gender-queeries

[gender-queeries]

”Oh if we didn’t have xenogenders/GNC trans people/neopronouns/MOGAI/etc etc etc then transphobes would respect us.” Untrue. Most transphobes are so insanely vitriolic that you could be the most standard, decent, agreeable trans person, and they would still hate you.

I’m a fairly basic trans man, online and off. I tone my gender down even more for work. I have short hair, facial hair, I wear pretty standard non-fitted pants and t shirts with some manner of compressive undergarment underneath, and I go by my fairly basic, common masc name. The only difference between me and my cis coworkers is that I openly engage in good-faith discussions about my being transgender when brought up, and I have a “he/him” pronoun pin I like to wear.

I have one coworker who I’m well aware has never gendered me correctly. I have assumed it was an intentional, bad-faith decision (because of other, unrelated-to-me conversations he has had with coworkers), but I’ve never really cared enough to bring it up to him. I figured, “if this is intentional, that’s his issue. I’m not interested in trying to change his mind.” I’ve reached a point in my transition to where I don’t really care that much if some random person doesn’t respect me or my gender, because I don’t need every stranger’s approval to be happy with myself.

With all that being said, I’ve treated him the same as I have every other coworker. I’ve been civil, I’ve been agreeable, I’ve still been friendly to him and haven’t gone around the workplace intending to smear his name. (Yes, I have discussed his behavior to those close to me who have asked, but I’ve kept it very private and said that as long as he doesn’t say anything outwardly malicious, I don’t really care about his behavior.) He has been outwardly friendly to me, too, telling me about his past careers, showing me pictures of his family, we’ve talked about our hobbies and other things we enjoy.

Still, after all of this, he has given up the ghost and decided to gossip about me negatively to coworkers. I won’t go into detail about what I’ve been told he said, but it was all explicitly transphobic and pretty aggressive. I’ve never gone out of my way to make him mad, relating to my gender or not, so it’s a little out of nowhere. I’m not particularly surprised by this, but I’m more surprised that he would be bold enough to say everything out loud when working for a company that has explicit protections for trans people in place. He was reported fairly quickly, without me ever knowing what occurred. The only reason I found out about everything is because I overheard a manager discussing it with a concerned coworker from my department.

So, if you take anything away from this, let it be that no amount of friendliness, gender-conformity, or civilness with stop a transphobe from taking their transphobia out on you, and it’s not your fault or any other trans person’s fault. Don’t victim blame trans people who become the subject of someone’s transphobic hate, because a transphobe is dedicated to harming trans people regardless of whether they blend in with cis people or not. Don’t use a transphobe’s needlessly malicious behavior as a reason to harass other trans, GNC, nonbinary, or otherwise gender diverse people.

[gender-queeries]

I love you he/him lesbians

I love you she/her gays

I love you "weird kids" with split dyed black and pink hair and they/it/bun in their bio

I love you boys in skirts and dresses and corsets who are still cis

I love you trans girls who love their masculine features and don't change how masculine or feminine they present

I love you trans boys who still love being feminine and hope you land the best suckerpunch on anyone who says "but isn't that just being a girl"

I love you gays who kiss their boyfriends and girlfriends and partners and joyfriends and all kinds of significant others in the hallways to flaunt that they're not straight

I love you people who wear flags and rainbows to shove your gayness or transness in people's faces

I love you straight guys who love makeup but can't wear it around your friends

I love you people who coin obscure genders and use only neo/xenopronouns(seriously y'all are so cool and I wish i could design flags half as cool as yours)

I love you all aromantic/asexual people

I love you all the people that the lgbtq+ community chooses to outcast to appease the world which would destroy us all

I hate you lgbtq+ community members who choose to attack those who are on your team in an effort to seem "normal"

[gender-queeries]

trans butch lesbians i love you. transfem, transmasc, transneutral, non-binary, gnc, genderqueer, genderfluid, multigender, agender, whatever kind of trans you are, i love you. your butchness is radiant and powerful and you are an inspiration and to be loved by you is a gift

[gender-queeries]

there is no "correct" way to be trans. there are no rules or guidelines. the way my transness affects me has nothing to do with how your transness affects you, or about how your neighbor's affects them, and so on. you can define YOUR trans experience, but you can't define someone elses. someone else's transition will always look different than yours. Every trans person realizes they're trans at a completely different age.

other people will come out at different times, experiment with presentation, clothes, hair, pronouns and names differently, misgendering will affect you differently than it will someone else, you will have a different experience with HRT or medical transition than myself or anyone else you know. there are as many ways to be trans are there are trans people on this earth. you cannot tell another person "how" to be trans or whether or not they are trans.

[gender-queeries]

“well i don’t think it’s the right choice for me and it makes me nervous!!!! and that’s why i should be allowed to describe bottom surgery as barbaric and dangerous!!!!!”

grow up. seriously. grow up. you are not the center of the universe. and i am tired of encountering other trans people who try to push dangerous misinformation about bottom surgery then immediately fall back on “i’m just saying i personally don’t want it i’m allowed to say i don’t want it!!!!!” when they get called on their transphobic shit. i have absolutely fucking had it. this is no longer just resisting transmedicalism, this is embracing and furthering transphobic rhetoric that’s literally becoming codified into law.

