cw: food mention, q slur, descriptions of transphobia and dysphoria, nausea mention, pregnancy mention
I don't have work today and my only class on Thursdays starts at six PM, so I'm spending the day loitering around campus with my knitting, Hollow City by Ransom Riggs, my laptop and homework, a baggie full of condoms (leftover from the World AIDS Day booth) that were generously donated by my friends at the GSA because they know I have an oral presentation coming up and need something to pass out to the class, breakfast from Tim Horton's, and a plastic grocery bag filled with enough food to last me until I get home from school (so, two microwave dishes, a can of V8 and two Horizon milk boxes) because college cafeteria food is way too expensive.
Thankfully, my only assignment is due in about a week and a half and I'm already halfway done. Therefore, I'm ending the hiatus today because I just needed to vent about cis people. More specifically, the microaggressions that I face from cis wlw as an afab nonbinary wlw and how they need to be better allies to me and other nonbinary wlw. This is going to be pretty specific to my experience as an afab nonbinary person.
But I'm still not cis. I'm nonbinary, and I don't have cis privilege. If you group me with cis women on the axis of being trans or cis, you are misgendering me and you are a transphobe.
Her justification was that she was mentally ill and gay and you can't talk about neurogenders without also talking about neurosexualities, and neurosexualities are something she gets a say in.
Which...first of all, yes you absolutely can. Second, I really don't see much of a problem with either, really. Does your neurodivergence affect your attraction? Well, the way that usually happens is by making someone ace or aro because of sensory issues or sex repulsion or low empathy or apathy, so it usually won't change your actual orientation - unless, for example, you no longer feel attracted to a certain gender because of trauma, or you're repulsed by that gender. Does neurodivergence affect your gender? That's fine. You aren't cis as long as you don't identify strictly with the sex assigned to you at birth, it doesn't matter why you don't.
Third, if you as a cis person can't speak about neurosexualities without speaking about neurogenders as well, then you shouldn't be speaking about neurosexualities. Leave that conversation up to neurodivergent nonbinary people and stay in your lane. It's not that hard.
But also, so often in wlw spaces, I see cis wlw railing against "afabs" and how awful and misogynistic and predatory we are and how we're somehow the ultimate oppressors of cis women.
Like...not even trans men fully benefit from male privilege. They can be misogynistic and should absolutely be called out and a lot of them treat nonbinary and trans women (especially wlw) like shit, but not all of them know they're men from a young age and the ones that do are often forced into pretending they're women and girls. And even once they realize they're men? They're still targeted by most things cis women face under misogyny - anti choice politics, sex shaming, their nipples being considered obscene, their bodily functions dirty - on top of transphobia and in fact because of transphobia.
And as long as they're closeted or don't pass, they're not going to be granted any of the casual everyday privileges granted to cis men: not being catcalled, being less likely to be interrupted, not being mansplained to, not facing patriarchal beauty standards. This especially applies to trans mlm, fat trans men, disabled trans men, poor trans men, trans men of color, trans men who aren't on T, trans men who don't or can't bind, gnc trans men, immigrant trans men, trans men who are religious minorities, trans men in bigoted families and communities, intersex trans men, and trans men in cultures that are still recovering from colonialism. A trans mlm of color will never be able to oppress a cis white woman on the axis of misogyny and sexism.
Not to mention, there are so many AFAB nonbinary people who don't even identify as male and therefore aren't granted male privilege at all, but god forbid we - especially nonbinary butches - say a fucking word about that. Don't you know? We might offend the Cis.
And even if I did have male privilege, that wouldn't erase my lack of cis privilege - and cis privilege will virtually always be stronger than male privilege. With the election, I do sometimes feel like I have more in common, as an afab nonbinary woman, with trans men than I do with cis women. There are so many people who will say that because I'm woman-aligned and afab that society sees me as cis. Which...no it doesn't?
Transphobic and cissexist laws do not give a rat's ass about my particular identity. They do give a rat's ass about the fact that I, as someone who was assigned female at birth:
Speaking of cis LGB people, yes, cis butches and cis feminine mlm still benefit from cis privilege (not as much as cishets and cis aroaces do, or even as much as cis femmes and cis masc mlm, but they still do to some degree). Other cis people will always prioritize and respect them before they ever will trans and nonbinary people. When asked if they're male and female, they can answer truthfully and safely in a way that doesn't deny and neglect part of their gender. They will not be denied the right to live as their gender because "what's the point of being a woman if you like women?" or "if you wear dresses sometimes that makes you a woman". When they do something stereotypically feminine (for butches) or masculine (for feminine guys) they're praised for it, not told they're creepy fetishists as trans women are or asked why they can't just be tomboys and butch lesbians as trans men are.
