Ari's Weird Relationship with Religion and Also First Day of School

Fuck, I forgot to take my meds this morning. They're at my house, I'm already on campus, and I don't drive, so you can see my problem.

I used to keep them in my backpack, but after classes ended last semester I took them out. Then I got used to the routine of not having to take them - after all, if I don't need to pay attention in class and I'm not driving anywhere, I don't need the same level of brain function. And work is repetitive enough that I can mostly just run on autopilot, so other than Duolingo and getting my first debit card, I was good. I managed to do pretty well on Duolingo anyway, to the point where I'm a few weeks ahead of schedule. So what if I forget to eat? If I can't fall asleep until four in the morning sometimes? If I have the memory of a flea with a concussion? If I keep making stupid mistakes because I can't pace myself and focus on what I'm doing? Let the ADHD demon run wild and free y'all*.

Anyway I have two and a half hours until my first class so I did actually want to write something.

Okay so you know how, despite being pagan, I was raised Catholic and even now Christianity informs my beliefs really heavily? How after being super heavily alienated from Christianity and becoming angry at God because of homophobia and transphobia that Her followers used religion to excuse, I realized that it actually wasn't Christianity as a faith that I hated but Christianity as an institution? And then this revelation ended with me combining my Christian and pagan beliefs into some sort of strange heretical folk religion?

Yeah. So. I actually really want to find a house of worship and religious community but it's really hard for someone like me. Like I want one focused on interfaith activism and liberation theology, one that's affirming of all LGBT people, one that is pro-feminist (and not just the über liberal kind that's actually mostly focused on appeasing men) and concerned with racial justice, one that uses love as a powerful social force for religion, one that combines the best of what I love about religion and allows me freedom of expression.

So far, I've found a few good options.

1. Join and/or form a coven. I've met a couple other pagans and I'm actually starting to be close to one of them. Both are Wiccan, but one is the kind that thinks Wicca is like ancient or whatever rather than having been founded in the twentieth century and I just can't vibe with that but I'm not going to tell her about it. The other one seems pretty cool and we have a lot in common and she's a trans woman so I doubt she'll be into the whole uterus-moon-goddess-fertility thing that makes me so uncomfortable with cis-centric paganism. Plus we found this really great website that's basically Twitter for practitioners and so far it seems like practically everyone on there is LGBT and we've - by which I mean just me and my friend, not the entire godsdamn site - been talking about going up to my family's cabin one of these days and using my firepit as a ritual thing.

2. Join a Unitarian Christian church. I'll look into it more later but it seems compelling.

3. Join an Episcopalian church. See above. Bonus: women priests.

4. Join a Quaker meetinghouse. I've been researching Quakerism lately and it seems like something I could really get into, though for a hot second it was hard to tell if I just had a crush on the woman in the informational video I watched (her name's Jessica Kellgren-Fozard and she's a British femme lesbian with beautiful red hair and she kind of resembles a sexy 1940s movie star and her wife Claudia is hot too but Claudia wasn't in the video). But like I really like Quaker ideas on simplicity and sustainability and loving others. And Quakers, apparently, are very chill with LGBT stuff and people combining their religion with another one. They don't even evangelize.

So you'd think Quaker paganism would be perfect for me, right? It's just, like, what bothers me is that Quakers apparently believe that EVERYONE is equal and nobody is irredeemable.

Which seems great at first, but I can't get past the "nobody is irredeemable" part. Like does that include rapists? Fascists? Abusers? Eugenicists? Pedophiles? Imperialists? Billionaires? Conversion therapists? Human traffickers? It bothers me, the idea that there are so many absolutely shit people in the world and if I'm a Quaker I'm supposed to see all of them as my equal. I'm supposed to see good in all of them, no matter how much they have done to hurt others. No matter how much my personal sense of heavenly love acted out on earth revolves around loving and caring for and maintaining solidarity with the people that have been hurt by anyone I just named.

Then there's the peace thing. I'm totally for direct action, violent revolution, and violence in defense of oneself and others. I would be more part of that if I could be, but living with my parents and being disabled and in college and working and not having a driver's license kind of puts a damper on my burning desire to form my very own Sweet/Vicious style leftist militia.

The thing is, though, I'm not a Quaker. Which is why I'm turning to any of you out there who are. Can you, Quakers, elaborate on those parts of your beliefs?

*sarcasm

Today in Why is Ari Like This

CW: discussion of sex, arousal, kink, and sexual violence

I just plugged my phone in because otherwise I just know it's going to die while I'm writing this but college is starting again on Wednesday and I wanted to get everything off my chest before I'm too busy to write.

I'm questioning myself again. Sexuality and gender expression.

Sexuality's the main part, really. If you've been following along for awhile, you know I've been using the bisexual label for my sexuality consistently for a little over a year and now I'm looking into why that is. The thing is, I had been cycling through different WLW labels and questioning myself a lot for like...eight months or so before that? And then, when I was wondering if I was a lesbian, I was completely caught off-guard when I caught feelings for a guy...

...who was my co-worker and had more seniority in our workplace than I did. He was also several years older than me, not ancient but old enough that he probably saw me as a kid and it would have made me uncomfortable if he actually hit on me. The age difference was about six years and people keep telling me that's not a lot, but the idea of some 25-year-old hitting on one of my friends or, if I had one, my 19-year-old sister or daughter, makes me see red. Especially since we're at such different places in our lives and I frequently get mistaken for sixteen, even now.

Which reminds me:

Teenagers (ESPECIALLY ones who aren't cis guys) who are above the age of consent, if someone who is in their mid-twenties shows interest in you, run the other way. They're using your legal status as an excuse to feel better about themselves and convince themselves they're not predatory, but they know you are still likely very naïve and inexperienced compared to them and are taking advantage of that innocence - and the fact that you could probably very easily be mistaken for even younger than you actually are - because people their own age see right through their creepy shit and eighteen-year-olds are the only people they can get a date with.

Danny never did that with me and I think he would be just as bothered by the idea of dating a nineteen-year-old girl as I was by the idea of dating him, but I felt like I should say it because I see way too many teen girls being swept up by predatory creeps who are way too old for them, and not just men either - I have an ex who once dated a woman twice her age and the experience really fucked her up.

