expansive queerness & multigender identity

Background: bisexual-bigender plaid by @flannel-flags, cause that's what I am :]   I use he/him and she/her only. Reblogs on any/all of my original posts are accepted and encouraged! Productive discussion is welcome too.

[sapphic-boy]

"you may be bigender but your SEX is [redacted] so you're really-" my sex is bigender because im bigender and im really bigender and i have a dick and a pussy so you cant tell me what my sex is because i changed it because sex is not a static binary

[nonbinarylesbianghostface-deact]

you can be a lesbian and like nonbinary people. but it doesn’t suddenly make those nonbinary people women. hope this helps

[somethingmissingthiswaycomes]

Happy international women's day to women who are also men.

Happy international women's day to women who are also a secret third or fourth thing.

[no-longer-another-bondi-blonde]

“In 1984, when Ruth Coker Burks was 25 and a young mother living in Arkansas, she would often visit a hospital to care for a friend with cancer.

During one visit, Ruth noticed the nurses would draw straws, afraid to go into one room, its door sealed by a big red bag. She asked why and the nurses told her the patient had AIDS.

On a repeat visit, and seeing the big red bag on the door, Ruth decided to disregard the warnings and sneaked into the room.

In the bed was a skeletal young man, who told Ruth he wanted to see his mother before he died. She left the room and told the nurses, who said, “Honey, his mother’s not coming. He’s been here six weeks. Nobody’s coming!”

Ruth called his mother anyway, who refused to come visit her son, who she described as a “sinner” and already dead to her, and that she wouldn’t even claim his body when he died.

“I went back in his room and when I walked in, he said, “Oh, momma. I knew you’d come”, and then he lifted his hand. And what was I going to do? So I took his hand. I said, “I’m here, honey. I’m here”, Ruth later recounted.

Ruth pulled a chair to his bedside, talked to him

and held his hand until he died 13 hours later.

After finally finding a funeral home that would his body, and paying for the cremation out of her own savings, Ruth buried his ashes on her family’s large plot.

After this first encounter, Ruth cared for other patients. She would take them to appointments, obtain medications, apply for assistance, and even kept supplies of AIDS medications on hand, as some pharmacies would not carry them.

Ruth’s work soon became well known in the city and she received financial assistance from gay bars, “They would twirl up a drag show on Saturday night and here’d come the money. That’s how we’d buy medicine, that’s how we’d pay rent. If it hadn’t been for the drag queens, I don’t know what we would have done”, Ruth said.

Over the next 30 years, Ruth cared for over 1,000 people and buried more than 40 on her family’s plot most of whom were gay men whose families would not claim their ashes.

For this, Ruth has been nicknamed the ‘Cemetery Angel’.”— by Ra-Ey Saley

[macaronsandfries]

She’s 60 now, she’s still doing activist and advocacy work, and working on a memoir.

[dreverybodyilovedies]

my favorite thing about this story is that ruth had inherited a large family graveyard and never really knew wtf she was going to do w dozens and dozens of empty grave plots but then the AIDS crisis happened and she realized what she could do with it

When Burks was a girl, she said, her mother got in a final, epic row with Burks’ uncle. To make sure he and his branch of the family tree would never lie in the same dirt as the rest of them, Burks said, her mother quietly bought every available grave space in the cemetery: 262 plots. They visited the cemetery most Sundays after church when she was young, Burks said, and her mother would often sarcastically remark on her holdings, looking out over the cemetery and telling her daughter: “Someday, all of this is going to be yours.”

“I always wondered what I was going to do with a cemetery,” she said. “Who knew there’d come a time when people didn’t want to bury their children?”

(x)

[tienriu]

Articles:  

Ruth Coker Burks, the cemetery angel: https://arktimes.com/news/cover-stories/2015/01/08/ruth-coker-burks-the-cemetery-angel

Caring For AIDS Patients, ‘When No One Else Would: https://www.npr.org/2014/12/05/368530521/caring-for-aids-patients-when-no-one-else-would

And a final quote from the first article:

She hasn’t been back to Files Cemetery since her stroke. While she made sure it was kept up back when she lived in Hot Springs, it appeared to have been let go a bit when the reporter visited in late December, some of the tombstones pushed over and broken, the snag of a dead oak left to rot among the graves. Even without knowing the story of the place, it might have been downright spooky if not for the constant stream of traffic cruising by at 10 miles an hour over the speed limit.

