#binarism cw

[the-meat-machine]

how do you think caliborn would react to trans people? like, i could see him going either way, although i think the idea of someone being mtf would absolutely fucking baffle him. but, like, otherwise im pretty torn on him.

(Content warning for transphobia, misogyny, and binarism.)

So, just to address this right off the bat - I don't think Caliborn would be a bioessentialist. He has less than zero understanding of human anatomy. The idea that gender is in any way connected to what someone has in their pants would be bizarre and alien to him.

That doesn't mean Caliborn wouldn't have incredibly shitty attitudes towards trans people. They'd just be shitty in really weird ways.

The good(?) news is that I think he would approve of trans men. (Whether we want his approval is a different story, however.) Trans men have made the only correct choice with regards to gender and he hopes they get strong and grow lots of manly muscles.

Meanwhile, learning that trans men exist accomplishes the heretofore-thought-impossible task of making Caliborn respect women even less than he already did. You mean all along they could have chosen to be men but instead they decided to keep being women?? SO dumb.

And yeah, he'd be awful about trans women. They were strong badass males and gave it all up to become girls??????????? A literally inconceivable choice. It wouldn't occur to him to disbelieve that they're women, but frankly that only makes his contempt for them all the greater.

He has no idea what to think about anything outside of the binary. He feels that opting out of the system should be against the rules, and it is confusing and frustrating that apparently it isn't. He grudgingly respects that at least they had enough sense not to be women. Except, they could have chosen to be men like the trans men did, right? So what gives. Why didn't they do that. Stupid.

So yeah, that's my interpretation. Basically Caliborn is awful. Sorry.

#transphobia cw #misogyny cw #binarism cw #this question sparked me writing up a whole bunch of thoughts on cherub sex and gender #but i cut it all out of this post because it was getting way too off-topic #gonna have to make it into a separate post i guess #also! obviously all of this is just my interpretation. i can imagine other takes on this that would work just as well #like maybe caliborn respects the decision to take control of your own destiny #even if the destiny you want is really stupid and makes no sense #(p.s. caliborn is sooooo fucking trans. he just doesn't realize it because he understands jack shit about both cherubs AND humans) #(i will elaborate further at some point. no one could shut me up about this subject if they tried.)

[fuzedatti]

IX. Infertile

───── ❝ 𝐀𝐧 𝐒𝐂𝐏 𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐞 ❞ ─────

Masterlist

CW ; suggestive

──────────────────

—See this part here? It is called the frontal lobe, it is in charge of voluntary movement.

The older man had a severed head in his hands, the fresh and recently dissected brain was arranged by parts on the metal table.

—The Pestilence must be there, if they don't move they are cured.– Said the little doctor pinching the pink tissue.

—Wrong, the Pestilence is human mortality, they are cured by not dying, that is what we are looking for.

With a scalpel, he cut the area to continue inspecting it closely. The patient suffered from intense mood swings, this was caused by abnormalities on the tissue, resulting in sudden errarthic behaviors in the person. He let the minor get closer to make an incision for himself, surprisingly he was able to do it without any problem, he showed that he was capable of being a doctor just like him, he just needed to change his technique.

—Fascinating, SCP-049-J, maybe you have talent after all.

—My name is Junior dear mother.

—For the last time I'm not-

—Hello family!– The mask entered the house with great encouragement and joy. Leaving his hat on the rack next to his briefcase, he went straight to Louis to kiss him with great love and hold his "son" and turn to the invisible camera. —I love my life.–

—You haven't stop acting like a fool since you adapted the personality of those characters on that strange device.

Dýo's new body belonged to a bussiness with a perfect wife and daughter. Now that they were all dead, the entities took the opportunity to usurp their home, anyway, they lived in the middle of nowhere and far from the city. The county of Pennsylvania had been their refuge for these weeks, their plan was to go to New York and camouflage until they reached Canada and settle in indefinitely. It had been a long time since they had heard about the foundation, if possible, they wanted to come to Italy to settle permanently and live as "normal" as possible.

Dýo pushed Louis aside to crouch down to Junior's level. —Hey champ, why don't you go play outside for a while? Me and your mother have to talk about adult things.–

—But I'm a doc-

—Yes, yes, I love you too son, now go away.

He kicked the little boy out. Now alone, the mask grabbed his lover by the waist, slowly pulling him closer as it whispered something in its native language. With his hand he gently removed the doctor's mask, revealing his face. Seriously, he would never get tired of seeing and adoring him. It made him weak, very weak.

—Stop calling me mother,– He muttered annoyed. —I don't like it.–

—Ow, but it does sound so beautiful on you.– He caressed the lower part of his chest, brushing his ribs.

—Meská...

That name made him stop, if he was upset. He moved his hands to his back, making circles with it.