I hadn't wanted to think much about it at the time, but now it's just weird that I was so convinced I was bi mainly because of a guy that I wouldn't actually have dated and that Roman once told me sounded like a fake crush formed out of internalized lesbophobia.

Which isn't to say that I never notice men outside of that.

A lot of them are celebrities or fictional characters, yes, but I've also had a couple major crushes on guys and I feel like I have the potential to feel that way again. Once when I was in seventh grade, and that guy turned out to be a little asshole - plus, he was over six feet tall, very conventionally attractive, and considered way out of my league. Another time in high school and a little bit in college on a male friend and I'm still not sure what to make of that experience.

Plus I do, shall we say, appreciate men's bodies.

I kind of made friends with an older (like, in her late 50s) butch lesbian who we'll call Jo and I went to her for advice. Jo is the only WLW I know over the age of thirty-five and she has the respect of a lot of young WLW and GNC women who are absolutely awed by the idea of an older butch finding happiness and love and community and raising a small army of adopted kids (GNC and LGBT kids among them!) and even having her own small business.

My mom still thinks I'm a virgin and we've had a shitty relationship since basically forever. Among my aunts, some of them are homophobic and among the ones that aren't, one disowned us which I'm still pissed off about and I've just never gone to any of the others about anything this serious before. With my grandmas, two of them would rather pretend like it's a coincidence that I've never had a boyfriend and have a penchant for menswear and the third is the kind of liberal who thinks that labels don't matter at all and willfully refuses to understand why it's not okay for her to call her female friends her girlfriends. So it's not like there are many older women who I can go to for advice.

Last time I needed a mother figure for anything emotional, I got so freaked out that I ended up going to my teacher of all people. She didn't seem to mind but I'd rather not do that again.

Jo seemed like the only person I could talk to. I think she's used to being put in that position, both by her own daughters and by the young women who so frequently view her as a mentor when we feel alienated by our own families, are made to feel predatory by straight women, are violently fetishized by men, and barely heard anything about LGBT issues in their meager sex education.

I ranted about to Jo about my complicated sexuality for about two hours and she offered some of her own experiences to see if it would help. She says that:

• It's actually pretty common for lesbians to get turned on by things like gay male porn because any other kind seems artificial and puts women in painful, degrading positions for the pleasure of straight men
• If devoting my life to women is what I want, I don't have to worry about men
• I seem like someone who is very sensual and appreciates the beauty of human body, which doesn't necessarily equate to actual attraction
• While she never identified as bi, she did date men for a hot second and it wasn't intolerable but it also wasn't anything compared to the soul-melting love and passion she felt once she was with a woman
• I don't need have everything figured out when I'm this young and have my whole life ahead of me
• I'm the only one who can actually determine my own sexuality

And, in my own opinion, there are people who can get aroused by damn near anything. There are people who want to fuck aliens and robots and have weird-ass fetishes like oviposition and vore and think the fish man from The Shape of Water is hot. That doesn't actually say anything about their own sexuality and just because they'd masturbate to certain things doesn't mean they'd do them in real life and as long as it's harmless, i.e. they're not turned on by kids or beating their partner or slavery or anything, it's not necessarily a big deal and it doesn't mean anything about their sexuality.

There's still something that bothers me though, which is that even though I do my best to put my own interests and those of other women first, when it comes to dating and sex I have a hard time saying no to men (I'll discuss it someday) and not putting their pleasure first. Like to the point where I have a hard time telling the difference between my own desire and my need to be desired. Once I basically had a one night stand with a guy who could have passed as Ed Sheeran's brother because he got turned on by seeing me in revealing clothes.

Other times I would get bored and irritated really quickly when talking to men who were interested in me, no matter how nice or attractive they were. Yet I'd still keep talking to them because I didn't want to say no.

Feeling that way is a really common experience for lesbians who haven't yet realized they're lesbians, but it's also a really common experience for women in general. Whenever straight women talk to me about their boyfriends and husbands, I always get the impression that they're putting a lot more effort into the relationship than their men are. My grandma pretends to be interested in my grandpa's boring-ass golf and basketball games (and yes, she has explicitly said she thinks they're boring) but until three years ago he didn't know the difference between knitting and crocheting and he once threw a fit and threatened to leave if she made a dinner that he didn't like. And when my family had a spa day for my new aunt's bachelorette party maybe two and a half weeks ago, all the men ran off within about two seconds of dropping off their wives, as if the nail polish and face masks were poisoned. I've heard similar stories from so many women and it makes me angry that women are so conditioned to accept unhappy relationships and subpar sex from men, and yet so coerced into being with men, that it's often incredibly difficult for us to figure out if we're even attracted to men at all.

My solution to this dilemma, at least for right now, is to decenter men and their feelings from my life completely (unless it's platonic). I switched my Tinder settings so I'm only looking for women, I'm deliberately choosing clothing that straight men find unappealing, and I'm only dating (and, if I feel like it, fucking) women for the foreseeable future. I want to see if this decentering of men, this temporary swearing-off, is something I want to make permanent and something I would be happy with for the rest of my life. If it is, I'm probably a lesbian. If not, then maybe I'll date men. But either way I am tired of men having this huge influence on my life and I'm not wasting my energy on them when I'm not even sure I want to be with them at all.

The reason I'm talking about my sexuality first is that my gender expression is tied to it.

In terms of aesthetics, I'm very fluid between masculinity, femininity, and androgyny. Always have been.

I don't really look like what most people think of when they think of butches, although a lot of my fashion sense is inspired by them and even by men, specifically GBT men.

I actually look pretty feminine right now, I'm wearing women's cut denim shorts and a ribbed patterned tank top with ankle bracelets and gold toenail polish with rose accents. And I don't hate it, it's comfortable and cute. 

I do hate the dysphoria and misphoria dressing conventionally feminine sometimes causes in me, between dealing with being perceived as similar to a cishet woman and being read as a woman at all. I also hate how femininity is pushed on me. I hate how any aspect of femininity I perform is perceived as an attempt to compensate for my gender nonconformity, as if that were something ugly and shameful that needed compensating for.

