#monosexism

[sweetpea67]

I wasn’t on here during Ace Discourse (thank goodness) but sometimes I’ll read older posts from that time and a few things stick out to me:

The fact that this website is perpetually searching for a queer demographic that they can oppress and say is actually privileged. Trans without dysphoria, aro, polyam, bi, pan, xenogenders, mogai, enben, intersex, afab transfems, etc. I think right now the main target is trans men and transmascs more generally, but it’s the same old cycle and often the same exact people.

The fact that so many of the aphobes’ “arguments” were literally recycled homophobia: “You’re too young to know.” “Asexuality is nsfw.” “Asexuality is just a phase.” “You just say you’re ace because you think it’s quirky.”

The fact that even after the “discourse” stopped, the perpetrators looked back at it as “that cringy phase I had as a teenager” rather than “that time I bullied hundreds of random queer people for their identities and forced them back into the closet.” There were no apologies.

That literally no aspec person who has been on the Internet since before that time was left untouched, and that the entirety of online aspec culture has been forever altered from this hate wave.

That it was a gateway into radfem circles.

That some people tried to pit aspecs against mspecs because they thought we were opposites but instead mspecs turned out for aspecs a lot harder than many monosexuals ever did.

[this-is-amato-heteronormativity]

Begging people in fandom spaces to stop treating nonqueer as the default.

An unconfirmed character is not automatically allorose, monorose, straight, monogamous, with 0 prioritized nonrose (platonic/queerplatonic, alterous, sensual, etc) attraction.

An unconfirmed character is not automatically unaltered perisex, cisgender, binary, gender conforming, and pronoun conforming.

Unless the creator or character explicitly states that they are all of those things, then you literally cannot tell people "[insert character here] isn't queer!"

(And also people are allowed to headcanon things that defy canon for the sake of fun and representation, but that's a different discussion to be had.)

[moonlightsapphic]

things that don’t affect your ability to identify as a femme:

being bisexual

being attracted to fem(me)s

not being attracted to butches and mascs

being trans, nonbinary or genderqueer

not identifying as a woman

being multigender/genderfluid and/or identifying as a man/achillean

not presenting your gender in a certain way (there is no one way to be femme!)

being a domme, top, switch or vers

things that do undermine your femme identity:

butchphobia

not supporting fat, BIPOC and disabled butches

being misoginystic towards fem peers (unhealthily projecting internalised femmephobia)

believing all lesbians* must identify as women

believing all lesbians* must be cis women

believing all lesbians* must be fem

believing all lesbians must be exclusively attracted to the above archetypes (fem, cis, woman-identifying)

declaring butches are universally unattractive (this is abbhorent mean girl behaviour)

believing queer men and achilleans can’t perform butchfemme (this is racist as butchfemme was coined by mixed-gender BIPOC ballroom culture)

phobia towards he/him lesbians*, transmasc lesbians*, lesbian* boyfriends/husbands

phobia towards nonbinary and genderqueer lesbians* or seeing them as “women lite”

claiming butches or masc lesbians* can’t be trans men or multigender/genderfluid

by extension, claiming lesbians can’t be bisexual (ie spreading ahistorical disinformation about bi/mspec lesbian identities and how instrumental they are to butchfemme)

forcing the butch label onto trans men who don’t wish to identify that way anymore

believing trans men who are attracted to women are just confused/brainwashed cis lesbians (this is wildly transphobic)

phobia against transfemme peers

phobia against transfem butches/mascs

unsolicitedly lamenting how you feel “oppressed” (you’re not) due to your genital preference or the mere existence of transfem lesbians* (ie thinly veiled transphobia)

phobia against bi butches and femmes

believing that anyone with some capacity for attraction to men is automatically “men centered” and can’t perform queer femininity like a true femme (this is femmephobia based in slut shaming)

believing that butchness is invalidated by any capacity of attraction to men (again, bimisoginystic purity culture—you don’t get to “own” a butch’s sexuality just because you’re a femme)

gatekeeping the term “dyke” from other sapphics that you don’t think are lesbian enough

believing other sapphics are less queer than exclusive lesbians, or having stricter standards (*cough* gatekeeping) for mythical “exclusive lesbian spaces”, who gets to identify as a lesbian, and whom lesbians are attracted to

believing real lesbians are only the people who look like you and people you’re attracted to

having strict standards for how all butches and femmes should present (this is easily racist)

not accepting that many ethnic cultures may have different queer gender dynamics that don’t equate to butchfemme even if they look similar (don’t be racist and xenophobic!)

