#When I ID as nb or just simply as a butch lesbian in gender and sexuality literally living in the mind set of gender rules are bs

[lighthousegod]

Recently, my cis lesbian roommate made a comment about "he/theys" that kinda stuck with me. She said these people, on her dating app, were matching with her and ignoring that she had lesbian in her bio.

We'd had convos about whether trans mascs and trans men could be lesbians (im a transmasc person, but not a lesbian, although ive identified with the label before), and I'm all for he/him lesbians and trans men who are lesbians- I've researched, I know Stone Butch Blues, I don't think telling anyone they can or can't be anything is right.

So this sorta stuck with me. I went, "but. They probably identify as nonbinary if they use they, and even if they don't, trans guys sometimes ID as lesbians too." And she was like "well, but I'm not attracted to masculine people." And I brought up that she does usually like butch lesbians (who definitely use other pronouns besides she/her sometimes!), and she sorta brushed me off, saying there was a different "vibe" between transmascs who use he/they and butches (even though they... sometimes are the transmascs she's talking about???)

So I was like "well, do you have 'looking for femmes' in your bio or something?"

"No."

"Then how are they supposed to know??"

"I don't know it's just my preference!!"

It was super. Odd. I should say, my roommate is cis but uses she/he pronouns. She is, in fact, a lesbian who uses he/him sometimes, as he identifies as bigender *but not a man, ever.

I just find this all so confusing. I mean, let's think about it, fr.

So the popular idea today is that lesbians cannot be men, so trans men can't be lesbians.

Now, here's what that implies: if trans men can't be lesbians, then they are always in the same category as cis men. Now, of course, some trans men ARE in that category, usually binary trans men- and they're all men, right, so every man is under that umbrella. But still, gender isn't so simple. Trans men and transmascs have vastly different experiences between each other and especially cis men. This isn't to do with internal identity, but outward perception. Regardless of whether I'm a man or not, the world has seen me as a woman all my life. That makes it very hard to be accepted and comfortable in mlm spaces, especially when theres so much transphobia in the cis gay community. Plenty of trans men are stealth, or simply have a supportive community, and are welcomed like a cis man would be. But that's not the case for everyone, and not every trans man WANTS to be treated in the same way a cis man might.

But whatever, okay, let's go with that. Trans men are men and lesbian means non-man attracted to non-man, so they're not included cause it's invalidating to (some) trans men, regardless of if they've identified with the label lesbian for years or feel unsafe in mlm spaces bc of how overwhelmingly cis they can be, or whatever else.

So... what about nonbinary men, then? Nonbinary women seem to be accepted, not just nb fems but those who identify as both nonbinary AND a woman- so why are nonbinary men not?

"Because they have man in their identity and lesbians can't like men"

So.. what about bigender people? People who are both men AND women. They can't be lesbians? I guess not.

But let's say they can, and we're just excluding binary trans men from the term lesbian..

People often bring up "would you accept a cis man identifying as a lesbian?" As an arguing point here. Bringing it back to my original point, would you accept a "he/they"? What if they were amab, and had no interest in transitioning? Or a transmasc person who DID? I just saw a transfem lesbian saying she couldn't possibly let trans men with full beards into lesbian spaces as it was transphobic and wrong- aren't there transfem lesbians who don't want to shave or get their face lasered? What do sex characteristics have to do with it? I thought we were trying to avoid labels based on that sort of thing.

So at the end of the day, I guess it really is about the label of "man." What's that even mean? That's literally just a word. I'm so confused.

[tovarishch-dyke]

Hey also forgot to mention that I am now too masculine looking to be considered a woman by t*rfs. Thanks for the gender affirmation, girls, I have now achieved the perfect butch look lol

[sky-chau]

Lets get down to business.

^This is the checklist.^

I will reffer to it frequently.

Ive understood you the past six times. I understand your frustration but you have to think of it from a broader perspective and understand that there are more variables at play than wheather or not nonbinary people feel like an afterthought.

Just so were on the same page I'm going to make a list of things and people (in no particular order, since tumblr likes to re arrange blocks of text anyway.) I have taken the time to consider and continue to have to think about with every edit.

Femmes

POC

Butches

Nonbinary Folk (anyone who doesn't identify as a male or female)

Composition

Color Theory

Merchandising

Replicability

Color Blindness

Epilepsy

Disabled folk

Trans Women

Mainstream Culture

Intersex people

Production cost

Traditional Symbolism

Ease of Understanding

Character icons

Fun edits

Honoring the Dead

Jewish people

Queer history

Making it hard to erase any identity certain people might try to exclude.