There are times when I deliberately try to look masculine, specifically when I'm trying to flag or when I'm trying to impress a woman. On dates I usually go for either a button-down, sometimes with a tie, or a soft, comfortable, solid-colored V-neck with nice shoes and either dark jeans or khaki shorts, depending on the time of year. Sometimes I switch it up and wear a dress. Add in some leather jewelry and hair gel and I'm good. I love when women call me dapper or handsome...and when they call me beautiful.

When I imagine my wedding, I imagine myself in a button-down shirt, vest, floral tie, khakis with a packer, long elegantly braided hair with flowers or a silk hair bow, sturdy comfortable shoes that are nice but that I can dance in, sturdy leather and silver bracelets, a rose quartz necklace, nail polish, and red lipstick. When I imagine my wedding ring, I don't imagine diamonds - I imagine a silver band with a Celtic lover's knot and a simple but beautiful engraving on the inside. As for my wife? She could be wearing anything. A suit, a dress - I'm more attracted to feminine women, generally, but that preference isn't too extreme.

What I aim for, when attracting women, is androgynous elegance, beauty, chivalry, and class.

Men, on the other hand, don't really feature into my gender expression and if I do ever decide to date a man he'll probably have to be a GNC and/or non-cis bisexual man, specifically because most other men can't handle the idea of a woman being androgynous and gender nonconforming and blatantly refusing to perform gender to cishet standards. Once a cishet guy asked me why I used "male" pronouns if I was a woman who liked men (apparently the idea that I was also nonbinary and liked women hadn't occurred to him, even though he knew about both) and I explained it to him. Really nicely, too, I thought, but he got scared off.

So you'd think I wouldn't be femme, right? After all, how could someone who uses he/him, who wants to pack and go on T, whose presentation is so fluid, who has had such a complicated relationship and so much pain and hurt when it comes to gender, who feels so alienated from the binary, who rarely wears makeup, be femme?

Except that if I end up dating women exclusively femme is probably what I'll be, if I decide to partake in butch/femme culture - and if I'm bi, I'm a tomcat.

Femme isn't defined by looking like a cishet woman and I've met lots of femmes who will deliberately, intentionally fuck with gender roles. The femininity forced on women is about looking presentable for men, restraining ourselves and holding ourselves to higher standards for men, catering to their gaze, making ourselves small and soft and cute.

Femmes - and does, too - turn those notions of femininity on their head by redefining femininity, rejecting anything they don't feel comfortable with, asserting their desires, and performing gender for WOMEN, often but not always for butches, tomcats, stags, and other non-feminine women. Femmes don't do womanhood like straight women do, femmeness is about womanhood completely free of men, and femmes often don't look straight or gender conforming.

I don't agree that bi women inherently taint butch and femme because men aren't inherently any more relevant to their lives than they are to lesbians', but butch and femme are about women exclusively dating women, fucking women, kissing women. It's entirely outside of the boundaries of men, and that's exactly why I would identify with femme but not doe. 

Not all does date men, and doeness isn't defined by men, but being a doe can include dating men...it's a feminine identity that  can include dating men. As much as I love does, the idea of being simultaneously a feminine woman who dates men, or is even open to dating a man, kind of makes my stomach turn.

Basically, I'm not interested in rejecting femininity entirely, but I'm also not interested in being feminine if that femininity includes the possibility of dating a man. Therefore, either tomcat or femme or just GNC.

Anyway it's 11:40 at night and I haven't done my daily Duolingo lesson yet. I'm learning Italian and brushing up on my Spanish, by the way. And this was...cathartic. Arrivederci è buonanotte.

The Gender Tag: Two Years Running

We all know how this works by now. I'm just posting it early because I got bored.

1. How do you self-identify your gender, and what does that definition mean to you?

The first gender labels I ever used for myself, when I first realized I wasn't cis, were genderfluid and demigirl. They still feel accurate - my pronouns, presentation, dysphoria, and personal relationship with my gender have fluctuated a lot over my lifetime.

And demigirl? It basically means the same as woman-aligned nonbinary, or nonbinary woman/girl. Nonbinary with some kind of connection to womanhood.

But I don't think genderfluid and demigirl completely capture how I feel about my gender. The label I'm most comfortable with right now, other than nonbinary, is gender nonconforming or tomcat - though it would help if more people knew what a tomcat was.

My connection to binary gender can basically be summed up through the understanding of being gay for women, and even then primarily through a lens of female masculinity and gender nonconformity.

I don't really want anyone except other LGBT women, particularly women that are both non-cis AND sapphic, to see me as a woman...unless I'm dating them, and even then I don't want cis women talking about me as if it's my body that makes me a woman.

And even when I'm okay with people seeing me as a woman, I'm not comfortable thinking of myself that way unless it's within the context of things not usually associated with womanhood. I'm fine calling myself a GNC woman, a bi woman, a WLW, one-half of a lesbian relationship (more on that new development later, and we're not even officially together yet so don't get too excited...). I think that's part of the reason I don't want kids unless it's with a woman and also part of the reason I wouldn't date a cishet man.

And I'm not comfortable with most female-coded terms. Daughter. Sister. Granddaughter. Ma'am. Miss. Lady. Missus. Pretty. She. Pretty much anything but mom, wife, and girlfriend.

But that doesn't mean I want anyone to see me as a man either. It makes me unbelievably uncomfortable when people think I'm a man - as uncomfortable, probably more, as when people think I'm a cis woman.

I have a trans male friend who keeps saying he doesn't understand the concept of she/her men and he/him women. So I used myself as an example to explain it to him but, even though he respects me and won't misgender me, he still didn't understand. He thought of he/him pronouns as a strictly male thing and that bothered me a lot. The same feeling of repulsion toward being called a man happened again when I was recently outed to a large group of people and, when I said my pronouns were he/him, some of them assumed I was a trans man.

Trans men are my brothers and friends and I have so, so much in common with them and desire for solidarity with them, but I'm not one of them and I don't want to be called one.

Besides my internal feelings toward my gender, the way I express them is punished by transphobia. If my only outward gender divergence was in my sexuality, my clothing, and the way I cut my hair, I would have just called myself a cis woman.

