#or just whatever else. because there is no binary to being nonbinary

[blimbo-buddy]

Hate the binary that the lgbt+ community has created for non-binary people. That one "Not all non-binary people are hairless twink elves" post - however it went- is amazing and sums up how I feel about that stuff

[starlit-mansion]

it's kind of weird that i was starting to id as more transmasc aligned solely because i was starting to feel boxed in by the way that nonbinary identity is increasingly talked about in ways that align it to male or female. i LIKE being unaligned nonbinary, it's just weird that echo chambers kind of do that to you even if you think you're being aware of it

[genderkoolaid]

I don't know if you know blue eye Samurai, but I hate how people talk about the protagonist.

I'm a non binary Trans man, and I actually identify a lot with Mizu (the protagonist), but I go here on Tumblr and I see a lot of posts that say: "I know everyone can see Mizu however they like, but I want everyone to know that the right interpretation is that she is a woman pretending to be a man... but everyone can think whatever they want, not forgetting that she is a woman of course."

And it's a bit annoying because when I see explanations of why is "wrong" to see Mizu as a Trans man, I see people going "Why can't there be representation of gender non conforming women!?" And "she wouldn't pretend to be a man if it wasn't for the society she lives in!"

The last one makes me especially angry, because of how many Trans men get erased from history with that same argument.

I don't know, I think it makes me mad because that fandom feels like a micro cosmos of the anti Trans masculinity a lot of Trans men have to face.

And it's not like I think it's wrong to see Mizu as a woman, but when everyone goes "of course she is a woman, why would she want to be a man for anything other than necessity?" I don't know how to feel.

I'm gonna steal my own words from that post about jeanne d'arc:

And the best part is, we can say all of this and also see her as part of women's history! Because women's history, too, does not have to be exclusively about woman-born or woman-identified women. It can be about a larger cultural experience. And Jeanne d'Arc suffered because of transphobia which is always fundamentally misogynistic. I would argue it even makes sense to say her death involved transmisogyny in a very literal sense. The thing about transfeminism is that it can free us from the need to view personal identification with the role of "woman" as vital to feminism. Being a woman, in whatever sense, is certainly not unrelated to feminism, but one can be a feminist and have any kind of personal or communal relationship with womanhood. Anyone can be inspired by the story of Jeanne d'Arc and her bold defiance of both misogyny and transphobia, no matter how she may have personally understood her gender.

People have this idea where if a character or historical figure (or even currently living person) is anything but a woman, then any kind of Feminist Story falls apart. Especially when it comes to misogyny! People act like someone being a trans man means all their experiences with misogyny are like. gone? Or the story is now, essentially, about a cis man being mistaken for a woman, and thus women are Not Allowed to feel any connection at all.

All of this on top of the fun hypocrisy that is "we can't say this person/character is a trans man because they wouldn't have that concept, but we can say they are a cis woman because those are both the only options and ciswomanhood is a natural and universal concept we can apply regardless of any other context :)"

& with Mizu its like. you literally can see her as a GNC woman. people calling him a trans guy or transmasc or genderqueer or anything else are not taking away your experience of her as a GNC woman. Transmasculinity is not just Negative Womanhood, the idea that transmasculinity is something which saps away representation/power/dignity/identity/value from (cis) women is like ATM 101.

But the whole way people treat trans men and misogyny really annoys me, I guess because the assumption is that for women, having to dress as a man to get respect inspires anger at one's position in society, but trans men are incapable of having any complex feelings about that. Like trans men must fully enjoy not being able to have sex with others, or go to a doctor, and having to live in fear of being outed and facing the brunt of transphobia and misogyny, and trans men also couldn't possibly be angry about misogyny that they experienced, and also nonbinary people don't exist and no transmasculine person could possibly be anything but fully comfortable being seen as a cis man all the time. Sure, some trans men are perfectly happy passing as cis men, but like. there is more than one trans man. & ignoring all other transmasc experiences besides The One is a form of erasure, it just passes as something else because technically you are acknowledging A transmasc existence.

[eff-plays]

People get really defensive about "writing Astarion with women" when what people are actually annoyed/upset about is that people are putting him in heteronormative relationships with women.

And it's not like, "YOU, INDIVIDUAL WOMAN, WROTE HIM WITH A WOMAN? A POX ON YOUR HOUSE!" and more like "a majority of fandom is writing him in this specific way with this specific type of character that doesn't really reflect who he is in the game and shoehorns him into a generic booktok dom daddy."

Which. Yeah. People are allowed to feel annoyed/alienated by that type of trend. I think. Maybe. I've seen several fics where Astarion being with big burly men (implied to have been penetrated) was portrayed as traumatic, while being with little virginal female Tav was "healing". And yeah, you're technically acknowledging his pansexuality ... But the implications aren't great. Ya know?

And there's a LOT of conflating domming/topping/being on top. Which ends up only highlighting the heteronormative approach to a lot of fic about him. "He gets on top > so he always tops/penetrates > so he's a dom." Because for some reason penetrating others is less traumatic to him than to be penetrated? Which is a whole bag of worms that people seem reluctant/unable to unpack.