While libfems and liberals in general fucking hate butch lesbians (I said liberals - not leftists; there's a difference, I'm a leftist rather than a liberal, and I think this is partly why so many butches are antifa/anti-capitalist/etc types), there are also definitely progressive circles in which gender nonconformity in cis people is seen positively, including:
I don't have work today and my only class on Thursdays starts at six PM, so I'm spending the day loitering around campus with my knitting, Hollow City by Ransom Riggs, my laptop and homework, a baggie full of condoms (leftover from the World AIDS Day booth) that were generously donated by my friends at the GSA because they know I have an oral presentation coming up and need something to pass out to the class, breakfast from Tim Horton's, and a plastic grocery bag filled with enough food to last me until I get home from school (so, two microwave dishes, a can of V8 and two Horizon milk boxes) because college cafeteria food is way too expensive.
Thankfully, my only assignment is due in about a week and a half and I'm already halfway done. Therefore, I'm ending the hiatus today because I just needed to vent about cis people. More specifically, the microaggressions that I face from cis wlw as an afab nonbinary wlw and how they need to be better allies to me and other nonbinary wlw. This is going to be pretty specific to my experience as an afab nonbinary person.
- Realize that not every woman who was assigned female at birth is cis.
- On a related note: stop saying "cis/nontrans" women/lesbians/wlw/etc. when talking about transmisogyny.
But I'm still not cis. I'm nonbinary, and I don't have cis privilege. If you group me with cis women on the axis of being trans or cis, you are misgendering me and you are a transphobe.
- Realize that you do not get a say in what nonbinary genders do and do not exist.
Her justification was that she was mentally ill and gay and you can't talk about neurogenders without also talking about neurosexualities, and neurosexualities are something she gets a say in.
Which...first of all, yes you absolutely can. Second, I really don't see much of a problem with either, really. Does your neurodivergence affect your attraction? Well, the way that usually happens is by making someone ace or aro because of sensory issues or sex repulsion or low empathy or apathy, so it usually won't change your actual orientation - unless, for example, you no longer feel attracted to a certain gender because of trauma, or you're repulsed by that gender. Does neurodivergence affect your gender? That's fine. You aren't cis as long as you don't identify strictly with the sex assigned to you at birth, it doesn't matter why you don't.
Third, if you as a cis person can't speak about neurosexualities without speaking about neurogenders as well, then you shouldn't be speaking about neurosexualities. Leave that conversation up to neurodivergent nonbinary people and stay in your lane. It's not that hard.
- Realize that you are inherently privileged over all trans and nonbinary people.
But also, so often in wlw spaces, I see cis wlw railing against "afabs" and how awful and misogynistic and predatory we are and how we're somehow the ultimate oppressors of cis women.
Like...not even trans men fully benefit from male privilege. They can be misogynistic and should absolutely be called out and a lot of them treat nonbinary and trans women (especially wlw) like shit, but not all of them know they're men from a young age and the ones that do are often forced into pretending they're women and girls. And even once they realize they're men? They're still targeted by most things cis women face under misogyny - anti choice politics, sex shaming, their nipples being considered obscene, their bodily functions dirty - on top of transphobia and in fact because of transphobia.
And as long as they're closeted or don't pass, they're not going to be granted any of the casual everyday privileges granted to cis men: not being catcalled, being less likely to be interrupted, not being mansplained to, not facing patriarchal beauty standards. This especially applies to trans mlm, fat trans men, disabled trans men, poor trans men, trans men of color, trans men who aren't on T, trans men who don't or can't bind, gnc trans men, immigrant trans men, trans men who are religious minorities, trans men in bigoted families and communities, intersex trans men, and trans men in cultures that are still recovering from colonialism. A trans mlm of color will never be able to oppress a cis white woman on the axis of misogyny and sexism.
Not to mention, there are so many AFAB nonbinary people who don't even identify as male and therefore aren't granted male privilege at all, but god forbid we - especially nonbinary butches - say a fucking word about that. Don't you know? We might offend the Cis.
And even if I did have male privilege, that wouldn't erase my lack of cis privilege - and cis privilege will virtually always be stronger than male privilege. With the election, I do sometimes feel like I have more in common, as an afab nonbinary woman, with trans men than I do with cis women. There are so many people who will say that because I'm woman-aligned and afab that society sees me as cis. Which...no it doesn't?