Sure, I would have been one with a complicated relationship to gender, but that can apply to a lot of non-straight cis people, especially disabled women. My ADHD and (possible) autism have influenced my performance of femininity - or lack thereof - and relationship to womanhood for most of my life. And after I realized I was bi, I had to basically restructure my entire understanding of what it meant to be a woman in a world where that label was so closely tied to heterosexuality. Woman is an identity that I only feel comfortable claiming on my own terms and within the context of gender nonconformity, disability, and bisexuality.

And for some women, that might still mean being comfortable with it, but I wasn't, really. Which led to me exploring my gender and altering my pronouns, clothing, and other aspects of how I expressed my gender.

Some of those aspects were punished more harshly than others. If I didn't want to medically transition and wear a packer and use pronouns other than she/her and feel uncomfortable being called a woman and having female-coded language used for me, I wouldn't be punished under transphobia the way that I am.

I would still get shit for my gender expression, of course, but not as harshly and mostly because of homophobia, ableism, and misogyny. It wouldn't put me in a different social class than cis lesbians and cis bi women. Expressing myself and wanting to live authentically and visibly in a way that is so far outside of womanhood in basically every conceivable way, expressing my gender and transitioning in a way that could get me fired or beaten or killed or forced into conversion therapy because it's so gender variant, does.

I feel like I've answered this question pretty well.

2. What pronouns honor you?

He/him, almost exclusively. I'm still trying to decide if I want them to be completely exclusively. Just don't call me by any other pronoun set unless you have my permission.

3. What style of clothing do you most often wear?

I feel a lot more drawn to masculinity, but on a daily basis my gender expression is fluid or androgynous.

I like ties, pretty much any kind of button down shirt, skinny jeans, khakis, men's graphic T-shirts, short sleeved V-necks, tank tops, Henley shirts, leggings, an occasional sundress or skirt, short shorts, leather jackets, beanies, cardigans, bomber jackets, pins and patches, sturdy jewelry, leather sandals, vests, those jackets that are part hoodie and part denim or leather, and capris. My style goals look like a cross between Mary Margaret Blanchard, David Nolan, a frat boy, Ruby Rose, dad clothes, and the contents of a menswear blog, with punk accents and religious jewelry added in.

4. Talk about your choices with body hair. How do you style your hair? Do you choose to shave? What do you choose to shave, or not shave?

My hair is freshly buzzed, done myself. #6 razor guard, but the guards I use are a different kind than the ones at the hair stylist. I'm planning to start growing it out in August and, once it's long enough, get it styled into a masculine-looking pixie cut that's shorter on the sides and back. I'll have to look for pictures to show the stylist soon. I'm thinking of just going off by myself to a barber or a trans-friendly salon so I don't have to risk a salon stylist making me look like a middle-aged cishet housewife.

I shave my armpits every day, the middle part between my eyebrows probably once or twice a month, and anything else whenever the urge strikes - which it rarely does.

5. Talk about cosmetics. Do you choose to wear makeup? Do you paint your nails? What soaps and perfumes do you use, if any?

I don't paint my nails or use perfumes, I use unscented soaps, and I don't wear makeup unless I have to or I'm doing drag.

6. Have you experienced being most entered? How often?

Yes, and constantly.

7. Do you experience dysphoria? How does it affect you?

It's fluid and affects me both physically and socially.

I already described how it affects me socially in #1.

I want a breast reduction, down to a B cup. That way I can bind with just a sports bra and loose-fitting shirt and look androgynous. I can have tits when I want them and look and feel flat-chested when I don't, all without the pain and health issues and dysphoria that arose when I tried binding.

When I talk about binding being a dysphoria trigger, by the way, what I mean is that I was always so hyperaware of that tight, constricting, not-very-breathable fabric around my torso that it just made me even more self-conscious and dysphoric about my chest.

My body naturally looks traditionally extremely feminine and conventionally pretty. I've been called "dainty" and "delicate-looking" multiple times and I can attract stares and flirting from men very easily when I want to - and when I don't. I'm on the small side, but still curvy, and I have a soft, high-pitched voice, especially around people I don't feel totally comfortable with, and the second-smallest hands I have ever seen on an adult. My appearance, even while GNC, has made me the subject of envy from many a cishet woman.

Believe me, I would just let them have my voice, my curves, my hands, everything, if I could. While I don't ordinarily care that much about my body, like I can be naked or swim without a problem, I hate being reminded of how feminine and pretty I look.

It can be fun to look as stereotypically sexy as I know I do, to get that kind of validation and have that kind of social capital, but there have been so many times when my body - or, rather, the way I know people look at it - makes me so uncomfortable and agitated that I want to cry.

It's not the same kind of "dysphoria" that cis women experience. It's not just because of femininity or heterosexuality. It's being seen as a woman and having a body that people associate with womanhood, even if I'm not actively being treated badly for it.

That's why, in addition to my breast reduction, short hair, and masculine clothing, I also want to wear a packer, why I'm leaning so heavily toward taking HRT. It's partly why I'm rarely comfortable being touched sexually by anyone, or taking on a more feminine role with a man. It's why I was absolutely horrified when I started puberty, why I asked if I could get rid of my breasts, why I dressed in shapeless ugly clothing for years, why I wrote so many "tomboy" characters with gender neutral names and virtually sexless bodies, why I want to be more lean and muscular, why I almost never wear anything but sports bras, why I always say "shape shifting" when asked what superpower I would have.

So uh...yeah, I'm dysphoric. And it affects me pretty intensely.

8. Talk about children. Are you interested in having children? Would you want to carry a child, if that's an option for you? Would you want to be the primary caretaker for any child you have?

I'm considering it, but only with a woman. I would want to either adopt kids or care for hers from a previous relationship. I wouldn't ever want to get pregnant - the idea of it makes me uncomfortable and dysphoric. I would never tell them because it's rude, but I don't even like being around pregnant or breastfeeding people.

I wouldn't want to be the primary caretaker, partially because I'm going to be a social worker and I don't think I have the emotional energy to do both that and the full labor of being a primary parent.

I also think the nuclear family is arbitrary, capitalist nonsense, and I would rather raise a child communally. Me, my wife, and our friends and family, all working together to care for any children and pets involved.

All of this said, having kids is a huge commitment and until I'm 100% sure that's what I want and what I can handle, I'm not having any at all.

