That Is Not Binary

A blog where I’m annoying about the pronouns of nonbinary people or characters. Transfem and transmasc refer to CHOSEN PRESENTATION. Any definition regarding AGAB contributes to misgendering and intersexism.

[nonbinary-reminder]

I use they/them and it/its. You can use any set of neopronouns for me also.

I got really sick of seeing people misgender Phantom, so I was inspired to make this blog. I’m going to be annoying about correcting others abt people or character’s pronouns.

The conceit of this is that I won’t be very polite, so if you’re genuinely somebody who didn’t know or is happily headcanoning, tell me and I’ll back off.

If you use the terms TMA/TME, block me, or I will block you.

Transfem/Transmasc do not refer to AGAB.

Known use of AGAB language in the queer community only started in the late 2000s. Specifically 2011. Here is the link to the birth assignment page on the intersex wiki, which has sources attached.

Earliest known use of transfeminine? 1985. Here's an internet archive link for you. It is more unclear when transmasc was coined, but they were done so to describe a transition that is masculine or feminine. It is why terms like transneutral or transxenine also exist. They describe gender presentation.

Attempting to define "transfem" as "trans and amab" or "transmasc" as "trans and afab" is not only just plain incorrect, it is wildly exorsexist and intersexist. A breakdown by this-is-varsexism-transphobia on why using them to refer to AGAB is transphobic.

If you keep trying to "correct" me on this or insist I look up the "origin" I will not try to explain to you. I will just block you.

nonbinary. enben. enby. non-binary. Not Binary.

fuck you

pfp source

[helloseptemberlune]

“This character is not on the nonbinary spectrum.” Well, they should be.

[nonbinarynow]

I am black. I am nonbinary. To any other enben of colour,

I see you.

I know how you are treated in your ethnic culture, in your family. How they tell you "it's a white thing" even though it was your vibrantly-gendered culture that was steamrolled into a binary by Western colonisers. I know how it feels to not be able to use your correct pronouns in your mother tongue because no one knows the neopronouns you have to use in your binary gendered language. I know how you try to mix and explore sides of your native culture that you have never explored before. That you never knew you could blend so euphorically back when you used to live under the binary. I know the guilt you feel for not fitting in, for not being able to pass up your racialised binary gender experience. The ethic sisterhood, the racialised brotherhood. I know how it feels, to be able to pass as something amongst white people, but then the sweetness of that is taken from you as you remember that it is rooted in the racist binarism that continues to subjugate the binary members of your race. I know how to feels to feel invisible in the non-binary community, when most of our representation is white. I know how it feels to view androgyny or gender neutrality as impossible unless you are white; it was the same feeling you felt towards masculinity and femininity when you were binary gendered. I know how it feels to want to transition in a masculine or feminine way, but remembering those who pass as men or women in your ethnicity get killed and sexually assaulted at random by the system. I know how it feels to not want to risk it, to want to hide forever. I see you. I. See. You.

But I do not only know your struggle. I know the beauty of finding other enben of colour, who understand the intersections, the history. I understand the joy that is uncovering that history before colonialism, of the many different genders and modalities of you ancestors gone by. I know the smile that comes on your face when your chosen family (which can include blood relation) uses the right pronouns, the right neopronouns. I know the understanding that it's okay to still understand your racialised binary experience will forever be a part of you that white trans people might not understand. I know the joy of expression through hair, and the absolute ecstasy that comes when you too will realise that androgyny and gender neutrality is not just for white people, not just in white expression. It works in your ethnicity too. I know the feeling of peace that comes from being gendered in your desired way by a member of your race, realising you are surpassing the binarist system.

I know the feeling of great pain that comes from being an enban of colour, a black enban to be specific, but I also know the feelings of great beauty that you get from that intersection. It gets dark sometimes, but there is joy to be found. There is community to be found. There is unity to be found. There is life to be found as an enban/enby of colour. We are strong and we shine brighter than the sun.