Before she’s gone, she said, she’d like to see a memorial erected in the cemetery. Something to tell people the story. A plaque. A stone. A listing of the names of the unremembered dead that lie there.

“Someday,” she said, “I’d love to get a monument that says: This is what happened. In 1984, it started. They just kept coming and coming. And they knew they would be remembered, loved and taken care of, and that someone would say a kind word over them when they died.”

[kittenagain-forever]

<3

[thehealingsystem-deactivated202]

It's so wild to me that as a community we're still so hostile to multigender and genderfluid people existing in gay and lesbian spaces.

You...are aware that people who are both men and women are allowed to be gay, right? And lesbian? Their other genders doesn't cancel their connection to womanhood, or manhood, or whatever else the id with. They are allowed to be gay despite their fem-alignment, and they are allowed to be lesbian despite their masc-alignment.

It comes from these weird online spaces that the standard to be gay or lesbian is to be a "non-woman" or a "non-man," which is inherently transmultiphobic and...extremely ahistorical. And completely misunderstands nonbinary identity. So if you're both then you just don't belong anywhere I suppose.

[spacelazarwolf]

also for anyone who’s like “multigender is a newfangled thing!!!!!!!” sure the terminology might be but you can see examples going back decades of ppl calling themselves girlboys and boygirls and all sorts of whacky things that expressed their connection to multiple facets of gender. just bc the language is new doesn’t mean the ppl who experience these things haven’t always been there.

[multigenderswag]

The terminology isn't even all that new- "bigender" has been around since 1992. Older than a vast majority of the people who perpetuate discourse about multigender people's sexuality, probably.

[hussyknee]

Source: Epistemic Injustice

[your-bigender-big-brother]

Let's not forget those who are bigender, but not male or female. Bigender can means any two - or more - identities. They can be two xenogenders, two genders that fluctuate, two partial genders, or even two genders that are very similar to each other. There are so many different experiences in the bigender community!

- Your Bigender Big Brother 💙💚

[genderkoolaid]

God these exorsexist people about those "men/women/whatever dni" Posts are really onto something jesus christ 🥱😑😴😒

Idk about you, but I feel like being exclusive about your sexuality is just... Biphobia repackaged?? I think you already said it in one of the reblogs but I just wanna say to those anons: putting a certain gender on the DNI and saying things like "i don't care if they're my target audience, they are not allowed because one of their genders are on my DNI, they're tainted by their other gender" is no different that gold Star gays and lesbians who won't date bisexual people because "wah wah theyre fucking tainted by the other sex"

Also it's fucking telling that these people just don't view multi gender people as people, to them we're just?? What?? Half acceptable in our gender when it's convenient???

Ohhh actually I'm pretty sure back when @gay-otlc first coined transmultiphobia there was some discussion around the similarities between exorsexism towards multigender people & biphobia!!

I really think it comes down to misandrogyny. Androgynous people (meaning anyone seen as somehow male+female or as neither) are dangerous to the patriarchy because the idea that gender/sex binaries (including sexuality) can be blended or even rendered meaningless means the patriarchy loses control of its tools to keep power. Thats why its so important for it to reinforce strict, discrete gender roles & not allow gender creativity. So anyone who blurs or crosses those gender/sex lines is viewed with suspicion, as someone who's dangerous to society because of the existential threat they pose to cisheterosexist gender. & internally people get uncomfortable around androgynous people because they feel that existential threat pointed towards their own gender/sexuality. "If that's male/female, what does that make me?" "If that's technically included in my sexuality, what does that make me?" etc. androgynous people's existence fucks up binaries & that makes people who build their life on a foundation of binaries very nervous. At best our androgyny makes us weirdly sexy and/or comedic, at worst it makes us disgusting and threatening