9. Talk about money. Is it important to you to provide for a family if you choose to have one? Is it important that you earn more than any partner you may have? Do you prefer to pay for things like dates? Do you feel uncomfortable when others pay for you or offer to pay for you?

Well, so far I've dated two people, both feminine cis women. They were both the rare kind of gay that can drive - I wasn't. Which is why I felt it only fair that I paid.

Speaking of, when I say that I dated two women, it's...complicated.

Hannah was really more of a fuckbuddy and I, in some sort of distorted effort to prove I was an adult and get past my insecurities about being "gay enough", went along with it even though I wanted something romantic. I don't regret it completely. She taught me about my boundaries and desires, helped me get past my fear of having sex with women, and made me feel sexy.

That is, she made me feel sexy until I found out she was a chaser and that she had lied to me about something important. Then she just made me feel dirty and violated. For that reason, I broke up with her before we ever really dated.

After my and Hannah's breakup, I threw myself into school. It paid off, landing me on the Dean's List for two semesters in a row. I also grew a lot emotionally, made some new friends, talked an old one out of something really dangerous and stupid, went to my first college party, accidentally got drunk for the first time (I was fine, don't worry, I just giggled a lot, got dizzy, and couldn't walk right until I ate something other than chips), accidentally came out as nonbinary to an assload of people, and decided once and for all that superficial things like sex and alcohol and even driving were a stupid way to judge maturity (I'm still trying to get my license though - it may be a stupid way to judge maturity, but it's also a useful skill and a source of independence).

Finally, I met Giaa (not her real name, I'm just trying to protect her).

I mostly find partners through the internet. It's a matter of practicality and convenience. This way, we know sooner if we're somehow not compatible before one or both of us gets hurt. It's also much easier for gay/bi people to meet potential partners online when we're under twenty-one (though it's only another five months for me), closeted, can't drive, or don't have a lot of LGBT spaces around us.

So that's how Giaa and I met. I don't know which one of us noticed the other first, but I eventually decided it was time I stopped being useless and actually talked to a beautiful woman for once.

I did. I'm so, so, so glad I did. She gave me her number and...she's amazing. She makes me laugh when I feel like I can't. She's so kind. She's gentle and beautiful and curious and brave and compassionate and fills my entire being with an affection that makes me grin like a little bisexual idiot and cry tears of joy. I never thought I would be this happy. She makes me feel like the luckiest person in the world and I want desperately to spend more time with her and protect her and just be with her.

Right now though, before we can actually pursue anything real and serious together, we have other things to do. We both had finals when we first started dating, and Giaa needed gallbladder surgery soon after and I asked her to never put me before her health. She said no promises, which terrifies me, but agreed to let me know when she isn't feeling well.

Now, it's Ramadan. Giaa is Muslim and, while dating doesn't break her fast as long as it doesn't lead to sex, she's also tired out and I don't ever want to ask her to choose me over time with her family and practicing her religion.

So I'm stepping back to give her some space. I already told her how I feel about her and I hope she can be in my life in any way possible, but...I guess I can't really say I've ever dated. Not yet.

As much as I want to yell from the rooftops about how great Giaa is, I'm getting sidetracked.

I would want to split any expenses fairly, and it only bothers me when someone offers to pay for me if I know they're struggling financially. Now, onto the next question.

10. Is there anything else you'd like to share about your experience with gender?

I think my last gender tag post covered this question pretty well.

A Proposal

One of the ways I came to the conclusion that asexuality and aromanticism aren't LGBT identities is by thinking of it similarly to polyamory and gender nonconformity.

Gender nonconforming cis people may face interpersonal social difficulties and stigma, but they are not oppressed. The antagonism they face is tied to other factors and varies from day to day.

Taking my gender fluidity out of the equation - though that's hard to do, as it's very closely tied to my expression - I am not oppressed just because of how I dress or how I cut my hair.

For starters, I don't usually look overtly feminine or masculine, and my expression can be fluid. Even though I'm very drawn to masculinity and am generally more comfortable and confident when I don't look overtly feminine, I do sometimes wear makeup, nail polish, or feminine clothing, I sometimes shave, and I've been thinking of growing out my hair (I'll shave it off again when it makes me uncomfortable). And when my appearance is seen as feminine, I'm treated not very differently than a feminine woman. Does that give me some sort of gender conforming privilege? Of course not, especially not over straight people, cis people, or men who look superficially more gender nonconforming than I do.

My privileges don't change just because I decided to put on a dress, and in any case being a woman - especially a LGBT woman - is a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. I could wear dresses every day and still be harmed by compulsory femininity. I wouldn't be able to economically benefit from the oppression of masculine women because in order to maintain the shield that femininity provides, I would have to get up early enough to do my makeup and hair every morning. I would have to spend additional money on feminine-coded things and constantly hold my body to a higher standard. I would, as a disabled woman, be exhausting my energy reservoir and putting myself through sensory hell every day in the faint, futile hope that my body will be pleasing to men. Of course, I could look superficially feminine without wanting to please men, but then that wouldn't truly be femininity.

Feminine women, for that reason, don't oppress me.

In the same way, I don't oppress asexual or aromantic people. Their most common argument for the existence of "aphobia" as an axis of oppression can basically be summed up to how people, especially women, are punished for saying no to sex or romance. But aros and aces aren't the only people who say no to sex or romance and they aren't the only people who are punished for it. It's also completely possible to be punished for feeling attraction - that's literally what homophobia is - so it's not like us "allos" get off easy either.

The most common victims of "aphobia" are people of color, women, disabled people, and LGBT people. And all of those groups are also punished for feeling attraction.

Just like with gender expression, one's personal relationship to romance and sex (not who they're attracted to feel) is a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation and the only people who really get off scot-free are cishet white abled men.

In that way, aces and aros have a lot more in common with gender nonconforming people than they do with LGBT people. So doesn't it make more sense for acomm people to form an alliance with GNC people than try to push their way into an oppressed community that they don't inherently have anything to do with?

It's not like those three groups - ace, aro, and GNC people - would even have to be the only ones in this hypothetical alliance. It could be for polyamorous people. Sex repulsed people. Celibate people.