Now, the other side of this argument are people who go "lmao those delusional wamen think this homosexual twink would top them" which is. Also not great? But in the end reflects the same type of reductive and heteronormative argument, it's just coming from the other side of the spectrum. He's flamboyant and pretty so he MUST be incapable of putting his dick into someone else. And he's MORE feminine than the women he gets paired with, so obviously that's unrealistic and he must be paired with a big strong man instead. Which is like. Well you're paired him with a man but you're still being just very heteronormative about it. Even gay relationships must have a "man" and a "woman", is your argument? And Astarion, being beautiful and a presumed bottom, is "the woman"?? Hmm. Don't like that.

Maybe. Astarion is. Pansexual. And can both bone down and be boned down. Maybe he does have a preference. Maybe he doesn't. Maybe he doms, maybe he subs. Maybe he switches depending on mood/partner. Maybe he likes different sex positions where he's on top and ones where he's below. Maybe he's down for whatever as long as it's with someone he loves. Maybe he's neither "the man" nor "the woman" in a relationship and he's simply Astarion, a man in a relationship. Maybe in the end it doesn't fucking matter and putting him into rigid binaries is doing him a disservice.

Anyway. My nonbinary Tav's gonna upgrade his gender to Man+. Cis premium. They're gonna explore his gender and preferences and expression together. I think that might be fun and freeing maybe. And they're gonna take turns topping and bottoming and both will be soooooo healing because um. They're having consensual sex and are in love. So it's healing by default. Regardless of who's putting what where.

Well. Anyway. All I'm saying is. Stuff.

[ckret2]

hey ^^ I love your bill goldilocks cipher, and I was wondering why he possesses a female-presenting body. I am a huge fan of your art btw so don’t take this the wrong way, I just would love to know how you designed him!

The short answer: because he's canonically referred to with he/him pronouns.

The long answer: if you meet somebody who, at a first glance, appears to be anatomically female, and everyone refers to this person with he/him pronouns, you don't immediately know what's going on.

Maybe he's a trans man who's comfortable with his body the way it is as long as everyone around him still treats him as a man. Maybe she's a trans woman with really transphobic acquaintances. Maybe he's nonbinary, maybe he's genderfluid, maybe he's a drag queen who's dressed up for an event but not currently in character, maybe he's a he/him lesbian—you don't know, and it likely isn't your business.

There's only one thing you do know: whatever's going on here, it probably ain't cishet. This person has something going on that does not fit the gender binary. All you can say about him is that he's queer.

Bill's gender is triangle. This simply does not fit within humanity's popular ideas about the male-female binary. Whatever his sexual orientation is, it is not restricted to "only females/only males (as humanity defines femaleness/maleness)"—and so he can't possibly be heterosexual in a manner readily recognizable to human beings. Amongst Bill's own species, maybe he was the most cishet guy you've ever met, I haven't decided; but if you stick Bill amongst humans, regardless of how he sees himself, he'll look queer to us.

On top of that: stick Bill in a human body, and there's a disconnect between his self-identity and the shape he's wearing. Strangers will see him as something he's not: human. He feels trapped in a wrong-shaped form amongst people who think this is normal and what he feels he should be is strange—and if he ever explains that psychological weight of feeling wrong-shaped, the humans most likely to go "I think I get it" are the trans folks who know what dysphoria feels like.

I don't think Bill cares what pronouns humans give him; I think he's called "he/him" either because his human victims decided he sounds male-ish, or else because he consciously decided to take advantage of sexism by presenting himself as male to seem more authoritative. And I don't think Bill cares about the anatomy of the human body he's in; he could have been given any variety of genitalia, secondary sex characteristics, hormone balances, body fat distributions, etc., and he would have been equally uncomfortable in any because they're not a triangle. It makes no difference to him.

But it does something to you (you, The Readers In General): it makes you wonder about his relationship with his body.

Because we're speaking English on the Internet in the 21st century, you and I are participating in a culture that sees having both a vagina and he/him pronouns as Not The Default. It makes Bill look genderqueer-in-a-human-way, and that makes it easier to slide readers over to seeing him as genderqueer-in-a-nonhuman-way. It makes you think about queerness, about dysphoria, about nonbinary folks who defy the expected correlations between pronouns and anatomy without changing their bodies to make them "match."

This is the second or third time somebody's asked me why I put Bill in a female-presenting body. If I'd done the opposite, nobody would have ever asked me why I put Bill in a male-presenting body. Because that's "normal." And I want you to ask questions! I want you to think about Bill's self-image, his internal landscape, the gulf between who he is mentally and what he is physically.

Before I ever directly draw attention to queer topics, I can get folks primed to think about them and to understand that his body doesn't accurately represent his identity just by slapping a pair of boobs on him.

So I slapped a pair of boobs on him.

[my-castles-crumbling]

Hey Cas!

U can ignore this if u want but I'm like rllly new to lgbtq (I'm bi) so can u tell me

1. What does coming out as trans rlly mean?

I mean I always thought tht being a trans was some sort of surgery idk that changes u from a guy-girl or girl-guy

2. What does genderqueer mean?

3. What does intersex and binary/non-binary mean?

4.What does queet mean and how is it different from lesbian or gay? 😭😭

U CAN COMPLETELY IGNORE THIS IF U DONT WANT TO ANSWER JUST CURIOUS😭😭😭

No, I don't mind at all! Also if anyone reading this has a different answer or something to add, feel free!