Transphobic and cissexist laws do not give a rat's ass about my particular identity. They do give a rat's ass about the fact that I, as someone who was assigned female at birth:
- bind my chest
- express my gender in a way that makes it hard to tell if I'm male or female
- am considering going on testosterone and getting top surgery someday
- use pronouns other than she/her
- would, in a situation where I feel safe enough to do so, probably say "no" if asked if I'm a woman
- sometimes use men's public restrooms
Speaking of cis LGB people, yes, cis butches and cis feminine mlm still benefit from cis privilege (not as much as cishets and cis aroaces do, or even as much as cis femmes and cis masc mlm, but they still do to some degree). Other cis people will always prioritize and respect them before they ever will trans and nonbinary people. When asked if they're male and female, they can answer truthfully and safely in a way that doesn't deny and neglect part of their gender. They will not be denied the right to live as their gender because "what's the point of being a woman if you like women?" or "if you wear dresses sometimes that makes you a woman". When they do something stereotypically feminine (for butches) or masculine (for feminine guys) they're praised for it, not told they're creepy fetishists as trans women are or asked why they can't just be tomboys and butch lesbians as trans men are.
While libfems and liberals in general fucking hate butch lesbians (I said liberals - not leftists; there's a difference, I'm a leftist rather than a liberal, and I think this is partly why so many butches are antifa/anti-capitalist/etc types), there are also definitely progressive circles in which gender nonconformity in cis people is seen positively, including:
- women in gamer/geek/cosplay/etc culture
- female mechanics
- women in STEM
- female athletes
- men wearing lipstick
- men wearing dresses
- house husbands and stay-at-home fathers
But all of these are only ever embraced (and only conditionally) in cis people.
When I do anything feminine, I'm derided by truscum and other people who use the words "special snowflake" unironically as a cis girl pretending to be trans for oppression points. When I do anything masculine, I'm derided by libfems as an evil, overbearing, predatory Masculine-Of-Center Queer(TM) who has no place in women's spaces at all and couldn't possibly experience misogyny (which is why, of course, men are more qualified to speak on my experiences as a butch than I am...somehow...).
When trans men are masculine, they're told that they're reinforcing gender stereotypes. When they're feminine, they're told that they're actually women, denied testosterone, and if they're mlm their femininity is taken as evidence that they're actually straight women who fetishize mlm relationships, are probably just following a Tumblr trend, and get #triggered #kek when the Edgy Anti-SJWs try to rescue them from Tumblrina Feminist Bullshit by telling them they're actually just teenage girls who want to be special.
When trans women are feminine, they're told they're parodies, laughable, men in dresses, worthy only to be the punch line of a shitty joke. When trans women are masculine, they're told they're predatory, privileged Violent Males and also denied hormone therapy and essentially face everything that feminine trans guys do, but with a nice dose of transmisogyny thrown in.
GNC cis people get shit, sure, I'll never deny that, but it's nothing like what trans and nonbinary people experience regardless of gender expression.
- Stop using the word dysphoria to describe yourself.
I've seen a lot of wlw talking about dysphoria in cis butch lesbians.
First of all, that's not what dysphoria is. They're talking about gender role strain and internalized sapphobia, which are entirely different experiences.
When I flinch at the pronoun "she" and feel like my body isn't mine and cover my chest with my arms because the fact that it isn't flat makes me want to cry sometimes, when I'm trying my hardest to look ambiguous and feel nauseous when someone calls me "young lady" anyways, when I wore a push-up bra for about an hour once because all my sports bras were in the wash and the minute they were dry I couldn't have been more eager to get into something that temporarily distracted me from the fact that I have breasts, that's gender dysphoria.
When I have to fake a smile when someone gives me makeup as a gift and I know I'll never wear it, when I'm impatient or annoyed when I'm shopping for clothes and some twit thinks I'm lost because I'm in the men's section, when I look straight ahead in the shower because I hate seeing my "womanly curves", when I was twelve and forced myself to start wearing glitter and pink because my gender expression had attracted harassment, when I was sixteen and wore dresses and leggings everyday because I'd figured out that straight people associate femininity with exclusive attraction to men and the easiest way to stay closeted would be to dress like a straight girl, when I feel restrained and uncomfortable with all the worst parts of womanhood, that's gender role strain.
