#im not into people who identify as a binary man!!

[butchcharliee]

.

[x-v4mp3y3lin3r-x]

if you're deconstructing your ideas of binary gender and binary sex— you also have to deconstruct your ideas of binary sexuality and romantic attraction, too, fyi

[genderqueerdykes]

"im a lesbian because i hate men/want to never be around men ever again" is shit logic because:

genderfluid lesbians exist

bigender lesbians exist

non binary lesbians exist

bi/pan/poly/omnisexual lesbians & their partners exist

multigender/polygender lesbians exist

genderqueer lesbians exist

two-spirit lesbians

demiboy & demigender lesbians exist

lesboys exist

guydykes exist

butches & studs who are/are partially men exist

ftm, transmasc & trans man lesbians exist

a lot of masc, male and man identifying lesbians exist.

men are not inherently evil or dangerous.

lesbians who are men exist. you are alienating other lesbians when you say things like this. you are enabling people in chasing out partially or wholly male identifying people who rightfully belong there from lesbian spaces. destroy this logic once and for all, it's violent, hateful, and dangerous.

[burying-brightness]

.

[genderkoolaid]

I feel like you would get this, seeing this comment section kinda hurt. The OP they are responding to is a non-binary trans man who was talking about feeling uncomfortable because they still feel attraction to lesbians and have felt very excluded. He’s wary around certain lesbians because they center their ideology around hating men regardless of gender identity and has faced a lot of anti-transmasculinity and transmisogyny. While most lesbians are wonderful amazing people there’s no denying that some do hold an innate hatred for men, not saying they need to like men. I fully understand lesbians and predatory cis men but there’s definitely lesbians who would date trans men. It can be scary for a trans man to come out or start transitioning because at what point do they become too masculine or too much of a man for their friends. There were even people in the comments saying the same anti-man statements who identify as a he/him nonbinary lesbian. This topic is very hard to hear for me as a closeted genderfluid person because my best friend is a man hating lesbian and I dread the day I can actually begin transitioning and she turns her back on me like these people. Queer spaces in general can be hard to occupy as a multi gendered person because of those people as well as mlm/nblm spaces that say ‘fem aligned dni’. In general I don’t think we should police labels and everyone has their own interpretation and I think labels are just a suggestion anyway but I suppose that makes sense for a genderfluid bisexual person.

These people just straight up do not understand the gender diversity that has always existed in lesbian spaces (by which I mean spaces built & catering to queer women & those seen as women).

There have always been trans men in lesbian spaces. You aren't obligated to fuck them, but they have always been there. There are pages and pages of writing out there not only by trans male dykes, but by the lesbian cis women who love them and still identify as lesbians while in relationships with them. There are trans guys at dyke bars right now as we speak having a great time.

Its not surprising to me that there are he/him NB lesbians supporting this. There are a lot of people out there who, because they don't identify As Men, mentally distance themselves from those who do despite any similarities. It's okay for THEM to be lesbians, and it's transphobic to erase THEIR lesbianism because they are Non-Men™! but once you cross that line you become the enemy. It's very "no you gyns I'm TOTALLY different than those gross tbros i promise im not a man at all and i will never want to be one so im allowed in the club!" The same people also throw multigender people under the bus. Trying to figure out your nonbinary in this environment is hellish (I speak from experience) because people pretend like they are super accepting of nonbinary people, until you realize that if you ever think of yourself as even slightly male people will start seeing you as a predatory invader trying to Force Lesbians To Date Men! Very "complex gender for me but not for thee"

Anyways. Twitter is not a good place. Anon, I hope you find better friends. Not every queer space is this hostile to us, I promise. There are people out there who genuinely work to make our community better and I hope you find them.

