Hi, everyone who’s been wondering where I am or had forgotten they were following me in the first place!
This has been a long time coming since this blog has been functionally inactive for a while now, but I’m retiring this blog. It will stay up, but I I won’t be posting anymore. I may come back in some capacity at some time in the future, but as of now, I have no plans of doing so.
There’s a full explanation under the read more, but tl;dr: I’ve made a lot of nice memories and experiences while running this space, but I’ve also had negative and frankly racist and homo/transphobic language thrown at me for a while now, even my absence. And honestly I’m at my limit, well beyond it tbh, and the negative experiences, though fewer, outweigh the positive.
I want to thank everyone who’s been a positive force during my time with this blog, and I hope life treats you nothing but kindly.
Goodbye for now 🧡🧡🧡
I’ve said this before, but when I first started this blog — which was a sapphic nblw and wlw blog at the time — I had recently came to terms with various parts of my gender and sexuality, and this blog was more words of kindness for myself than for anyone else. And yet, I found that my words resonated with a lot of people, which I was excited to see and felt lucky to be a positive place for others. I know the joke that on twitter when a tweet goes viral they plug all their other shit and on here if something blows up, the post gets deleted and op says never ask them about it again, but at first, the experience for me was a very pleasant and wonderful one. I got people telling me how what I was saying meant a lot to them or made them smile. I still have asks in my inbox of people saying words so kind and personal that I’ve never answered them because I still don’t know how to. People came to me for advice, which was daunting, but I was also honored that people thought highly enough of me to think my words were of value. I felt comfortable enough to share my more serious opinions and experiences, especially wrt being black in lgbt and queer communities, and to shift gears to queer positivity after going through another period of questioning.
But obviously, if my experience had been totally positive, I’d probably wouldn’t be retiring this blog right now. My most popular or far-reaching posts were these: link, link, link. They were also my most personal. The first two came from a place of frustration as a black queer with the nonblack lgbtq community, a frustration that most black queer people feel, a feeling of a lack of respect, understanding, and intersectionality. The other came from a longer personal piece of prose about body positivity that I condensed and shared. All of them came from deep and intense emotions and were hard for me to share. They were all received mostly positively, but once something gets so many eyes on it, the reactions and interpretations are out of your control. Suddenly from the posts about antiblackness, I was being attacked by alt-right, nazi and butthurt nonblack people, and the body positivity post was being swarmed by terfs trying make it about them and their definitions of women. Both groups doubled down and increased their vitriol when I pushed back.
I have had a policy of not engaging with hateful asks and messages since I started, but let me tell you, it’s been hard and I have caved before. But even when I don’t engage, I see those asks and messages as I delete them, and I’m confident I’ve been call every antiblack, homophobic, transphobic, and misogynistic slur under the sun. I’ve been called a cotton picker, fruit, and gender traitor unironically, which was funny tbh. But, I’ve also received threats to my life/safety and a doxxing attempt that was unsuccessful and the person wrong about my location and identity, but it was still a genuinely terrifying experience. All of the negativity has been tiring and detrimental to my mental health. All of those posts were made in 2019 iirc, so that’s been two years of waxing and waning hatefulness that continues even today (like literally today, October 25, 2021 as I’m writing this). It gets to you.
At some point you have to weigh the benefits with the risks and decide if it’s worth it to maintain a safe place for others and at the loss of your own. To me, it’s no longer worth it. I’ve had fun, but I’ve also had enough. So, thanks especially to everyone who’s been here since the beginning and multiple url and theme changes and to everyone who’s ever given me a kind word. I’ve really appreciated y’all and only it kept up this long because the support y’all gave me.
it’s cool that we’re over the, “nonbinary people can only be androgynous and use they/them” thing, but the new trend of acting like we’re no different than binary trans or cis people and that there’s no material reality to being nonbinary isn’t any better. treating nonbinary language and experiences as immaterial or unnecessary doesn’t help us. acting like it’s cringe to acknowledge that we are, in fact, not (strictly) men or women doesn’t help. saying that there’s no difficulties we go through as nonbinary people that isn’t just transphobia doesn’t help.
we aren’t a monolith, but we are still nonbinary. acknowledge and respect that.
I wish people would stop with the AGAB stuff. Nonbinary are more than what’s in their pants like come on we don’t need to invent Gender 2
that wasn’t my intention and i’m sorry if it came across that way! anyone who has been following me for a while knows that i’m the biggest Binary Language and Alignment Terminology Hater™️, but there comes a time where even a person like me has to admit there is a preconceived notion of what a nonbinary person looks like and that people who don’t fit that idea are treated differently and often have their identity questioned. like, as a black person, i know what it’s like to excluded from nonbinary (and most lgbt) spaces and my right to be there questioned, and when it’s obvious that this is happening to another large swath of our community, it should be addressed. but i’m sorry if i went about it in a way that insulted others.
i love your post about big women because it’s not only empowering, but i get amusement from reporting the terf hatespeech i found in the notes !!! have a great day