—How many times have I begged you for forgiveness? It'll make me soft, you make me soft...– His breath felt warm on his now uncovered neck. —Forgive me, I won't do it again, you can also be his father.–

—It is enough for me.

The clothing under his cloak was scant. Just a turtleneck and simple pants of the same dark tone. It was no problem for his partner to get rid of them easily, now, with only his heeled boots on, he lay exposed to the world. And his world was his God and his God was Dýo.

—Eons have passed since I've seen you like this αγάπη μου, you're as sublime as the day we lost each other.– The words took control over his being, allowing himself to be totally manipulated by him. The thespian undressed him without taking his eyes off of him, the body had turned out to be much more resistant than the others and it still had all its functions well preserved.

It is as if they were inside a fantasy, the outside world disappeared around them, leaving them only with the melody of a violin. Human mortality was not compatible with their fusion, with the way they loved to procreate. Leaving aside binarisms or categories, it was a dance between them, between incompatibles.

The way Dýo touched his lover was romantic, leaving him in spasms. When you are loved, you love back, and you never stop loving. No matter how bizarre their bodies were, or how indecent they got, they enjoyed each other. The manhood fit perfectly inside the womb, infertile, withered.

—Let me please you, tell me what you want, my love; Tell me your desires, tell me how you feel.–

—Teach me to love, Dýo.

His hands clenched his forearm, which supported his slender legs. His sweaty forehead glistened with fury, just as his body turned reddish. He collided with his lips repeatedly, panting with excitement.

—Nic��phore, oh Nicephore... Tell me, have I been good? Have I been a good lover, a good God to you?– He groaned. —Have I made you cry, more than I have now?–

—You kept me warm in the summer, and cool in the winters. For me, it's all I need, mon seigneur et maitre.

And in a flash of inspiration, the seed was planted, where a tree will never grow but roots. Roots of union, roots of love. Both bodies embraced to never let go. Polonoí planted sweet kisses on his partner's face, letting him rest. Louis felt his eyes heavy, letting the weight of the mask take over him, he adjusted his body to let himself fall.

The floor was cold and the wood rough. For some reason, he felt bad about what he has just done just a few seconds later. He observed his hands then Dýo, who was now sitting looking at a point in nothing. His neck was sore as were his hips. He was not made for this, he was not made to endure. He ran the tips of his fingers through his pelvis, feeling a old bite mark; Other marks were on his body, on his shoulders, thighs, and chest.

Wanting to formulate words, he just let out a breath and started crying. His sobs were low, his lungs were failing to breathe properly, and more than anything, his heart was beating at abnormal rates. Louis' old body couldn't take these adrenaline-filled situations anymore, he just felt miserable, disgusting.

—What's wrong Louis?" Have I done something bad again?

—I want to rest but my legs ache and my elbows are in agony...

The entity took pity on him, taking him carefully to carry him to the bedroom. The house was small but that walk felt eternal, the silent suffering in Louis's gaze violently stabbed Dýo's consciousness. He left the afflicted body on the mattress, adorned between sheets, outlined his lugubrious figure.

—If I hurt you or was rough, tell me.

—Dýo, I promise you that you didn't do anything, on the contrary, you showed me your love...– He wasn't looking into his eyes, maybe he was lying. —It's just, I feel guilty for having done it.–

—Guilty of what? You shouldn't mourn something that has yet to be dead.

Dýo's anguished face didn't improve, somehow he felt that it was his fault but he didn't know how to avoid it. He sat on the opposite side of his lover and leaned back. For a few moments they remained silent, speaking to each other between sighs. For a few moments the plague doctor was able to sleep.

#olympus scp #scp #scp 035 x scp 049 #scp 049 x scp 035 #scp 035 #scp 049 #scp fanfiction #scp fanfic #scp 049 j

[aeide-thea]

[mostly fairly oblique bookthoughts: cw for mention of antisemitic & racist pseudoarchaeological/conspiracy theories]

hm. done with atfots. much enjoyment, some dubiousness, many thoughts.

contemplating (not even critically, just, like, thoughtfully) what constitutes a sufficient & satisfactory Plot. cf le guin on conflict, probably.

also contemplating like. tension between (1) interpersonal visions i'm glad & grateful for in a world-expanding sort of way, & (2) the way in which those visions' non-normativity does pretty directly make them not the key to the lock of my in-certain-ways-very-normative heart. (which is fine! not everything has to be for me! but to some extent my reading practice is for me, so, you know. just like. thinking thru my relationship to that aspect of the text.)

also really not sure what to do with the minor-but-recurring 'ancient telepathic underground dinosaur people' joke. like i'm not actually sufficiently up on my david icke to be sure how much it does or doesn't map onto that nastiness, and honestly i suspect it's maybe closer to von däniken in certain ways, but like. why are we splashing around in the shallows of insidious conspiracy theory land and framing it as just a funny joke it's fun to keep referencing. not real thrilled abt that aspect of the book & wondering what if any discussion there's been of it.

