#i have a really complicated gender identity

[our-lesboy-experience]

hiii!!! so uh, this is sorta about 'contradicting' (?) identities in general, but i only recently found out about, like, lesboys and gaygirls and all of that, but what is it exactly? like how does it work? or is that weird to ask? i'm trying figuring myself out but a lot of stuff i've seen doesn't exactly... explain it (or explain it well), and while i guess i do get why, it's just kinda hard to understand it myself for my own identity

also, probably a question you get a lot in a hating way, but isn't the definition of lesbian nonman loving nonman? so then how does lesboy work? like is it for people with more complicated gender identites, like fluctuating genders and bigender? just genuinly confused, my apologies...

sorry for not getting to this sooner- been busier lately and didn't have the time to collect everything I needed to respond!

About what it exactly means to be a lesboy or a gaygirl ('turigirl' is the more common term, 'turi' meaning turian, another word for gay attraction to men. so I'll be referring to it as that from now on), there isn't exactly....one right way to call yourself such. it really depends on the person, but I can give you a basic definition and a list of common reasons someone may call themselves such

im gonna put a read more because this ended up being super long so sorry

lesboy is a term for any lesbian who may have a connection to manhood and/or masculinity. turigirl is just the opposite of that, a gay person (mlm/nblm) who may have a connection to womanhood and/or femininity. common reasons I've seen are:

being multigender or genderfluid

being cusper/in between trans and cis gnc (in between trans man and cis gnc woman, in between trans woman and cis gnc man)

being a system who uses lesboy/turigirl as a collective identity or when identities blur together

a person who uses man/boy or woman/girl as a means of masculine or feminine gender expression but not actually identifying as such

being a trans man/ftm or a trans woman/mtf who still identifies as lesbian or gay for personal reasons

those are far from all the reasons, everyone has their own unique experiences, but the gist is these people may have some sort of connection to manhood/womanhood while still having a queer attraction. personally, I'm multigender, genderfluid, and transmasc. lesboy I find is a nice label to express being both my bigender self and being a lesbian, as it forces people to acknowledge both without separating the two. it's cute and makes me feel validated!

as for "nonman attracted to nonmen" definition of lesbian......it has its issues. it's received criticism all around from all sorts of lesbians in the community. this definition is very new - it emerged only in the recent years, and someone on twitter had date searched it and found it didn't even really exist before 2019. and having that as the one and only official definition that every lesbian has to abide by, when lesbian is a centuries old word with so much history behind it, is a bit ignorant. people who are multiple genders or ftm or bi being lesbian is not even remotely new, going back decades upon decades, and it never stopped existing too. It's a bit weird to have a whole new definition that doesn't include all sorts of lesbians that have been here for so long and just tell them they're not welcomed anymore, right?

that's not even close to the only issue there is with it. it's been disliked for centering lack of attraction to men, or defining lesbian in relation to men, rather than who we're actually attracted to. putting nonbinary people in a new binary of either being "men or nonmen," which not all feel comfortable putting themselves into. especially when considering a definition of gay being "nonwomen attracted to nonwomen," man-woman bigender people are simultaneously excluded from being both lesbian or gay. It inherently overlaps with mspec identity ("attraction to nonmen, which is more than one gender" and "any orientation that involves attraction to more than one gender" kinda obviously overlap), despite people insisting that a lesbian can never be mspec. people have found multiple loopholes in it, (which I can elaborate on if someone wants me to, for the sake of trying to make this as short as possible), and lastly, and term "nonman" (and nonwoman) were found to have existed before to describe the degendering of black people in society. this isn't the only source I've seen for this, but sadly I can't exactly find it (or find it without going back to that hellsite called twitter and I'm not doing that to myself)

oh and as the link points out, defining lesbian by these words also ends up excluding a lot of two-spirit people from ever identifying as lesbian, myself included. which is also really racist. I don't know how you're gonna end up excluding a whole cultural gender that's common for indigenous americans to describe themselves with and try to prove it somehow isn't racist, to be honest