One is me being uncomfortable with the gender binary, with being perceived as something I'm not. The other is me being uncomfortable with femininity and gender roles and the kind of heteronormative, compulsively feminine womanhood that all wlw (especially butches and non-cis wlw) fail at, but still seeing womanhood as an aspect of my gender and still feeling connected to womanhood as a social class.
When cis women describe themselves as dysphoric, they are appropriating my experiences and describing something they don't experience.
Not only that, but they're also making it infinitely harder for afab nb people and trans boys to realize they're not cis. "Can't imagine yourself as anyone's girlfriend? The thought of pregnancy gives you the willies? Uncomfortable being read as female? Want to bind your chest? Thinking about going on testosterone? Want to use they/them pronouns? Don't like being parsed as a woman? Feel only vaguely attached to womanhood? You're probably a GNC cis woman, sweetie!"
And every time I call cis women out on this, say that if you're assigned female at birth and are uncomfortable with womanhood then you're probably not cis, they throw a fucking tantrum, saying that it's totally normal to be genuinely uncomfortable with cis womanhood to the point that you're not sure if you're a woman at all and still be cis because you're really just trying to separate yourself from misogyny and you're confused about gender roles - because obviously cis people know more about trans and nonbinary experiences than actual trans and nonbinary people do and obviously afab nonbinary people can't ever know anything about misogyny *cough cough* - and then they'll turn around and say for Good Cis Ally points that they're against TERFs when this is literally the exact shit that TERFs have said to me about my gender.
But when I say anything about it? When I respond in any way, correct them with the very real knowledge about gender variance that I've accumulated from actually taking classes in sociology and psychology and being a mental health major and having had sociology as a special interest for years and having lived experience of actually being both butch and nonbinary while they're literally just talking out of their pure little cis girl ass?
About a hundred cis wlw will shriek in horror and pass out on the fainting couch because, you know, it's not like I'm actually trying to help people who are questioning their gender or trying to stop cis people from spreading misinformation in their privileged ignorance. Oh no, I'm clearly just a violent misogynist who knows nothing of womanhood, let alone butch lesbian womanhood, even though I'm butch and questioning if I'm a lesbian myself, and I just need to shut up and let cis women talk because they're the ultimate authorities on gender, didn't you know?
*twiddles my thumbs as I wait for cis wlw to write an angry response to this*
- Stop blaming trans and nonbinary people for your bad experiences in mogai hell.
For those of you who don't understand what mogai hell is, think back to when I identified as a - I shit you not - gray-bisexual aroflux lesbian, when I believed in monosexual privilege and used the word allosexual and called everyone under the fucking sun "queer" without a care in the world, when I truly fell in love for the first time, with an aroace girl who was MOGAI and I was so fucking scared of being predatory that I repressed my attraction to her and convinced myself I was gray-ace and forced myself not to look wistfully after her when she walked past in a low-cut shirt, forced my heart not to beat faster whenever she hugged me because she was pressed up against me and she was shorter than me and holding me and her soft skin was touching mine and my face was buried in her soft, strawberry-scented curly hair and it took so much willpower not to bury my hands in that hair and kiss her, when I hated the idea of saying no to her and forced down any discomfort I felt with her identifying as queer until I was willing to alienate my fellow wlw who were uncomfortable with it, when I fucking hated lesbians and now I think I might be one for real and it's terrifying.
Seventeen-year-old Ari was a prime example of someone who'd been sucked into MOGAI hell.
So many of the victims are young lesbians, almost always underage girls, who've been manipulated and bullied into hating themselves, thinking they're aroace because if they're not into boys they can't be into anyone, thinking they're biromantic h*m*sexual or h*m*romantic bisexual and breaking themselves down into smaller and smaller pieces in order to accommodate a man in their lives, convincing themselves that they're anything but gay because Tumblr - often, the only place where they're out and can interact with other LGBT people safely and receive non-heteronormative education about history and sexuality that they don't have access to anywhere else - keeps telling them that being a lesbian is exclusionary and oppressive and nasty.
You know that when I was a MOGAI, I actually used to wonder a lot if I was an ~*~allosexual, monosexual~*~ lesbian? One of the people I'd been taught to hate? But every time the thought came into my mind, I would shake it off, convince myself I just had internalized monosexism and felt broken for being ace - I didn't. I felt broken, that was true, but it was because I loved girls and I'd been told over and over that I was going to hell for it and MOGAIs, the ace community in particular, taught me I was dirty for it and offered me a convenient label to neatly package away and repress the sexual attraction I was still learning to embrace and convinced me to be hostile to any lesbian who wanted to tell me my love was beautiful.