Coming out as trans means you don't identify as the gender you were given at birth. So if you were born, the doctor probably said "It's a boy!" or "it's a girl!" based on your body, right? then coming out as trans means even though the doctor said that, you know you aren't what the doctor said. Some trans people choose to dress differently after they come out, to reflect their gender (this is their gender expression). Some choose to use different pronouns (he, she, they, etc). Some choose to get surgery so their body reflects their gender. Whatever they do or don't choose to do is valid for them, and everyone makes different choices.

Genderqueer means someone who identifies outside of the boy/girl binary. So basically anyone who doesn't feel like a boy or a girl. They could be nonbinary, genderfluid, agender, or something else.

Intersex is someone who was born with some mixture of male and female biology. Intersex people are a lot more common that society makes it seem, and a lot of times parents who have intersex people are told to 'pick a gender' to raise them as, or even to have their babies undergo surgery to reflect that gender, but this can actually be super detrimental because the child didn't choose that. Intersex people need to be taught from an early age that they're intersex and be free to express their gender how they feel represents them. Binary basically means two- the two genders society has deemed socially acceptable- boy and girl. Nonbinary means someone who identifies outside of that binary. They aren't a boy or a girl.

Queer is kind of an umbrella term for lesbian, gay, bi, trans, intersex, ace/aro, and more. But I think queer has also become a culture. There's queer music, queer art, queer tv and movies. Basically queer is anything but straight and cis. (Cis= identifies as the gender they were given at birth)

I hope this helps! <3

[stellocchia]

I can't stop thinking about my boys from The Light Side of the Moon so you guys get some headcanons for them.

Nightmare:

As an immortal, he doesn't need to eat but does so anyway to set an example for his idiots because half of them are terrible at taking care of themselves

Was born as a mortal in his original AU and ascended to godhood after eating all the black apples from the tree of feelings

Technically doesn't need to sleep, but he sucks at saying no to Killer when the guy tells him to do something. Besides, while he would be able to live and have access to his magic without sleep, it does give him more energy

Killer:

Technically not a Sans. Or, well, not only. He was born as Chara's and Sans' souls fully fused (after they'd already reset a few times themselves). He does have the memories from both of them but feels a sort of detachment from them since he didn't really exist at the time

Non-binary. Mostly uses he/him by habit, but is honestly fine with any pronouns. This is a result of Chara being agender and Sans not having the strongest gender identity. Killer is just a gender whatever

Better at taking care of others than himself. Between the henchmen, he's the most observant and, as a result of that, he tends to pick up easily on what people need. Due to his soul problems though, he's not in touch enough with his emotions to do that for himself

His soul has remained scarred from Nightmare's constant use of his aura on him toward the start. He no longer has a phase 1. He's usually always stuck in phase 2, though his emotions are there, though they are very muted compared to everyone else

Dust:

Technically the second Dusttale Sans to work for Nightmare. The first left to the Omega Timeline after the Big Incident. He's aware of this and can get insecure about it at times, but mostly he's over it

The Phantom Papyrus he sees is indeed actually his Papyrus, but he's kinda like Flowey was to Asriel. Because his dust was spread over his scarf and by wearing it all the time, Dust's determination infused it giving him a sort of second life. No one else can see him though

Dust does not have lv20 anymore, Nightmare had to absorb some from him to keep him from melting because, unlike with Killer, his soul is still a full monster soul. He cannot handle such high lv. Which is also why he doesn't kill anymore

Horror:

Technically immortal but purely because he's dead already. He can live without ever eating (and did so back in his AU) but he can feel hunger pains and they're agonizing

Also the second Horrortale Sans to be a part of Nightmare's gang, but he isn't really bothered by it. He has met Axe before (the previous Horrortale Sans) and they get along fine enough

Adores his baby brother Sugar. They see each other at least once a week, either because he visits his brother or because his brother stays over at the castle. He would do quite literally anything for his bro. Including providing food for all of Snowdin

He has quite a bit of chronic pain due to the hole in his skull and his one non-functioning eye light. He takes some seriously strong pain killers daily to deal with it (Killer also takes ADHD meds, and Dust takes some lv balancers to help with their own issues)

Rose:

Literally the only one in the gang who had a good relationship with his Father. His father used to call him Starlight and now he has a kitten by the same name in his dad's honor

The natural chill from Nightmare's presence makes it so he doesn't experience the effects of the constant heat those from Underlust have to deal with while he's near his Boss or at the castle

Also nonbinary in the sense that he's very comfortable with pretty much anything. Very into gender fuckery. Mostly a he/she person

Also adores his baby brother, but also his baby brother's husband. Papyrus and Metatton come by the castle to visit often enough (though less so than Sugar) and he visits them at least once every couple of weeks

Red:

Also struggles with chronic pain both due to the broken eye socket he has to deal with and because of the scars on his souls (he has no more cracks in it thanks to Rose's soul balm, but the scars remain, and he does have only 0.5hp because of it), though he mostly deals with it with copious amounts of marijuana

He used to have a phobia of cats, but he kinda got over it in time due to living with Rose and Killer, local crazy cat ladies. He still will not pet them or pick them up, but he can coexist in the same room as them

He surprisingly had the second best relationship with his dad in the group, though that just means that he and his father mostly just mutually ignored each other. They were on neutral terms before Gaster fell into the Core. He never mourned him. He does however have the worst relationship with his brother as his Papyrus wasn't good to him. He's the reason for the hole in his skull where his eye socket should be

