#it's fairly obvious that I'm an inclusionist based on how I've framed this

[roseapprentice]

TERFs and inclusionists, screaming at each other:

"Why do you believe in gender so hard?"

TERFs, thinking at inclusionists:

Why do you believe in gender so hard? Gender has been shoved down my throat my whole life.

How dare you participate in that? I don't have any gender but the one forced on me. I'm sure that's everyone else's experience too.

I was born, I was assigned female, and I've been scraped down into the mud for it ever since. I looked like I might be pregnant one day and that made me a commodity. I'm sure that's everyone else's experience too.

Other people were born, were assigned male, and have been spoiled ever since. Taught from the cradle to use me. I'm sure that's everyone else's experience too.

"Man" means "trained to exploit." I love and admire the men who transcend that training. "Woman" means "trained to be exploited." I love and admire the women who transcend that training.

Now you come here and tell me that being one of the exploiters or being one of the exploited is some fundamental part of your identity, is some deep and meaningful truth in your soul.

How could you? How could you take a system used to brutalize me all my life, and treat it like it's made of bright colors and daffodils, like it's sacred, like I am a monster for wanting to defy it? Can't you understand that gender is the monster, not the god?

Inclusionists, thinking at TERFs:

Why do you believe in gender so hard? Gender has been a cell I've been locked in my whole life.

I was born looking a certain way, and people decided so much about me. Decided what I would play with and how I would stand and talk and find meaning. Decided who I would feel at home with and who I would urinate next to and when and how I would get to feel right in my body and my blood. I'm sure other people have their own experience.

Gender is a million things to a billion people. Some of us were raised female, and told we could do anything. Could give birth or be a physicist or both. Could make our own bold way or get a man to provide for us. Could feel sad or angry or neither or both.

Some of us were raised male, and told we could do half of anything. Could feel angry but not sad. Could make our own way in the world and provide for our family. Failing to be the hero of our own life story was not an option.

Some of us were raised to a cosmology of gender I don't recognize, but to them it's the ordinary default. The boys could do anything but chores. The girls could do half of anything, as long as the chores somehow got done.

I'm sure other people have their own experience.

Gender is a word. A social construct built from biology and tradition and love and hatred. I don’t know all of which parts of gender come from which, and the answer is probably too complicated to ever learn completely.

I know that being grouped in with some people makes me feel uneasy and afraid, and being grouped in with other people makes me feel comfortable and seen. I know that some parts of my body and mind feel like me, and some parts feel other and wrong and it hurts.

I know some of my feelings about my gender and body change over time, and some feelings stay the same. I know that people who claim to know which feelings will do which are usually wrong.

Gender is a huge sprawling idea that’s wormed its way into every part of life. If you try to tear the gender out of every person you meet, you will tear out the hearts that have grown up fused to its roots.

Our plan is to make gender stop being a prison, so that we can all discover for ourselves which parts of this huge chaotic idea are made of patriarchy and hatred, and which parts are actually just pieces of love and bone that have been categorized strangely.

But you? You shut gender up into two airtight boxes like you're containing Lovecraftian gods, and you worship those boxes. You are the devoted acolytes of binary gender.

Please just stop. All we want is to live and be human. Humans are messy and resist categories, because we're alive. We find the friends and clothes and labels and bodies that fit best, and we make due because life is short and hard and beautiful.

Stop cutting off pieces of us to make us fit in your precious gender boxes. Just let us be alive.

TERFs and inclusionists, screaming at each other louder:

“WHY DO YOU BELIEVE IN GENDER SO HARD?!”