#non binary ppl do NOT owe you androgyny | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

androgynousblackbox · 2 years

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Thank you for responding! To explain, my ask was about how i didn't see how "nonbinary people don't owe you androgyny" is a silly statement, or how it is acting like root transphobia isn't real, especially since it's calling out a part of it. "Our issues would be gone if we were androgynous" is a severe misunderstanding of phrases like "y don't owe you x."

Also, you said "we are not desconstructing anything by saying 'non binary people don't owe you androgyny' because yeah, we don't, but the focus can and should be first in how our genders deserves to be aknowledged and respected regardless of any fucking presentation."

But it literally is tho! Isn't "nonbinary ppl don't owe you x" an actual example of deconstruction and affirmation that nb ppl can look like anything? We ARE focusing on how nonbinary people can look like anything. I don't understand how it can be anything but part of that very message you are trying to say, let alone a problem to it. "Missing the forest for the trees" does seem to fit, because this feels like me pointing to a tree and you saying "this tree is standing in the way of the forest and wasting its time."

You said, "So why we act as if there is by implying that things would be better if we were androgynous?" I wasn't though, is the thing. Quite the opposite, that's why i wrote that paragraph. The rest of the ask was talking about the frustration and pain of that expectation existing. When nb people, or anyone, talk about their frustrations and share information and advice on how not to act towards people, it is not them saying "these are the only frustrations people experience and if you're not experiencing this one then you have fewer problems than me." We are in fact expressing how issues manifest in our lives and finding ways to alleviate that pain, and this allows us to address the root problems by recognising each other's issues and working towards deconstructing what is hurting us. Does that make sense?

I guess i don't get it because: we seem to be agreeing with each other. Except, people calling out an expectation of androgyny are allegedly saying that non-androgynous ppl have it better? That was never the intention and i don't understand how they gel together. Messages like "y don't owe you x" aren't holding anyone back and in fact they are ways of acknowledging the problem itself, because talking about examples of how oppression manifests is actually really useful. Spreading info about trans people is useful. Yes, these posts won't solve ~the root of transphobia~ themselves, but nothing by itself will. Talking about specific stereotypes, or examples of representation, of cultural appropriation, of fetishization, of microaggressions, etc won't 'fix the problem' in the same way that changing a tyre won't fix a crashed car. But it's a start and it needs doing as part of the larger task, and holding back every example of people trying to address problems because they're not being 'root' enough is i.m.o. pointless. What harm is being done by them? Idk, i just don't see how they're doing anything wrong.

Madcapmathematician(?)'s post looks like a good idea (binarism is a problem) expressed in a bad way. And the og post seems to squarely state that "nb ppl don't owe you androgyny" is an unfounded and ridiculous statement that doesn't need to be said, which was frankly offensive in its dismissiveness. So I extra disagree with that op.

Idk if i made sense either. But thank you for taking the time to give me your thoughts and to read mine, i do appreciate it, even if we don't seem to be on the same page

I feel like you didn't understand/ignore my point and just trail blassed yours on top. You do realize that some people ARE androgynous, make a conscious effort to appear androgynous or can't help to appear androgynous and their struggles are being ignored with statements such as those? For some people who were always cast aside because our failure to appear as our agab and/or were forced to be passed around to one binary gender to another like a tennis ball depending who is throwing, phrases like "non binary people don't owe you androgyny" doesn't feel like "doesn't matter your presentation, your identity is valid!" but rather "you are the expectation of what people think non binary people look like, therefore you have it better than us", which is especially fucked up when many of us live in places where non binary is NOT a thing people are aware of and less than anything something that people would even have any expectation for. It's hurtful and feels shitty and doesn't help me as a non binary person at all. I know I don't owe anyone androgyny already, but because all my life nobody wanted shit to do with my gender non conformity in the first place and everyone always wanted to see me as something binary I am not. That post from that person came from the exact same place as that hurt. If that isn't a reason to not keep repeating that phrase as if it was the best example of support for non binary that we can imagine, then I don't know what to tell you but I don't like it and I don’t feel supported by it. We are all fucked because of exorsexism in current society, not because of what people expect us to look like as non binary people.

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esoterikglitch · 2 years

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I keep seeing this post, and saw it on @ transarmy blog on facebook. The comments were not sitting right with me, and reinforced my belief that the community has an issue with non binary folks that present as androgynous, bc its "inheritly" harmful and seen as "passing" and "privledge"

Heres my take---

I agree with the statment in the photo, however-

I owe it to myself cause its how i am. Non binary and androgynous, and i agree with this statement, just dont wanna be seen in a different light for embodying both bc it makes others feel some type of way.

I get the frustration within the community, but *no disrespect* my identity isnt open for debate, esp in this community. I still get misgendered regularly, and seeing negativity/shade to ppl who are andro is a bit weird (check comments)

I know its not all in the community but there are many who shame NB people for wanting to even appear androgynous like its problematic, which is problematic in itself in a community that already has issues with inclusion.