He was found originally by Error, not Nightmare. And it was while Error was there to steal some chocolate. Error figured the little guy looked adoptable enough for Nightmare and called him over. He was right

Cross:

Autistic boyo. He looks serious all the time mostly because he's starting to figure out how his face should look at any moment and conversations tend to move too fast for him to adapt to it

Worked for Nightmare for a while while Nightmare was still an ass. That was during the X event. He then moved onto working for the Star Sanses for a long time, though eventually he got fed up with them. (Though he lasted the longest of any third member). He then wandered about a while aimlessly until he met with Killer again and Killer promised things had changed

He and Epic are the Autism and ADHD besties. Whenever they're together they have negative braincells. They are together often. The castle has suffered because of it, but Nightmare would never say anything about it because he can see how important the friendship is for Cross

XChara is very much still there and sharing soul space with him. Though most of the time he hangs back and lets Cross control the body. They get along... relatively well. Though XChara loves to annoy him

Blue:

He greatly overestimates how good he is at cooking. His tacos are good, but, aside from that, he can only do very basic things without burning them or making them otherwise inedible

He's more of a dog person than a cat person, but he still likes both. Doesn't mind that the castle is a cat heaven. The only animals he can't stand are rabbits though. Because in his universe, instead of the pesky dog stealing his attacks it was a small fluffy white rabbit

He's the third tallest Sans in the gang, with Horror being the tallest and Rose being the second tallest. This is a significant source of confidence for him. It's one of the few wins the poor guy gets

Despite his and Stretch's relationship being rocky at the moment, he does deeply adore his baby brother and would do anything for him. For one thing, despite having left the lab at the same time, he taught himself how to read first, entirely on his own, just so he could help Stretch with it

[pumpumdemsugah]

Why do folks act like you can only acknowledge sex-based oppression and the reality of human sexual dimorphism if you want trans folks to die? Why are we acting like white folks made up ‘male’ and ‘female’ when every human culture knew what a male and a female was before colonialism existed and patriarchy has existed way before white supremacy did? Why?

It makes me uncomfortable bc you’d get labeled as a terf for saying this but the average irl person that isn’t chronically online holds these beliefs and still believes in trans rights and uses preferred pronouns. Hell, I have two nonbinary friends who recognize the reality of sex and sex-based oppression. I personally both recognize sex and believe that trans women have a place in our fight for women’s liberation. So like. Why are folks on the internet acting like it’s impossible? What is going on around here? Because I saw a (19 year old) person say ‘sex based oppression isn’t real socialization isn’t real yada yada yada that’s white colonial bullshit and if you believe otherwise then kill yourself’ and my eye twitched.

and it gets on my nerves bc most of the ppl saying this shit are Westerners! If they went to a non-West country and said this shit, I bet my left tit that they’d be looked at like they’re insane!

These people can say this for the same reason they hate radical feminists but recommend radical feminist Audre Lorde, they don't read or comprehend, they regurgitate talking points and see Black women not as academics or peers but tokens to invoke without knowing what they believe. It's arrogance, self righteousness and anti-intellectualism mixed together. Non-western cultures now all have the same ideas about gender that all support whatever some white American says. I think what's crazy is how incredibly racist the entire thing is and ahistorical. It's shrunk the experiences of everyone else so white western losers can feel more complex

I do not trust white people that bring up Black women to talk about gender in the modern sense because they always get racist and make shit up

Social media has melted everyone's brain so much everyone is making extreme claims grounded in wish fulfillment . Online liberals are acting and pushing the idea that sex is fake but the Blacks are just built different with one body plan. Please ignore that because human beings spend most of our time in Africa, African people have the most genetic diversity compared to every other group in the world . White people think complexity only applies to them. They did this before with race science and they're doing it again. Educated white people without expertise are making shit up

Male & female is fake but big negro bone is real and that research about bones, race and osteoporosis, I've read it, it doesn't say what online people say it does, you're just racist. It's projecting body insecurities onto Black women as inherent qualities of our bodies so their white body is normal and a problem that was a them thing is an us thing but this isn't racist and demeaning. Online liberals want us to be a permanent Other so they feel normal then claim it's solidarity not racial hierarchy by another name. The dehumanisation of enslaved Black women is brought up not to talk about slavery but to Other the bodies of dead tortured Black women and ask the living ones to agree because they said magic buzz words. Online people don't bring up slavery to talk about what white people did but to add sex characteristics they want Black women to have and rewrite history. Slave master didn't think Black people felt pain so performed surgery without anesthesia on enslaved Black women that needed to be held down because someone that needs to be held down commonly is a sign she doesn't feel pain. Slave masters knew they were chatting shit.

Talk about how WOC don't fit the gender binary because of white supremacist dehumanisation has become talk that our bodies are wrong and weird and that's why. The blame for shifted from white people's racism to, of course the non-white have wacky body plans. Do they even think we're people? Conservatives and dumb dumbs acting like the sexual dimorphism in human beings is extreme ( it's not ) and that's why male and female artistic gymnastics is so different. Not training or history and using it as a cover for mockery and sexism so now regular men are challenging actual female athletes ( and losing ) under the delusional being male is enough

The online left and right are so are stupid about this but everyone ends up affirming centuries old ideas about race and women. What's annoying is people that say sex is fake aren't being truthful, it's fake for white people as they transcend language but the crudely made Others, we're bigger and badly made and that's why they're normal. Solidarity though

Why does it need to be explained that Blackness isn't a sexed quality or characteristic ? It's unbelievably offensive. None of these people are as intellectually curious as they claim they are. None of them have read anything about slavery, colonialism or feminism. They saw a post.