[hideawaysis]

genuinely i don't think those people who say binary trans lesboys are just straight trans men have ANY idea how different the lesboy experience is from being straight. before i realized i wasn't cis, i was a cis girl that liked other girls - a lesbian. when i first came out, i identified as a binary trans boy, but the nature of my attraction never changed; there was always something about it that was just. inexorably queer in that it was tied to the gender i was assigned at birth, and how i'd identified beforehand. and i had no idea how to deal with that! i kept trying to shove myself into boxes that made sense - i'm gynesexual, i'm nonbinary, i'm a nonbinary lesbian, i'm a transmasc lesbian who isn't really a man. none of them felt like they fit me. i remember back then i was a truscum exclusionist too - if you're really trans you have to be this way, you can't be a boy and a lesbian, that's impossible. and even after i got out of that bigoted rut, i still felt the effects of it on me. i thought, why can't i just decide on a label that fits me? i can't be a binary trans man and a lesbian, i've been told that's horrible and doesn't make sense. what choice do i have here?

now that ive started letting myself be who i am, a trans guy who is bi and a lesboy, i genuinely feel so liberated. not because id felt left out beforehand, but because this is what ive always been. im finally letting myself be myself. i'm a boy. i'm a butch. i'm a dyke. deal with it.

[butchtwinkimp]

being a lesbian who ISNT an exclusionist (meaning mspec lesbians and trans(men) lesbians dont bother me) is NOT for the weak. Specifically when you identify w “controversial” identities too. Im not a binary trans man but I personally know 1 irl trans man who is a lesbian and plenty online and i have spoked w them and ultimately related more to their experiences than I do to cis lesbians (for context I am a transmasculine nonbinary lesbian) idk it was just so easy for me to understand where they were coming from and understand why they would want to identify that way, and personally i identify with terms like “boydyke” and “lesboy” and its so crazy to see all the online drama over these terms… and its so hard to find online lesbian spaces where I feel ..safe?? Tiktok is an absolute dumpster fire. Most of the lesbian reddits are super terfy, even towards trans women and fems, god forbid you mention you are transmasculine youll get downvoted to hell. Even on r/butchlesbians!!! I got banned for trying to explain why a binary trans man who lived his life as a butch woman for 25+ years, whose friends are all lesbians, whose wife is a lesbian, *MIGHT* still identify as a lesbian/with the lesbian community. And literally every other post on that sub is people questioning their gender confused whether they are butch or ftm or both! So idfk! Im tired of being called transphobic and lesbophobic for being transgender and a lesbian!! What the fuck!! I tried joining some facebook groups and the ones in my area literally either specify cis lesbians only or one of them literally had a questioneer asking if you think trans men are men and therefore cant be lesbians or if youre a disgusting terf that thinks all trans men are lesbian. Like… whatever happened to nuance..

[angstics]

i finally articulated my opinion on my "is gerard way doing drag" question. my definition of drag is when a person impersonates, exaggerates, or appropriates a mode of gender expression. drag can be artistic or political (or both). drag can be an identity. drag and transgender identity are confused as the same thing. for some, it is. what is considered cross dressing can also be considered drag. it's important to note that drag is essential to queer culture, and how the us government harasses queer people through cross dressing, and now anti-drag, laws. we wouldnt be here talking about pop artists doing drag without drag performers and nonbinary-trans-gnc people.

to some people, a self-identified man in a female-identified dress is drag. "cross dressing" depends on cishet norms. queer people, especially nonbinary-trans-gnc people, have called to dismantle the assignment of gender to clothing. under that lens, a man in a dress is just a man in a dress -- for it to be drag, context and intent matters. that's how you get women doing female drag, or androgynous people doing what gerard way's been doing this last year on tour.

in asking "is gerard way doing drag?", im assigning importance to the topic. does it matter? within my understanding, drag is about intent and context as much as gender presentation. intent and context is what makes something important. therefore: understanding why the question is important solves it.

male music artists have a long history of cross dressing and doing drag. there's a good chance plugging any dude into a search engine with "drag" or "skirt" will bring something up. bowie, queen, nirvana, manic street preachers, placebo. here's a list. newer artists: lil nas x, harry styles, anthony green, pete wentz, young thug. some are impersonating female caricatures, some are masculinizing female clothes (long, ill-fitting, straight). some, like molko and lil nas, wear feminine clothes without exaggerating or masculinizing. gerard is in that same grey area.

male music artists have a long history of cross dressing and doing drag -- photos: "i want to break free" mv by queen (1984) / placebo in london (oct 1998) / lil nas x at audacy beach festival (dec 5, 2021) / fall out boy at rock for people (june 17, 2022)

all that history is why it was so weird when kerrang called gerard's riot fest "dress and heels" "a compelling show of contrarian anti-rock star eccentricity". it is not anti-rock star, at least not as described. it may be compelling, contrarian, and eccentric, but no reviewer really cares to analyze why. the closest they get is by identifying non-binary connection (them.us) and its relation to the "minefield that is American gender politics today" (latimes.com).

fans were struck by way's outfits for a lot of other reasons.