believing butchfemme is only a western phenomenon that is only “mimicked” in other (especially non English speaking) countries (western queer people aren’t uniquely enlightened, they do not own queer gender dynamics and butchfemme was created by BIPOC in the first place—gatekeeping from the rest of the world is colonial)

believing only femme4butch is valid, or that all butches and femmes must have at least some attraction for the other group (this is ahistorical as well as plain intrusive)

believing in universal strict butchfemme gender and/or intimacy roles

dismissing pillow princesses, high femmes and stone bottoms as “lazy” or not really sapphic

believing a bi pillow princess, high femme or stone bottom is actually just straight, and only wants to use other sapphics to get off (straight women aren’t necessarily naturally bottoms anyway! this is so misogynistic and bioessentialist)

dismissing stone tops and butches as “broken”

believing sapphics on the asexual/aromantic spectrums don’t feel actual queer attraction and that queerplatonic couples actually just want to be friends

Judging and policing sexual, romantic and partnership preferences, period

believing all bi sapphics want to treat butches like they’re cis men (this sort of bad behaviour is far from exclusive to bisexuals; those of us with healthy relationship habits are actually affectionate and validating towards our cis men partners as well and it’s no different when we date non cis men but that’s another conversation)

believing all butches must want to be treated like “princesses” or “babygirls” (rather than emphasizing personal preference)

alternatively, treating butches and mascs like “men lite” when they don’t welcome that

treating butches badly (in relationships or socially) based on their butchness

believing butchfemme is heteronormative and not true lesbianism*

conversely, romanticising butchfemme to the point of not bothering to engage with critique about how the culture may mirror and enforce heteropatriarchal gender dynamics if we’re not careful to remember it should be about embracing authentic identities and desires rather than fitting into boxes

not caring about or being completely uninvolved in diverse queer culture, intersectional coalition, or sociopolitical activism

Femmes are meant to be protectors for the rest of the community—especially towards peers who don’t share our privileges. Hope this helps and have fun living your best femme life! 🌸 🎀

*I specifically use “lesbian/lesbianism” here though “sapphic/sapphism” applies too, because the gatekeeping discourse is often most heated when the term “lesbian” is involved, for obvious reasons—separatism.

[this-is-anti-masculinity]

Toxic masculinity results in men being more willing to do violent acts of suicide and self harm on themselves, due to being told it is manly to suck up their pain.

Toxic masculinity results in men being 4x more likely to commit suicide than women, due to men's mental health being treated like a joke. Men make up 80% of suicide statistics.

Is Lethality Different between Males and Females? Clinical and Gender Differences in Inpatient Suicide Attempters [Link] Differences in Suicide Among Men and Women Suicide Data and Statistics [link] Suicide rates are higher in men than in women [link] Samaritans.org suicide data [link] Suicide Data - National Institution Of Mental Health [link]

Homoandrophobia and andro-monosexism is the fact that 19% of achillean men attempt suicide, compared to 3% of non-achillean men.

Suicide Attempts Among Gay And Bisexual Men [link] Suicide Rate High Among Urban Gay Men [link]

Andro-amatonormativity is the fact that asexual men are at a higher rate of suicide than asexual women (as men are stereotyped to be sexual).

Experiences of minority stress and their impact on suicidality among asexual individuals [link]

Androqueerphobia is the fact that more than 50% of trans men have attempted suicide, and intersex people (including intersex men) are at a higher risk of suicide compared to their perisex (non-intersex) LGBTQ+ peers.

Transgender Adolescent Suicide Behavior [link] Intersex Youth Mental Health Report [link]

But sure. Say that men aren't negatively impacted by the patriarchy, that the patriarchy supports all men.

Lie that men don't have unique struggles with mental health, just as you lie about how men don't know what it's like to experience sexual violence (statistics on that here [link.])