So I eventually broke out of that and became the big mean allogay - despite the fact that I might also be aro[spec, but I'm honestly so uncomfortable with the million microlabels a-specs will throw at questioning people that I just don't mention that I'm not 100% aro and if someone asked me my what my sexuality is I would just say that I like girls, something that says nothing about my relationship to sex or attraction because even as a non-ace aro wlw I could potentially be sex-repulsed or celibate or waiting for a relationship], because as long as I'm vocal about their homophobia and refuse to kiss cishet ass the aro community will view me as a traitor - that I am today.
And it's nice. Now that I'm unlearning a lot of negative shit, I can embrace my nonbinary identity without tying it to fake "solidarity" with cis bi people and cis a-specs who use nonbinary people as tokens to pit against gay men and lesbians.
I can form friendships with other nonbinary and trans people and bond over shared experiences and cry for our dead without giving a shit that they don't believe having a weird relationship with attraction automatically gives someone the right to reclaim homophobic, transphobic slurs.
I can fight for solidarity with wlw and see how we will protect the fuck out of each other when no one else cares enough to do so, and how we validate other women in their love for women, whether that means wanting to kiss and cuddle women or your heart beating faster when your pretty female best friend smiles or fantasizing about a hot woman giving you the best sex of your life or anything inbetween, and kicking the ass of anyone tells these amazing women not to show that love in spaces that were created for them to express it.
I love how so many young wlw are bringing back antiquated traditions from our foremothers' time - giving violets to a beautiful girl as a way to say you're gay for her, bringing back symbols like the blue star and the lesbian flag, reading Sappho's poetry, identifying as sapphic and wlw, supporting butches and femmes.
I love that so many of us will put our precious time into creating blogs and writing and art for the sole purpose of showing each other that love and lust between women deserve to be celebrated, and how fierce and passionate the women and girls (who are often trans, nonbinary, and/or WoC) who run those blogs and make that art are about fighting back against TERFs and fascists, making sure that the most vulnerable wlw among us are uplifted.
I can form friendships with other nonbinary and trans people and bond over shared experiences and cry for our dead without giving a shit that they don't believe having a weird relationship with attraction automatically gives someone the right to reclaim homophobic, transphobic slurs.
I can fight for solidarity with wlw and see how we will protect the fuck out of each other when no one else cares enough to do so, and how we validate other women in their love for women, whether that means wanting to kiss and cuddle women or your heart beating faster when your pretty female best friend smiles or fantasizing about a hot woman giving you the best sex of your life or anything inbetween, and kicking the ass of anyone tells these amazing women not to show that love in spaces that were created for them to express it.
I love how so many young wlw are bringing back antiquated traditions from our foremothers' time - giving violets to a beautiful girl as a way to say you're gay for her, bringing back symbols like the blue star and the lesbian flag, reading Sappho's poetry, identifying as sapphic and wlw, supporting butches and femmes.
I love that so many of us will put our precious time into creating blogs and writing and art for the sole purpose of showing each other that love and lust between women deserve to be celebrated, and how fierce and passionate the women and girls (who are often trans, nonbinary, and/or WoC) who run those blogs and make that art are about fighting back against TERFs and fascists, making sure that the most vulnerable wlw among us are uplifted.
I wouldn't give it up for the world, and yet...
Occasionally when ex-MOGAI cis wlw talk about their experiences in MOGAI hell, they'll mention how they used to identify as trans men or as nonbinary. And I know they just mean to say "these are my experiences and I want to talk about them" but it so often comes across as "I used to think I wasn't cis, what a fool I was" or even worse, "trans people convinced me I was ______, which is obviously ridiculous."
How do you think that's going to affect actual trans men and AFAB nonbinary people? (I would include trans women and AMAB nonbinary people in this, but I haven't seen cis men doing it as much.)
Especially questioning people? Closeted people? People who've only just found their gender? People who are newly out? People who are still struggling with a lot of internalized transphobia?
Like...I realize that there are binary trans people who used to identify as nonbinary, and nonbinary people who used to identify as binary trans, and cis people who used to identify as one or both, but if you as a cis person can't frame that narrative in a way that isn't so dismissive of your privilege and doesn't carry undertones of trans people preying on you and manipulating you, an innocent pure cis woman, into identifying as non-cis, then I don't care, I don't want to hear it, and you need to keep it to yourself.
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