Nothing about this would have to be focused on oppression either. They could just talk about how, regardless of how you identify, it's good to live authentically. It's okay to say yes or no to sex, to not want to date. It's okay to have multiple partners. It's okay to be an adult virgin. It's okay to dress how you want. It's okay to defy gender roles. There could be campaigns about rape culture, about sexualization of teens, about jealousy and controlling behavior and how to avoid toxic relationships. About learning to exist as a woman when so much of that is tied around performing femininity to be attractive to men and that's not what you want. About enjoying your own company. About self-love. About communication. About consent. About sexual boundaries.

I'm a GNC woman who is curious about non-monogamy and is relatively sex-repulsed. I could benefit from all of this and I know lots of other people who could as well, whether or not any of these traits apply to them.

But, as someone who would hypothetically be in this alliance and who is also a nonbinary bisexual, I need these communities to be separate. I need people to acknowledge that gay monogamy is and will always be more radical than straight polyamory. I need them to acknowledge that people are very rarely rewarded or privileged for wanting sex or romance. I need sex to not be treated like something dirty. I need marginalized people to take center stage.

Can we all agree on that? Please?

Compulsory Femininity and Growing Up Fat - Or, Why I'm Still Afraid to be GNC

CW: food, discussion of weight and harassment, homophobic slurs

I actually wrote the title to this post like a week ago and saved it as a draft because I didn't have time to write.

But anyhow, I have shaved my head. Or like...not completely. It still has hair on it. It's a buzz cut. Which, as the title says, I was absolutely petrified of. I like it now though. I'm keeping it this way.

Those of you who have been here longer probably know by now that I was fat for most of my life thus far. I was medically overweight from around seven or eight years old to almost twenty.

My highest weight was in the 190s with very little muscle mass when I was fifteen. Then I realized I was bi, that I could get away with being gender nonconforming (and therefore stay closeted) more easily if I was thin, and that I was also just sick of constantly being harassed. So I lost forty pounds by my seventeenth birthday, then gained about 20 or 25 the summer before my senior year of high school and couldn't seem to lose it again no matter how healthily I ate or how much exercise I did.

Full disclaimer - I eventually made my peace with my 170-something-pound body. There was nothing wrong with my body (besides the blood sugar, eye, and pain issues). I get that. And I'm trying to be that okay with myself now too, at 140.

But even with my insecurities, I recognize that I am privileged because I no longer experience fatphobia.

Like I was saying, though, I'm technically thin now for pretty much the first time since my dad died (I tend to eat my feelings). And even though I've lost weight and recognize that I'm treated very differently now, I still have a lot of residual insecurity about my body and my femininity - or lack thereof.

I don't feel thin, basically. I don't think of myself as thin. I still have a lot of the same body image issues as I did when I was fat.

GNC women who are thin are able to get away with a lot more in terms of their gender nonconformity than GNC women who are fat. Sure, there are other factors at play like transgender status, class, disability, sexuality, and race, but I'm not talking about those other factors. I'm talking about weight.

Fat women who don't wear makeup, who don't shave, who shave their heads, who don't wear feminine clothing, who are generally perceived as "unfeminine" and "not caring about their appearance", are seen as sloppy and ugly. If I were still 198 pounds, there's no way I would be able to look the way I do without being sneered at and lectured and told that I should at least try to look feminine and fuckable and straight if I'm going to dare to exist as a fat woman.

If my hair was longer, I could pass for a tomboyish cishet woman today. But I wouldn't be able to do that if I were still fat because I would automatically be perceived as less feminine, no matter what I'm wearing, and I know that and part of me still feels like that fat, insecure fifteen-year-old girl who just doesn't want to be harassed.

That girl never would have gotten her hair buzzed. That girl certainly never would have dreamed that she would be a he instead of a she. She would have wished it, quietly. Would never have voiced that desire or any other that expressed her alienation from girlhood, would never have called it dysphoria, would never have dared daydream about loving women. She never would have known any of that was possible for her. I'm glad I'm not that girl anymore, but at the same time all I want to do is protect her.

That part of me, the part of me that is her, almost cried when I walked out of that beauty salon with my hair shorn so close to my scalp that I couldn't even grab a shock of thick honey blonde waves between my fingers. I felt and still do feel like I have to compensate for my gender nonconformity and my bisexuality by being feminine in some way.

I've changed a lot, but she's still a part of me. And sometimes...I forget. I forget how much I've changed and all that old toxic shit comes back and I feel a rush of shame, of internalized homophobia and transphobia. I feel the need to tone down my masculinity so I still look like a woman. As if there's only one way for a woman to look.

I feel that way about my hair. I feel that way about my clothes. I feel that way about my sexuality. I feel that way about my gender, about my pronouns. I feel that way about going on T and getting top surgery.

I'm not wholly a woman, and other than through the lens of being a gender nonconforming woman who loves women, I'm not a woman at all internally. But I'm not a man either. I don't want to be one and I don't want to look like one.

I don't want to date gay men or straight women. But who would date a woman who looks like a man, and if I choose to medically transition is just going to look even more like a man when he's older? I've never even heard of a GNC bi woman or of a tomcat, besides me, going on T or having top surgery. Especially not while using he/him pronouns and being nonbinary. What is my future going to look like? What is my body going to look like? Is it possible for someone to love me the way I want to be loved?

I feel years of psychological burden, of emotional trauma, coming back sometimes, when I think about gender nonconformity and transition. I used to be a fat girl and part of me will always feel the need to compensate for that. Part of me will feel like an imposter. Part of me will feel the need to apologize when I did nothing wrong. Part of me will always be afraid.

In All Fairness, We're Just as Bad

Yes, there are lesbians who have given me excellent reasons to mistrust them. That said...the bi community has given lesbians plenty of reasons to mistrust us and I want to address why. I don't care how badly individual lesbians have treated us, hating all lesbians is never going to be okay.


So since I'm good with numbered lists, I'm going to do that.

1. Calling lesbianism restrictive or limiting.

Being attracted to men is not inherently freeing, but so many lesbians are told that it is by men and straight people. Do you really want to agree with them?


The truth is, when you don't want to be with men, doing it anyway can feel suffocating. It can harm your mental health to force yourself into a relationship that doesn't actually bring you joy.