and lastly, some surveys/polls have shown that the definition isn't the most widely accepted by lesbians as people make it out to be. there's this simple poll that someone posted asking how lesbians felt about the definition that received 1,529 responses, and 61.1% of voters said they disliked it. comments gave lots of reasons I've stated already. there was another survey put out that received 211 responses that for any lesbian who had a genderqueer or unique relationship with gender, and one of the questions asking opinions on the "nonmen loving nonmen" as a definition. the average among the group was slightly negative (average 2.838), and reported that the group who tended to feel the most positively about it didn't consider themselves to be trans, with the other positive leaning group considered themselves to be somewhat cis. the group that felt the most negatively sometimes considered themselves to be trans. and of the multigender participants, the average opinion was 2.255 (more negative than the overall average). When concluding, the original poster stated, "When divided by gender, the only groups to feel positive about this definition were "not trans" and "somewhat cis" participants. Multigender participants felt especially negative about this definition"

all of this shows that this definition isn't nearly the best for everyone who considers themselves a lesbian. I know it's been a way to include nonbinary people who are lesbian in it's definition, but I think it really misunderstands why nonbinary people are included in lesbianism in the first place, and just assumes that all nonbinary people aren't men and fails to recognize that multigender/genderfluid people are nonbinary too. and it's not like lesbian has to only have on definition- it can definitely have multiple and depend on each person's experience with it. if someone personally defines them being lesbian around being a nonman attracted to nonmen, and takes pride in not being attracted to men, that's totally fine. what becomes a problem is forcing all lesbians to define themselves like this and make it the standard, or else they're "not real lesbians." it is ahistorical and ignorant to require this or else you'll strip them of their lesbian status, and is really at the end of the day, lesbophobic. especially as a requirement that primarily exists in online spaces. im sure the lesbian who is not at all connected to these circles doesn't particularly care about strict requirements or whether someone is a "nonman" or not. in conclusion, it is not the best nor most accepted definition of lesbian, and deciding which lesbians are valid or not based solely on that definition is pretty exclusionary and ends up policing a lot of lesbians, myself included

#lesboy #turigirl #lesbian #gay #multigender #genderfluid #mspec lesbian #asks #tw exclusionism #tw queerphobia #lesbophobia #I can definitely elaborate on some points if asked #I do have some thoughts I've never shared before

[themthistles]

i think that while micro labels can seem useful and affirming ultimately they're isolating and kind of an obstacle to your understanding of self. that's because you can never find a word specific enough. there will never be a label or two labels or even ten, twenty of them to perfectly capture and describe all of your thoughts, feelings, experiences, preferences, needs, interests, identities, etc. because you learn more and more about yourself every day and then you change and your wants and needs change with you. having to hop between labels, fearing that you don't 'fit' into a label anymore (both in your own and others eyes), worrying how soon your current label will wear out, questioning if you'll ever fully fit a single one. all that causes a lot of uncertainty and anxiety which could be avoided by just picking a more general thing and molding it according to what it means to YOU. because words will always mean different things to different people, you will never be understood immediately and maybe never completely by anyone but yourself and that's fine

#another thing is that micro labels often feel like they fracture the community unnecessarily #idk how many times i've seen fighting over hyperspecific ace labels and what they mean and if people described in them even belong #and honestly i think this discourse wouldn't be so vile and neverending if people accepted the idea of falling under general umbrella #and accepted that you can't describe complicated weird and wonderful act of human existence with a couple of words #you don't need to explain yourself to anyone #i know in our present pronouns/sexuality/gender in bio carrd era it feels like you have to but you really don't #people aren't entitled to a short summary of your inner world and you can't speed run connection #also feel the need to say: i have nothing against people who use micro labels #if you feel like your micro label describes you perfectly? i'm really glad and happy for you #i'm just expressing my own thoughts and feelings that come from personal experience with exploring these things #at some point i started doubting if i could call myself a lesbian #i thought oh i'm not exactly what a lot of people generally think of when they hear that word #oh they'll misunderstand and i'm not being my 'true self' i'll find a word that fits me exactly if i just keep looking #and then i found out being aroace is a thing and boy did that add a lot of anxiety and confusion to the pot #i didn't feel like i fit in with both communities wasn't lesbian enough wasn't aroace enough #but at some point i just got tired of trying to justify myself to others and to myself #identities aren't houses you live in they're more like seas or rivers flowing into one another #and spaces where they intersect are vague and hard to define and they shift and change and this metaphor is getting away from me #basically #words are complicated #but they're the only direct way we humans can communicate #it is what it is #so make art #a lot of it #oh also unrelated but if you ever tell older queer folks that they're using wrong words to describe themselves i am going to jump you

