FAQ (Eli)

CW: homophobic slurs

How do I know which one of you is writing a post?
I'm Mod Eli, aka Radioactive, and I write most of our posts. At the moment, I'm the only mod.

How can you claim to want social justice if you're constantly spouting misandry/cisphobia/heterophobia/racism against white people/Christophobia/etc.?

 I AM a white, often cis-passing, cultural Christian.

 My focus is on compassion, care, and solidarity, and I'm often still learning to check my own white feelings when a situation isn't about me. Trust me, I get it, but unless you're a rapist, fascist, abuser, eugenicist, conversion therapist, or anyone else who consciously chooses to hurt the innocent, I don't hate you. Don't take anything I say here as a personal attack unless I clearly mean it as one.

However, unpopular opinion that I'll definitely get crucified for, I do think this can be a legitimate criticism of social justice and that some people do actually have a chip on their shoulder because of the oppression they've experienced and use that as an excuse to be assholes and mistreat other people and it pisses me off. Like, no, I'm sorry, being a poc, being trans, etc is not an excuse for you to be an aggressive asshole when doing so is completely unwarranted and you need to stop treating oppression as a virtue. You aren't helping and realistically we need some people to actually be willing to educate and be patient so that people on the fence can actually learn and get on our side.

You just learned all this through Tumblr brainwashing!

Interesting thing to say, considering how the internet has facilitated the rise of the alt-right, but no. I learned it through experience and scientific research.

Why haven't you spoken about xyz social issue? 

I'm a mentally ill grad student with an exhausting full time job and two physical disabilities that affect my hands and my energy and pain levels. I don't always have time or energy to be an activist, but the fact that I don't speak about certain things on here doesn't mean I'm not still donating, advocating, protesting, calling my representatives, talking about it on other social media that doesn't take up as much of my energy. And, honestly, every spare second of time right now is focused on providing for myself in this capitalist hellscape and working on grad school. You know, grad school, where I'm working on my Master's in social work? Where I'm literally trying to devote my entire life to social justice and use my privilege for good because that's the best way I can contribute to making the world a better place?

Nonbinary genders don't exist/were invented by Tumblr/are just millennials trying to be special.

Actually, some cultures have acknowledged nonbinary genders for thousands of years - to the point of considering nonbinary people blessed or having nonbinary gods. Even in western European cultures, nonbinary people have always existed. Nonbinary people in those cultures just didn't necessarily have names for their identities.

Also, even if nonbinary genders had just been invented by Tumblr millennials and Gen-Z, what do you care? Some blue haired 19 year old genderfluid person is not going to steal your dick, MacBrayden.

Sources: X X X X X


Aren't gays oppressing Christians by forcing us to conform to your beliefs?
No. I don't actually give much of a fuck about Christians when they're not doing anything to hurt anyone else, and I have a lot of respect for some Christian figures and liberation theology. I want the same treatment as any cishet person, the right to self determination and basic respect, which are things I think we all just deserve by default.


But America is a Christian country!
Does it look like my gay commie ass is much of a fan of the American oligarchy? Get bit.

You're mean.
You're astute.

Really though? I'm not intentionally mean so much as I try not to mince words when I don't have to. Honesty and good communication are important values of mine.

Misandry! / #NotAllMen!

Whatever you say, Chadrick.

In reality, women and women-aligned people, and really anyone who isn't a cis man, are perceived as misandrist the minute not everything is about men. Like, I have hairy legs and can't remember the last time I wore makeup? MISANDRY. Lesbians existing outside of porn? What about Trey's orgasm, though???????? A woman calling out sexual harassment? Clearly an attack on all men ever. Two women having a very clearly A/B conversation about misogyny? Well I, a man, think about this issue that doesn't doesn't directly hurt me....I don't care, Josh.

Why do you swear so much?
Swearing is how I get a point across, and not a method of communication I'm able to use often. I really don't care if someone wants to use profanity in my presence, either. Go to town, you little fucker.

And really, why is fuck considered the F-word and not fa**ot? Profanity isn't offensive to me - but misogyny, racism, classism, fatphobia, wh*rephobia, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, antisemitism, islamophobia, intersexism, etc., are, because that's what actually hurts people.

What religion are you? 

