#because that complexity doesnt actually apply to every trans person

[liquidstar]

i think that on here we've kinda talked a lot about how the traditional "coming out" narrative presented in popculture is flawed in reality. because it always presents this idea that you have to tell everyone who you Really are, that youre Hiding parts of yourself, that you can never be You until you bare your Secrets to the world. and that actually this isnt because people feel entitled to your personal business but that its hurting YOU when they dont know your personal business so you should really just tell them. (but also dont be "too" proud because thats annoying :( act mostly cishet please but dont lie about it! hehe!) it will work out every time for sure :)

but ofc thats not how real life works. i mean, naturally i understand that there are OF COURSE people out there who want to be loud and proud about who they are, and that this is incredibly important to their identity which theyve suppressed for so long. but that "coming out" narrative is harmful because it ignores many of the reasons it had to be suppressed to begin with. its fucking dangerous! its dangerous to a lot of people for a lot of reasons. they can lose their support system, family, job, house, and their entire life. both in the sense that they'll be completely uprooted from it, and in the sense that they could be killed. so constantly presenting the notion of "coming out is good for you no matter what because its the Only way to be your Real Authentic Self and also you HAVE to do it eventually because thats how this narrative is just Meant to go. be a good little queer and please dont stray from this path."

and the problem is that plenty of young LGBT+ people completely internalize it too! ive had so many convos with young people worried about coming out to their conservative family because, well, theyre supposed to! and their minds are completely blown when i tell them that actually they dont have to do that. that theyre under no obligation to tell everyone their business and its okay to just keep being them w/o making an announcement about it. ESPECIALLY IF IT PUTS THEM IN DANGER!!!! and to be clear this issue doesnt stop at age 18 or at moving out or anything like that either, there continue to be many obstacles for many people that make coming out unsafe, or just a bad life decision to uproot everything Right Now. it's okay to just be in the closet and it isn't a moral failing like cishet media wants to convince us. we all agree, right?

good! but here's what my actual real point is:

when we talk about this, for some reason, we seem to only reaaaallly be talking about the gay side of it, right? like im sure lots of people imagined, like, teenage gay boy movies. maybe a couple lesbian and bi characters too perhaps. and that makes sense because thats like the most common narrative for this sort of trope, so ofc those are the first examples we imagine. and ofc theres the more complex addition of "passing" when it comes to trans versions of this story, the idea that you gotta look a certain way to be "valid" adds another layer.

so i think its time more people started to acknowledge this about trans people too, right? i think we can all agree with this on paper already; no trans person is obligated to come out or present a certain way if theyre not in a place where they currently are able to do so. physically, mentally, financially... or just because they dont wanna! whatever the circumstances are, there is no criteria they have to meet to be vindicated in this. it doesnt only apply to 14 year olds living with shitty parents who plan to move out soon and become "Really Trans" (as if they didnt count before conforming to The Narrative), the person could be 40 and never planning to be completely out, and its the same. they dont owe you this "showing the world who you Really are in order to [earn the right to] Be Yourself" crap. thats their choice only.

however, i also think that even if most ppl on here in lgbt circles on here agree with the general sentiment... sometimes it doesnt always get applied it practice. though the whole "truscum" thing kinda died down (thank god) i still think that rampant transmedicalism has left its scars on lots of people and the things they internalize, combined with similar cisheteronormative messages in popular media about how your narrative Should go and how you Should act and look to be respected, and its Morally Wrong not to fit that mold.

so when encountered with people who dont pass, who dont TRY to pass and instead actively choose to look like their agab due to the fact that they are literally in the closet irl (lest we forget people have whole entire complex lives outside of the net) this sort of short circuit happens in ppls heads, where that internalized idea of "but you're supposed to be THIS WAY! youre not doing it RIGHT!" pops back up and they end up labeling that person as fake or Not Trans Enough for this reason.

and i do also think part of this stems from people not having enough sympathy for those whose paths are different, because they were told not to. theres a Right way, and they did it the right way. and likely they struggled for it a lot, so isnt it unfair that people are doing it the Easy Way (as if its easy to be closeted to begin with) and claiming theyre like you? thats Wrong. they have to Earn it. you lgbts should all get mad at EACH OTHER actually! this will help your community be better [in the eyes of cishetero society that doesnt really want you to exist to begin with]

additionally the reason im emphasizing the internet side of this so much is because... well, in this day and age, thats the space lots of people go to to NOT be in the closet. to at least microdose on being "out" while in real life they very much arent. like i said before, being in the closet is rough and taxing, suppressing yourself hurts which is why so many people wanna be loud and out and proud! not everyone can though, so turning to a place with relative anonymity to get that is great, and i think its probably saved a lot of people. but also because of this, its pretty much the only way to get the scenario this is positing to begin with- where you know a stranger can know that youre trans even if youre otherwise closeted completely, just so they can tell you that youre Not. but how many people in the past do you think lived lives where they never let these feelings out at all? how many alive today do you think dont even express them online?

