âusing non-binary as a label is the easy way out because afab wlw canât accept their own womanhoodââ
bruh. you may have a point in that it can be hard to come to terms with your own sexuality and/or relate to loving women separate from the persistent male-gaze but calling any trans label âthe easy way outâ is incredibly backwards and i Do Not Care For That Shit.
itâs like a nightmare combination of âspecial snowflake uwuâ accusations and âgay men think theyâre trans women because theyâre doing mental contortion to be heterosexualâ arguments (thatâs the original transmedical argument, btw. that homosexuality could be âcuredâ by gay men becoming women. this is how it came to be that gay men like alan turing were chemically castrated with feminizing hormones. itâs also tied into the medicalization of female sexuality, both cis and trans. just like. as a heads up). Â
listen, iâll be the first to admit that gender and sexuality is a hard intersection to think about, especially because weâre limited to whatever common language is in use at the moment. but man⌠trans people already fight so hard against a slew of accusations that come at them at every waking moment, from every possible angle, that suggesting they havenât thought hard enough about Who They Fucking Are is rude at best and damaging/silencing at worst. i will always encourage people to think deeply about their identity and their existence in conjunction with that identity, but to phrase it as if choosing a trans label is somehow EASIER than choosing a non-het label? nah. fucking nah. not in the western world that i inhabit.
the closet for trans people is a hell of a lot smaller than it is for gay people. hiding who you kiss vs HOW YOUR FACE LOOKS? your partnerâs pronouns vs your pronouns? the culture and behavior of gays/lesbians in public spaces vs every single indicator of gender/sex characteristics that every stranger pings fifty times per conversation and feels like they have a RIGHT to know? yeah, MISS me with that âoh boo non-binary is just a way to get around your sexuality and not think too hard about itâ because being non-binary makes me 200% more visible than liking girls ever did. i had to think VERY FUCKING HARD about being trans.
i just⌠you cannot possibly think that itâs easy to be trans/nb. who gets public support? gay people. gay men specifically. most âqueerâ movies are about gay men. not bi, not trans, not ace. trans people are much more likely to be physically hurt just EXISTING. every month a trans woman walks into a parking lot and gets beat to death likeâTRANS=/=EASY. IN ANY CAPACITY. i have to explain my transition to EVERYONE. cishet people, gay people, other trans people. saying âi like girlsâ is NOTHING like trying to say âi am a boyâ.
and honestly⌠why do you guys like to hate so much? you hate when kids are questioning and insist they donât have a space in the community. yet you hate when they pick a label because oooh what if itâs the WRONG label? what if they didnât have the same label journey that YOU had? obviously they did it wrong! Â
you hate the kids who canât articulate their feelings on their identity, you hate the kids who are just now learning what âtransgenderâ even means, you hate on the kids who come to you asking basic queer theory questions because youâve somehow forgotten that 90% of our society DOESNâT HAVE AN ANSWER FOR THEM THAT ISNâT âWE DONâT TALK ABOUT THAT, ITâS BADâ
i DO NOT care if an afab lesbian is using a non-binary label. i DO NOT care if an afab lesbian takes twenty years to unlearn internalized homophobia and can finally call herself a cis-lesbian. iâm going to support her when she uses non-binary labels and iâm going to support her when she decides that she was just using them as a cover for her true feelings on wlw relationships. because i TRUST that she had a good reason to sit under the trans umbrella and because i KNOW that gender/sexuality is fluid and no one else needs to answer to me about why they feel the way they do.
like jesus christ, guys. NOTHING queer is easy. is it easier to be nb instead of lesbian? NOT FUCKING LIKELY. the transphobia and gatekeeping from within the community alone testify to the fact that being nb is hard. itâs hard even in a designated queer space. we can talk about how itâs normalized for women to aspire to be a man and adopt masculinity, even in lesbian spaces, and how misogyny and femininity intersect, but that conversation does not cover what itâs like to actually live your life as a trans individual. nor does it actually cover what makes a lesbian a lesbian! being ANY type of queer means trying to define a nebulous cloud of a hundred different facets of You and itâs not easy getting to any label!
at the bottom of this whole thing⌠i do not get the weird trans man vs lesbian narrative people are pushing. honestly itâs blowing my mind thinking about it all because iâm seeing people fighting over what someone ELSE should identify as and??? there being one more trans man in the world doesnât somehow take credibility away from lesbians. same goes the other way. it isnât âswitching sidesâ if someone picks one label over the other. it isnât âfaking itâ if someone changes their mind. there is no false advertising, or transtrending, or whatever the hell. Â
weâre all fucking people. marginalized people, at that.
TL;DR: if you donât understand why people take up the non-binary label, then stop fucking talking about it because the discussion is not for you and your strange desire to apply your own mental journey onto other people. go ahead and talk about how you came to your labels, and how internalized homophobia shaped your path, but donâtâdonât. imply that there are inferior labels or that non-binary identities have no weight.
ellievsbear
germansingergirl
turnnoffyourmind
s-u-f-j-a-n-s-t-e-v-e-n-s
stormborns