It's a long story. I'm sort of a soft polytheist or a pantheist theologically and currently consider myself both Christian and pagan, though lately I've been pretty focused on Mother Mary and saint veneration as well as devotion to the Irish goddess Brigid and celebration of Celtic pagan holidays. I syncretize Catholicism with Hellenic and Celtic paganism. I'm also thinking of going to a Lutheran church in my area after the pandemic. So I feel weird about religious labels. Folk Christian? Christian witch? Christopagan? Pantheist? Omnist? Unitarian Universalist? Christian polytheist? Culturally Christian, religiously pagan? Just pagan? Irish folk Catholic? Take your pick I guess.

Do you really believe in stuff like faeries and gods and witchcraft?

I try to examine everything through a scientific lens, I don't take everything literally, I don't evangelize, and I'm also technically agnostic but I don't call myself that because I feel like everyone should be willing to admit that ultimately we can't really prove that our beliefs are true. That said, yes. I do.

What do pagan religious practices include?

First of all, there are many pagan religions and each one has different practices and beliefs.

Even within the same pagan religion, methods of worship and connecting with the gods are going to vary from person to person, depending on their culture, individual preference, living and financial situation, how open they are about being pagan, whether they are syncretized with any other religion, and which god(s) they are devoted to (if any). So I can really only speak for myself.

I'm not as observant in my paganism as I want to be, honestly. It's hard to feel connected to the pagan community when I've had to keep my beliefs secret for years and there aren't really social organizations or houses of worship for pagans the way there are for Christians.

I do have a Book of Shadows, Spotify playlists devoted to different deities, a grimoire, and a Pinterest board focused on different aspects of religion, spirituality, and the occult. I also veil during holidays whenever I can, wear a triquetra necklace, love the idea of having solstice bonfires, an altar, and a witchy herb garden, and I try to spend time in nature and attend any local pagan events as much as possible.

What does 'TW' and 'CW' mean?

Those are content warnings. They're mainly to make my blog more accessible by warning people with anxiety, PTSD, depression, eating disorders, panic attacks, psychosis, autism, sensory processing disorder, or epilepsy when I'm going to be discussing or showing content that could harm them.

 Since anything can be a trigger, I obviously can't list every single trigger that exists. But I do tag the ones that I assume would affect a larger number of people, like rape, death, war, blood, violence, conversion therapy, abuse, eugenics, murder, food (for people with eating disorders), bright flashing lights (for people with epilepsy and/or autism), or various forms of oppression because some people have PTSD due to the racism, transphobia, intersexism, or ableism they've experienced.

 When someone who would otherwise be affected by our content sees the warning, they know to avoid that post - and, therefore, avoid a panic attack, seizure, sensory meltdown, self-harm, or relapse in their illness.

I'm also careful to avoid text blocks because they can be inaccessible to people with dyslexia, autism, or ADHD, and if I'm going to be showing an image I use image descriptions so blind and low vision people can use text-to-speech technology to know what the image is.

Can non-lesbians reclaim the D slur?
 

My opinion on this is going to depend a lot on your specific experiences. Personally I do reclaim it and I'm not opposed to bi women reclaiming it in general but I do think that all lgbt people should be mindful of the privileges we might have over those who are more hypervisible than us. Like, if you're a masc bi woman who mostly dates women and makes an effort to prioritize that attraction in your life, I don't have an issue with you reclaiming it. But for a more fem bi woman partnered with a man? No, because that's someone who has the privilege of passing as straight much of the time and can choose whether she wants to come out. Sapphics who are more targeted by the D-slur are going to be ones who are more hypervisible and whose lives and relationships are less centered around men and heteronormativity.

Can non-lesbians identify as butches and femmes?

All LGBT groups have a history with these words, through Polari, ballroom culture, drag culture, lesbian bar culture, etc. I also think it's ridiculous to act like a centrist, pro-capitalist, affluent white cis lesbian with no history of sex work has some special connection to butch and femme that, say, a bi Latina sex worker or a black nonbinary gay man who participates in drag balls doesn't. Gay men, nonbinary people of all identities, straight trans people, and bisexuals, especially people of color, all have a claim on butch and femme and have been identifying with them for decades, so it just makes me laugh to see young, white, non-sex workers from the suburbs accusing anyone else using them of cultural appropriation or of seeing them only as substitutes for masculine and feminine.

It's not as if every lesbian who identifies with them has a complicated relationship with gender, or identifies with lesbian bar culture, or is particularly interested in butch/femme solidarity, or sees them as a way of announcing their lack of """"availability to men"""" (and discussing women in terms of availability to men is incredibly misogynistic and biphobic anyway). The way I was introduced to the identities was as a teenager, seeing other wlw - lesbians, bi women, gay women who identified with neither - simply talking on social media about how they dressed and how they, their friends, and their girlfriends were perceived in the LGBT community as a result. Is that also corrupting and appropriating butch/femme culture, is it also harming butch and femme lesbians and diluting their identities, or does it only matter when a bi woman does it?