[…fwiw, did go back after i wrote that last graf and poke at the various mentions of the above theme in the text and like. arguably the joke is meant to be that this belief is a delusion based on certain historical truths that got lost/twisted, thus underscoring that it's Obviously Nonsense, but. idk. feels a bit to me like the book's other various coy references to ~historical~ homophobia/transphobia/binarism—like, what are you doing being cutesy about this. why are we going there at all. will we be getting anything out of this that's worth having our bruises poked like this. personally i can't say i did.]

#bookblogging

[apple-dandy]

If you won't use 'they' pronouns for someone because of grammar,

but you won't use any alternative pronouns they offer because those pronouns are 'cringy / weird,'

I'm just gonna call you as you are: transphobic, lazy, and looking for excuses.

#simple #transphobia #transphobia mention #transphobia cw #binarism

[enbygems]

the first person who can tell me why not asking binary trans people their pronouns is a real problem (and it actually is obviously) but deciding to not ask anyone for their pronouns ever for the comfort of binary trans people and going forward to assume a nonbinary person’s pronouns because you swore off ever asking isn’t a real problem without being transphobic wins $50k

#spoiler: its bc you dont view nb as really trans #its bc you dont care about us #transphobia #transphobia cw #enbyphobia #binarism

[becausefuckyouthatiswhy]

#video #tw homophobia #cw homophobia #ellen page #the only ellen that matters #she talks about homophobia binarism and climate change in this vid

[dragontatoes]

I really can’t believe the change I have seen in queer acceptance over the last eight or so years and I think it’s going to make me cry a little bit.

I discovered the term asexuality in late 2011, when I was 15. There was some relief in learning I wasn’t somehow defective after years of wondering why I didn’t develop sexuality with my peers. However, I knew I would spend a lot of time convincing other people of this. My closest friends and even adults in my life brushed it off as me being a late bloomer, seeking attention, or virtuously chaste. I didn’t back away from the label, though, and eventually just about all of them understood and accepted it. By the time I was 18, some heterosexual people knew what I meant the first time I explained it. Around 2016 I realized I wasn’t actually a woman, but non-binary. I was afraid to come out to anyone considering I hadn’t even understood what trans meant five years before. But the first time I told two friends of mine, they were very understanding and asked immediately what pronouns to use. When I changed my name this year, my family went on with using my birth name, but the library where I volunteer got me a new nametag and checked to be sure what my pronouns were. It was the first place I heard somebody call me Ennis out loud. At a party I went to last week, lots of old classmates addressed with a 6-month old name and they/them as though they hadn’t known me as a girl by a different name that hid behind her hair for four years. 

I couldn’t be more gracious and hopeful for what this means for the future, because I believe we will only get better at queer acceptance in years to come. I’m so happy to be alive to see it.

#long post cw #I'm rambling #i'm slightly delirious with a low fever rn #I'm actually gettin emotional about this #to be fair there's still lots of aphobia and binarism to go around but I can see it dying #I don't think binarism is the word but i don't remember rn I'm so out of my head rn

[corbinite]

all these jokes about the bottom asking the top to go slow for the first time and the top ignoring it are really creepy and honestly even rapey (the top not listening to the bottom’s boundaries and choosing to be rough despite the bottom’s wishes is a violation of consent) but alright y’all keep pretending that binary has absolutely nothing to do with unhealthy power structures when you’re treating this as normal fucking behavior from within those roles

#binarism #gay #power dynamics #rape mention #sex cw #mine #corbinite gets real #i'm not sorry

[blessedarethebinarybreakers]

call for podcast submissions from trans and/or nonbinary persons of any faith background

cw mentions of suicide, suicide ideation, and severe mental illness

Hey, all! This is a much more serious topic than I normally request submissions for, but I recently had a phenomenal conversation with a Black, Southern, genderfluid Christian about their experiences with suicide ideation and mental health for my podcast Blessed Are the Binary Breakers: A Multifaith Podcast of Transgender Stories -- and I’ve decided to make the discussion its own episode.

After all, the topic of mental illness and suicide ideation is a pressing one for those of us who are trans, nonbinary, and/or otherwise not-cisgender. I never want to talk about it without content warnings and without also emphasizing the joy and euphoria and goodness that we trans folk can and do experience and share with others -- but even so, we must address the suffering that too often comes with living in to who we are in a world so rife with cissexism, binarism, and transphobia.

So this is an invitation for anyone who:

is trans, nonbinary, or otherwise not cisgender / doesn’t fit into the Western gender binary framework;

wants to share and is in a healthy enough place to safely share their own experiences with mental illness and/or suicide ideation or even attempts on their own life;

especially if those experiences are at all related to any religious / spiritual background (including a religion you have since left)

to submit their story for an upcoming episode. 