1. we have to get it out of the way that they just looked hot -- gerard is perpetually attractive, skirts are pretty. easy equation.

2. he has a long history of gender nonconformity. more on that in my #mcr queer studies tag. gerard is a 45 year old famously androgynous person who doesnt do labels, aligns himself with gender nonconformity (2014 reddit ama, 2018 advocate article, 2015 he/they tweet), and doesnt seem to care to be known as a man.

3. the tour outfits were well-fitted. many were crafted by skilled designer marina toybina and her team. which leads to ->

4. the outfits were very casual and very feminine. as mentioned, most men opt for masculine, ill-fitting skirts. which is to say they are NOT showing leg and they are definitely not showing ass. gerard doesnt steer clear from shortness or tightness or movement. he also dresses in ways people dress day to day -- the miniskirt is as casual as the shorts as casual as the jeans. there's some discussion to be had about what casual means -- he could be imitating expected presentation or just using basics, like his frequent shirt and pants.

the miniskirt is as casual as the shorts as casual as the jeans -- photos: firefly music festival (sept 23, 2022) / uncasville (sept 1, 2022) / eden project night 1 (may 16, 2022)

5. there was variety. many outfits, many types. he wasnt just doing pure femininity. some looks were high concept, some low concept. some gendered, some genderless. some feminine, some masculine. it was playful. its honesty evident in its fluidity yet cohesiveness. expanded in the next points ->

6. they incorporate elements of masculinity and gender neutrality concurrent with the feminine. his aggressive, energetic performance style often doesnt mind what people are seeing when his skirt lifts or shirt droops. he has little to no make-up -- if he does, it's stage and not glam. the closest he gets is the agender black swan look at boston night 1, the stage contour at wwwy night 3, and dubious lipstick at firefly. he also maintains the same hairstyle: barely styled, not straightened-curled. pinned a few times, gelled back some other times.

he has little to no make-up -- if he does, it's stage and not glam -- photos: boston night 1 (sept 7, 2022) / when we were young night 3 (oct 29, 2022) / firefly music festival (sept 23, 2022)

7. the character outfits weren't caricatures, like green's sleazy hooker or queen's uptight housewives. gerard's characters were appropriated but not exaggerated. cheerleader, nurse, manson girl, jackie o, princess diane, st joan. all figures of pop culture. he wore them as they were. even comparing green and way's similar white-green cheerleader costumes there's a difference in presentation. green wears long leggings, way wears shorts. green's costume is based on a stranger things character, way's is a custom remade vintage outfit. green exhibits the masculinization of feminine clothes which way subverts. this comparison highlights what makes way's outfits different, and therefore exciting to talk about.

green exhibits the masculinization of feminine clothes which way subverts -- photos: saosin in garden grove, ca (oct 27, 2022) / mcr in nashville, tn (aug 23, 2022)

8. and when he played with masculinity, it was in a way that was dubbed "boydrag". the new jersey night 2 casino singer look was a dramatic caricature that heightened masculine features until they were pure style... the defintion of camp. he had a mustache -- thin like john waters or a confirmed bachelor, and drawn on with eyeliner. he had a suit -- a pink-gold, glittery woman's cut jacket with a glittery bowtie and pleated shirt. the dramatic flair is accentuated by the black eye make-up, the frank sinatra "my way" cover, the drum tag: "the house always wins".

the defintion of camp -- photos: new jersey night 2 (sept 21, 2022) 1 / 2

when i asked which outfits others considered drag, all replies identified the casino singer and jackie o as drag and the rest as "just clothes". this relation made me understand why the rest couldnt be drag despite all the connections i talked about above. the jackie o outfit doesnt exaggerate the source like casino singer, but the source itself is both highly dramatic and highly gendered. cheer is gendered but not highly dramatic, st joan dramatic but not highly gendered. diane is gendered and dramatic, but not highly. the list goes on and on. it's a fine line. especially cheer could tip into drag for me.

but the source itself is both highly dramatic and highly gendered -- photos: mcr at riot fest (oct 12, 2022) / jackie kennedy onassis (jan 3, 1971)

if drag is understood in this way, simply wearing gendered clothes isnt drag. the look itself has to be about the performance of gender, however that may be presented. that’s the importance of classification. we can see what the artist is doing.