[gender-queeries]

A transgender person peed in this bathroom and "nothing bad happened, we are not monsters we are Human Beings. Transphobia kills, RIP Brianna Ghey"

Seen in a public bathroom in Edinburgh, Scotland

[gender-queeries]

okay i love strange æons as much as the next tumblr user but i cannot emphasize how much i do not want to hear a cis person’s opinion on mogai genders. i’m sick of cis people inserting themselves into issues that do not, and should not, concern them

#the video could be positive but that’s not the point #even if the tone of the video is supportive towards mogai folk the comment section could be a breeding ground (1/2) #for ‘debates’ about our rights to identify the way we do #i dont want to see a cis person talking about us and i dont want them to possibly create an environment that could breed transphobia #it’s fucking pride month. and trans people are already being attacked all over the world enough. #mogai community #strange æons

[gender-queeries]

happy tdov give every multigender person you see money. the fuckier the gender the more they get

#I’M GONNA BE RICH

[gender-queeries]

the only identity you personally get a say in is your own, and that's it. assuming you know others experiences better than they do is an asshole thing to do, full stop. i don't care if you think they're misusing their labels, because how they are using them is not your business in the first place.

[gender-queeries]

Okay yes you reblogged a post about a boyfriend being a girl but are you like actually normal about multigender people especially about multigender lesbians and gay dudes

[gender-queeries]

everyone on this site like "we LOVE weird genders give me weird genders I love boydykes and girlfags" and then a transfem person with a beard will call herself a lesbian. or a bigender person will identify with being gay in both directions. or a gay man calls his partner his wife. or a butch lesbian connects too closely to manhood for your comfort (or a butch exists, in general). or someone just has a weird and contradictory relationship between their gender, sexuality, and sex in a way that you don't understand

and then you all shit bricks and start sobbing and wailing.

[gender-queeries]

reminder: you can’t meaningfully separate gnc people as a group from trans people as a group because they aren’t totally separate categories.

there are genderqueer people that ride the line between cis and trans labels. there are people who Only identify as genderqueer and will not (and Should Not Be Expected To) elaborate. there are gnc people who identify with the label they were assigned at birth who have a medical component to their gnc presentation, who take hormones or have surgeries that help them present outside of the conventions of their identity. there are intersex people who have traits that people don’t conventionally associate with their gender regardless of how they personally present, there are intersex people who are cis and gnc, there are intersex people who are trans and gnc.

there are trans gnc people. trans people who are gnc before, during, and after their transition. trans gnc people who never transition. trans gnc people who Want to be visibly trans. trans gnc people who aren’t binary and medically transition outside of that binary. there are people who are genderfluid and bigender/multigender in ways that Aren’t easy for people to categorize and file away. people who identify with Both their agab and Something Else, people who identify as both men and women.

and, Shock And Horror, there are cis gnc people who will be interpreted as trans on the street, and insisting that they’re Actually cis people will not inherently deter potential violence pointed at them. and, you know, That’s Something That We Should Acknowledge And Care About.

acknowledging and caring about these things Does Not detract from trans people who are not gnc or position being gnc as “more important” than being trans, but Making It a competition Does alienate the people who share experiences between these groups, regardless of the how or why or where those experiences come from.

stone butches Do share experiences with trans men, some stone butches Are trans men, and some stone butches are trans Women. acknowledging this fact and thinking through the implications and opening the conversation to talk about those experiences Broadens the conversation around gender and presentation as a whole. it’s not a Threat, it’s a perspective

[gender-queeries]

This is a topic I have admittedly not seen discussed as much as it should be within trans spaces, but I feel like it's an important one to bring up in regards to the topic of transunity.

Transunitism requires that discussions around trans issues of all types be explicitly inclusive of trans and non-binary people who aren't men, masculine, women, or feminine in regards to their gender in any way. Often in trans discussions, you will see a variety of issues end up being (intentionally or unintentionally) made binary and split between the category of "trans man vs trans women issues" or more recently, "transmasc vs transfem issues" (which erases how wide and varied these experiences are, often just assuming all transmascs are men and all transfems are women to some degree, but that's a discussion for a different time). Here are two examples of what I mean by this:

1) When discussing trans oppression in transunitist spaces, there is often a trend of splitting up oppression as follows: transphobia, transmisogyny, transandrophobia. Sometimes exorsexism will be discussed, but exorsexism is often seen as just an extension of transphobia/transmisogyny/transandrophobia as opposed to its own form of oppression. AMAB people experience transmisogyny and that's the main type of transphobic violence they experience (regardless of their gender or connection to womanhood/feminity as a gender or feminine presentation), AFAB people experience transandrophobia and that's the main type of transphobic violence they experience (regardless of their gender or connection to manhood/masculinity as a gender or presentation).