[qaivan]

I hate that there's no room for nonbinary people in media. When a character's gender is "ambiguous" (neither seen as masculine nor feminine) and solely referred to with neutral terms such as "they/them" and person, individual, etc, people can't stand that. They can't stand the idea that a nonbinary person wouldn't want to be a boy or girl, isn't a boy or a girl. They have to be a girlthing or a boything (why are all nonbinary people things? Why is it never girlenby or boyenby?), they have to be transfem or transmasc. When they're put into relationships, they have to be either lesbian or gay. Nobody can be cenelian or enbian or diamoric or gai or strayt or trixic or toric. That doesn't exist.

I'm sick of it. I'm sick of seeing nonbinarity be shoved into category after category after category when the whole point of being nonbinary is that we want to opt out.

[sweetneapolitan]

Hii!!! Here are some terms for relationships that include nonbinary people/define nonbinary attraction

Diamoric: Considered an umbrella term referring to attractions experienced by non-binary individuals that cannot be described with language such as same/similar or different/opposite gender, such as "straight" or "gay".

Trixic: Describes a person with a nonbinary gender identity who is attracted to women. Or a relationship that includes a nonbinary person and a woman.

Toric: Describes a person with a nonbinary gender identity who is attracted to men. Or a relationship that includes a nonbinary person and a man.

Enbian: Refers to a relationship between nonbinary individuals, or nonbinary people with attraction to other nonbinary individuals.

Sources:

Diamoric is generally considered an umbrella term referring to attractions experienced by non-binary individuals that cannot be described wi

Describes a person with a nonbinary gender identity who is sexually and/or romantically attracted to women.

Toric

[getmorenonbinary]

everyone who needs to hear this,

get more nonbinary today. put that pronoun you like in your bio, it’s cool. remove that pronoun you tolerate for “convenience,” you deserve better. try that outfit, you’ll look awesome. use that nonbinary-centering label, it’s wonderful. refuse that attempt to binarise you, you don’t have to let people do it to yourself. research possibilities for hormonal therapy. you can actually pick and choose some things, you have way more autonomy in medical results than people are willing to acknowledge. look for different surgeries. you can get mastectomy and go on E. you can get breast augmentation. you can get breast reduction. you can get a vagina and preserve penis. you can get penis and preserve vagina. you can get nullification. you can get nullification and keep a vagina. you can get orchiectomy and preserve penis. you have a lot of other options!

(obviously you don’t have to wish any medical procedures to be nonbinary and to get more nonbinary. i say it because there is an idea that medical transition is a strictly binary pericisnormative thing, and it’s not. but the point is to be comfortable in your body).

try that hairstyle, it would look great. make or buy that pronouns pin. try that nail polish. or remove that nail polish. wear these shoes. or give/throw them away.

eat a huge delicious meal. read your favourite book or fic, or watch your favourite movie or series or whatever media you like. try to find something that makes your day better.

be proud of yourself. appreciate yourself. be louder. take more space. do whatever you want forever.

stay safe. we care about you. nonbinary community is here for you. we appreciate you and want you here.

nothing to add here anon. TRUER WORDS HAVE NEVER EVER BEEN SPOKEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[strictlyquadrilateral]

i read an anecdote ages and ages ago from a gay person who grew up with gay parents, and struggled to find any kind of belonging in the gay community because everyone else there was bonding over having homophobic parents. everyone else was defining themselves by their suffering and oppression rather than by their sexuality, leaving this gay person to feel like they weren't really gay because they didn't have the right experiences. they wondered whether more gay people would feel this way as more children grew up with gay parents, if the gay community would leave them behind for not having suffered enough. i think about that anecdote a lot.

a lot of the current rhetoric around gender reminds me of that anecdote. a lot of people are willing to go "transgender people are oppressed for their gender presentation, therefore if you're not oppressed for your gender presentation, you're not trans." but i don't think we should be defining ourselves by our suffering and oppression. what will we do, in a few years, in a few decades, as there start to be, say, adults who were supported in their transition as children? what will we do when a stereotypical trans person can genuinely say they didn't suffer hardship for being trans?

i'm afraid i know the answer. i'm afraid that people are going to close ranks as they've already started closing ranks against intersex people, against nonbinary people, against double binary people, against closeted people. as some people have started closing ranks against people who transitioned in the opposite direction from them. as many people have closed ranks against people with edge case gender experiences. "i don't consider you to be oppressed, therefore you are not welcome to share in this community you might otherwise belong in."

i wish people would understand that we shouldn't do this. i wish people would understand that we benefit from a broader, more inclusive community more than we benefit from whatever purity testing oppression olympics it is that i keep running into.