you know that sort trope (often stereotypes in media) of a trans person "crossdressing" only when alone, in order to get a short bit of relief or euphoria that they cant in their closed life? i think that today we have the internet to do that. i think its kind of the same thing. but its also very different, because its not as private. its still secret, because its anonymous, but its also something shared with plenty of strangers at the same time. they dont know you irl, so its safe, distant, and gives you that rush of being yourself, and being referred to correctly by others too. theres community, theres support, and theres friendship too, once you get to know those strangers. its not a "second life" or a "persona" is just a side of yourself you dont show elsewhere, an identity that needs to be let out one way or another.

who the fuck are we to deny others the right to this life-saving connection just because they arent out? because they dont pass or dress the Right way irl? because we decided they arent trying hard enough to "fit in"? because they dont plan to change their lives to fit the right narrative anytime soon?

should they not be allowed into the community then? that would be perfect wouldnt it? leave many who need support out to die, because they did it Wrong. fight within our community over who is doing it Right until we've broken it in half. the righteous ones [according to cishet standards] are surely going to be treated with respect once they get rid of the Bad ones, right?

yeah, i dont think so. thats horseshit. we're stronger together than we are apart, thats why infighting is so useful to those who dont want us to be strong to begin with. its important to help each other, boost each other up, even if some of us arent playing the "right" part irl. are we really just going to sit around and accept the cishet norms as rules to live by? fuck that. not everyones story will reflect it, and you have to accept them anyway if you want a strong community. it doesnt matter how much they might look/act like their agab irl, if theyre telling you otherwise take it at face value, respect them the way you would any other. again, many of us agree with this on paper, but i think we still have to put work into acting on that too.

the end <3

[roykiller07]

i am always so scared and avoidant of explaining my identity to anybody (even, if not especially, myself) in any more words than the vaguest description possible ("im trans these r my pronouns and im a lesbian") because i cant telepathically transmit my gender into their brain so theyll never understand the complexity of it and will think something is wrong with it because im 100% nothing if not a lesbian but my nonbinaryness does not necessarily exclude manhood but it also does at the same time?? idk. wish ppl would stop trying to get me to explain my nonbinary identity in binary terms (im ppl nobody is asking me to say anything more than what i already do)

that comedian was so right i am a man in the way that kraft singles are cheese. it presents like it would be in the same category, it tastes like an offputting version of the real cheeses, a lot of people would call it cheese and it calls itself cheese too unless legally restricted but when you look at the actual content it is an entirely completely different substance. which doesnt make it any less a cheese persay but certainly also makes it definitely NOT a cheese at the same time. and its way better on grilled cheese than normal cheese is. not sure how that fits into the metaphor but its important to me

the same can be said for the way that im a woman and for both a large majority of the "ingredients" are completely internalizations of external inputs instead of any actual innate part of my being, like being a girl in the weird girl by mommy long legs way or in the impact of growing up a girl in a sexist society way or in the betty grof way or in the autistic female cartoon characters way or in the when choosing which character was OUR character growing up amidst my siblings in any game or show, often ending up w the only girl instead of just anyone that resonated with me way (was always mad at the games/shows for only having one girl, never upset about having to be her instead of someone else unless one of my siblings took the cool genderless-esque one) (maya and zero from borderlands...) or in the im my mother's daughter way or like being a guy in the random stray cat of indeterminate sex way or in the when every new person got confused about my gender as an androgynous kid, laughing super hard with my whole class/whoever was there about how dumb they were but always avoiding answering/correcting them clearly and getting upset if someone else told them i was a girl way or in the feeling very uncomfortable when anyone but my family specifically called out that i was a girl as a kid way (when alex tried to tell me i was the ruler QUEEN not the ruler KING for my collection of rulers..... die) or in the im my brothers brother way or in the drag king way or in the tboy swag of harold tdi way or you know i could go on for literal eons and still feel like i didn't list enough. plus a lot of the items on BOTH lists apply to BOTH options