[transfemswagbracket]

are people really mad about team rocket winning because its "just going oh gender!" because that is not true. vivian is canon trans but meowth was for nearly a decade voiced by a trans woman (maddie blaustein) that credited the experience to part of why she was able to come out! a significant amount of the votes towards team rocket will be a result of this (and the common man in a dress jokes around james, something that while intended as just a repeated punchline is commonly reclaimed by trans fans.)

YEAH no absolutely, couldn't have said it better myself

#i think every single 'fanon' transfem on this bracket deserves their spot and most have significant transfem readings #my friend's whole essay about the transfem coding in tavroses story #anne's 'I think the reason I don't want a new look is because I'm finally happy with who I see in the mirror right now' #hunter's story about being controlled for so long and eventually being able to escape that and reclaim their own identity #marco being genuinely intended to be a trans girl before disney said no #june's complicated feelings about having to grow up into her father's ideal of a Man and hating it for reasons she doesn't understand #mob apparently really envying a canon female character and wanting to be like her (taken from my spreadsheet ive never seen mp100 LOL) #hornet being the only gendered vessel and being called 'the gendered child' #jenny picking her name and wanting to be seen as a girl and hating her body and her old name #miku's general existence as an icon for all trans people #team rocket's constant crossdressing and meowth's voice actor #even the sillier ones or the ones that i don't understand cuz i'm not familiar with the source are like... who cares! this is just for fun! #transfemswagbracket #qna

[pinkcarabiner]

i'm gonna talk about gender in the tags <3

#so i identified as nonbinary for two years #but i've never felt *conntected* to the label as i do with other parts of my identity like femme/high femme/lesbian etc #and i've recently just kinda been 'femme as gender' #and that makes a lot more sense to me #like i'll still call myself nonbinary to convey that i am *not* cis and *not* a woman #but it's really only a label i've used/still use just to get the point across #delete later #idk i've been thinking about this a lot #also growing up at the intersection of different cultures with such a strict definition of womanhood has really kinda messed #my understanding of *my* gender #because i have lots of thoughts and feelings and such a complicated relationship with femininity #but also he/him in a femme way <3

[iztopher]

on that note. a week or two ago i swapped out some info in my about to list my gender as genderqueer as a super low stakes way of feeling it out lol

ive spent pretty much my whole life w/ my gender on a sliding scale from "agender" to "gnc cis girl" and while i definitely still feel more connected to the former than the latter rn i like. really appreciate genderqueer as a term that captures every stage of that

#dear mel #i know its okay to change ur identity but i kind of am tired of feeling like i need a new way to describe my gender every year and a half #i like having a word that feels like its described me at every point in the last fifteen years & will for the forseeable future #if i wanna get more specific and granular at any point in time well i can do that too #and i also feel like the idea of queering gender is like. central to how i relate to it #how else do i describe feeling overall genderless but also such bitter disappointment at the idea of my gnc traits being explained away #as oh im not Really a Girl TM which is why i dont want these things girls want #like no. even if i was a cis woman i would not want to be a mother or a wife and i would want to dress masc and present masc/androgynous #which is i think why i have such issues w applying the idea of dysphoria to myself? #because for me its so much more complicated than (x) trait is associated with (y) gender im assumed to be and am not #and i know dysphoria is more complicated than that too but thats often how i see conceptualized and i dont want it applied that way to me y

[mydaroga]

You're really drawing out a lot of quotes that center on or allude to Paul's complex relationship with masculinity. I really appreciate it! Do you feel like they're confirming things you already knew about Paul or are they reshaping your perspective?