[getmorenonbinary]

Introduction post!

hello!!! welcome to the getmorenonbinary blog!!!! a space made for enby folks to share experiences, talk about gender, and, especially, for nonbinary joy 💛

mod goes by they/it! and just refer to them as mod or as their username lol. not disclosing real name for personal reasons

anyone that falls under the nonbinary umbrella is welcome to share their experience here, of course. binary folks can participate, but do not make this about your experience please. basically, be on theme.

this blog has no dni, but exorsexists and other kinds of bigots will be blocked.

this blog is inspired by @get-more-transmasc, @get-more-transfem, @this-is-nonbinary-joy, @this-is-trans-joy and @this-is-trans-solidarity

have a good day!! ^_^

[bereft-of-form]

I sometimes see people who complain about the general trend of defaulting to they/them pronouns when you don't know what the person uses yet on the basis of "it enables those who degender trans people and gives them plausible deniability". What I'm curious about in those cases is, what would the alternative solutions be?

Should we roll back years of activism, throw nonbinary people, trans people who can't or don't want to pass, gnc people under the bus, and go back to assuming pronouns based on superficial presentation, something I genuinely saw being suggested? This only serves to make life harder for the more vulnerable members of the community, while doing nothing to fix the underlying issue - transphobia. Only a minority of gender-conforming, perfectly passing and usually stealth binary trans people benefits from this in any way.

Bigots who refuse to acknowledge trans people's actual pronouns will do so either way. If it's not "they/them"-ing people who don't go by that set of pronouns, it's refusing to use any pronouns at all, or misgendering them using any other pronouns, or awkwardly refusing to address them completely and pretending the trans person doesn't exist as far as they are concerned.

[themaveriqueagenda]

shoutout to nonbinary people who are deemed complicated or confusing. shoutout to nonbinary people who have 5 names. shoutout to nonbinary people who go by neopronouns. shoutout to xenogender people. shoutout to nonbinary people who use gendered terms for themselves but allow no one else to. shoutout to nonbinary people who go by different pronouns every day. shoutout to multigender people. shoutout to transmascs who were amab. shoutout to transfems who were afab. shoutout to nonbinary people who are neither cis nor trans. shoutout to nonbinary people who have pronouns that only certain people are allowed to use. shoutout to nonbinary people who are known by different names to different people. shoutout to outherine people. shoutout to transmascfems. shoutout to nonbinary people who are both cis and trans. shoutout to nonbinary people who don't care about making sense to others. shoutout to nonbinary people who actively want to confuse people.

[whataboutenby]

Asking people to respect a nonbinary characters pronouns should be the bare minimum.

But now, when i remind people that every character in Among Us uses they/them, they tell me im being a buzz kill... like. Idk mate are we watching the same fucking show???

[donniehaspronouns]

respect non-binary people not because this is “a step to realizing they’re really a trans man/trans woman” but because non-binary people are deserving of respect in their identity. because being non-binary is not “just a stepping stone” for many people and they still deserve their identity to be respected.

being non-binary is being trans, and we respect our trans siblings in this house. full stop.

[tomboyhousewife-deactivated2024]

queer people who have done zero self reflection when they see someone who doesn't look fem in their space

[predatory-lesbians]

ACTUALLY FUCKING THO

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

#the bioessentialism is gross and inescapable#‘oh i’m just not comfortable around this person bc i don’t know them!’#is that it? or is it that they’re masculine presenting and you only think of non-binary people as girl lite

[coelpts]

[this-is-trans-joy]

I'm sending this ask not to attack you, but because I feel that you are misinformed about TMA/TME, and while I understand where you are coming from I think that the answer you gave to a previous ask can be damaging.