[themaveriqueagenda]

so, as a bi aro/ace maverique, i have noticed and talked at length about how exorsexism, allosexism & monosexism all work in similar ways because it's ultimately oppression based on not fitting into an established binary of gender and/or orientation.

and i'm wondering if intersex people have noticed commonalities between intersexism and any of these other things. i'm perisex so i obviously can't speak on that, but intersex people are oppressed by the idea of a sex binary.

i'm asking this because i feel like it would be useful to have a word for these kinds of queer oppressions that are based on binaries simply because they are so similar in how they function, and because we need solidarity between all these groups. (we need solidarity between all queer people obviously, but as groups constantly erased and silenced by binaries, we need to have it especially, because it doesn't make sense for e.g. a pan person to tear down an aro with rhetoric that often also gets used against pan people).

and obviously i don't just wanna create a word without any input of a group that may also be affected.

[dhddmods]

People who use TMA/TME (transmisogyny affected/transmisogyny exempt) terms always fail to understand the problematic nature of using a term that says a specific type of people are "exempt" of a certain form of oppression.

That's anti-intersectionality at its finest and blatantly ignores nuance.

Sometimes, transmisogyny does affect non-transfem people. It can affect intersex people, trans men who are mistaken as trans women, non-binary people, gender non-conforming people, and so on.

Similarly, other forms of oppression can affect the "wrong" group. Transandrophobia can affect intersex people, trans women who are mistaken for trans men, non-binary people, gender non-conforming people, etc.

Same goes for how exorsexism can affect binary-gendered people who are mistaken as non-binary.

Same goes for how intersexism can affect perisex people who are mistaken as intersex.

Same goes for how homophobia can affect people who are not same-gender attracted. Or how monosexism can affect people who are not m-spec. Or how aphobia and allonormativity can affect people who are not on the anattractional spectrum (a-spec.)

By trying to sort people into a category of "unaffected by this form of oppression", you are actively creating a binary system of oppression, and opening the door for people to say "well, that experience couldn't have happened to you, because you are exempt of that!"

You are also forcing people who do not fit into your binary (some intersex people, some non-binary people, etc) to make themselves smaller.

[this-is-amato-heteronormativity]

I saw a post where this person asked about the meaning of some terms in the ace spectrum because they wanted to know if any applied to them and someone commented saying “just keep it simple so you don’t have to explain”

Correct me if I’m wrong but, aren’t the point of labels to keep from having to explain? 😭

Like I understand needing to take into consideration that a lot of people probably don’t know what cupiosexual or aegosexual means but that doesn’t mean they don’t need to use those labels or not have access to terms that are literally coined to explain their sexuality with way less words

I dont know it’s just very bizarre when people jump to the “well you don’t have to have all those labels” or “you don’t have to label yourself” or just encouraging people not to find more specific labels that fit them better. I will never understand that mindset.

Im sure this isn’t the case for all these people who say this but if you’re satisfied with your one broad label that doesn’t mean other people should just pick one broad label and just be fine with it. And don’t get me started on the people who say “it’s okay not to know!” If I wanted that answer I don’t think I would be asking to know in the first place

This is queerphobia.

Label and identity policing is so annoying. Some people find labels to be constricting, and choose to remain unlabeled or with minimal labels - thats perfectly valid! But other people need more specific labels because thats what brings them comfort and joy.

Let people find words to describe themselves. It doesn't hurt anyone.

I see this a lot towards people who are aspec, mspec, or non-binary (usually people on the xenogender spectrum) searching for labels.

People just hate aspecs, mspecs, and enben having more distinct labels because its "too complicated" - aka, it challenges the binary they have in their head (gay-straight binary, black stripe ace-allosexual binary, green stripe aro-alloromantic binary, man-woman binary, etc), and they dont like it.

[moonlightsapphic]

Are butches butches because they love femmes or because there's something about our gender expression? It would seem to be just sort of a moot point, like how many angels can dance on the head of a pin; which came first, the butchness or the lesbianism? Except that there's another one of these great misunderstandings, if you simply identify that butch and femme go together like love and marriage, and horse and carriage, soup and sandwich, then it leaves out butches who are attracted to other butches. It leaves out femmes who want to be with other femmes. It leaves out bisexual butches. It leaves no area at all to define why some women are so masculine and yet are heterosexual. To me, being butch doesn't mean what you do in bed. I mean to be butch on the street, that's what being butch is to me.

—Outlaw (1994), Leslie Feinberg, butch lesbian author & trans rights activist