[gay-otlc]

Yeah, I've talked occasionally about the overlap between transmultiphobia and biphobia (& panphobia etc). I'm not bi or mspec, so I've never really had firsthand experience with biphobia to compare transmultiphobia, but there are some similarities with what some of my mspec friends have experienced. The pressure to just pick one and deny half of your identity (denying your "cis" gender or "straight" attraction to fit in with queer people, denying your "trans" gender or "gay" attraction to fit in with cishet people). And as mentioned in the ask, the idea that mspec people are invading gay/lesbian communities and "tainting" them with attraction to the opposite gender.

Like I said, I'm not mspec, but if any mspec multigender people want to talk about the overlap in discrimination for those identities that would be awesome to hear.

[changelingfangs]

I currently see myself as a binary trans guy but part of my gender journey was a period of about 6ish months where I was bigender (I may fluctuate that way again someday, I find my gender as a general rule is somewhat fluid tho i also identify as a "female man" so like, my sex and gender are at a mismatch which often makes me feel out of place in men's spaces)

And am also bisexual... (though I tend to focus on being "gay" or queer now because I'm tired of the feelings I'm going to describe)

And I remember feeling so intensely frustrated with how I felt like I was always falling into the cracks between the "two legitimate sides".

The way multigender people were treated felt *absolutely* the same as how I was treated as a bisexual woman. There was this pressure to identify with one side or the other

And with the amount of antimasculinity in queer spaces, I always felt really pressured as a woman to side with being "sapphic" over acknowledging and appreciating my attraction to men. And that same anti-masculinity in queer/progressive spaces meant that even before I saw myself as more of a binary man, I lost most of my support groups because I didn't feel like I belonged in a place for "women and non-men" because even though yes, I WAS a woman, I was also a man.

I'm not explaining this as well as I'd like but uh

It's something to do with everything needing to fit into a black/white either/or this/that dichotomy and how both multigender and mspec people have said "both" and how that upsets thr balance of power. If the two meet, then their differences cannot be used to control either side any more (patriarchy uses the opposite genders never shall meet stuff to control both men and women)

[yaoiboypussy]

Actually annoying that whenever a transmasc tries to get attention to Transmasc issues they are always told they are ‘talking over Cis Women’ or ‘trans women have it worse!’ and whenever a transfem tries to get attention to trans fem issues they are always told that they ‘are taking away attention from Cis women issues!‘ or their post gets derailed to be about ‘pissing off terfs’ instead of about issues facing Transfems.

Like can trans people talk about their issues without being ignored and told they ‘dont have it that bad’ . Someone speaking about how an issue effects a certain group they are apart of isn’t talking over anyone.

[homunculus-argument]

I think there's a real tragedy in the way straight men don't see themselves the same way that people who are attracted to men see them. If you ask a straight man to describe what an attractive man looks like, there's very little variety - the masculine male ideal is tall, broad-shouldered, square-jawed with a cleft chin and built of sculpted muscle. The stereotypical image of an Alpha Male, someone whom he could respect, and envy.

And sure, there are plenty of women, gay men and people of all sorts who are attracted to to this specific type, even exclusively attracted to it, there is so much more variety in this, both in the tastes and their subjects.

The stereotype of "hot wife, ugly husband"-couples was drawn from the observations of straight men, from their own perspective. Women going after men that men find unattractive makes no sense to them, and they figure that women are willing to overlook being ugly if a man's funny, smart or rich enough. If a woman insists that she's attracted to a specific man who isn't attractive by their standards, they'll assume that she's lying.

The tragic part is when a man who believes himself to be ugly grows bitter over this, developing a foul personality which people do find repulsive, and then uses their repeated experiences of being romantically rejected as proof that they're physically unattractive, insisting that surely women would overlook his heinousness if only he was tall and muscular enough, and had the right bone structure. The self-feeding vicious cycle of being a bitter incel is born.