[our-androgyne-experience]

Is it weird that I kinda hate that androgyne is considered nonbinary (at least most of the time)? I’m a man that has a mix of gender traits because im trans, androgyne is the term I use to portray that…but im not nonbinary.

My manhood and being born a woman don’t cancel each other out, they work together. Im two binary genders, they don’t cancel out into nonbinary personally

not weird at all! of course many people do identify as "nonbinary" as well as androgyne, but I too am not a fan of the term "nonbinary" being applied to myself or my gender identity by default by people who can't be bothered to use the specific terms I've listed. not sure how in the minority we are, but it feels like along with the push to get well-meaning people to stop thinking of "they/them" as a one-size-fits-all pronoun set, there are also more people speaking up about how "nonbinary" isn't a one-size-fits-all identity. it would be an interesting idea for a poll to see how many people feel the same way. should I do it chat

[meanbossart]

the drow hates female drow and thinks male drow are weak and pitiful... does he have any room in his mind to account for drow (and people in general) not being male or female?? i know you can make nonbinary characters in bg3 and everyone in game is cool with it, what does he think of that sort of thing??

also, im curious if you have any gender hcs going on with any of the party and anything about du drow...

you probably already know but in a lot of dnd stuff elves are often ambiguous in gender (looks-wise mostly) and the god that created them (corellon) even can and Has swapped between male and female, as well as giving some elves the blessing of corellon, making them able to swap sexes with each long rest...

this is a ramble but im curious what goes on in that mans mind and his opinions on other drow based on gender are interesting to me

I briefly touched on this a while back, but I didn't get too deep into it. I think, since drow center their cultural hierarchy around gender so severely, that I'm still waiting for an eureka moment regarding how exactly a non-binary drow would operate in DND society as I personally see it- which influences how society itself treats them in turn. I do have a drow character who, later in his life, stops abiding by gender norms, but he doesn't identify as non-binary as much as he just lets people ID him however they like, it just doesn't bother him, in fact it makes his living situation a bit safer since he's always taken for a woman.

Right now, I would wager that a non-binary drow can pretty certainly be assumed to have been entirely ostracized from their community (if they were even raised in the underdark in the first place) - and hence, pose less of a threat/inspire less repulsion from the general population up above. Since DU drow was overwhelmingly influenced by surface culture and THEIR ideas of what drow are like, he would think similarly. So, if he met a drow that doesn't conform to gender ideals/whom he can't tack a gender onto, he'd probably be a fair bit less derisive towards them. Don't get me wrong - he still thinks that drow are in general a pitiful race and will find a way to be dick about it, just not as badly since gender has been taken out of the equation, along with his go-to insults and assumptions.

I don't really have any headcanons about it for the party, other than that they all seems chill about that stuff and I think that's neat, LOL. Also, kind of like you hinted at, I would assume that Astarion and Shadowheart are particularly indifferent to gender norms and expectations. DU drow is too, he only harps about it in regards to the drow race BECAUSE of their emphasis on differentiating between sexes, which he sees as a kind of self-fulfilled prophecy that resulted in their weak men and insufferable women.

[our-lesboy-experience]

hiii!!! so uh, this is sorta about 'contradicting' (?) identities in general, but i only recently found out about, like, lesboys and gaygirls and all of that, but what is it exactly? like how does it work? or is that weird to ask? i'm trying figuring myself out but a lot of stuff i've seen doesn't exactly... explain it (or explain it well), and while i guess i do get why, it's just kinda hard to understand it myself for my own identity

also, probably a question you get a lot in a hating way, but isn't the definition of lesbian nonman loving nonman? so then how does lesboy work? like is it for people with more complicated gender identites, like fluctuating genders and bigender? just genuinly confused, my apologies...

sorry for not getting to this sooner- been busier lately and didn't have the time to collect everything I needed to respond!