[possibilistfanfiction]

can i say i absolutely love how you write ava being casually nonbinary so much. there are no fucking words to describe how much i fucking love your in depth exploration of butch beatrice, especially as an asian genderqueer sapphic who relates a lot to beatrice, your fics about it is definitely some of my top fav fics in the fandom, and like lowkey inspiring to me in my own journey to better accepting my queerness and exploring what it means for me, but also on the other end of the spectrum, i just love the casual simplicity (not sure if that’s the word i’m looking for) you write ava being nonbinary with

ava’s nonbinary, and it’s just a simple everyday fact of life just like the grass is green and the sun goes up and down everyday, there’s no need to dwell on it because ava doesn’t need to dwell on it and maybe her relationship or feelings about gender will change or get more complicated in the future or they won’t change one bit, but that doesn’t matter because it’s not the future right now and they’ll cross that bridge when it comes to it

[lil teeny bit of nb ava for the culture]

//

'hey,' ava says, trailing a hand up and down the inside of your forearm, 'do you... do you care?'

you have absolutely no idea what she's talking about; you care about a lot of things, and, more and more, there are plenty of things you also let fall to the wayside: sometimes they just are.

'do i care about what?'

ava sighs, scoots a little away from you on the couch, tucks a strand of hair behind your ear. 'that i — i don't feel like i have a gender, or whatever. like, i'm a girl, i guess? but only because that's what people thought, and told me. but i don't feel like anything else. i mean, first of all, the gender binary is a tool of colonial oppression and white supremacy, especially when employed by the church —'

'— yes, that's true —'

'— but also, i have a literal divine battery pack keeping me alive, allegedly —'

'— the halo definitely is keeping you alive, we know that —'

'— and i've been to, like, realms and stuff. met a few gods; fought a few demons. fell in love with you.' she smiles softly. 'so it's just... limiting, to me. it feels limiting, to be one thing.'

'i don't think binary gender makes sense to me either,' you say, allow yourself to admit. ava probably has figured it out, even if you haven't been able to say it: you wear a binder some days, and you don't feel anything against she/her pronouns but there's masculinity and androgyny you crave, that you're just starting to feel steady and free enough to explore. 'i feel it differently than you — for me, being a woman is a particular experience that matters, but not in the way people want women to be. i don't know, it's a work in progress.' she squeezes your hand with a gentle smile. 'but, ava, i only care insomuch as you're the love of my life, and i want you to feel seen and cared for, just for who you are. i want to know you, whoever that is.'

she swallows and rests her head on your chest; the documentary about mushrooms she had put on in the background plays quietly. 'thank you.' she turns so her nose is pressed against your sternum, hugging you tight. 'i just know it's taken you a long time to, like, be okay with your own sexuality, and i didn't want to throw you for a loop if you were feeling really comfy with, you know.'

'being a lesbian?' you ask, try to keep the laugh out of your voice. 'i certainly don't want that to ever exclude gender expansive people, even if it's a word i like.'

'well, of course,' ava says, her breath warm through your t-shirt. 'you're you; you're the best there is.'

'i don't know about that.'

'nah, it's true. i do know. i'm the beatrice expert. god says so too, direct message. hotter jesus, remember?'

you do laugh, this time, and rub comfortingly up and down her spine, still your hand over the faint, warm hum of the halo. 'no matter what pronouns you use, or what name feels right, or what your gender expression is, i love you. i'm queer, which is expansive and abundant.' you have to swallow because, maybe for the first time ever, you believe the words wholeheartedly. your friends and your therapist and books and music and shows that you love have said them; you have said them, before, but not quite like this. the grace you want to give to ava is far beyond the grace you have ever allowed of yourself. 'queerness is infinite. and so is my love for you.'

ava sniffles and then wipes her nose with the back of her hand, props herself up on an elbow and kisses you. 'the same goes for you, you know that, right?'

'yes,' you say. 'i — i hold it close, often.'

she pauses, holds your jaw in her palm, and then kisses you. you kiss her back, with your eyes closed, with tears pressing at them that won't fall, not this time.

ava doesn't hesitate a few days later when she introduces herself to a few of your friends and says that they can use any pronouns; she tries on one of your binders one afternoon and then frowns and laughs and says, god, i love my boobs but then quietly makes sure to massage your shoulders every evening after that. she tries on any clothes she wants, picks out a suit one day that she whistles at when she sees herself in the mirror, and then laughs. there's quiet nights and loud brunches and your friends who consistently use different pronouns for ava without batting an eye, and it makes her smile even as she dumps salsa that will be way too hot on her chilaquiles and then has to eat them trying to hide a grimace. you don't know how to have that much freedom, not yet, but ava holds your hand and leads you along, always.

you're figuring it out, the loosening of limits you'd set so tight within yourself; ava's figuring it out too: how to be, and how to become when, of course, there's still cruelty — but there's infinite abundance too. you turn back to the documentary — all the fungi that weaves its ways in and out of the world, for longer than you can imagine. all the fish in the sea; all the stars in the sky — a steadfastness and a wonder and a joy, to exist beyond. to become.