and besides that im also like totally disconnected from gender?? i definitely still feel agender and genderfluid at the same time all the time not to mention the constant banging at the door in the back of my head for catgender begging to be let out. overall point blank period i know that the reason i feel this way about my gender is because im autistic and when social constructs don't come naturally to me that includes gender. but that's never like. a definitive enough answer for other people or for my own sanity and it makes me mad because NOBODY UNDERSTANDSSS MEEEEEEE [emo crying on knees]

whatever who actually cares (me)

i think the last time i felt properly fully self expressed was when i was 10 and had a scratch account named mr fox and used a persona called mr fox on it and part of what was special about me was that my name was mr fox but i was actually a girl even though i would throw up if someone called me a miss or mrs

[kaleidoscopic-quiddity]

gonna be honest i lowkey don’t like using the word ‘transgender’ to describe myself at this point, like idk maybe this is because i’m Chronically Online TM or whatever but i feel like the term ‘transgender’ carries like,, so many implications about someone’s political stance and how they view themselves, or that just being trans is a political identity in and of itself, and like fair enough if that’s how it feels for other people but like,, that’s definitely not how it is for me. i view myself more as just some dude who happens to be afab, my being trans has fuck all to do with my political stances, my personality, or my personal preferences. like i am literally Just Some Guy. the issue here isn't that i’m ashamed of the term ‘trans’ or feel that its literal definition doesn’t apply to me any more, it definitely does, but more so that i hate how just one singular word is used to imply so much about who someone is as a person and their relationship with gender, whereas a term like ‘blonde man’ literally just tells you that someone is a man and is blonde.

like as far as i’m concerned i have no ~special~ relationship with masculinity, my gender is identical to that of a cis guy’s in the way that a blonde guy and a ginger guy are both guys, and thus the same gender. and the only reason i have ‘relationship’, (if it can be called that), to femininity at all is because i was socialised as a girl for roughly 14 years. and if i’m honestly, femininity means nothing to me in the sense that it doesn't apply to me at all nor do i have any desire to partake in it, or be perceived as someone who posses the quality of femininity. not to say that men cant be feminine, or that femininity is an undesirable trait, neither of those things are true at all, but rather just that i hold no connection to femininity at all, other than an understanding of what it is like to be socialised as somebody possessing that trait, and i feel like these days ppl who are defined as trans men are expected to have this complex, possibly resentful, possibly nostalgic relationship with it and are also perceived as like, being men, but being men in a different way from the way cis men are men, which is honestly fucking infuriating to me because i’m just a man, period, and my being trans doesn’t actually affect how i’m a man because i just am. 

to me the word ‘trans’ should imply just as much about somebody’s relationship to gender as the word ‘brunette’, which is to say, absolutely nothing other than that they are a person of a particular gender who also happens to posses a particular superficial trait, but it doesn’t. instead, ‘transgender’ is used as a shorthand to imply a whole lot of complex gender shit, or that ppl who are trans are actually a somewhat different ‘type’ of male or female than ppl who are cis, and as someone who absolutely none of that is true for, it makes using the term ‘trans’ as a self descriptor really fucking annoying. like i said, i view myself as Literally Just Some Guy who also just so happens to be someone who was assigned female at birth, which doesn’t actually mean very much in regards to my relationship with gender, because i’d be a man in the exact same way if i just so happened to be someone who was assigned male at birth. i don’t have any special relationship with masculinity or femininity by virtue of being trans, nor do i feel that i navigate my gender identity differently from that of a cis guy or that my gender is inherently different from that of a cis guy’s, and i definitely dont consider my gender to have a bond with or encapsulate or overlap with femininity in any way. 

as fucking dumb of an oxymoron as it is, ‘cis man who happens to be afab’ honestly feels like a better description of my gender than ‘transgender man’ because of the way i feel that the term ‘trans’ has been warped by online spaces and irl political discourse. like, trans masculinity is meaningless to me in the sense that i don’t feel that it’s any different from cis masculinity. or rather, i dont feel that there are such separate things as ‘trans masculinity’ and ‘cis masculinity’. men are men, women are women, enbies are enbies, yknow? things like ‘trans’ and ‘cis’ are just vague descriptors that don’t actually mean anything in regards to gender identity and self-image, (as well as political leanings, personality traits, etc) in the same way that ‘blonde’ and ‘brunette’ don’t tell you anything actually important about someone’s gender identity. i just dont feel, that im my own particular personal circumstances, that there’s actually any valid distinction to be made between ‘trans’ manhood and ‘cis’ manhood, male-ness is just male-ness in and of itself. 