You can submit via audio or video recording, or a written out story that I will read aloud on your behalf. 

Try to keep your submission within 8-minutes or less, if you can! (And it can be as short as 30 seconds, whatever you’ve got to say!)

What you share is completely up to you and doesn’t have to fit into the following questions, but some questions you might answer include:

What name do you want to go by (can be your real name or a pseudonym, your full name or only partial) and what are your pronouns, your age, country you live in, etc.? Do you want me to share any social media handles / websites with listeners?

What’s your mental health journey been like? What was your lowest point? What got you through that lowest point? Who has supported you? Where are you now?

Has your mental health ever been impacted by feeling like your options were severely limited (for example, feeling like suicide was one of your only options)? If so, how did you get through that?

How did faith / religion help or harm your mental health journey? 

How does your gender interact with your mental health journey for good or bad?

What resources, tips, or encouragement can you offer to listeners in similar circumstances?

The deadline is fairly set in stone because this episode will be airing by the end of February, so let’s say...

please get your submissions in by February 15, 2021 by sending them to [email protected]!

Or if your response is a text answer instead of a recording, feel free to message it to me here on tumblr or heck, even comment on this post with a short reply if you only have a short thing to say.

And if you have any questions or concerns, please let me know at that email or by private messaging me here on tumblr.

#and yeah heck even if you're cisgender if you have ideas for resources for trans folk in need #of mental health resources -- please do share them so i can boost them in the ep!! #faithfullylgbt #blessed are the binary breakers

[intersex-ionality]

A friend requested that I post this response separate from the main thread so that it can become its own discussion. Here it is in “isolation,” with minor clarifying edits.

CW: This post discusses a hypothetical person’s dysphoria and experiences with medical, physical, domestic, and sexual violence.

I want to address the claim that intersex is not a gender.

That concept--intersex being separated from all other aspects of gender theory--is very young. It is, in fact, younger than me. When I was a child, intersex was not only considered a gender, it was specifically considered a subset of transgender.

For reasons that, I hope, will become obvious by the end of this post.

You see, all of the forces that target, oppress, and harm intersex people are the same forces that target, oppress, and harm trans people. The causes and the effects are almost identical.

Let me present some examples, because human beings often learn best through pattern matching and examples.

Imagine a child is being assigned male.

This means that the child is being forced to adhere, both physically and mentally, to other people’s definitions of manhood. Society looks at the child, declares the child to be a boy, and then enforces boyness on the child.

This enforcement may be medical, and it may not. But, the enforcement will always be psychological.

There will be actions the child is forbidden from taking. Spaces the child is forbidden from entering. Expectations the child will be forced to adhere to. Toxic societal beliefs that child will be forced to internalize. All because society looked at a baby, and said, “you’re going to be a boy now, with everything that entails, with nothing outside boyhood, and you don’t get a choice.”

Imagine the child grows up feeling trapped in boyhood, forced to conform to these limitations. The child knows, on some deep level, that boyhood is wrong for them. The child even knows, in as much as a child knows things about anatomy, that something about their body doesn’t match up quite right with their identity, and becomes despondent and alienated from themself over it.

Is this child suffering because they are intersex? Or are they trans?

It doesn’t actually matter.

In both cases, the child is being constrained to boyhood, often by force, and denied anything else. Because someone, when the child was born, decided, “this baby looks like a boy, better make sure they become one.”

And because every other aspect of society followed along the same path.

Whether the child is trans or intersex doesn’t change those facts.

The only thing that changes is the details. A trans child is far less likely to have undergone infant surgery, but then, not all intersex kids undergo such surgeries either.

The underlying cause, and the resulting trauma, are the same for both the intersex and the trans child.

Let’s say our hypothetical child grows up a bit, learns about gender and sex theory, learns about dysphoria and surgery. And ultimately, decides to seek out medical treatment to achieve a body that feels more right.

Our now adult thought experiment spends years trying to find doctors who will help them.

They’re denied most therapeutic interventions because their therapists consider the alienation they feel from their body to be a type of mild delusion. They’re turned away from most clinics, because “transitioning to something outside the binary” is seen as frivolous or as faking for attention. Surgical intervention becomes less and less accessible with each denial, because now they have a mental health record that makes them “unfit” to decide healthcare issues for themself.

Again, being trans or being intersex makes no difference. The denial and the isolation are still the same. And are still caused by the same force.

A ray of hope for our thought experiment: surgery to bring a body to a state outside the sex binary becomes more possible and successful. Eventually they are able to get the necessary therapeutic letters to seek out this surgery.

And another seemingly dead end: there are so few doctors who perform these surgeries, even fewer who are covered by insurance, and none at all within a realistic traveling distance for them.