[the-delta-quadrant]

i hate what mspec gay discourse did to our community.

we have shitty REGs claiming that mspecness cannot and does not overlap with lesbianism and veldianism, which is obviously shifty.

but then we have the other side completely overcorrecting this myth and going to the other extreme, saying stuff like "being mspec is inherently lesbian/veldian".

and like, can we not do either?

can we just go back to 5 years ago where it was clear that you don't just call a random mspec person lesbian or veldian or gay without knowing they use those terms, but if an mspec person chooses to use those terms it's fine?

exclusionists trying to take away any nuance from mspec identity doesn't mean that inclusive people have to do the same thing but as the other extreme.

all the shared history between mspecs and mono gays doesn't mean that those will be inherently our identities.

there are so many mspecs who simply identify as bi or pan or omni or something else and specifically do not call themselves gay, lesbian, veldian or similar terms. there used to be a consensus that just labelling all mspec people as some kind of gay is mspec erasure and that hasn't changed.

also, "being mspec is inherently lesbian/veldian" does not go together with so many nonbinary people. call me a lesbian and you're misgendering me. call me a veldian and you're misgendering me.

not only does this weird overcorrection statement erase mspec people but it puts nonbinary people into a binary again.

just because historically there were mspec nonbinary people who were included in and identified with lesbianism and veldianism doesn't mean that every single mspec nonbinary person identifies that way. just because there are mspec nonbinary people who also identify as lesbian or veldian now doesn't mean that all mspec nonbinary people identify that way.

you all love to say that someone else's identify doesn't affect other people and yet use mspec gays as some sort of template and apply it to all mspecs, including those who very much do not identify that way.

to say that all mspecness is inherently lesbian/veldian is to say that i'm somehow inherently male/female. which is not it. i don't subscribe to this bullshit idea that we all have masculine and feminine parts or whatever. that goes against the very nature of my gender.

mspec people deserve more nuance. we're allowed to identify as gay. we're allowed to not identify as gay. we're allowed to not identify as gay but identify with the gay community. we're allowed to call our relationships gay but not our orientations. some mspec people consider themselves to be gay in all directions. others consider themselves straight in all directions. others just use an mspec label and don't define it further. we deserve nuance, and neither "mspecsness is never gay" nor "mspecness is always gay" are true.

mspec liberation will not be brought upon us by gatekeeping labels from us or forcing them onto us.

[carlyraejepsans]

So I'm about to ask something that might be personal ? And it deals with some personal baggage that you as someone on the internet might not be interested in hearing about ^^' so you might not want to talk about it as is your right obv !! So uh feel free to tell me to fuck off, but, how did you know you weren't cis?

Ya see, I've been questioning my gender for a while now, and I can't really come up with an answer. I'm a lesbian, that's a pretty big part of my identity, I'm not overly feminine but not masc either, when people refer to me as female I feel super uncomfortable, but I ain't too bothered by some of my body parts, ive daydreamed about switching to they/them pronouns online or masculine pronouns in my native language.... But all of that wouldn't fit with what people might expect of me ? And I'm scared if I actually went through those changes people might think I'm performing a form of queerness I shouldn't be privy to. And the worst part about this is, most of my friends are queer, non binary, trans... Wouldn't they think I'm trying to copy them ? Even though ive had those thoughts long before we met ?

Kinda feel like I'm stuck, and I don't know how to be myself, because myself might not align with how i act or how i seem to be on the outside. idk if you feel the same, but it's especially shitty living in a country with a heavily gendered language you can't escape adjectives forever lmaooo

listen to me. i am holding your face in my hands. nothing and i mean nothing you decide in regards to your gender and/or sexuality will ever be anyone's business but your own. the idea that you can "appropriate" someone else's experience with queerness is a gross bastardization of the discussion on CULTURAL appropriation, which is a false analogy and can devolve into gender essentialism fast.

you have no idea how many trans people (gay people too, but especially trans people) locked themselves in the closet because of that same feeling. of "not beeing privy to those experiences", especially for trans women. i promise, as long as you stop at establishing what a certain label means TO YOU and don't try to decide what it means for other people, then you will never hurt anyone. anyone who says otherwise is a cop.

there are trans men out there who lived as cis lesbians for a very long time, and because that was such a big part of their life, they still think of themselves as such, at least in part. for some it's out of kinship. for some it's out of genuine attachment to the word. same thing with gay men who grew on to become trans women. and trans people in general who still carry their younger selves right by their heart. genderqueers who ended up being cis after all, but who still feel like that period of exploration was crucial in shaping their identity. butch and femme alone, while particularly dear as lesbian identities, encompass all genders and sexualities. wanna know something funny? i throw terms around a lot in english, but if you asked me in italian what my gender identity is, i would say "bisexual". because almost every person in my life who's ever called me bisexual actually meant "nonbinary", or "whatever weird thing those transgendereds got going on lately" (some of them probably meant intersex as well, which just for the record i am not. as far as i know, at least). is it an outdated definition? sure. but unlike the literal italian word for nonbinary, bisexual is actually a neutral noun lol. and after all, my experience with gender does inform my sexuality, just as my sexuality informs my experience with gender. it's not wrong, technically. but if someone somehow assumes I'm a lesbian (which happens a lot lol) i don't usually correct them i just... go with it too, y'know?

anyway, what it sounds like to me is that you're obviously going through a period of questioning your gender and or presentation, which you took notice of, but you also feel some kind of peer pressure or societal expectation from other queer people that is denying you a safe, healthy form of self expression in this new period of your life that you obviously wish for yourself. please, try not to pay it too much mind. try out whatever label or description calls to you. change it without notice if you find something better. and if anyone gives you trouble for it, eat them. good luck buddy.