While people who aren't men/women or transmasc/transfem can and do face transandrophobia/transmisogyny (which is also a topic that is unfortunatly under discussed), ignoring exorsexism as a factor in trans oppression unwillingly makes the experiences of non-binary people who fall out of these genders essentially binary. Discussion of how exorsexism manifests beyond the connection to transmisogony and transandrophobia is vital.

Some examples: How does oppression towards agender people manifest; in western society you are expected to be seen as either a man or a woman, being nothing is seen as impossible so gender is forced upon them. Androgynous, neutral, and multigender people are often forced to pick a side as their complicate experiences with inbetween, neutral, and multiple genders don't fit the binary of being solely a man or a woman. How about those with genders that fall outside of these categories? People under the atrinary unbrella, such as those who are xenogender and outherine are often directly punished or seen as mentally ill for having an identity that falls outside of masculine, feminine, inbetween, genderless, or neutral. People with neurogenders are stigmatized for daring to state that tier neurology affects how they perceive gender. People with cultural/non-western genders are punished for falling outside western gender norms which also intersects with racism and intolerance for religious minority groups.

Transmisogyny and transandrophobia are important axises of oppression that need further discussion and visibility, however they aren't the only forms of bigotry that the community faces, with this framework often excluding non-binary people and people's who's gender falls outside of western concepts.

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2) The way that transition, whether it be social or medical, is discussed also tends to be binary and exclusive of those that do not identify as trans men, trans women, transmasc or transfem. Non-binary people outside of these categories can and do often present themselves or transition in ways that would be considered masculine or feminine without identifying with these gender identities themselves. However, testosterone and estrogen HRT are often labeled as "transmasc/transfem" transition by those within the community. Surgeries such as double mastectomies and vaginoplasty are also often labeled as "transmasc/transfem" surgeries.

Presentation does not equate to gender, this is something that the trans community is very much aware of. However this often seems to fly out the window when discussing surgery and HRT. Somebody who is agender could go testosterone, get bottom and top surgery, and look like a cis man while still not being a trans man or transmasculine. Somebody who's maverique could go on estrogen and anti androgens, get top and bottom surgery, and still be maverique as opposed to being a trans women or transfeminine. Non-binary people who aren't transmasculine or transfeminine are often assumed to never physically or medically transition in any meaningful way (alas, one of the many reasons that terms like theyfab/theymab exist to further isolate non-binary people from the community and paint them as invaders of spaces they belong in). If they do transition medically, they must be transmasculine or transfeminine.

This binarizarion inevitably lumps non-binary people into the category of "binary trans lite" or "spicy cis invaders in trans spaces". This leads to erasure of the experiences of non-binary people who do get surgery or those who do go on HRT while often also being exclusive of the experiences of intersex people. For example, I have often seen discussions of shaming of penises and vulvas in trans spaces discussed as follows:

"Shaming penis sizes hurts AMAB people, trans men, and transmasculine people"

This ignores AMAB people who have had bottom surgery, excludes intersex people (regardless of AGAB or lack of one) who have penises or refer to their genitals as a penis, and is also exclusive of AFAB non-binary people who have had bottom surgery or have t-dicks.

"Shaming the way vulvas look and acting like they're gross hurts AFAB people, trans women, and transfems"

This ignores AFAB people who have had bottom surgery, excludes intersex people (regardless of AGAB or lack of one) who have vulvas or refer to their genitals as such, and is also exclusive of AMAB non-binary people who have had bottom surgery.

This lack of knowledge and exclusion of non-binary people's transition experiences also inevitably leaves a lot of medical transition experiences that could help the entire community being less well known, such as microdosing HRT, and surgeries such as penis preserving vaginoplasty, phalloplasty without vaginectomy, and nullification.

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These are just two examples that come to mind in regards to the erasure of experiences that fall out of the trans man/trans woman and transmasc/transfem binary. With there being many more examples of said unintentional exclusion. Transunitism requires a wide variety of perspectives from different experiences, and to start including these perspectives, the experiences of all different types of genders must be included within the transunitist framework.

-Prisma

#trans issues #trans unity

[gender-queeries]

i've made a pronoun page for myself again, and some stuff has changed quite a bit, so please check it out!! it's linked in my pinned post :)

[gender-queeries]

nobody, i repeat, nobody has any say on your identity and labels but you! you dont need to ask anyone for permission, and certainly dont let anyone try to make the decision for you!

"can i use this label if i-" yes! if you think the label describes you and your experiences for any reasons, use it!

labels are not boxes to organize ourselves into neat groups. theyre for expressing our lived experiences! to represent our communities and feelings!

we are not prescribed our labels if we check off certain boxes, we choose them based on what we want to share about ourselves and our lives! they can be as specific, vague, close-enough, unspecified, or anything else as we want them to!

language isnt static. we create language to best express ourselves, and can mold it into any form as we please, or scrap it and create something new to better fit us.

#radical inclusion

[gender-queeries]

From @nicothepoet

[gender-queeries]

Give Us Roses While We’re Still Here Transgender Day of Remembrance // Nov. 20th

This is just a poster I made the other day. I love all of my trans family, and I hope you take the day for remembrance & self care. 

#trans day of remembrance