The DAD test

So keeping all these things and the checklist in mind lets run shit down and try to fix the flag.

Goal: make nonbinary people feel included.

So NB people don't identify with the fem signs.

That's valid I get that, I gave an all stripe flag for y'all to use as you wish.

But that still makes them an after thought.

You're right I kinda seems that way. How about we just get rid of the fem signs all together!

Here's all the problems getting rid of the fem signs all together:

1: it leaves quite the empty space and feels like a bad composition

2: violates checklist points 2 and 6.

3:the spotlight would be flat out unrecognisable

Well how so?

POC would be unhappy to know that they have been dropped from the flag. Id imagine the same kind of backlash from disabled lesbains aswell.

Why not just make them into stripes too?

1: we all know how much backlash the brown stripes get from white people who think they're ugly.

2: if nonbinary people are represented as a white stripe and disabled people were a white fem sign, what color stripe would we associated with disabled people?

3: too many stripes.

Alright so stripes aren't a great idea, why not change the fem signs into something a bit more nueteral? Like just circles.

1: looses the clever side of the design that has a couple walking down a road or atop a light house, who's sillouhets are the projection for the spotlight.

2: making them into say a circle is rather abstract and would not catch on.

3: would violate checklist points 2 and 4.

4: its just bad design.

Why not add a third sign?

That gets a bit too complicated and starts confusing the message.

So then how do we compromise in a way that is practical and appeals to a mainstream audience but isint racist/albeist?

Well you make the flag more versatile. Give it different forms for different people with different needs.

But why is the one with the fem signs introduced first and one for Enbies introduced second? Why not introduce them all at once? Why have a primary flag at all?

This is what's called boiling the frog.

If you introduce people to the new flag idea starting with 5 flags that can be used interchangeably, they're going to be rather overwhelmed and might find themselves angry at such a preposterous idea.

So what you do is you introduce the flag with the most signage as the "main flag" and for every flag that is a subtraction of signage, introduce it as a resource for editing.

This allows people to use whatever form of the flag makes them most comfortable without making anyone else feel as if though they've been excluded from representation entirely. It also gives the opprotounity to explain to the clueless why you're using the "resource for edits" as the flag. It gives you a chance to explain to the curious the nuances to your identity at a pace that the person questioning would not be overwhelmed by, and might actually have a shot at understanding.

To say one is an after thought when 1.0 also had nonbinary people is truely reading a tad bit too into it and s little foolish considering you've been woven into the fabric of the flag since the very beginning.

Wait, why do we have to appeal to mainstream culture at all? Queer people have never been mainstream?

I think Natalie Wynn (contrapoints) said it best:

"If you want to persuade someone it helps to meet them where they're at"

So what does that mean?

Well it means baby steps. If we wish to educate people on the variety of lesbians we first have to appeal to what they think a lesbian is. Then over time you can slowly slip your more woke and educated points in.

Most people (outside of tumblr) dont know what a nonbinary person is, much less what the signage for them would look like.

But even that is not what lesbians as a whole are mostly concerned about as for us, where people are currently at is still not knowing what fucking flag to use for lesbians. The fem signs give a very difinitve answer to the question "wait what's that new flag suppose to be?" and potentially sparks interest into finding out why a post used this flag instead of the lipstick lesbian flag.

While it's not the wokest flag around it has been made very strategically to make replacing the old flag, easier and make more sence to the clueless onlooker.

Now a little bit about how graphic design and symbols work:

Lets talk about bathrooms for second. More specifically gendered public bathrooms. I know this is a hot topic and a lot of people are on board with having gender neutral bathrooms.

So for the sake of this example working lets get more specific and say were talking about porta potties. Technically all porta potties are gender neuteral, BUT for camping events lasting longer than a few days on grounds with no plumbing they have a womens porta potty.

Womens porta potties are exactly the same as all the others. They even have a urinal pipe for men. The reason that there is a womens porta potty is because some women do occasionally go on their periods and hazardous waste with blood in it has to be treated differently than hazardous waste without.

Now there's alot of different women and not all of them wear dresses. But the sign on the door to the womens portable shitter has a little picture of a person in a dress.

They dont use that signage to alienate people or dictate what women can wear. It simply uses the culture to illustrate what this crapper is.

They could put a biohazard sign on the women's toilet but, all fecal matter is a biohazard, blood or no blood.

Since not everyone is super savvy on what the bio hazard sign would imply about a women's camping toilet, that would be considered hostile design. Its not easy to understand.