There are also bi women who don't date men, and you probably don't say they're limiting themselves. You probably don't say that gay men or straight people are either. Why the double standard? Just let people date who they want. Not all women date men, die mad about it.


2. Believing in monosexual privilege.


Hot damn this is the big one. Monosexual privilege, that shit that was made up by resident lesbophobic dumbass bitch Shiri Eisner? Yeah. It's not real.


50% of all LGBT people of color are bisexual. 50% of trans people identify as something other than gay or straight. Both populations are disproportionately impoverished and likely to be mentally ill or to engage in survival sex work. Both populations are disproportionately likely to be sexually assaulted.


Do you really think that statistics like bi people being more likely to experience employment discrimination, to be abused, to be sexually assaulted, to be suicidal, to be poor, are going to apply to cis white bi people? That I, a white bi woman, automatically have more in common with a bi person of color than a gay person of color does? Do you think that cis bi women have more in common with me than I do with a nonbinary lesbian?


When I was seventeen and die-hard believed in it, screamed-at-any-lesbian-who-tried-to-reason-with-me believed in it, made-shitty-homophobic-Tumblr posts believed in it, there was this guy Mike who was really popular in those kinds of cringe-y circles of ignorant bi people who didn't know shit about politics or history and were way too defensive over our m/w relationships. Mike was a cis white bi man, but acted as if fucking women made him about a million times less privileged than a cis white gay man and I totally fell for it. Not in a romantic way, but like...I looked up to him.


He was also about...uh, ten years older than me? So the fact that he seemed to take me seriously and treat me like an adult felt like a huge compliment, but the truth was that he was just some predatory creep who liked to tell lesbians they were oppressing him by not fucking him and manipulate young bi people, especially bi girls, into agreeing with him. Oh, and despite being cis and having literally no evidence for any of his claims, he constantly accused trans people of being TERFs, gatekeepers, and truscum if they weren't MOGAI.


He was hardly the only bi adult I encountered who believed in this. In fact, a lot of the adult MOGAIs who helped lure me into that hellscape were bi women. Bi women, who either didn't know or didn't care that they were just helping their oppressors sexually harass lesbians. Bi women, who wrote horrible homophobic thinkpieces against the evils of the LGs. Cis bi women, who would constantly try to affix themselves to the trans community as if they weren't being homophobic to trans gay people and nonbinary gay people too, as if they were somehow less oppressive to trans people than cis lesbians were.


Which brings me to my next point...


3. Erasing, speaking over, and tokenizing non-cis lesbians and lesbians of color.


Cis bi women and even non-cis bi women do this all the time. White bi women do this all the time. Equating our implicit racism as white women to lesbians' biphobia. Acting as if lesbians can't date trans women or nonbinary women. Using white fragility to our advantage. Saying that being gay is cissexist, as if cis bi people don't have that "I don't see gender" or "Hearts Not Parts" BS. Ignoring our privileges. Conflating TERFs with lesbians, as if TERFs don't hate trans lesbians more than anyone or there aren't straight, aroace, and bisexual TERFs. As if associating lesbianism with transmisogyny isn't playing right into TERFs' hands.


4. Not even trying to listen to lesbians and always assuming the worst.


There were lesbians who legitimately tried to be patient with me and educate me when I was a MOGAI. They were good people who genuinely cared about bi women, but they weren't pushovers and they weren't going to put up with my homophobic bullshit. So when they finally lost patience with me, I took it as evidence that lesbians were nothing more than shrieking, bimisogynist, oppressive monosexual bitches who resented me because I was attracted to men.


I admit, I'm guilty of this even now. Always assuming the worst of lesbians. Scrutinizing them and judging them based purely on their orientation. I just admitted it to myself tonight, when I came across a butch lesbian blogger and my first thought was not to appreciate their writing and promote it in solidarity with my butch and lesbian siblings, but to hunt down everything they'd ever written and put it under a microscope to find something, anything negative that I could use to justify my prejudice.


Lesbians are human. They are women who love women, just like we are. They aren't perfect, but they aren't monsters either. Stop treating them that way. You're not some flawless little princess either, you know, so treat lesbians the way you would feel you deserve for them to treat you.


5. Not letting lesbians have anything for themselves.


It's great for lesbians and bi women to be allies to one another and to seek solidarity with each other. We have a lot in common and we're targeted by the same oppressive forces. But that doesn't mean there shouldn't ever be anything just for one group. Not everything has to be all-inclusive.


Let femme and butch lesbians make things exclusively for femme and butch lesbians. Let lesbians have lesbian-only spaces. Let lesbians talk about how they tried to be bi out of self-hate. Let lesbians acknowledge that m/w relationships are privileged. Let lesbians not care about men. Let lesbians prioritize other lesbians in their feminism.


If they're actually being biphobic or bimisogynist, you can call them out. But someone not focusing on YOU YOU YOU all the time doesn't mean they hate you. Don't be so self-absorbed. Some things aren't that deep.


6. Appropriating butch/femme terminology and reducing those identities to aesthetics.


To clarify, I just mean the wlw gender labels here, not the ball culture ones.


I know that bi women can be butch or femme and honestly I think we have bigger problems than some newly-out teenage bi girl tagging her selfies with those words when they don't apply to her, but it is not okay to take butch and femme out of a strictly woman-for-woman context.


Don't say shit like "haha it's so funny that I have a boyfriend when I'm butch" or "I bet I'm femme because I like guys too." Especially don't call yourself these terms if you're that kind of pick-me bitch who tries to appeal to guys by telling them you're a feminist or you like girls or you like to wear masculine clothing, but you're not one of those hairy ugly butch lesbians. Those hairy, "ugly" butch lesbians are family. They are a huge part of our culture and history and they are often amazing people if you actually give them a chance.


It's not cute and it's a slap in the face to the butches and femmes who made our community as great as it is.












Are you a bi woman? Do you feel attacked or personally insulted by this post?


Do you think lesbians should feel attacked or personally insulted by my last post, when I talked extensively about the alienation I felt from the lesbian community and why I felt like I couldn't trust lesbians?


Think really fucking hard about your answers to those questions, girls. And do better. Do better yourself, encourage other bi women to do better and call out their lesbophobia, do better for lesbians and the bi women who love them. I hope I can do the same.