About what it exactly means to be a lesboy or a gaygirl ('turigirl' is the more common term, 'turi' meaning turian, another word for gay attraction to men. so I'll be referring to it as that from now on), there isn't exactly....one right way to call yourself such. it really depends on the person, but I can give you a basic definition and a list of common reasons someone may call themselves such

im gonna put a read more because this ended up being super long so sorry

lesboy is a term for any lesbian who may have a connection to manhood and/or masculinity. turigirl is just the opposite of that, a gay person (mlm/nblm) who may have a connection to womanhood and/or femininity. common reasons I've seen are:

being multigender or genderfluid

being cusper/in between trans and cis gnc (in between trans man and cis gnc woman, in between trans woman and cis gnc man)

being a system who uses lesboy/turigirl as a collective identity or when identities blur together

a person who uses man/boy or woman/girl as a means of masculine or feminine gender expression but not actually identifying as such

being a trans man/ftm or a trans woman/mtf who still identifies as lesbian or gay for personal reasons

those are far from all the reasons, everyone has their own unique experiences, but the gist is these people may have some sort of connection to manhood/womanhood while still having a queer attraction. personally, I'm multigender, genderfluid, and transmasc. lesboy I find is a nice label to express being both my bigender self and being a lesbian, as it forces people to acknowledge both without separating the two. it's cute and makes me feel validated!

as for "nonman attracted to nonmen" definition of lesbian......it has its issues. it's received criticism all around from all sorts of lesbians in the community. this definition is very new - it emerged only in the recent years, and someone on twitter had date searched it and found it didn't even really exist before 2019. and having that as the one and only official definition that every lesbian has to abide by, when lesbian is a centuries old word with so much history behind it, is a bit ignorant. people who are multiple genders or ftm or bi being lesbian is not even remotely new, going back decades upon decades, and it never stopped existing too. It's a bit weird to have a whole new definition that doesn't include all sorts of lesbians that have been here for so long and just tell them they're not welcomed anymore, right?

that's not even close to the only issue there is with it. it's been disliked for centering lack of attraction to men, or defining lesbian in relation to men, rather than who we're actually attracted to. putting nonbinary people in a new binary of either being "men or nonmen," which not all feel comfortable putting themselves into. especially when considering a definition of gay being "nonwomen attracted to nonwomen," man-woman bigender people are simultaneously excluded from being both lesbian or gay. It inherently overlaps with mspec identity ("attraction to nonmen, which is more than one gender" and "any orientation that involves attraction to more than one gender" kinda obviously overlap), despite people insisting that a lesbian can never be mspec. people have found multiple loopholes in it, (which I can elaborate on if someone wants me to, for the sake of trying to make this as short as possible), and lastly, and term "nonman" (and nonwoman) were found to have existed before to describe the degendering of black people in society. this isn't the only source I've seen for this, but sadly I can't exactly find it (or find it without going back to that hellsite called twitter and I'm not doing that to myself)

oh and as the link points out, defining lesbian by these words also ends up excluding a lot of two-spirit people from ever identifying as lesbian, myself included. which is also really racist. I don't know how you're gonna end up excluding a whole cultural gender that's common for indigenous americans to describe themselves with and try to prove it somehow isn't racist, to be honest

and lastly, some surveys/polls have shown that the definition isn't the most widely accepted by lesbians as people make it out to be. there's this simple poll that someone posted asking how lesbians felt about the definition that received 1,529 responses, and 61.1% of voters said they disliked it. comments gave lots of reasons I've stated already. there was another survey put out that received 211 responses that for any lesbian who had a genderqueer or unique relationship with gender, and one of the questions asking opinions on the "nonmen loving nonmen" as a definition. the average among the group was slightly negative (average 2.838), and reported that the group who tended to feel the most positively about it didn't consider themselves to be trans, with the other positive leaning group considered themselves to be somewhat cis. the group that felt the most negatively sometimes considered themselves to be trans. and of the multigender participants, the average opinion was 2.255 (more negative than the overall average). When concluding, the original poster stated, "When divided by gender, the only groups to feel positive about this definition were "not trans" and "somewhat cis" participants. Multigender participants felt especially negative about this definition"

