#transunity tag

[motherblackcap]

happy nonbinary awareness week! one simple fact to start you off: in the majority of countries and territories around the world, nonbinary people are not recognised as a distinct legal gender—either as a single collective nonbinary gender, or as the whole spectrum it actually represents. If you do live in a country where nonbinary identity is legally recognised: that's brilliant! really! but please be aware of the privileges granted by having your gender be recognised on a legal level, which the majority of nonbinary people do not have.

[motherblackcap]

as much as I understand why the recent wave of trans solidarity posts are being made (to fight off radfems trying to turn transmascs and transfems against each other) I do find it frustrating that nonbinary people are mentioned only very briefly, if at all. and in that brief mention we're rarely mentioned rarely by name, it's usually written like "transmascs and transfems and all trans people", which... I understand, begrudgingly. being nonbinary isn't a monolith and nor is it a "third option" to trans men and trans women. but sometimes I do feel like people really do keep forgetting that trans people exist outside the transmasc/transfem false dichotomy.

[motherblackcap]

if you assume that every nonbinary person is automatically wholly and always transfem or wholly and always transmasc you're legally required to give all the money in your bank account to a collection of transneutral and transandrogynous and transfemmasc and transoutherine and transxenine and transnull and transaporine and transmaverique (etc.) people and if you don't know any of them then your money will automatically be put into a raffle to let the luckiest win. and also you'll be exiled to Point Nemo. that's just how it is I don't make the rules sorry (not sorry)

[motherblackcap]

so much hatred and discrimination towards nonbinary people from other members of the queer community seems to hinge on the idea that by centring our own issues, or simply raising our concerns with binarism, we're actively and maliciously taking time and/or effort away from the issues faced by binary trans people.

also! so much disagreement about the similarities in experiences between binary and nonbinary trans people, when they do get discussed, tends to hinge on the issues of 'stolen valour', as if we're appropriating their experiences of being perceived outside the gender binary/as that oft-spoken-of "freakish third thing", but I'm not sure most of the wider queer community is yet willing and/or able to discuss that yet