This scarcity of options, the therapeutic barriers to access, and the obscene costs associated with specialized gender and sex surgeries are also the same whether the person is intersex or trans. The sex binary doesn’t care why you want to do something different, it only cares about making sure you can’t.

But, let’s say that our thought experiment is luckier.

They have the money, the support, and the opportunity. They get their hormones and their surgeries without so much as a hiccup. There are no false starts, no failed attempts. They achieve a 100% perfect realization of their physical ideal.

Their body is visually androgynous and sexually ambiguous.

And now, they are faced with a new set of problems born from binarism. Problems that still don’t care whether they are trans or intersex.

They get sick, and their doctors blame the illness on their hormones. They get injured and their doctors blame their injuries on their surgeries.

They get attacked and their doctors blame their broken bones not on their attackers, not on blunt force trauma, but on their own “risk seeking behaviour” because of their body and the changes they’ve made to it.

They were attacked because the bastards that jumped them could see that their body was hard to gender. It doesn’t matter if the reason their body was hard to gender was because of being trans or being intersex. The outcome is the same. Violence and victim blaming.

Let’s say our thought experiment is luckier still. They’re white, wealthy, attractive, young. People don’t perceive them as a threat.

They start dating.

And a new set of problems arises. Again, the problems don’t care about the underlying motivations of their decision to have, embrace, and celebrate a body outside the binary.

Again, the problems are based simply on that body, on that divergence from the binary.

When a relationship begins to get heated, and they explain the facts of their body, partners panic and abandon them. If they don’t explain, partners panic and attack them for lying. They’re told that their body is rape, because it’s “false pretenses.” They’re told that no one will ever consent to sex with them.

This, too, happens regardless of being trans or being intersex. The cause is the same either way: a body outside the sex binary is perceived as a trick, a lie, and a scam.

Our hypothetical adult persists. Carefully navigating the minefield of sex and romance, until they finally find a partner who loves their body just as much as they do.

Or, maybe more than they do.

Or maybe it’s not love at all.

Because this new partner obsesses over their body. Begins demanding particular sex acts that they aren’t comfortable with, which emphasize how different their body is from the norm. At first, they are okay with the demands, but as things escalate, they begin shying away from these acts. They begin feeling used, and reduced to a sexual object. When they try to explain their feelings to their partner, they are ignored, or shamed, or made into a guilty party. After all, their partner just wants to celebrate their beauty, how can that be bad?

This objectification through sex also does not care if their body is the way it is because they are trans or because they are intersex.

But now they’re in a relationship, with all of the interpersonal complexities that entails.

And they know from long experience that if they leave it may take years to find another person who is interested in them romantically or sexually. What if that new relationship is just as bad as this? What if it’s worse?

So our thought experiment becomes trapped in a cycle of domestic abuse.

Abuse predicated not on being trans, or being intersex, but on being outside the sex binary.

This pattern repeats over and over. For every negative experience trans people have, there is a matching intersex experience. For every negative experience intersex people have, there is a matching trans experience.

The reason trans people are oppressed is their divergence from what society has deemed correct and appropriate within the binary.

The reason intersex people are oppressed is their divergence from what society has deemed correct and appropriate within the binary.

The cause is the same, the effects are the same. Details may vary, but no more so than details vary among, say, racial groups marginalized for their shared divergence from whiteness in different ways. No more so than individual disabilities are marginalized for their shared divergence from the abled norm. No more so than different orientations are marginalized for their divergence from straightness.

In fact, these differences in detail are significantly less pronounced than the differences in detail between trans people and LGBPQA+ people’s marginalization for their shared divergence from gender roles.

So we’re left to ask ourselves: who benefits from setting up this separation between trans and intersex people. Who benefits from getting intersex people to police trans people, and getting trans people to police intersex people, and getting us both to think of trans people and intersex people as Irreconcilably Different?

It’s not trans people. And it’s not intersex people.

But the sex and gender binary?

All of a sudden, a group that presents a real and present danger to it, and to the class systems it upholds, is fractured. Is fighting itself rather than overturning the oppressive force.

Trying to inflict hard boundaries between trans and intersex people just serves to dis-empower trans people, dis-empower intersex people, turn us against each other, and leave those of us–like you and I–who are both trans and intersex, stuck trying to figure out which parts of ourselves to embrace and which part to ignore in any given situation.

It doesn’t benefit us in any way.

But it sure benefits the people and systems hurting us.

TL;DR: any system that targets and harms intersex people also targets and harms trans people. Usually in the same ways. There are differences in the details, but the causes and effects are both the same for intersex and transgender marginalization. The only people who benefit from intersex and trans people ignoring our commonalities and policing each other, are the people who want to divide and conquer us so that the sex and gender binary continues to be upheld.