all of this shows that this definition isn't nearly the best for everyone who considers themselves a lesbian. I know it's been a way to include nonbinary people who are lesbian in it's definition, but I think it really misunderstands why nonbinary people are included in lesbianism in the first place, and just assumes that all nonbinary people aren't men and fails to recognize that multigender/genderfluid people are nonbinary too. and it's not like lesbian has to only have on definition- it can definitely have multiple and depend on each person's experience with it. if someone personally defines them being lesbian around being a nonman attracted to nonmen, and takes pride in not being attracted to men, that's totally fine. what becomes a problem is forcing all lesbians to define themselves like this and make it the standard, or else they're "not real lesbians." it is ahistorical and ignorant to require this or else you'll strip them of their lesbian status, and is really at the end of the day, lesbophobic. especially as a requirement that primarily exists in online spaces. im sure the lesbian who is not at all connected to these circles doesn't particularly care about strict requirements or whether someone is a "nonman" or not. in conclusion, it is not the best nor most accepted definition of lesbian, and deciding which lesbians are valid or not based solely on that definition is pretty exclusionary and ends up policing a lot of lesbians, myself included

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for "feeding my ex's internalised transphobia" by refusing to date a man as a lesbian? TW for internalised transphobia, mentions of rape and SA

TLDR: i am a lesbian. my teenage partner was sexually abusive to me for a year, mostly through enforced sexist rp scenarios. now, they are out as non-binary and accuse me of misandry and transandrophobia because i once told them i would not date a man regardless of his agab

I (NB20) started dating my ex (NB23) when i was 15. I was always openly a lesbian. When we met a year before we started dating, they identified as a butch. Throughout our relationship they explored their gender identity more, toying with the idea of being vaguely transmasc. I never had a problem with it; i enjoyed being in a butch/femme relationship and honouring their masculinity as much as I could.

For context, I am a very outspoken hardcore feminist; I don't like to generalise and i have a lot of love for the men in my life, but I have also made a couple of "kill all cishet men" jokes at a safe setting, with people who know exactly where I actually stand. I don't hate men, I just don't find them attractive and think they should be raised better. One day, they asked me if i would still be attracted to them if they fully transitioned and started living as a man. I told them I wouldn't; in my head, being butch/masc is extremely different to being a man, and I appreciated their presentation as a part of them being a lesbian (gender expression =/= gender identity, after all). They assured me that this was just a hypothetical question and just them being curious about my boundaries and limits, ended the conversation, and never brought it up again. My ex was very into roleplay during sex, and I was on board with it initially. After a while, however, the scenes they wanted to act out began to get extremely degrading, bordering on abusive, where they were embodying a man in a position of power (something that i was extremely uncomfortable with), while I was a vulnerable woman (usually a sex worker) getting degraded or even raped. Although I was deeply disturbed by some of the things we did, I was a child at the time, they were my first and i wasn't theirs. I wasn't ready to have sex yet and didn't know how to defend myself. Even when I tried to set a boundary, they would press on and claim it was their way of processing trauma, and that I was manipulative for attempting to withhold that from them. Eventually, with the help of a therapist and my family I ended things between us. I dreaded talking to or about them to anyone and mostly kept quiet about it all. Back to the present day, one of my old mutuals found my new account and texted me. They told me that my ex was posting about me, and that I should be ashamed of myself if what they said was true. I gathered up enough courage to view the posts myself. Their story is very different from what I remember. They claim I was being a misandrist and by extension transandriphobic (in their words, my distaste for the behaviour of cishet men was very damaging for masc people. it is weird, because healthy expressions of masculinity are the last thing i would judge a man for). They also claimed I made their internalised transphobia worse by refusing to date them if they transitioned. I have moved on with my life, but now other people are mixed in and im honestly at a loss. I never forced them to be someone they weren't with me. I never shamed them for their masculinity or discouraged them from exploring their identity, I just stated that dating a trans man wouldn't agree with my sexuality. A healthy response would be to be honest with me, and give me the right to decide for myself whether i would stay with them through their transition or only be able to support them as a friend. They could even just leave without justifying anything.

