#IT HAS BUILT IN BOYMODE

[smallpox-juicebox]

OH MY GOD HAIRCUT! HAIRCUT!!!!!!!!

[rivetgoth]

I just feel like the entire idea of trying to recreate a binary system via categorizing people as “binary” or “not binary” is a total failure of the trans rights movement. I think if we are serious about dismantling sex segregation it is completely contradictory to then act like there is a tangible difference between the experiences of trans individuals based on what labels they use— And that’s all that binary vs nonbinary really amounts to, semantics and interpersonal identity, because at the end of the day there are “binary” trans people who “boymode” or “girlmode,” who never fully medically transition, who actively choose to live a lifestyle or present in a way that is completely gender nonconforming, while there are self-identifying nonbinary people who fully medically transition and comfortably live as the opposite sex. The trans community has put soooo much emphasis on the fact that there is no wrong way to be trans and yet still seems so convinced that there is any tangible way to delineate between binary and nonbinary identity, it’s just ridiculous. Systemically and materially, nobody is enacting different policies or treatment against binary and nonbinary trans individuals, and the issues one of these groups face 1000% overlaps with the issues the other does to the point that there is no good faith reason to make a distinction aside from regressive and dismissive “I have it worse than you” finger-pointing.

I genuinely believe that all trans people, regardless of where they are in their transition or how they identify, are “not binary” in a way that matters in western cishetero society. The gender binary doesn’t have space for trans identity. It’s built on reproduction, sex segregation, the nuclear family unit, heterosexuality, gender roles, and a plethora of expectations related to sex and the body that trans people can AT BEST try our absolute damn hardest to conform to but frankly never fully will. Trans women are not seen as “binary women” and trans men are not seen as “binary men.” The vast majority of society, even queer/LGBT spaces, mean something very particular when they say “man” or “woman” and trans people are not included within that category no matter how “binary” their identity is.

I’ve said it before and I will keep saying it, I identify as a “binary” man because that is how I view myself and it’s what best describes my material desires, how I wish to be perceived and the choices I’ve made for my body. But I also have not undergone bottom surgery and I have no plans for a vaginectomy, by choice. This is a deeply personal decision for me but it’s one I don’t mind sharing in part because I think it’s an experience worth talking about— I’ve jokingly said that the gender binary has no place in it for cuntboys but I mean it! I have referred to myself as genderqueer in the past despite calling myself “just” a man because my experience with gender is “queered.” The labels I use or the way I perceive myself doesn’t negate that the choices I’ve made regarding my body and my life mean that the gender binary will never be something I fully fit into. I think trans bodies are inherently nonbinary and I think that the trans experience is inherently nonbinary, because the gender binary is just as much tied in with conforming to the cishetero sex binary as well. Our bodies are not binary male or binary female. Just the act of choosing to take our identities into our own hands and modify our body to our choosing displaces us from the binary. And I’d even go a step further and say that one of my big issues with the trans community at large right now is the fact that so many trans activists have fallen into this milquetoast respectability mindset that sex is an immovable, fixed reality and as trans people it’s just our gender changing, not our sex. This is not true. Sex is not fixed, sex is not a binary, & transsexuality is real.