Making this its own post since it was getting a bit beyond that poll:
Genuinely I don't feel like the trans community has ever had to meaningfully reckon with exorsexism. There's all this fucking yapping about smashing the gender binary and how cool and sexy this androgynous (cis) rockstar is, but when it comes down to it people want to cling to the binary. Because it affirms their own gender. Because it allows them to bond with cis people. Because it makes them feel normal and real and natural. Binary trans people oftentimes only want to challenge the parts of the gender binary that directly impede THEIR ability to socially claim womanhood/manhood, but will not actually challenge it anywhere else.
It comes back to the fact that cissexism and the patriarchy itself are built on the gender binary & oppositional sexism, but a lot of binary trans people (particularly those who pass and are gender conforming), knowingly or not, have this attitude of "but why do THEY (cis people) get to play with that, and I don't???" Because they are men/women, and all those OTHER men and women can simply float on the exorsexist social current without ever thinking twice about it.
There is inherently some exorsexism in all transphobia, but if you can narrate yourself and your experiences through the language of the binary, you get a level of social acceptance that other trans people (including many, many binary/-aligned trans people, and intersex people) do not. And that's why binary aligned trans people then turn around and start blaming nonbinary people and GNC trans people and anyone who continues inflaming exorsexist society for how trans people are treated.
Because to be cis is to be binary, and so, so much of trans activism has been about telling cis people that we are just like them—just regular men and women, trapped in the opposite sex body. And nonbinary people fundamentally cannot and generally will not do that. We are asking cis people to respect us and acknowledge that our genders are just as valid even if they are completely foreign to cis people, even if they are undeniably, fundamentally trans in a way that cannot be renegotiated into cisness.
That is not to say that binary trans people are less radical or less trans—there are many binary trans people I know and love who fucking hate the idea of conforming to cisness in any way. And they get fucked over by exorsexism big time. The language I'm using here (nonbinary vs binary) is itself fundamentally flawed given the actual complexity of exorsexism, but I'm feverish so I'm unfortunately not going to invent an improved paradigm in this post.
My point is that I tried so damn hard to make myself make sense to binary people. I spent years of my life knowing I was trans and torturing myself because no matter what I came out as, I always felt like a liar, nothing ever fit. I tried to be a nonbinary lesbian the way everyone wants, I tried to be a trans man in the way everyone wants, I tried to be neutral but y'know not making a big deal out of it or anything (and of course neutral people don't have any sexuality, because the minute you have a sexuality you have to align yourself with the binary, hence the "not making a big deal out of it"). I tried and tried and tried to not be a thorn in the side of the exorsexism that's so prevalent not just in society but in the trans community, I tried not to make my gender a problem for everyone. I only felt real stability and safety and humanity in myself through my gender once I let myself be how I actually am and quit cherrypicking my identity based around what wouldn't upset the implicit but STRONG gender binary in trans spaces. And it's really just so frustrating seeing binary trans people who don't ever think for a second about any of this, and even more other nonbinary people who are able to narrate themself in a way that appeals to exorsexism, all of whom act like nonbinary people who can't or won't do that are just causing problems for fun.
Nonbinary people should be at the center of not just trans activism but all anti-patriarchal activism, not to the exclusion of anybody else but because nonbinary identity so fundamentally challenges how we think about and navigate gender and its role in our society. Nonbinary people, as ourselves, CANNOT assimilate into normal society without normal society fundamentally changing how it engages with gender. And instead of seeing that as being an incredible potentiality for social change, we CONSTANTLY have OTHER TRANS PEOPLE acting like this is a huge burden on the whole community. Like what the fuck.