Plus, what about the evolution of culture? If we're all going to base our identities as LGBT people strictly on how our forebears in the 40s-60s supposedly have defined theirs, does that make me a transvestite lesbian? My family is from Ireland, Scotland, and southern Italy, which means at one point they weren't viewed as fully white in America, and I probably have distant cousins in Ireland and Scotland who are still suffering the effects of colonialism. So should I also identify as a person of color? No and no, because terms have changed since then and we have new ways of defining our identities. Culture evolves. Identities evolve.

I figure as long as you're LGBT, you're probably fine, but do try to make sure you're using the terms butch and femme in at least a somewhat historically accurate way.

Can cishets or cis aroaces use any of these terms?

No.

But-

No. They're identities that only exist in a closed culture that you're not part of, and were used to articulate how LGBT people relate to gender because we've historically been ostracized from participating in that in a world where the gender binary was not made for us. Just say masculine, feminine, or gender nonconforming.

Which one are you? Butch? Doe? Femme? Stag? Tomcat? Pine? Rose? Tomme? Damme?

I think most sapphics would call me a futch or chapstick, but in terms of community roles and relationship to gender I'd say I'm a gnc femme. 

How are femme and feminine different and why is femme a closed identity specifically for LGBT people?

Femme is a specifically LGBT identity deeply rooted in historical traditions and culture like polari, drag, ball culture, and lesbian bar culture. It means something different depending on exactly what your identity is and I can't speak for, say, a femme gay man, or a femme nonbinary bisexual who isn't sapphic, or a femme queen who participates in ball culture, because those are experiences I've never had. So, when I talk about femme and butch, it's generally going to be about specifically butch/femme culture in the sapphic community. However, a common theme I've noticed with femme identity in general is that it's femininity subverted by the fact that it's performed in a way that's on our own terms and that defies gender norms and is divorced from heteronormativity.

So, what does that mean for femme sapphics, considering that femininity is already a gender norm for women? Well, for starters, what is seen as femme to many sapphics who are involved in butch/femme culture is frequently not seen as feminine either to cishets or to LGBT people who are still entrenched in straight culture. Like a femme sapphic might have a buzzcut, or tattoos, or not wear bras, or have body hair, or not wear makeup, or deliberately try to be bold and edgy with her style, or use he/him pronouns and masc gendered terminology, or go on T, or get top surgery, or all of them - and while those are things that can still fit within the spectrum of femininity, they're also things that are not really seen as conventionally feminine or normative for a woman.

Also, unlike what is often expected of heteronormative femininity, femme sapphics are often put into a protective role. That's because our identity also very deeply involves protection, love, care, and solidarity with butch sapphics, and because many femme sapphics (not all, of course) have an ability to pass as cishet and hide our minority status in ways that other members of the community really can't. We're seen as socially palatable, and if we stay quiet and don't use our privileges of passing, plausible deniability, and social palatability for good, we're essentially letting homophobes treat us as their little lapdogs, as "one of the good ones" because straight men are more likely to be attracted to us and straight women can pretend we're one of them. I may not consider myself gender-conforming or binary-gendered, I may have my own complicated relationship to gender, but no one's going to see that when I show up to a job interview with long hair and a dress. So, when I get hired for that job, my role as a femme who passes as cis is to be an advocate for LGBT people who are more visibly gender-nonconforming than I am. When I'm in public and have the choice to stay closeted and let people assume I'm cishet as long as I'm not holding my girlfriend or wife's hand, my role is to be proud to be on her arm anyway. When men or straight women make cruel jokes about butch lesbians being ugly and unattractive, my role is to be vocal about finding them beautiful, handsome, and desirable, to say that sapphic gender expression is meant for other sapphics and that even if I'm seen as more acceptable, my gender expression isn't intended for them and doesn't require their commentary any more than butches' expression does. Whether we're attracted to them or not, femme sapphics' role is to make butches feel safe in a way they often aren't granted the privilege of feeling anywhere else.

How can lesbians be transmasculine/gay men be transfeminine?

People use the words transmasculine and transfeminine in a couple different ways.

One is an umbrella term for someone whose gender identity is directly contradictory to their assigned sex, and who identifies with the other assigned sex. So, afab trans men, demiboys/demimen, multigender people who are more male identifying, and male aligned nonbinary people, and amab trans women, demigirls/demiwomen, multigender people who are more female identifying, and female aligned nonbinary people.