It is NOT the standard for non binary representation.

No, nonbinary people dont owe you androgyny but those that feel that way owe it to ourselves. Esp those that are happy to be. There is no "privledge" to being andro esp when there is active divide in our own community and internal biases that make ppl feel like they cant be who they are and struggle with gender binaries more... not being androgynous doesnt make you any less nonbinary. Using she/him pronouns doesnt make you less nonbinary. Not all androgynous people are nonbinary and its harmful to assume otherwise, for this reason.

I do not want to see my own community judging others for simply not conforming to thier projected internalized issues. Thats against what we all stand for and advocate for...

We all exist in many diff forms and are all valid and are all beautiful expressions of ourselves.

#gender nonconforming #nonbinary #androgynous

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androgynousblackbox · 2 years

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That post about being owed androgyny bothers me honestly because yes we are expected to be androgynous and yes we are punished if we aren't. The fact that we're still punished either way is just the regular old catch 22 part of oppression, see also women and femininity, esp. trans women. That being a feminine trans woman is also hated and punishable doesn't mean there isn't the expectation that she has to be, especially in the trans community. "Where in society are we expected to be androgynous" looks super dumb from the perspective of anyone who's been in trans spaces, on socmed, ever had anyone irl say "then why do you dress like a boy/girl?", etc, and the shit androgynous ppl go through doesn't disprove that, it just proves that there isn't a right way to be queer.

Idk it just rubs me the wrong way, I feel like there was a different way to word "androgynous nb people are not free from harassment" than to pretend there isn't this quite prevalent expectation nb people like me can't escape.

The reblog I shared I personally thought it was very poignant when they said stuff like this: "When you say things like "I'm misgendered and told I'm not really nonbinary because my body isn't androgynous enough", I do hear the pain, not just of being misgendered and invalidated, but of having to accept that this will never go away.

It's not true, though. It's not because your body isn't androgynous enough. It's because forcible binarization is how society treats nonbinary people. [...] At other times, forcible binarization of nonbinary people takes the form of disingenuous promises that if you were just a bit more androgynous, a little more masculine, a little more feminine, a little less this or a bit more that, then surely they'd respect your gender then.

But that's a binarist lie.

And yes, it's a lie that gets told by queer people, liberals, leftists, people who'll swear up and down they have nothing against nonbinary people, because it's a lie that people are telling themselves. But it's something we have to let go of to fight forcible binarization." I do think this is something we tend to forget when our queer spaces are reduced to socmeds. No shame if that is the only queer space many people have access to, I know that is not something people necesarily chose to happen, but we concentrate on certain things on such a way we start missing the forest for the trees. Like, as non binary people, as trans people, we are all fucked already, even in our communities, because our communities are part of this society and this society fucking hate us already. Our communities are not this separate entity with rules completely devoid of any connection with what happens on the rest of the world, but statements where we look the expectation of androgyny RATHER than the forced binarization of non binary people as a whole doesn't... really do much? Because then we start arguing between each other ("people who want to be androgynous ARE valid!", "people who don't want to be androgynous are valid!", "being androgynous doesn't make you stereotype!", etc) instead to pointing to the actual source of this shit. Following your example, femenine trans women/femme enbies are fucked, not because of them being femenine or not being femenine, but because society is build in transmisogyny/misogyny/colonialistic ideas of gender as it is and we, as a community, are absolutely capable of absorbing and repeating those ideas without examining our own biases. Just look at the way trans femme black and other MOC are treated. It's fucking horrid and we are not desconstructing anything by saying "non binary people don't owe you androgyny" because yeah, we don't, but the focus can and should be first in how our genders deserves to be aknowledged and respected regardless of any fucking presentation, because that is part of what respecting our human dignity fucking means. I don't know, maybe I am doing a shit job explaining it and I don't want to invalidate anyone's struggles or feelings regarding their own experiences, but to me personally feels like a message I needed to be reminded too because I don't like to think that if I were more this or less that or whatever then my gender would be respected. Because that is bullshit and I know is bullshit because I literally tried almost everything anyone could try, and it didn't worked and it wasn't my fault, and everything wouldn't have worked either even if I magically could turn myself into this ideal that exist only on my head. I would just be facing a different set of troubles, not less. It's all part of the exact same shit coin, both consequences of a single shitter. "it just proves that there isn't a right way to be queer." Fucking exactly. So why we act as if there is by implying that things would be better if we were androgynous, if we were more femme, if we were more masc, and any issue we face is because we failed to be any of those things, when the truth is we are all hurting because of the same rules we are all breaking and it fucking sucks?

#again don't know if i made anything clear or just rambled like a mad man #but basically yeah

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