[mayonnaise-sock]

Does Kenny ever realize he is some sort of nonbinary (gender fluid, non binary, trans, idk whichever) or does he continue to be a boy magical girl 100%. Also does the rat ever broaden his horizons or does he just stay as ugly on the inside as he is on the outside?

I don’t think that much about kenny’s gender, to me he seems somewhere between a cross dresser and genderfluid, but he doesn’t seem like the sort of person to care about it much? If that makes sense? He just seems super comfortable in his gender, whatever that is, so i think i’ll just leave it up to reader interpretation, because like, maybe i’m totally wrong here, but i feel like it wouldn’t change much if he were to be trans or genderfluid or nb, agender, genderqueer, cis or anything else, because regardless he’s still happy to wear a skirt, still walking around in that parka, etc etc. I just think it’s more fun for kenny’s gender to be up to the readers. Since i doubt it would impact the story all that much.

Butters on the other hand

Kenny being a magical girl has a direct impact on butters gender and i hope i do marjorine justice. I unfortunately am actually a very bad judge of what plots are good and what aren’t, so i could be writing the worst egg cracking ever and i’d have no idea :(

The rat is uhh… at still figurinh the plot out, and i only have so much planned but i don’t really see mevvi getting better. He’s pretty stubborn, like an old person. Which he is, he’s kinda old. Not like dawn-of-time-old, but he’s old. maybe i should make a post on mascot lore.

Tldr: kenny’s gender is up to you, i hope i do marjorine justice, and mevvi sucks for life.

[rin-tezuka]

i would personally say that the erasure of language for a-spec and nonbinary people is a real problem. granted that's not an excuse for brainrotting transmisogyny, but unlike """"transandrophobia""" aphobia and exorsexism are in fact real, you know? i don't know if I'm being very clear and I don't want to be a jerk in anyone's inbox just because i disagree with an offhand comment, but I was left thinking this basically. for every aromantic TME theyfab or whatever there's a TMA nonbinary aromantic transfem equivalent, and they have less institutionally vested interest in appearing the "most oppressed" to declare themselves ontologically privilegeless the way TME people often use other positionalities as a cudgel against transfems. but for that person, the erasure of aromanticism as a real possibility for humans to be that's equally healthy and important and not a mental illness to be fixed is a real problem. the fact that aromanticism is something to be mocked and dismissed both in and out of "queer" spaces is a real problem. That allo people who are queer some other way still benefit from the social legitimacy of getting into relationships and get to mock and dismiss aphobia as a problem while they fight to receive more social and legal capital for being in relationships is a real problem. binary people putting all gender oppression in binary terms (correctly) without accounting for the fact that you get shit on harder for being nonbinary because there is no framework for your gender so much as existing and that binary people have trouble even conceptualizing of enben as people who are in front of them and not abstract stragglers is a real issue even if TMEs use it to cry and wail and piss their pants over being called TME. you're nonbinary (referencing your bio), so maybe saying that is pointless, but I see even other nonbinary people forgetting exorsexism is a real axis of gender oppression and not an accidental attachment to oppositional sexism sometimes. and this isn't a thought exercise to guilt trip a stranger with to me, this is a real person, someone I know personally. and maybe someone making "just call me a slur" jokes at a-spec terms isn't quite a "real problem" compared to that, but it doesn't reflect well on your supposed "community"'s ability to take the power they wield over you and the capacity to hurt you with it seriously if they're rolling their eyes at you for merely having words to say it with, does it? I guess the point of this is just that I wish people would articulate their grievances with the "everyone welcome except transfems" culture without shitting on aspec people. Oppression based on aromanticism or asexuality is a real thing I experience and a lot of my friends experience, mockery of any aspec words and experiences whatsoever both from straight people and queer people is a thing that happens a lot, and it doesn't become funny to point and laugh at the sentiment that it's rude and gross and aphobic of some people to equate our words to slurs or assimilationist nonsense just because that person who said it is also a transmisogynistic bigot.

sorry for writing an essay. It's just something I'd like to stop seeing from the people whose posts i like, since I have to see it everywhere else in my life anyway. I really want to say that I'm not trying to crucify you or judge you by a statement on the internet or anything! It's Only A Blog and all that. I guess this is just to say that I personally dislike the conflation of discussions of aphobia and exorsexism as "fake problems" like "transandrophobia" for TME people to cover their asses when they are very much real things. that's it. have a nice day! :3

I mean don't get me wrong i don't really disagree. I kinda just think concerns about stuff like making jokes about QPPs (a term i haven't heard for like 8 years) is hollow coming from somebody who hates trans women, yknow?