#Intersex #actuallyintersex #gender #trans #queer #identity politics #intersectionality #overlapping identities #My Words #tme

[nonbinarywiki]

Hiya, how do I explain to someone that nonbinary people are real? He doesn't even believe in binary trans people, but he's not someone I can stop talking to or get away from. He's always very... disrespectful(?) when talking about nonbinary people, and it's really getting to me now that we're roleplaying with a group of characters that are all nonbinary(aliens). He refuses to even try using they/them pronouns for them, which really bothers me. Any advice..?

Hey! (To anyone else reading this, CW: discussion of binarism/transphobia) I'm so sorry you have to be around that person, he's being a dick, but I'm guessing that if you can't get away from him you're family or close in another sense, in which case he probably cares about you and should want to listen to what you have to say- and if he doesn't then he's even worse then I thought, and I'm doubly sorry you're in that position.

I find the best thing is just calmly + logically responding to their points. If he says "there's only two genders", ask him what makes someone that gender. If he says whatever transphobic nonsense about chromosomes or genitals, ask 

He's never actually checked his chromosomes, he doesn't know what they are

What about trans people who have GRS?

He'll probably say something about it being about what you're born with, in which case ha! He's admitting that mentally there's no difference between men and women, and that if he just woke up in an afab body tomorrow then he'd be a woman because ofc that's the 'only factor'. Essentially admitting everyone's nonbinary.

I know for that I sort of assumed he'd follow a certain argument, but in my experience transphobes don't have many cards up their sleeve, and most are easily debunked. I find its best to just be calm if this is a discussion that needs to happen (ofc when possible, better solution is to walk away. With anyone you can get away from, please don't feel forced to explain yourself unless you want to).

I know its easier said then done, because these discussions are emotional, but he'll probably work himself up over what you're saying so if at all possible for you to stay calm, it'd help. I'd say just.. Whenever he says something that's not ok, correct him. He's gonna get very wound up very quickly, but remind him that if he gets to express his views on the subject so can you. Eventually he might end up getting so annoyed he doesn't mention it, and what you've been telling him might even sink in!

Another alternative, once you feel comfortable he won't entirely disregard it, is sending him resources and articles online about being trans + nonbinary.

Hope some of this helped! Feel free to message again if you want anything else.

—Matte

[flusteredmountainman]

On the insidious hypocrisy of transmedicalism and colonial conditioning

I’m going to slap down a fairly long post about how transmedicalism is Fucking Bullshit today because I’ve been trying to pin down some of my thoughts and feelings for a wee while about it and I finally feel like I’m ready to articulate it.

CWs for use of the word h*mosexual (censored bc i have friends made uncomfortable by that word who ID as gay), conversion therapy, transmedicalism, colonialism, racism, transphobia, homophobia, trauma, violence mention, classism, ableism.

First off: truscum ideology makes no sense. Transmeds will preach and scream about how being trans* has nothing to do with biology; that gender is a psychological thing (which it is) but then will go on to say that if you don’t experience severe dysphoria you aren’t trans. This literally makes No Sense because if being trans has nothing to do with your biology and your physical attributes, then why should every trans person be forced to physically change their biology to fit binarist ideas of how bodies should look in relation to gender to prove themselves?

The base ideology is hypocritical at best and boot-licking/transphobic/cisnormative at worst: the idea that you have to experience (x) amount of trauma and discomfort to be trans only feeds into the cis narractive that trans people are traumatised, disturbed, othered individuals who have something “wrong” with them or that they’re “degenerate” - this conflation of being trans as being a mental illness is literally a rhetoric used by cishets dating back decades in psychology circles to treat being gay/trans/what-have-you as a sickness that can be cured. People used to be diagnosed as h*mosexual to justify putting them through conversion therapy to cure them of what was perceived as moral degeneracy. The same can be said for being trans. By pushing this rhetoric transmeds are admitting that they agree that being trans is Abnormal - that no one could ever want to be trans or be happy being trans because it’s so far removed from everything polite society considers “normal”. To support these ideas is to incite violence against your trans brothers, sisters, and siblings: it is disgusting and ignorant and smacks of internalised transphobia.

Not only that but transmedicalism as an ideology is also inherently racist! Truscum are uplifting binarism as a structure that was introduced into many societies by colonial powers that systematically erased native and indigenous identities that have always existed - by saying that these identities as well as non-binary identities (for which terms were created in response to debunking the idea that you can only be one gender or another in specifically western contexts) aren’t valid you are literally acting as a tool of colonialism. You are contributing to the cultural destruction and ongoing colonisation of indigenous cultures and identities. By supporting these ideas you are inherently saying that you support white supremacist structures of power and oppression founded not only upon race but also gender, ability, class and oppression of LGBT+ people. You are playing into white supremacy and you are actively inciting racist and pro-colonialist violence towards trans and gender diverse people of colour. 