The second kind of transmasculine or transfeminine person is a nonbinary person who is transitioning in some way that is more masculinizing or more feminizing. For example, an AMAB nonbinary person who uses she/they pronouns, a feminine or androgynous name, tucks her penis, wears breast forms, prefers more feminine coded terminology, wants feminizing gender-related medical care, dresses more fem, and/or otherwise wants to live her life in a more feminine-presenting way and identifies with femininity. Or an AFAB nonbinary person who uses he/they pronouns, a masculine or androgynous name, wears a packer, binds his chest, prefers more masculine coded terminology, wants masculinizing gender-related medical care, dresses more masc, and/or otherwise wants to live his life in a more masculine-presenting way and identifies more with masculinity. And, despite what people might assume, this second kind of transfeminine or transmasculine person might be anywhere under the nonbinary umbrella.

Are you transmasc?

I'm unsure. Like, with what I have listed above, I do some things associated with transmasculinity and not others.

I'm technically okay with all pronouns but prefer he/they. I have an androgynous chosen name. I sometimes wear a packer. My gender presentation is mostly an even mix of masculinity and femininity, aesthetically speaking. I don't bind, but do experience chest dysphoria, exclusively wear sports bras, and work out to look more masc. I mostly use more masculinizing terms but occasionally more fem ones - mostly in relation to being gay, like I think it would be amazing if my future wife sometimes called me her husband and sometimes her wife, just interchangeably. And I call myself my dog's mom. But other than that, it's mostly androgynous or masc. I want a chest reduction surgery but don't want to go on T or get bottom surgery. I don't particularly want to live my life as any gender but given that that's not really an option in a very binary society, I'd rather live as a woman.

I'd describe that kind of presentation as like, half transmasc. And if it's half transmasc and half living generally contentedly as a woman, I'd say overall that's transandrogynous.

Internally, I'd describe my gender as something like genderfluid or bigender. One part is vaguely transmasculine nonbinary, something like neutrois or androgyne or ambonec I think. Like, it's not man or woman but it's decidedly masculine and not a woman and it's kind of both and kind of neither and occasionally closer to manhood but also decidedly not one. The other part is also definitely not really male or female exactly but like, it's sort of gender apathetic and nominally cis. Woman feels more accurate on those days than not but it's also not always fully accurate either.

Overall I don't really feel like I fit into a cis or trans framework. I mostly just call myself nonbinary or gender nonconforming or say my gender is sapphic but in reference to me being transmasc, I mean it isn't not accurate?

So does that mean that trans men can identify as lesbians?

No. Lesbians are women or woman-aligned nonbinary people who are attracted to women and not men. Transmasculine lesbians, he/him lesbians, nonbinary lesbians, and butch lesbians are all woman-aligned. Trans men are not women. They're men.

Can unaligned nonbinary people identify as lesbians or sapphic?

Lesbianism is a woman-for-woman label. It's about, by, and for women and nonbinary people who identify at least somewhat with womanhood. And it entirely excludes men and nonbinary people who identify more with manhood. If you aren't comfortable with that, find a different label. 

That's transphobic!

How? I'm affirming your gender. If you're not connected to womanhood in any way, you can't be a lesbian or sapphic.

I'm a lesbian trans man/sapphic unaligned nonbinary person and I feel invalidated. 

Yeah, yeah, tough titties. Go cry to the trans lesbians you're invalidating by implying lesbianism is defined by having a vagina and being assigned female at birth or to all actual sapphics who are uncomfortable with non-women in women's only spaces. You're being misogynistic.

You don't get to be like "I'm not a woman at all ever...except when it means some women won't have sex with me. And this is somehow less gross and misogynistic and entitled than cis men doing the literal same thing, because I'm not a woman except for this literal one boundary women have asked me not to cross." Do you even realize how fucking creepy and fetishizing that sounds? What exactly is the difference, you were assigned female at birth? Does that mean people assigned male at birth automatically have less of a connection to lesbianism...and if so, what are you saying about trans women?

Sapphics/lesbians are women who like women. How are you one if you're nonbinary?

Two reasons. One, my gender is partially female. Two, even if I didn't personally identify with womanhood at all, I still feel comfortable being categorized as loving women as a woman because that describes my material experiences and identity development. I still deal with misogyny and homophobia the same way as any cis sapphic does, lesbians are still attracted to me, and I'm still perceived as a lesbian when with them. With my transition goals being what they are I don't see this changing. 

