain labels

another post by the same user

this post, which possibly everyone has read, but I was thinking about this part (emphasis mine)

My girlfriend Marna has been a queer activist since the late 80s. She’s told me about the incredible deliberation and debates LGBTQ+ activists had, in the late 90s and early 00s as the community began to see past the AIDS crisis and immediate goals of “surviving a plague” and “burying our dead.” There were a lot of things we wanted to achieve, but we had to decide how to allocate our scarce reserves of money, labour, publicity, and public goodwiil. Those were the discussions that decided the next big goals we’d pursue were same-sex marriage equality and legal recognition of medical gender transition.

From hearing her tell it, it seems like it was actually a wrenching decision, because it absolutely left a lot of people in the dust. A lot of people, her included, had broad agendas based on sexual freedom and the rights of people to do whatever they wanted with their bodies and consenting partners—and they agreed to put their broader concerns aside and drill down, very specifically, onto the rights of cis gays and lesbians to marry, and the ability to legally change your sex and gender.

As a political tactic it was terrifically effective. […]

Activists of 20 years ago chose to sideline and diminish efforts to blur and abolish the gender binary. Efforts to promote alternative family structures, including polyamorous families and non-sexual bonds between non-related adults. Efforts to fight the Christian cultural message that sex is dirty, sinful, bad, and in need of containment. Efforts to promote sexual pleasure as a positive good.

I couldn’t tell you why these posts stuck out to me while I was writing this, but they do a better job, by and large, of contextualising what I’ve said here