It’s also no coincidence that it’s classist: as I mentioned before. The idea that you have to transition to be trans hinges upon the assumption that there is equal  opportunity and access for every person to transition: which many people don’t for many reasons including that it’s expensive, in my country only one surgeon can perform surgeries at all (literally inaccessible), many people can’t afford to take time off work, many people have various disabilities or illnesses that literally mean they cannot transition if they may want to: all this not even considering that some people may not want to physically transition. When we consider that combined with the institutional oppression people face for their race that means many, many people of colour are living in poverty due to their families being trapped in the poverty cycle and intergenerational trauma from colonialism, it’s no coincidence that the people impacted by this bullshit ideology the most are trans* people of colour! Plus disabled trans* people and disabled trans* people of colour! It’s disgustingly ableist, racist and classist and just reveals how these people don’t give a single shit about any trans* person who isn’t white and ablebodied.

There is already so much prejudice and oppression that trans and gender diverse people face in our society already it just doesn’t make any sense for transmeds to play the oppression olympics. Your experiences are not universal! Just because you experience extreme dysphoria doesn’t mean that people who don’t are not valid in their identity. Gender euphoria is equally important and besides gender as a construct is a fucked up concept anyway, so why are y’all sucking up so hard to the Cissies TM! Please get over yourself and examine why the hell you feel the need to pull other trans people down with you: you are a deeply sick, sad individual if you see someone else being proud of who they are and feel the need to knock them down a peg just because you’re in pain, and you aren’t above being a transphobe just because you’re trans!

All this to say that if you proudly self-ID as a transmed/truscum you can literally choke and die and you will never in any way be welcome on my blog! Same to Terfs y’all can fuck off too.

Cis people do Not add to this or I will Come for you I do Not want to hear your opnions on this: nothing you say can meaningfully contribute to this conversation so please just reblog to amplify trans* voices. 

#transphobia #racism #ableism #opinion #transmed #homophobia #it speaks #long post

[ecoamerica]

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[venndaai]

last nightblog before finally bed: the shock every time i remember, oh, not a girl. the jolt of rightness and oh-god-no-wrongness. the vague unreality. remembering that all my past life looks different, and it’s sudden every time. the how can i only know this now after so long? dizzying.

#internalized binarism cw #personal archive #identity journey

[aeide-thea]

[cw for internalized cissexism/binarism, probably]

i've been thinking for a while, albeit in an only-vaguely-worked-out way, that like, from what i've seen, afab nb ppl often frame their gender feelings/journeys in terms of movement away from femininity, and amab nb ppl in terms of movement towards it; which got me wondering [bc i’m always open to lines of thinking i can use to invalidate my own feelings], well, is the whole idea of non-transmasc afab nb-ness really fundamentally just a reaction to how untenable it is to be a woman in this culture? but i mean, even if that were true, well, we all exist within a cultural framework and have to negotiate it; the idea that what's ultimately a social construct ought to have some kind of ~truth~ independent of social definitions/realities seems, idk... lexically illegible, i guess? not to mention hard to know how to evaluate! and also i kind of think, doesn't this tie into the ways in which femininity is marked and masculinity unmarked, like, maybe we're all orienting ourselves in relation to femininity because masculinity is the invisible default, approachable only as asymptote, not as anchor?

#there is of course the issue that i'm 95% of the time read and treated as a woman #even people who are well aware of my genderfeelings seem to do it albeit subconsciously #so like. i can have all the feelings i want but an analysis that doesn't take into account the reality of interactions i have in the world #isn't a particularly good model of anything #anyway this isn't like. a Unified Theory of Everything or even of anything really #just some scattered thoughts #what is gender we just don’t know #Gender Alien Nation #etc #theory #a wild engagement with ~the discourse~ appeared! this may end very badly

[queerascat]

time to word vomit a continuous stream of thoughts that have been going around in my head for a while now. will probably run with this more later. cw: slurs

the binarist society(/ies) we live in fucks over everyone– be they trans or not– with its enforcement of binary gender roles, among other things. sometimes i’ll come across an article, blog post, whatever talking about this. to a point. sometimes it will be pointed out that how and to what extent society polices and enforces gender roles differs based on the assumed gender at birth of the person in question, among other things. that in American society, for example, people deemed to be females at birth are afforded a certain amount of leeway that people who are deemed to be male at birth are not.

case in point 01: in America, a person who is assumed to be a girl– whether that person actually is a girl or not– is very likely to be allowed to play with “boys toys”. she (bear with me here) may be deemed a tomboy by her parents and by society and she may or may not be subject to some level of ostracization because of it. that said, if someone who is assumed to be a boy wants to play with “girl toys”, there is no equivalent to “tomboy” available for his parents or society in general to label him. rather, he is much more likely to be denied those “girl toys” all together and punished simply for wanting them, let alone the ostracization he would be subjected to if he got them.