(I'm going to copy paste some of the below from a similar conversation I had the other day so I apologise if there is anything that seems slightly off topic)

I think that the primary sticking point is that your description of TMA/TME primarily comes from the way that (trans) radfems and other bigoted people use it, instead of the way it's primarily used by the majority of people, especially trans women. An analogy I'll draw is your response feels like saying that feminism is bad because TERFS are bigoted. It's rlly important to remember that the people using TMA/TME to attack and put down trans men aren't the majority, and instead are a loud minority, and judging all of transfeminism and it's terms based on this minority can quickly tend towards bigotry.

As for TMA/TME itself (this is the part copy pasted):

Also I do kinda agree about your point about everyone being affected by transmisogyny, and in legitimate transfeminist discussions I do find that the name to be a bit off of what it's really trying to discuss. Realistically all the term exists for is because, for example, in traditional cisfeminism it's easy to discuss the concept of "women are the targets of misogyny". But when it comes to transfeminism it gets a little murky. Because just saying "trans women" excludes transfemme enbys among others. And while there are potentially broader terms you could try to use to encompass everyone, they can quickly become convoluted, and really the point is to discuss everyone that transmisogyny is targeting.

So when you actually approach tma/tme from a transfeminist perspective of trying to engage in genuine discussion of opression, it makes more sense, even if the words are a bit off.

I am truly sorry the way that these words have been used against trans men, and I can understand why you feel the way you do, but I really think it's important to not let a few bigots poison legitimate discussion. It's part of whats leading to the growing rift in the trans community, social media pushing the loudest cruel people to the surface, and people generalising entire groups (especially trans women) based on that.

So, I do somewhat agree that the original use of TME/TMA could potentially have been useful in discussions alongside other, more specific and more nuanced terms, because on its own TME/TMA is simply too binary to encompass the actual lived experiences of all trans, enben and intersex people, but acting alongside other terms, it could have been useful in discussions about transmisogyny and how it effects different people (although I’d still take this with a grain of salt, because as you say yourself, the language is still too rigid no matter what context it’s used in).

However, I disagree with the analogy used here, because I don’t think the two are comparable. I do believe that transfeminism itself has been hijacked by a loud minority, and does not reflect the wider transfeminist community (of which I have been a part of for many years, so I do have an idea of what I’m talking about here. This isn’t just a case of me looking at a few tumblr posts and deciding what I think TME/TMA means). But, when it comes to the actual TME/TMA acronyms, an entirely separate, exclusionary movement has essentially arisen from them to the point where they can no longer be used in a vacuum without acknowledging the wider harm that has already been caused.

Personally, I believe a lot of transfeminist discussions have been set back by the ideology surrounding the TME/TMA binary. To give an example, I sometimes see trans people (particularly trans men) use the term “female socialisation” to describe their experiences growing up in a society that viewed them as a women, and how that connects to their manhood. The actual crux of this discussion is still an important one to have when talking about things like reproductive rights amongst trans men that cis men aren’t affected by, but the actual term “female socialisation” cannot be used in these discussions because it is far too associated with TERF ideology and excludes the nuances and perspectives of how trans women are raised in a transmisogynistic society. In my opinion, I would not trust anyone who uses this term without being wary of what other beliefs they may hold.

Some of these trans people will be using it sincerely because they simply don’t have another term to put into words what they’re trying to explain, but that’s symptomatic of discussions that have not had the necessary time, space or input from other trans and intersex people to evolve better and more inclusive language.

Rejecting TME/TMA language does not mean rejecting transfeminist discussions as a whole, nor even the specific discussions that TME/TMA language was created for. It is simply rejecting terms that have caused far more harm, division and exclusion amongst the community than good.

[this-is-trans-joy]

i see the term thrown around so i have to ask what is a TME or TMA

TME means transmisogyny exempt and TMA means transmisogyny affected. It’s a useless binary that has to rely on specific markers to determine who exactly is TMA, while everyone else is immediately viewed as exempt from it. The people who use TME/TMA language usually only view binary, perisex trans women as TMA and regularly exclude intersex people, non-binary people and multigendered people from the TMA label (among others).