[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

[fleapit]

“No one is saying gender is a choice”

https://www.tumblr.com/genderkoolaid/752910129568055297/we-should-start-having-the-gender-talk-with-our

They quite literally are. Though. As well as identities, treating as them as if they’re just toppings you pick and choose rather than descriptors that have minimal criteria. Calling yourself ftm because you “like the label” and being ftm bc you have sex dysphoria and wish to/try to/are transitioning to a more male body are two incredibly different things, you don’t “choose your gender” you simply are a gender, and the “progressive trans people” (ie people co-opting this for whatever reason, to feel special mainly) pushing this idea are fucking over actual trans people to a fucking giant degree.

dude im going to be so honest with you, youve been in and out of my inbox for three days and it's kind of weird that you keep refreshing my blog to send me asks about this still. that is NOT what the post you linked is talking about and you need to work on your reading comprehension. that post is talking about how we should make it EASIER FOR KIDS TO COME OUT AS TRANS because gender identity is fluid and is something that they can change, which a transphobic society tells them is impossible. fuck, dude.

literally nobody is saying that being trans is a choice. but fucking honestly man, even if it was, why do you care? it doesnt affect you. i mean this in the nicest way possible but if someone does/doesnt experience dysphoria, how they identify, what their personal feelings are on THEIR presentation and their gender? that's just none of your business! and you don't get to go around demanding to know every little bit of someones traumatic experience- or lack there of- to decide if they're 'trans enough' or not.

nobody is pretending to be trans to feel special dude. thats right wing propaganda bullshit that you've fallen for. you just dont know their life and you are not the fucking authority on it. your experience will never ever be 1:1 with someone else and you can't decide that yours is the superior one to have. you don't get to decide that someone isn't trans just because their identity doesn't make sense to you. fucking grow up.

someone else's joy is not obliterating yours. it's not a random trans person on the internet's fault that you have dysphoria. stop blaming other people for your problems when they're struggling just as much as you. you aren't entitled to the details. move on with your life and MAKE YOURSELF HAPPY instead of trying to make OTHERS just as miserable as you are, because no matter how much complaining you do, someone isn't going to just STOP being multigender or STOP being a trans man and a woman or STOP being nonbinary just because YOU DECIDED it wasn't real and they were 'faking for attention'

honestly. we're all just trying to pay our fucking bills. it doesn't fucking matter to the people trying to murder us if you're a binary trans man good perfect ideal tranny who passes 100% or a multigender fagdyke they/its 'pick-me attention seeker' - THERE ARE NO GOOD QUEERS IN THEIR EYES, AND THEY WANT US DEAD. i think that takes priority.

just mind your fucking business and you'll find yourself a lot fucking happier. good lord.

[house-bound]

Once I saw someone saying that bigender Sollux was too on the nose and like that stuck out to me because you could say literally everything about Sollux is on the nose.

Sollux’s entire thing is duality, his two colored shades, his interest in coding is because binary, when he becomes half dead half alive, his interest in Aradia and Feferi are both extremes in the hemospectrum and are themed around Death and Life, on one of the flashes he has a brief crush on Gamzee, the pacific guy who just snapped and now switches between lower and upper case, Gamzee who btw is a capricorn, between aquatic and terrestrial life.

He has two dreamselves for fucks sake, that is never explained, his actual sign is derse even though he is in both moons, that is an thing that only happens to him and the one other goldblood, because their entire thing is duality.

My point is why would you argue that headcanoning him as bigender is too on the nose as if that has been a objection for literally anything else for his character? How is him being bigender different from other traits for his character being decided to match his theme?

That is how the trolls work, a lot of things about them like their hobbies and jobs (Terezi collecting Scales and being dragon themed, Kanaya being themed around Mother Mary, named Maryam, being forced into a “mom friend” role) as well as their goals and traits (Again Kanaya’s desire to “mother” the entire troll species by securing the matriorb) follows whatever the trolls theme is.

Using Kanaya as an example again, her constellation is usually presented as a woman, just chilling on the sky, and Kanaya is a woman, so her gender matches her sign, would that be considered too on the nose and forced like how Bigender Sollux apparently is?

Eridan being a man might also be “on the nose” since the Aquarius constellation is a male water carrier, Pisces is Aphrodite turned into a fish, who is a woman, Capricorn is Diyonisus turned into a sea goat, therefore is Feferi being a woman, Eridan and Gamzee being men are all too on the nose aren’t they? Should we start disregarding any headcanon that makes Feferi a woman, Eridan a man and Gamzee a man? Maybe! Since apparently that is on the nose, which very little things in Homestuck are, so we should keep those as far from the nose as possible.

Let’s take all of our gender headcanons and keep them as far from this universal entity known as “THE NOSE” as possible! Since that is a parameter that is worth using at all for things in homestuck, but only things related to gender, let’s just make Gamzee a woman so it’s not a direct reference to the gender of her star sign, because if a character trait of a homestuck troll is related to their respective star sign than it is bad writing! If anything about homestuck is anywhere near the facility of a single organ used for breathing and perceiving smells than it is bad.

So yeah I just wanted to be annoying about this because since when is something being too close the respiratory receptor a reason for us to avoid it. Are things like Karkat having a crab dad also on the olfactory orifices? Should we rewrite the entirety of Homestuck as to avoid things being there? Should we just remake Karkat’s dad into a horse since that is distant enough from his theme that it is no longer predictable or corny or whatever? Or are things too on the nose only when they are trans headcanons? Is that where we cross the line? When trans and nonbinary people dare to exist?