Hostile design as a term usually applied to doors, or anti homless spikes but can be applied more broadly.

Now using the fem signs on the lesbian flag is the same as using the little dress person on a bathroom. Its not making a statement about the demographic using the item, it simply serves to make as obviously as possible using the cultural landscape it lives in, what the thing is for/about.

The most common signage used for lesbians is the interlocking fem signs. Using it on a thing simply states that thing that it is printed on is for or about lesbians.

Without the signs, it may be hard to figure out what flag its suppose to be if nobody told you.

Your frustration is valid and I'm not trying to make you an afterthought. Ive put alot more thought, time and, effort into this than I think anyone realizes.

If enough nonbinary people say they really wont use or support the flag I will make a new one, but be warned: I will throw a fit.

I will whine about it not only because I'm a little bitch like that, but also because its actually a fucking challenge that will require starting over from scratch.

But don't get me wrong I am still absolutely HELLBENT on making a flag that works.

[dilfhakyeon-moved]

I'm nb and I identify as a lesbian. I only feel comfortable using he/him pronouns (I'm from Austria and there's no german equivalent to they or I'd probs use that) and I still identify as a lesbian and honestly I don't get what's the big deal?

As a trans guy to me your argument comes off as "I have no empathy and don't even try to express sympathy instead, I mean, how can anyone find it a problem if I don't ?".If a trans woman is a butch lesbian she gets called a straight man and a he/him, cis folks normalising he/him lesbians is a fucking dig at trans women, hello ?? How can you guys literally not realise when something is wrong ? Cis folks don't get to use different pronouns even if they're gnc ( unless a persona like drag queens and such ), you're nb so I don't really see why the fuck you're arguing with that because I'm not even talking about you. But since I apparently gotta make it about you, time to get into territory that exhausts me because I'm a stupid man. The nb folks I know who use he/him pronouns find he/him lesbians disgusting and transphobic. I'm not nb myself and I can't know as well as them, but I'm fairly sure however lesbian isn't an umbrella term like gay is. Lesbian and sapphic are terms to be used by fem and fem spec folks, and if he is more comfortable than she to you, then maybe don't call yourself something that's for individuals on the fem spectrum. ( For genderfluid folks it's more complicated because it depends on how their gender fluctuates but that's the idea )If you're perfectly gender neutral and just "have to stick to one pronoun or the other" because of linguistics that's honestly too complicated for my pea sized brain to work around, in French we have fem and masc so referring to my nb friends is just... referring to them as if they're multiple people at once, because them.Clinging onto the "lesbian" term is a bit overglorifying imo. Like I love my fellow lesbians but IDing as simply gay, monosexual ( which is a really cool term because it doesn't invalidate anyone and I like it a lot ), bisexual, polysexual and etc is just as great. We need to stop acting like lesbians are the purest form of art and all other sexual orientations are inferior. Fuck, lesbians really are a form of art but so are we all, positivity for everyone 2k18.Ultimately I don't know your exact relationship to gender, I don't know your entire situation, so I can't tell for sure whether or not you should use the term, but from what I understand you shouldn't. Also, don't assume just because it's not a problem for you it means it isn't a problem for anyone else.

[torvus-bong]

oversharing #5: gender journey

this is impromptu rant about my journey with gender and sexuality.  

When I was 12, I found myself infatuated with a boy half way across the world. But because we were, well, fucking 12, it didn't work out (at first).

So I'm in middle school. I'm finding myself looking at the girls in my classes rather than the boys. After some deliberation with an older friend I had on the internet (she was in high school), I decided I was bisexual. This did not go over well: I told one person, and they told everyone. In turn, I was bullied relentlessly.

I went to a high school out of my catchment area to avoid them. I took fucking IB classes to avoid the tormentors of the last 3 years. And, since no guy had ever shown an interest in me - and since I seemed to be heavily fixated on girls (even when I was in grade school!), I decided I was a big ol' lesbian.

Pretty much the same thing happened. I was ostrasized, but not with the same intensity as before. This only made me louder, and prouder. People who remember what I was like back then, describe me as being, "a little too forward." That's okay. I can live with that. I've seen on social media, people that were my peers, that are coming to terms with their gender and sexual identities now. It is beautiful, and I can only hope that witnessing me take all that shit was inspiring to some of them. At least my suffering will not have been for nothing.