case in point 02: in America, an assumed woman can wear clothing that society has deemed “men’s attire”. she can wear a necktie, she can wear a three-piece suit, she can wear cuff links and cologne. she is likely to be considered “dapper”, “debonair” or “androgynous”– all words that are generally meant to be complimentary. an assumed man can wear clothing that society has deemed “women’s attire”. he can wear a dress, he can wear heels, he can paint his nails. however, he is likely to be considered “feminine”, a “fag”, “performing drag” or a “tranny”– and no matter how not negative some of these words may actually be, the intent behind them when used towards this person who is assumed to be a man is often nothing but negative. that person may very well be harassed or worse, but just as notable is the fact that “androgynous” would not likely be among the word used to describe him.

why?

case in point 03: what is commonly considered to be gender neutrality or ambiguity (eg. androgyny) is often markedly more “masculine-coded” than it is actually “neutral”– whatever that actually even means. be it clothing, toys, cellphone cases or anything else, if it’s being labeled as “unisex” or marketed in a way that does not target a specific gender, the color scheme, the design etc will be notably closer to that of things marketed towards boys / men than what you see marketed towards girls / women. anything seen as veering closer to “girls’ / women’s territory” is simply “feminine”.

all of these “cases” are things that i see touched upon at times in articles, blog posts, etc that are more often than not aimed at raising awareness among cis people that– hey! the gender binary fucks you (or rather “us” as the author is often cis as well) over too! and i myself, a non-binary person, agree with the above, even if i do sometimes have a bone or two to pick with the authors about this or that.

that said, the conversation about how society fucks us all over with its binarism, when not delving into the issue of race and / or culture, more often than not ends there. it ends with “yes, people who are assumed to be female have to deal with misogyny– we won’t even mention that because that’s a given, right?– but they also have a lot of leeway that people who are assumed to be male do not!“ or in other words, “yes, misogyny, but leeway!! no wrong way to be a woman!!!”

which leaves me sitting there like, yeah. okay. yeah but. there’s more to it than that.

for me and many others who are assumed to be female at birth– regardless of whether we actually are female or not– that “leeway” is a double edged sword. for me, there are times when that leeway is the very thing that undermines my non-binary gender the most in the eyes of society at large. no matter what i say or do, no matter how i exist as a person in the eyes of others, i am forever thought of as ““nothing more than”” a “tomboy”, an “androgynous” woman– whatever. i am still seen as a girl / woman, just a “masculine” or "androgynous” one, unless i happen to at some point cross some magical line in a person’s mind that puts me into the category of ““passing”” as the man that i am not.

while many fight to have their womanhood recognized, for me, someone who constantly has womanhood forced upon them, the parameters of womanhood are so goddamn wide that trying to escape them feels like Mission Impossible meets The Matrix where Morpheus is every “enlightened” cis woman who approaches me saying “I’m trying to free your mind, [Neo]. There is no special door for me to show you. Didn’t you know womanhood already includes butch / tomboy / androgynous / masculine women like you and me?”

the very thought that you’d want to “abandon your sisters” in the fight for women’s rights let alone escape womanhood all together has been, for me at least, fraught with guilt that has plagued me both internally and externally. that leeway that women now enjoy but men do not did not happen without a fight and it most certainly did not happen overnight.

and yet here i am, perceived as turning my back on it, ungrateful for it. and yet here i am, rendered invisible and invalid in large part because of it.

maybe i simply haven’t come across it [yet], but i haven’t seen a lot of talk about this aspect of navigating social gender norms. i think i’ll revisit this word vomit of a post at a later date to reiterate or even elaborate on it on YouTube when my life isn’t so chaotic…

edit: ...annnd this post is finally a YouTube video with its own Tumblr post.

#gender roles #gender binary #womanhood #nonbinary #trans #transgender #genderqueer #gender #binarism #nonbinary problems #trans problems #problematic things #toxic masculinity #society #random thoughts #i write stuff sometimes #i rant when i'm tired #tired vesper is tired #this has been a vesper original #personal #okay to reblog #long post #why did i feel the need to finally vomit this #on little sleep on a friday night when i should be in bed #sigh

[kaploded2]

#Repost @alokvmenon (@get_repost) ・・・ cw: ableism, transmisogyny I receive comments like these everyday both offline and online from people of all genders, races, and ages. I know that this will not stop because I am gender non-conforming. What devastates me more than this is how gender non-conforming people and the relentless harassment and violence we endure continues to be erased & actively disbelieved. I often feel hopeless and terrified by both the permanence of this harassment and other peoples' refusal to legitimate it (let alone stop it). It troubles me that the only solutions we are provided to "cope" (never overcome) with this harassment invest the personal responsibility in us to "love ourselves" or "be confident." I am punished most when I am confident. This is how transmisogyny and gender binarism work.

#repost