Oh man. (So to speak.) I'm glad you asked, because I think this is a really interesting topic. I think I wrote a lot so you might not be glad! But I welcome your thoughts.

It's mostly confirming what I already knew or suspected, which is that as you say, Paul has a complex relationship with masculinity. I noticed pretty early in my time with him (whatever this is) that he over-determines his gender in some ways. What I mean is, he has a tendency to assert that he's a man or has manly traits when no one has suggested otherwise. He talks a LOT about the danger/his fear of seeming "soft." Which has a few connotations in his lexicon but can mean something like "unmanly."

I think initially (and in my first throes of "what ARE those two doing?" while watching Get Back) I wanted to connect this to his sexuality, but if my perspective has changed it's that I think this is actually not really about that. I mean it could be. It's possible. But I think it far more likely that, like countless men of his generation and beyond, he struggled with how to BE a man. Especially, and this is just a guess, because his physical features tend to the feminine and that might have been a point of tension in his social life. It is actually more interesting to me to see this from the point of view of his formation of masculinity, not sexuality. As I said, those can be related but they don't have to be.

So no, my view is the same, but this is just more information. And the more I read, the more I think these quotes are more about gender identity* than anything else.

* I want to be really really clear that I'm not the arbiter of anyone's identity but given his statements this is where I am. I'm not here to declare anyone is this that or the other, and I think he and everyone else is actually more complicated than any one label, but all I can do is offer the view that makes most sense to me.

#possibly a hot take around here i know #but while we're never really going to know i do think we overlook the struggle to figure out gender in both boys and girls #so i wanted to bring the convo around to that #we all LEARN how to be what we are #and i think Paul's journey was somewhat anxiety inducing and he very much looked for models that made sense to him #but even if it's more complicated than that we HAVE to allow for the reality that we ALL struggle with identity formation #Kris talks a lot #mmgth #the ask box

[grimark]

not that anybody asked but i do think terms like "cis+" or "cisn't", which i've seen thrown around in relation to the prev post, are a bit unnecessary. to me, it just seems like excessively atomising a fairly common experience, which is the desire to not be subject to the more uncomfortable and restrictive aspects of socially constructed gender roles. and sure, it might never even occur to a lot of cis people to do this kind of introspective analysis of their gender identities, and they might therefore be lacking some of the additional perspective of someone who has, but i don't think we necessarily need need a special new category for it. when you get down to it, "cis person who has previously questioned their gender" and "cis person who has never felt the need to question their gender" are both still cis, which in theory is a value-neutral description and a perfectly fine thing to be.

#this isn't meant as a criticism of people who like those terms or find them valuable or validating #it's more just. i don't get it and i don't really see the point of them but that's fine because they're not aimed at me anyway. #if you're cis but you want to add a modifier to encapsulate your gender journey then you do you. #to me just seems a bit patronising to tell cis people they're actually cis+ or whatever #like. aww you did such a good job thinking about your gender! here is a star sticker for you that says 'more evolved than other cis people' #instead maybe we can just trust that 1. people are the experts on their own identities and experiences #if someone says they're happy to continue identifying as the gender they were assigned at birth we can probably take their word for it! #and 2. accept that we all probably have a lot more in common than we might assume #it seems like a mistake to think 'this experience (gender discomfort and introspection) is exclusively a trait of x category of person' #'so if someone from y category has experienced it they must not actually be y‚ they must be something else instead' #which allows you to comfortably continue to paint people from y group as a wholly separate other with fundamentally alien experiences #and no possible point of overlap or common ground. #i see this a lot with the eternal thorn in my side which is posts about how The Neurotypicals Do This Thing #and also with a certain flavour of ace discourse #which presumes that 1. anyone who doesn't choose to identify under the asexual identity umbrella must necessarily be allosexual #2. there is a single unifying allosexual experience which can be equally applied to the rest of the human population #and 3. no allosexual person could possibly have a complicated or fraught relationship with sex and sexuality. #or if they did have any experiences in common with asexual people they'd naturally choose to identify as ace instead. #therefore these two identities must be wholly separate groups with no experiential overlap. #like idkkkkk clearly these hyperspecific labels are useful to some people! #but to me they often just seem to generate feelings of division and othering #or they're used as a way to claim a particular experience as exceptional to one group #when it's actually a pretty common feature of the human condition.