Years pass, and I still think I'm a cis lesbian. I've had sexual and emotionally intense encounters with women, but they never worked out. I felt so different from them. Even the masculine/butch women - I felt a disconnect from them that I couldn't describe. I didn't have the terminology to convey what I felt I was inside.

In my early 20s, I reconnected with an ex of mine from my teenager-on-the-net days. They told me about nonbinary genders and transgender people, and my entire world opened up. I knew about transgender people, of course, but I'd never thought about it in the context of myself. I pounced on the nonbinary/two-spirit label and made it mine. I knew I wasn't a woman, and I wasn't ready to face the fact that I might be a man.

I changed my name to the gender-neutral Alexander, and asked people to refer to me using they/them. Again, this didn't go over well, with my grandparents in particular. But nobody in my meatspace life was willing to even try to use the correct pronouns. So, after squirming around in that identity for about 1.5 years, I realized something - I was not simply NB or two-spirit.

I took note of the things I just thought were normal. I vehemently hate my breasts, and they physically ache. Clothes marketed towards women make me intensely uncomfortable, and I feel "exposed" somehow. I did not feel like I belonged in "women only" spaces, like changerooms or washrooms. I've always thought it would be easier to have a dick, and I take depo even though I'm not sexually active. I have just always hated my period (nevermind the fact that they're unusually painful). My shoulders are broad and strong and I like them. They would look amazing with pectorals instead of these useless fat lumps. I'm also a spitting image of my father, to the point where when I was still IDing as cis/wlw, strangers would refer to me with male pronouns. It used to upset me a lot. Denial is a hell of a drug.

As I talked this through with the reconnected ex, I came to the conclusion that I am a transmale. The more I thought about it, the more it made sense. A friend of mine added, later, "It makes sense that you're actually a gay guy. How many gay dudes have fixated on women in their youth? Whether to emulate their style or to pretend they were het." And that hit me really hard, because I'm with the guy I mentioned in the first sentence, now. We're turning 25 this year. He knows, of course, and is so supportive.

I told my mother, and she went over all the little things in my childhood that didn't add up before but sure as hell do now. It was extremely validating, and now she refers to me as her oldest son.

this is a shoutout to everyone who has walked a similar path. butch lesbians who later discovered they were transmen, effeminate gay men who discovered they're actually heterosexual transwomen, and all the variants in between and beyond (I'm just not very good at remembering them all). You are all beautiful, I see you, and most of all, you are fuckin valid.

thanks for coming to this impromptu rant about my journey with gender and sexuality

[fuckmogai]

hi! i was just reading your posts about pansexuality and i'd like some clarification if that's ok - do you think it's always bad for a cis person to be pan? doesn't it just mean they have the capability to be attracted to nb people as well as men and women? also if bi means two or more then is there a need for the label ply anymore? i'm genuinely a bit confused but i enjoy your blog

Let me start off by saying I appreciate your politeness! It’s perfectly ok to ask me questions and for clarification on my opinions and posts. I welcome respectful debate!

I typed this out, deleted it, and retyped it. It’s really easy to say when something bothers me; it’s not so easy to explain exactly why it makes me so uneasy.

So the first aspect of your question- do I think it’s always bad for a cis person to id as pan? I’m giving a reluctant, slightly uncertain yes. While the intention may genuinely be to be more inclusive, or they’re drawn to the idea that their love isn’t defined by parts (a really bad mindset that i’ll explain momentarily), it within itself is a messy way to id. Imagine a bisexual woman calling herself femme or butch. The intent may not be bad, but it would definitely rub lesbians the wrong way.

Secondly- what about cis people who are attracted to boys, girls, and nb ppl? Non-binary is a broad umbrella to encompass people who don’t fall under the binary. It is literally impossible to tell who is non-binary and who isn’t. Personally speaking; I am not androgynous. At all. I haven’t medically transitioned, or made an effort to alter my physical appearance to look… other. I look cis, and many people automatically assume I id as my assigned gender. It sucks, but it doesn’t make me any less non-binary.

Saying that you are attracted to nb people, when you can’t tell who is nb and who isn’t, implies two things: one, you’re assuming you can tell who ids as what based on appearance, which is not a good mindset to have. It’s messy. And two, if someone were to explain that they are nb to you, and you’re only attracted to them after gaining that knowledge, it’s fetishization.