I don't know. Maybe my trauma is blinding me, but I keep going over the memories in my head trying to figure out how I might be the one behind all that hatred and violence. I don't want to be unfair to them, even if it's just in my own mind, so I'm just speaking up about it for the first time in my life through an AITA tumblr post. Any advice or insight is appreciated.

What are these acronyms?

[moonlovesskunks]

sometimes when i tell ppl im a non-binary man they get weird and are like "how can you be both?"

there's nothing wrong with being curious but it's such a weird question??

they don't contradict each other by textbook definition. i know tons of non-binary people who identify as male partially, wholly, or fluidly. i dont get where the confusion lies.

[genderqueerdykes]

I read your responsr to an afab person identifying as transfemme, and im wondering if the concept of "othering" trans-women has occurred to you.

If youre afab, and identify as femme, thats cisgender. To identify as transfemme is saying that trans women are not women. Trans women, by definition, are amab. So i am curious how one can feel this way while thinking it does absolutely no harm to your trans sisters

hello- your definition of "othering" is completely incorrect.

you are ignoring the existence of intersex transfemmes who were assigned afab at one point

you are ignoring the existence of intersex transfemmes of any agab, including amab and none

you are ignoring the existence of transfemmes of color who are misgendered due to features due to racism. women of color are constantly misgendered by white people because our features do not match those of white women

you are ignoring the existence afab people who were forcibly raised male

you are ignoring the broader spectrum of what transfemininity can encompass, therefore, you are the one othering transfemmes. you are the one who literally does not care about your trans sisters

trans man does not mean afab. trans woman does not mean amab. where did you get that information from, because it literally completely excludes the existence of intersex people. you're not a transfeminist by aggressively ignoring intersex people when a lot of the afab transfemme people who come here to talk about their actual real world lived experiences are in fact intersex. you are aggressively ignoring the truth

you're disrespecting me as well, which you don't seem to care about. i'm an intersex transfemme person. i'm someone who was born amab, forcibly changed to afab, forced on estrogen hrt, and then needed to transition my body back to masculine because of severe dysphoria, and also health issues due to low testosterone levels. i was constantly told my entire childhood that i could not be a girl or woman because of how masculine my face and body was. i developed a beard during puberty. misgendering was rampant during this time. then i came out as genderqueer and suddenly i wasn't allowed to be a man, either.

have you talked to a wide variety of transfemmes or do you stick to a specific archetype and bubble? you value strawmen and conjecture over people who have actually lived that life. you need to leave your echo chamber (and house) and talk to more transfemme, non binary, intersex people and people of color in general. take a second to listen to people when they speak. you're not the protagonist of life. your logic is shit.

[our-trans-youth-experience]

hello. i need help. sorry if yhis is venty.

i know this seems like a bad question to ask but i just dont get it!! i mean this from the persoective of someone trying to figure themselves out.

how do you know you're trans (masc or a trans guy)?? i dont understand. do you get a feeling? is it just "yea thats me"?

i think want to be a boy and i want to go on T but part of me just thinks im a confused girl and this will all pass one day but it hurts so bad because i want to be masculine and i want to be a boy and stuff and i wish i was just born a cis dude or something.

idk, im just confused. sorry if this comes off as offensive, i just dont get how people know :(

Hey kid, this does not sound offensive at all, tbh you sound like me a couple of years ago, but over time i promise you'll become a lot more secure in your masculinity.

Being trans is an individual experience. That means "transness" means something different for different people, and there is no one way to be trans.

If you want to be a guy and think you would be happier as one, then you're a boy. If you wish you were born a boy so you could have a flat chest and feel comfortable in your own body, then you're trans. If you don't want to be a girl and it doesn't feel right, then you're not a girl.

Personally, I'm transmasc, because I feel like a boy but not a man, kinda like one step away from binary but I don't really call myself nonbinary either. Its kinda like i'm a trans-guy and the two words aren't really seperable because i'm a queer dude and that is my gender. My "transness" is a part of my gender and who i am.