The thing about "ugly men with a good personality can still be attractive" is that they're usually not even ugly. Some people do genuinely find fat and hairy men, thin and delicate men, short men and feminine men attractive. There's as much variety as in cheese, you can't compare aura to brie. And just like in cheese, as long as you're not toxic, somebody's into that. You just need to find the right wine to compliment it.

[theroguefeminist]

detransitioners and trans people actually have a shared interest in destigmatizing transition

the more stigmatized transition and trans bodies are, the more stigmatized detransition and detransitioned bodies are

this rhetoric around IRREVERSIBLE DAMAGE and MUTILATION that transphobes peddle about trans people only further stigmatizes detransitioners. you're basically saying they're damaged and disfigured. how is that helpful? how is a narrow definition of womanhood or manhood that excludes detrans people helpful?

no matter what, detransitioners will exist. conservatives and terfs will act as if there's some magical way that you can gatekeep transition to only allow the "real" trans people to transition and "protect" those who have been "mislead" by the trans movement, but that's literally impossible. so the best world we can hope for is one where transition is seen as a matter of self expression and bodily autonomy

[ig-quince-works]

also destigmatizing transition and trans acceptance are gonna lower the number of detransitioners for several reasons

a lot of detransitioners really are trans but they either get the results they want and stop transitioning, pause transition (depending on the criteria for detransitioning sometimes people who stop taking hrt for a while and then go back on it count as detransitioners) for whatever reason (a lot of the times it's financial), detransition bc of transphobia, etc

accepting trans people as the gender they are before we start "passing" can give us more time to explore our gender without feeling like we need to start transitioning asap in order to be recognized as our genders (so if a cis person questions their gender they have save space to figure it out without feeling like they have to transition) (hopefully this makes sense idk if i worded it well)

more mainstream discourse about trans identities will help people (cis and trans) understand their gender(s) better

[pomme-poire-peche]

I saw a study on detransitioners and one of the things that it noted was that the majority of detransitioners are in favour of trans rights and feel politically aligned with trans people—for that matter, many are indeed gender-variant even if it's not the way they initially thought—and they often worried about their detransition being used as fodder for an anti-trans agenda.

Many didn't even "regret" their initial transition, even if they decided that its end point wasn't the right place for them to remain permanently.

(Also, this wasn't a detransitioner, but I remember hearing another quote from a trans man who was talking about his thought process prior to taking hormones, and he was wondering, "What if I'm wrong?", and then thought, "Well, if I'm wrong, and I'm actually a woman, and I take testosterone, then I'll just end up as a woman with more body hair and a deeper voice. And that's fine!" Destigmatizing detransitioned bodies also destigmatizes trans bodies and trans people's choices, not to mention the bodies of people who aren't trans but whose bodies aren't gender-normative for lots of reasons.)

[doberbutts]

I can't speak for everybody who's a trans man or masc of color, but I feel like I've gone most of my life having my femininity stripped away from me for not fitting the mold of white womanhood. Only when I came out as transmasc and started presenting more masc was I forcefully shoved into the role of woman and misgendered again but this time in reverse. I was a man in the eyes of white society when I presented as a woman, when I called myself butch. But since I'm a trans man, I'm suddenly a woman, suddenly addressed super femininely. It's a weird dissonance, I haven't seen anybody talk about it so I assume my experiences aren't universal, but it's a point of frustration. I'm a man to racists until I'm trans, then suddenly I'm a women and always have been seen as super feminine.

You did it! You hit the nail directly on the head!

People used to be horrifically cruel to me on the basis of not believing me when I said I was a girl. I've been groped and pantsed and kicked and punched and had my hair pulled all by people trying to prove that I was actually a boy.