[queer-merm]

I’m gonna try to be clear because I am FUMING, but I want to address something about the whole “using bi lesbian to describe attraction to women and non-binary people is bad!1!1! Because lesbians are already into fem-aligned enbies”.

First of all: how do you define fem-aligned?

“Well I use it to refer to AFAB-“

Ok TERF. You’re straight up transphobic. I don’t see the point of explaining why.

“Well it’s used to refer to those who “look female””

Yikes. Someone looking somewhat feminine does NOT make them woman lite. You do NOT get to push the fucking binary on a non-binary person based on “looks” dipshit. You don’t get to say “well this person looks feminine so I’m gonna assign them “fem-aligned” (read: female-fucking-lite) so I can comfortably misgendering them while pretending I’m woke :)”. Fuck you.

“Well it’s for those who IDENTIFY as fem-aligned”

Aw that’s nice! Finally something that isn’t garbage!

But the thing is, some non-binary who are By Their Own Identification Fem-aligned.... dont necessarily Look the part. I have seen fem-aligned non-binary people look extremely masc (of any AGAB, at that). Are they still included in lesbianism? Even if they look like, gasp, a MAN?? B-but I thought by YOUR own claims, “all fem-aligned people are BASICALLY included in the “only wombyn sexuality uwu”

(Edit for clarification: When I say “looks like a man” i meant “looks in a way that is generally regarded as masculine by society”. this is NOT about transfems, TMA and ”amab” people not “passing” or whatever. It is about people who present in a more “masculine” way, no matter their agab.)

This is what get me so fucking much about “fem-aligned”. You ARE treating “fem-aligned” (And even unaligned and androgynous!) Non-binary people as “Female lite”!! It’s gross!! Don’t fucking do it.

“But IM Non-binary!!1!” DOESNT FUCKING MATTER. YOU DO NOT, NO MATTER YOUR IDENTITY OR ALIGNMENT, GET TO PUSH THE BINARY ON NON-BINARY PEOPLE SO YOU CAN HAVE YOUR OWN LITTLE INSECURE DEFINITION OF LESBIAN BEING KEPT PURE FROM THEMALES™️

“B-but you can never tell WHO is non-binary :/“.

Good news motherfucker. Same applies to every. Fucking, gender. You can NOT, ever, be completely sure of someone’s gender. For all u know the very feminine person you a GoldStarLesbian™️found yourself attracted to is actually -gasp- a man, cis or trans. You cannot apply to “u can never tell” logic ONLY on non-binary people because it applies to everyone. Get yourself out of the binary cissexist outlook on appearances I am /begging/ you.

And this is without getting into those who’s alignment fluctuate, or I’d as BOTH fem/masc aligned, etc.

If you say “well lesbianism can include non-binary genders”, You CANNOT be For fluidity of sexuality when it suits You and Against it when it doesn’t.

Because if you act this way, you ARE treating us as “woman-enough for your liking and as such, Basically female uwu”

“SO UR SAYING I HAVE TO IDENTIFY AS BI ;((“

no I’m saying you can identify however you fucking want, you can define your attraction However YOU fucking want.

BUT

the same applies to everyone else. You cannot police other people’s identities because /you/ are an insecure little asshole with a victim complex who doesn’t mind misgendering us so you can keep on being comfortable with the definition of Purelesbianism™️of which political lesbians and radf.ems are responsible.

“WHATEVER!!1! BIBIANS ARE BASICALLY TERFESES!!!1!”

I’m not gonna lie, u saying a label overwhelmingly used by trans people (and transfems especially!:) is synonymous with /people who fucking hate us/ is fucking immoral and ignorant at best, and straight up disgustingly dishonest and mean-spirited at worst.

Sincerely a (unaligned :) )Non-binary Queer Lesbian who is VERY tired of cis lesbian bullshit.

(PS no one here is saying you’re into men before you jump into that claim, I believe you when you say you don’t find them attractive, get off your high horses.)

Anyway i am only talking about one potential Bibians definition on this post, some other can be found here (https://sirene-saphique.tumblr.com/post/621098048274186240/i-know-some-folks-get-confused-when-hearing-bi)

Here is another post on the history of lesbian and bi-lesbian which I heavily going through because come on I spent and keep spending time on it :3 (https://sirene-saphique.tumblr.com/post/622456906166026240/bi-lesbian-was-made-by-radfems-in-2016-and)