I will speak from personal experience- my cis friend ids as pan, and she’s told me that one of her biggest sexual fantasies is to have sex with a trans woman who has only had top surgery (meaning she has breasts and a penis). She seemed to think that her fetishization of trans/nb people was progressive and acceptable. It made me beyond uncomfortable for multiple reasons, that being that she has a fetish for people who blur the traditional lines of gender. Like me. My personal struggle with dysphoria and desperate search for a label, to find others like me, felt trivial, reduced to a circus act, entertainment for cis people. I confessed to her once that I have periods where I long for different genitals; since then, she’s made jokes about my dysphoria. My suffering was funny to her.

Gender is a complicated thing for trans/nb people, and having our struggles with our bodies, our minds, our whole beings put into a line on a cis person’s List Of Things I Find Attractive is more than just insulting- it’s transphobic, and pansexuality gives cis people an outlet to be open about their transphobia under the liberal guise of being inclusive and progressive.

I will say that I do not care if trans/nb people id as pan. Again, our relationship with gender is complicated and pansexuality allows us to separate attraction to other people from our own gender. Gay, lesbian, and even bisexuality to a degree implies alignment to either a binary or a specific gender that we may not always id as, or a gender at all. Some nb people are agender, and sometimes they don’t feel comfortable calling themselves gay (implying alignment to masculinity) or lesbian (implying alignment to feminity). But sometimes they do! Which is fine. Again, gender and sexuality are complicated for nb/trans people.

People also seem to be under the impression that bisexuality is transphobic, not inclusive of nb/trans people, because of the prefix bi. Bisexuality was coined before people openly explored gender; words change and adapt over time, as do their meanings. Bisexuality doesn’t mean conforming to a binary anymore; it didn’t so much back then.

Pansexuality was coined as a “hearts, not parts” thing, implying that bisexual people fetishize the people they’re attracted to, or fixate on the genitals of the people they’re attracted to. Biphobic. I don’t want to say that the nature of pansexuality is biphobic, but its coining and adoption has firm roots in biphobia. And what about trans people? Women with penises and men with vaginas exist, and implying that lgb people would only be attracted to them if they were cis or had “the right parts” (a gay man should not date a trans woman because she has a penis. She is a woman) is really really gross. A straight woman who dates a trans man is still straight. She’s not pansexual or bisexual because he was assigned female at birth.

Bisexual means two or more genders; there is no need for plysexual as a label at all. It’s MOGAI and completely unnecessary. It’s also unnecessary for cis people to id as pansexual, simply because their grasp on gender is so juvenile, and they can’t seem to try to understand it without being transphobic and offensive in the hopes of being inclusive and progressive.

tl;dr cis people use pansexuality to distance themselves from transphobia and give themselves an outlet for their fetishization of trans/nb people

[buffyisnotonfireinthetardis]

Someone: afab nonbinary people are FEMALES who have just distanced themselves from femininity!! Most of them are probably just butch lesbians or simply masculine women!. They only THINK they're nonb*nary (it's a slur apparently?) because they don't wear make up and have short hair!! And have ingrained gender roles!! It's taking us backwards in progress!11 I feel so sorry for them being brainwashed by the #genderists (sexists!!) telling them they're trans and not ""girly"" enough to be women!!

Me, an afab nonbinary: Pleae don't call me a female that makes me so uncomfortable that most of the time I feel physically sick. I am not a lesbian I'm pansexual, and in fact I did ID as a lesbian for a long time because I felt like a had to because of bi and nb phobic stuff such as this that I had internalised, and despite the wonderful community it was one of the worst times in my life because I was in denial of who I was. It's nice to call who I am a slur or a swear doesn't pressure me to not be open or feel ashamed at ALL. I wear make up about at least 4 days a week and I love the art of it even if I don't do it as well as that and I have a literal mane of hair. I actively strive to smash gender roles, which are trash. I feel like that augment has been used so many times by so many people and it's always bullshit , progress is moving forward and understanding and acceptance, in this case of enbies. There are plenty of reasons to feel sorry for me but being proud of how I am is not one. Really brain washing? Says the person who's trying to make me change and ignore what gender I am? Hmm sounds like transphobia and hmm... conversion therapy. You know, brainwashing. I literally cannot keep a straight face when you use the word "genderists" like being nice is some kind of cult lmao. Really? Telling me I'm trans? You don't think the extreme agony causing dysphoria does that enough? Tbh, I'm plenty girly enough to be a woman, im really quite effeminate, but I'm just not, bc my expression, personality, and mannerisms etc., etc. have nothing to do with this and do not make me a girl, bc, guess what?! women can be masculine and men can be feminine and nonbinary people can be both or neither or one or the other and apparently you can't understand that - but I'm the one conforming to gender roles here?

Fuck off