[weaselshaped]

Accidentally discovered some deeply embarrassing Tumblr posts I made/reblogged five or more years ago but I also finished freaking out and did some emails toward finding out what steps I can realistically take toward top surgery because as you may have noticed it turns out I cannot actually keep going like this forever. So I guess something useful got done

#I'm very annoyed about the things that have prompted me to this level of self-awareness #Because they mostly consist of like. Getting upset about things on the internet that don't warrant getting upset over #for complicated reasons. And also fucking. Video game. God #I guess if I am going to spend that much money on a game then it's only fair for it to be useful to me in some extra way #But it's also extremely embarrassing! #Tbf also this bit is less the game itself and more 'hey self I notice a trend of you writing about characters whose gender is identical to #yours except they've had this specific thing done. What's that about' which I was finally forced to actually examine by my Gaming Experienc #but it has definitely been a thing before now. So. I don't know. Nothing has been achieved really #I feel both better and worse #self actualization through email

[autism-shaped]

There is something so special about seeing another person using an identity term or phrase you've never heard before and realizing

wait

that's what I am.

or,

that's what I want to be. that's what I'm aiming for.

or,

I could be that.

#the term this time is 'gentleman dyke' #I have a really complicated relationship to queer labeling #I'm partially closeted even in extremely queer-affirming spaces because my identities don't fit the framework that others there use #but sometimes I will see someone say a Thing about their gender or sexuality #and it empowers me to explore again #quill speaks #butch #lesbian #queer #gay #gender stuff #gender nonconforming #genderqueer #sorry for overtagging I'm trying to get this blog out there a wee smidge

[emlos]

ugh gender

#ive had to fill out a form today #and it was like hey are you transgender #.... its so complicated man #delete later #but #in English im non binary #genderless whatever i dont care #but in polish and german... its so much easier just to be she/her #because even explaining that i dont really.. have a gender is difficult #so i dont consider myself transgender cause i dont have one #and i know the definition *differing from the gender you were assigned at birth' #but i dont really have a gendee identity #im just me #it doesn't really matter what gender i am since I'll always just... be me #so its exactly as important to me as a tshirt #it doesn't change my personality or my beliefs #so hey #im milo #my gender is me #text

[iceyrukia]

Just gonna leave this long post of tras discussing their theories of rf/gc feminists here for safekeeping.

#ic.text #it’s v long and I already say some things wrong off the bat #and I’m not in the mood to mentally break down this whole word vomit and theories #maybe for another day #but it amazes me that tras just have this very exhausting postmodernist way of thinking #and they sound so confident in their own assertions on how to ‘ really destroy the patriarchy unlike those stupid t*rfs’ #when they already look silly in thinking that the reason for womens oppression is complicated and how women aren’t easily identifiable #like……save your word salad and go out to the real world please you can well at ‘evil feminists’ all you want but if you have any self #preservation as a women - are you really gonna bulkshit youself into thinking that a man catcalling you (for example) did it because of your #gender identity????? how

[viewmonster-deactivated20230122]

ive been itching to change my icon for a bit so. Hi

#transmission #id love to have a pride theme the issue is that my gender identity is far too complicated to be contained into a flag #and i am only attracted to my boyfriend so i. dont really put much thought into sexuality #its not really as relevant to me immediately as my gender is. if that makes any sense #my sexuality is the one guy that i love forever. ok thanks byw