And even if its a phase? Something being a phase doesn't make it any less valid! Before I was transmasc, I identified as nonbinary for a while and that's ok!! Gender does not have to be static and people change overtime. 50 year old you is not going to be the same as you right now, so what does it matter if your gender is one of the things that changes? <3

[grizzcore]

I identify AS a lesbian , that is how I perceive myself and what to me is a truth about my personal and full lived experience, I adore butches and specifically MY butch. I was known to be a lesbian at a very young age. I only had crushes on little girls, i had a huge crush on my lesbian aunts butch partner and I was not good at hiding this. (Very cute photo of me staring at Lisa available at request) I didn’t behave like a lot of little girls, I was a tomboy, I was also very clearly lesbian and this lead to being “othered” a lot , especially by adults who did not want me around their children because of my homosexuality

At age 11 I was diagnosed with gender identity disorder, and at 12 I started going by he/him pronouns and the name Oliver at my Ohio public middle school. I was technically out as agender but did later identify as a trans boy/trans man. In my teen years trauma and dysphoria complicated things for me, I dated much older women and afab NB people who did a lot of emotional damage to me , and with my trauma around lesbianism I ended up identifying as a gay trans man for a long while. From 16 to 21, this is what I considered myself publicly - though I’ll admit that on some level I always knew deep down I was a lesbian, and that I was sort of making this identify for myself to fight against that.

I identify WITH gay men , because for many years I thought that is who was, I took testosterone, which I don’t regret at all btw and would and maybe will take again one day, I love being a t lesbian- - I was with gay men intimately, both my age and much older, i was bullied for being both a lesbian and a gay man at the same time because again, I transitioned in a semi rural Ohio public middle and highschool setting starting in the year 2012/2013. i was in gay mens spaces in real life, I felt very real community with gay men and they never treated me very differently than other gay boys just for being transmasculine. Sex with them was not emotionally fulfilling me, but I did enjoy their company and companionship for a while I thought I may be asexual. (Don’t so many of us, lmao)

But No, I was most certainly a lesbian with too much trauma hanging onto that label to connect to it for a while (and many people in my direct personal life kept informing me of this, lmao, which made me double down in a very childish way)

Me and my partner are both afab and identify personally as lesbians- but on many occasions we are perceived socially as gay men because we both previously identified as gay trans men, took t and socially transitioned. Then we dated each other. I told Theo about a year in I thought I may be a lesbian and that transmasculinity to me was an extension of a lesbian gender identity and I didn’t want them to feel invalidated by this as they at the time were a binary trans man to my knowledge. They told me they felt the same way and we had one of the most eye opening and relationship strengthening conversations we’ve ever had. We’re both lesbians , with dysphoria, with no connection to a male identity- just a masculine one.

So were lesbians, who look like gay men and often are regarded as gay men by strangers , we’ve experienced homophobic violence geared toward gay men, other lesbians tend to recognize us as lesbians, but gay men - especially trans men and especially t4t trans men also recognize us as gay trans men socially - and im okay with that! i actually LIKE that.

I don’t care if people see us a lesbians or gay men or both. I have community in both places, I feel safe in both places, I have love for both communities. I have lived in both communities, been fostered and loved in both and don’t feel these communities in real life are half as separated as the internet leads many of you to believe. I was in the gay bar scene at too young an age but I am thankful for the community I feel as someone with what a lot of people could consider a pretty complex gender identity now that I’m an adult still in those spaces

And now that I’m experiencing a sort of complex gender fluidity I could only best describe as “genderfluid but the genders are ‘butch’ and ‘femme’ as genders, not male and female” where I’m exploring femme identity and my relationship to butchness is shifting back and forth, I feel a new strange sort of identification happening to me wherein a lot of people in this irl space are assuming im some sort of drag queen - which I’m ??? Not entirely sure how I feel about but i think I’m overall okay with it in a Chappell Roan femininity is performance sort of way

In short what I’m saying is : my gender is lesbian, but I am aware my SOCIALLY PERCEIVED gender is often that of a gay man, and other queer people seem to vary widely in how they perceive me and my relationship on a scale of “lesbians” to “t4t” to “gay men” often reflecting their own identity

And I’m like! Okay with that and acknowledge these identities as also being a valid part of who I am because they affect the way other people treat me in these spaces I share and the life I live.