Then I came out as trans and it was "you are the girliest girl woman female I've ever known and you've never been boyish ever" and "if boy now why when 4 wear pretty dress without fuss? Because girl checkmate loser"

Now I'm medically transitioning and it's "I should never have told you [that my natural t levels were high]" and "I should have made you wear a dress/makeup" and "what you need is a husband to put some kids in you and then you'll understand you were always meant to be a woman"

[genderkoolaid]

quadgender or, as i like to call it, bigender²

[homoidiotic]

My Gender Workbook by Kate Bornstein (1998)

[faggilyeverafter]

Bigender/multigender people who aren't men and women I love you!! If some of your genders aren't binary that doesn't make you any less multigender!! Saying this as an agender man who didn't realise the bigender label applied to me for a while, if your gender is "I'm a boy and also nonbinary" or "I'm a demigirl but also I don't have a gender" or "I'm cloudgender and catgender" that still counts!!!

[indiestarlight-deactivated20250]

hi. if your analysis of gender holds "male" and "female" and "nonbinary" as distinct identities with no overlap, and it does not include room for the fact that some men are also women and some women are also men and some men and women are also nonbinary and some people are all three, it's bad analysis and not inclusive of multigender people.

let me ask you this:

does your discourse about who is "allowed" in lesbian spaces make room for women who also identify as men, or do you say that a lesbian must be a "non-man"? does your wlw tumblr blog add "men dni" at the bottom of every post with no regard for the wlw who are also men? does your discourse about who is "allowed" in gay male spaces make room for men who also identify as women? does your discourse about who is "allowed" in nonbinary spaces make room for people who are also men and/or women in addition to being nonbinary?

when you talk about acceptance for trans people, are you including multigender people who still identify with their AGAB, including people who don't want to medically transition or change their presentation? are you including AMAB people whose identities still include "male" and who use he/him pronouns and present masculinely, or are you going to call them "predatory males" and kick them out of trans spaces? are you including AFAB people whose identities still include "female" and who use she/her pronouns and present femininely, or are you going to call them "theyfabs trying to feel special" and kick them out of trans spaces?

if your answer to any of those was "i hadn't even considered that", this is your sign that you need to listen to multigender people more, because we've been talking about these issues for a very long time

[multigenderswag]

#okay not to be like that#but aren't bigender m/f folks inherently non-binary?#like 'non-binary' literally is what it says on the tin#if you identify as anything outside of strictly male or strictly female#you fall outside of the gender binary#thus making you non-binary#obviously if you don't like or identify with the term that's your business#but last I knew#non-binary was an umbrella term for everything not binary

Personally, as a bigender person, I can't stand being labeled as nonbinary. M/f gender people can be included under the nonbinary umbrella if they'd like, but my issue with calling us inherently nonbinary is that nonbinary is the exact opposite of how I perceive my gender. I've jokingly described myself as "yes-binary" before, and that's pretty much how I feel. Nonbinary is an umbrella term for everything not binary*, but my gender is binary. Doubly so. I don't adhere to the gender binary as a system, which is why I could choose to be nonbinary, but both of my genders are binary, which is why I'm reluctant to describe myself as "not a binary gender."

Hopefully that answers your question

[genderkoolaid]

i really feel your post about not having unconditional access to womanhood and lesbianism. i can't tell you how many times i've seen a lesbian make a post and i get all excited to interact with them and then i see "men dni" at the bottom and im like. is that me? im a queer woman, but im also a man, so am i not allowed to interact with you? do you think that my being a man is so shameful and harmful that me just liking/reblogging your public tumblr post will like, give you Evil Man Cooties or something? idk it just sucks. im too much of a fag for the dykes and too much of a dyke for the fags. where am i supposed to go?

yes!!! its so alienating!!! at this point i really only interact with explicitly radically inclusive blogs (shout out to @queer-love-4-women you are doing the lords work), and mspec lesbians because they know very well what its like to be treated as a lesbian heretic and excluded from the community (and being personally blamed for all of lesbophobia simply by identifying as a lesbian Wrong)

also to that last point. i think a lot of transmultiphobia boils down to either binarization (you have to be Just One Thing, so i will decide which gender is your REAL gender and treat you accordingly) and degendering (by being more than one gender, you alienate yourself from all of them, so you end up neutral by default) and both really fucking suck. i am agender/neutrois but i also have been really fucked up by the degendering i experience by being a manwoman and being forced into being "neutral nonbinary" because no one is willing to actually see me as both a man and a woman.