[isitovernow-ootw]

beginning to wish i was exposed to queer internet spaces a bit later so i could have just existed for a while, its really hard to think about my gender when I haven't spent a single period of time not analyzing it since i was 13

#idk i think i could have used at least a couple years of just iding as a cis allo lesbian to see how it felt #like before even thinking about other possibilities #idk having id'd as aro for my entire teen years and never really considered my identity before claiming that term made it really hard #to realize that wasn't the case at 17-18 #and i wonde if i had just been gay for like a second if i could have skipped that #and now I'm re-questioning my gender and I don't even know #at this point i think even if i had had the possibility of being cis at some point my perception of gender is so fundamentally altered #from trying to fit myself into boxes for like 7 years #that it still would not be remotely the same as the gender of a cis woman #idk I've been consuming a lot of lesbian content #and feeling somehow detached from cis lesbian circles is weird because I'm getting to a point where lesbian is my primary identifier #so i want to fully connect with that #but my experience is so different from a lot of people #because i never got to be a teenage girl #or let myself be one? idk #idk if i even id as a girl or a woman now at all i just wish things were less complicated #feeling dyke feelings generally #*when i'm screaming at the sky

[70eeznutz]

i think the only numbers with genders should be 0 and 1, the others are all non binary

#really fucking bad joke #before anyone says anything i am aware that there are gendered nonbinary identities #i myself am one of them! #if i over complicate the joke it won’t have the same impact so imagine there’s a little * at the end

[autistic-trans]

Kinda wild going on twitter, and seeing people with BOTH rad inclus and terf DNI

Like damn, as an inclusions I just block on sight, but like.. isn’t it kinda telling?

Like you have such a narrow idea of what other people’s experiences and labels could be, that you’re adding radinclus right next to EVEN MORE EXCLUSIONARY AND VIOLENT THING THAT HAS NO COMPARISON TO IT

It feels very centrist, like.. “I support lgbt people, but not TOO WEIRD I want respectability in how other people identify so cishets understand us”… like fuck offf….

#lgbtphobia #discourse #rambling i guess #tw: terfs #man I hate twitter why do we have to deal with discourse again during pride month #I’ve b]just been blocking tons of people lately for hating bi lesbians and it just makes me angry #I’m starting to question if I might be a bi lesbian myself and I’m really struck between being unsure if I even like men #so bi lesbian kinda describes me at the moment I suppose #I’ve never really wanted to use the term lesbian because it felt gendered #but now it’s like #you know.. seeing how many stone butch lesbians and butch nb lesbians I relate to and feel a kinship with #as well as hearing a definition that defined a lesbian as having a queer attraction to women with nothing to do with someone’s gender… #I’m thinking about it… really thinking #that’s what I’ve really liked about the term good faith in a way #like I am sitting here thinking about how my sexuality and gender interact in good faith #like we’re human beings at the end of the day #and we’re gonna be complicated or simple or change how we identify multiple times in our lives #I think sitting down and really listening to what bi lesbians say about their own experiences has just opened me up to the possibility #that I might be one too… and that the line between one identity and the other can be hard or it can be soft #it can be malleable.. you get what I mean? hope so.. #sorry for the tags ramble ^u^;

[autumnfangirler]

ill be having a super fun conversation with my classmates and then theyll say something that reminds me "oh! i could ruin my life by talking about my identity. ok then"

#i live in a very homophobic country so im not surprised but damn #my old classmates i went to highschool with truly could not give a shit about peoples identities so i got very spoiled there #this came from me having a convo with a really chill guy from my class abt the us #and then him saying “this country is so much better bcs in here if youre lgbtq youre killed. theres only 2 genders no need to complicate it” #and i just had to sit there like “😃 yep fr absolutely man” while praying nothing showed on my face #thats what i get for choosing comp sci as my major ig #i probably wouldve had better chances meeting somebody not violently homophobic+transphobic in art but :/ #ramblings