Why We've Been Inactive

It's because Roman is gone and I've been too busy to write.

Why is Roman gone, you ask? Did it get fired? Did it quit?

Both.

So here's what happened. I don't know exactly when, but it has decided that I'm a "lesbophobic nightmare" and left, apparently too much of a coward to actually confront me on this, to make its own blog.

But it still kept reblogging from my Tumblr, which is so fucking funny. And hypocritical. I blocked it.

Okay, I guess? I'm not holding it prisoner. I can't force it to write and I don't want to. I'm just trying to figure out why it feels that way about me.

Admittedly I do have a lot of mistrust toward lesbians, especially cis lesbians, because of the way I've seen them treat bi women and nonbinary women. Admittedly, that mistrust is undeserved because it's directed toward the lesbian community as a whole and I don't scrutinize cis bi women the way I do cis lesbians, even though both groups are equally transphobic.

I guess it feels like a betrayal, that so many lesbians treat bi women like we're just juvenile, man-obsessed, traitorous dick-worshippers who are too stupid to talk about our own oppression. Because like I expect men, straight women, and aroace women to hate me. I shouldn't have to expect that from lesbians, considering that they don't oppress me, but I do and I wish I didn't.

I feel like the lesbian community as a whole, not necessarily individual lesbians, has been toxic, cruel, elitist, and hypocritical toward bi women. I have seen so many leftist lesbians talk about how lived material realities matter more than identity politics, and I think it's hypocritical and bimisogynistic of these lesbians to assume that the most important thing about any bi woman's lived material reality is her attraction to men and that it is, therefore, absolutely unjustifiable and disgusting for any bi woman to apply terms to herself that are associated with lesbianism (not counting, of course, actually identifying as lesbian or gay) or to resent being ignored or treated as an afterthought when it comes to conversations like feeling alienated from womanhood, being pressured to prioritize men, or facing homophobic misogyny.

I feel the same way about how many leftist cis lesbians - and it is mostly cis lesbians, from what I've seen - treat nonbinary women and CAFAB trans people. They, along with all other cis LGB people, are way too eager to remind us "afabs" that we benefit from transmisogyny, as if they don't benefit from it to a greater extent than we ever will and as if they don't benefit from transphobia as a whole.

Cis lesbian and bi women in leftist scenes have a tendency to tokenize trans women and use them as social capital as long as they agree with them, prioritize them over other trans people, and espouse exactly the right political opinions for cis women's benefit. They're essentially capitalizing on trans women's hypervisibility, but then they'll turn around and say it's misogynistic to be mean to TERFs or call out any lesbian's transmisogyny when you're not a lesbian yourself.

As for the rest of us trans, nonbinary, and generally non-cis people? Well, we don't make good social justice props for cis women, so we're pretty much useless unless they want to fetishize us (which, yes, cis lesbians have done to me). Which makes it okay for cis women of any kind to openly laugh at us, misgender us, lecture us on issues that we understand far better than they do, and generally treat us like we're just silly white blue-haired MOGAI fifteen-year-olds who are hopped up on identity politics, don't understand anything about real oppression, and (specifically for woman-aligned nonbinary people) only "internally identify" as nonbinary but are basically just cis women with a twist.

They also assume that they always know any non-cis woman's assigned sex, which is dehumanizing, invasive, and transphobic toward all trans women and all woman-aligned nonbinary people. That kind of behavior from cis women leads to fetishization, harassment, and sexual violence against us. They appropriate our experiences (i.e. cis femmes claiming that they share oppression with trans women under "femmephobia" as if GNC trans women don't exist, or cis WLW in general uncritically promoting rhetoric like "dysphoria is just internalized misogyny" and "woman-aligned nonbinary people are always functionally cis"). They dismiss and infantilize non-cis women who are feminine and sexually harass non-cis women who are not, even to the point of assuming we're violent because of our gender nonconformity.

Honestly? I'm pretty much convinced by now that ~*~sapphic solidarity~*~ is mostly a way to shut nonbinary and trans WLW up about cis women's transphobia and to downplay any mistreatment bi women and lesbians face from one another.

Of course, bi women are exempt from absolutely none of this, are sometimes genuinely awful toward lesbians, and if they are cis then they're just as capable of transphobia as cis lesbians are. There are also nonbinary and trans lesbians who have been hurt just as badly by cis women (including cis bi women!) as I, a nonbinary bi woman, have. It's also important to remember that straight women, aroace women, and men of all sexualities are far more capable of being cruel to bi women than lesbians are.

So I know the mistreatment I've faced and the alienation I feel from (cis) lesbians as a result is not an excuse to be lesbophobic, okay? I'm working on it and trying to be genuinely respectful of lesbians, but I will still expect that respect to go both ways and I will still always prioritize other bi women - especially TGNC and gender diverse bi women - before anyone else.

And honestly? I think that's part of why Roman believes I'm a lesbophobe. It is uncomfortable with me putting bi women first, addressing the issues we face from cishet, cis aroace, and LGBT people alike, and saying that our material realities are often very similar to lesbians' and even if they're not, that doesn't mean it's okay to condescend to us, mock our mistreatment, group us with men or straight women, or act like we're stupid, catty, unfaithful, hyperfeminine bihet cocksucking breeders who are too dumb and unwoke to give up men and are only good for sex.

Good riddance, overall. Anyone who is so entitled to bi women's labor that it can't even handle seeing one say "hey don't treat us like shit" without accusing him of being a lesbophobe isn't someone who is worthy of my time - especially when it wasn't the world's greatest ally to us itself.

As for myself, I've been dealing with personal issues. I've struggled with my mental health, especially binge eating, impulsive eating, and emotional eating, for most of my life - there's a reason, but I don't feel ready to go into it now - and I'm trying to get that under control and focus on my health and recovery, especially since I relapsed this year. I'm also trying to focus on school, get the rest of my life in order, doing an internship, and trying to get up the nerve to ask out the pretty doe in my psychology class.

I guess that sums up why I've been inactive. I'm hoping to write more soon, but no promises. And finally: I'm looking for new mods! If you are an LGBT leftist who likes to write and fits my requirements, please head over to the mod applications page.