Furthermore, despite the fact that TME is supposed to include everyone who isn’t a trans woman (including cis people) it’s pretty much only ever thrown at trans men and mascs to undermine any issues that we face, because according to the TME/TMA binary, we are exempt from experiencing the only kind of transphobia that seems to matter. None of its users ever believe that anti-transmasculinity/transandrophobia exists, and do not believe that trans men, non-binary people or intersex people can possibly experience the same level of oppression that trans women do.

Any language that relies on a binary will always harm trans people, and the majority of intersex people, enben, trans men/mascs and trans women who have been harassed by the TME/TMA crowd for not fitting into their very narrow view of what a trans woman is have already talked extensively about how harmful this language is, so anyone still using it is wilfully ignorant at best and downright transphobic and intersexist at worst.

[rock-kandyshark]

Yeah I'll kick the hornets nest: you should not be making egg jokes about strangers, especially to their face. These kinds of jokes are potentially damaging to closeted trans people, because you don't know someone's situation. Maybe they already know they're trans, but are in an unsafe situation. Maybe they just aren't ready to address it. Maybe they'll start doubting if they actually want to transition or they only think they want to because a bunch of people told them they do. And it's especially bad if, say, you're making a transfem egg joke to a trans man who isn't open about his transness, which could lead to serious dysphoria (and vice versa for trans women). Not to mention how terrible it is to do this to nonbinary people. Do not joke about a nonbinary person being a binary trans egg, it's extremely disrespectful and transphobic to do so. And it's hard not to notice how implying someone is an egg only extends towards binary genders. Imagine someone is doubting their gender, and everyone is telling them they're obviously a trans man egg. They might end up forcing themself into that binary because they think that's what everyone wants.

All of this isn't to say you can't kindly and respectfully say "the things you've been saying sound very similar to the trans experience, I think it's possible you may be trans, but ofc it's up to you to decide whether or not to look into it". I very much encourage that, especially if the person is your friend and seems to be struggling. The thing that's really bad is making jokes at the possible closeted trans person's expense, or thinking of "cracking an egg" as something to brag about and not something to help someone through because you care about them

[nonbinary-reminder]

I am so unbelievably tired of seeing TMA/TME being treated like transfeminist praxis or as anything other than exclusionary and reductive. It’s simply ineffective at everything positive it claims to be made for.

Even IF it wasn’t used to be disparaging towards anyone not a perisex binary trans woman or fem, there are better words (transfeminized, for example) to describe the people targeted by transmisogyny or how people assumed to be transfem are treated, without (pt: without) creating a binary that makes claims on other people’s experiences, makes suffering synonymous with trans identity, forces people to disclose their identity, refusing to acknowledge nuance, implying large groups of people are inherently oppressors, or downplaying other forms of oppression.

I have repeatedly seen people called TME just for disliking the terms, even those who are trans women. It’s transparently a way to describe an in-group/out-group. Any use they have is a facade. The moment there’s an “acceptable” group to wish violence and death upon, people will make excuses to put anyone they dislike into that group.

Put these terms down and leave them in the dust, and accept your fellow trans person. You don’t have to like every person ever, or even anybody, but you HAVE to treat them with basic decency. No one is less important than you.

[dumbdogdiscourse]

Re: "I have repeatedly seen people called TME just for disliking the terms, even those who are trans women."

I was called/assumed TME because, and I quote, "only tmes whinge so fucking much about tme/tma...and [TMA people] also don't obsessively whine and cry about it if they don't want to use the term, ofc you're tme"

I would like to note that I haven't, and will never, reveal if I'm transmisogynized/transfeminized on this blog. I don't want to get caught up in the "you can't criticize x if you're x" shit from either side of the discourse. I only have two boundaries on my blog: be kind, and don't assume you know anything about me.

So, yeah. At this point it isn't based on anything (I haven't spoken about any personal experiences with transmisogyny, intentionally, so there's literally no way to know if I'm "affected" or "exempt"). People are just picking and choosing who they want to be "TME" vs "TMA". Also because apparently no transfem ever hates on TME/TMA language.