How come you can't just identify as gnc/butch? Aren't you reinforcing gender roles?

I mostly get this question from cis women when participating in sapphic communities online, and it's absurd to me because it seems like when they ask this they're projecting their own views on gender roles on me by assuming I'm a lot more masc than I actually am...which, considering how angry they get about me "reinforcing gender roles" actually says a lot about how they view both trans people and masc women. Like, what about someone not identifying as a woman makes you think they don't wear dresses, that they don't like makeup and have long hair? Why are people I don't even know assuming I'm not feminine because I'm not a woman? If it were just that I don't want to be feminine but also didn't have dysphoria and want to be perceived as gender ambiguous, I absolutely would identify as cis.

But that's not what it is. And, believe it or not, I didn't really take the opinions of binary cis people I don't know or care about into consideration when questioning my gender, and I don't think my life needs to have anything to do with them.

Are all non-transfeminine people privileged over trans women?

The way I figure it, how privileged or oppressed you are as a trans person depends heavily on how hypervisible you are and how much access you have to support and resources and whether or not you're white. I also think that gendered privilege and oppression depends really heavily on perceived gender, not just identified gender. Both of which can vary wildly between different trans people, even of the same identity. So no, I don't believe that TME privilege is just like...universally a thing.

There are forms of oppression that many trans women go through and I don't, like man-in-a-dress jokes and being more likely to experience police brutality and being less able to pass as cis and being in more danger when incarcerated and being more likely to be harshly targeted by TERFs (at least in the US, I've heard UK TERFs are more equal-opportunity offenders), and forms of oppression I and other AFAB people experience that most of them don't, like anti-abortion policies and stigma against menstruation and having been sexualized at a young age because we developed early. I also relate somewhat to this video.

Can I call you queer?

In general that's a hard no unless you're LGBT. However, I'm kind of in the spirit of picking my battles and engaging people in good faith unless I feel like I have a reason not to. I think if a cishet person is genuinely trying to learn and be a good ally, especially to trans people, I'll prioritize that over the fact that they're ignorantly using a slur they've probably seen thrown around a lot on Buzzfeed. So just ask first and respect what I want you to call me, like you would anyone else.

Are heteroromantic asexuals and aromantic heterosexuals straight?

Yes, and they have straight privilege. However, they are still valid as members of the ace and aro communities (and if they're trans or nonbinary, the LGBT community as well) and can still face prejudice due to being ace or aro (especially if they're transgender, disabled, PoC, or women). At this point though I don't really care if they call themselves straight as long as they acknowledge their privilege and the fact that they are not LGBT if they are cis.

What about cis aroaces? 

I don't care if they call themselves straight, but they're not LGBT and they generally have straight privilege.

How can you be a nonbinary woman?

I consider myself nonbinary partly because of how I have always felt alienated from binary gender and womanhood and partly because of how that alienation has affected my comfort with being perceived as female, referred to with she/her pronouns, and identifying with stereotypically female social roles. For me, gender nonconformity goes beyond not being comfortable with heterosexual femininity. It extends into not being comfortable with womanhood itself. I want gender to ultimately be abolished, unless it's used ONLY as a cultural form of self-expression and not a tool of oppression.

I am more comfortable identifying as nonbinary and transitioning, and I want to live my life in a visibly gender variant way. These things are punished in a transphobic society, which puts me in an oppressed class under cisnormativity and can lead to transphobic violence, harassment, and discrimination such as potentially being fired, evicted, or having my children taken away for being trans. The way in which I would most authentically be living my life can and does affect my economic, political, and social reality, specifically because it's gender variant.

I'm also in an oppressed class under patriarchy. I am pressured to be attracted to men, threatened with sexual violence, and expected to conform to oppressive standards of femininity. My attraction to women is treated as a woman's attraction to women. My sexuality and body are policed as a woman's. I fear for my physical safety the way women do with men. I experience internal and external misogyny and don't feel as though I belong with men as a social class. I feel uncomfortable and like an outsider when surrounded by men, but I feel safe when surrounded by women. And I relate more to wlw more than any other group of people. I realized I loved women before I realized I wasn't one, and I connected to sapphic history and culture and found a community with one. When I'm with a woman we're perceived as a gay couple, and the fact that I love women has fundamentally changed my sense of womanhood. Loving women is what makes womanhood not feel like a cage, but it also means I'm materially, categorically, treated as a separate gender from cishet women. You ever hear people say that their gender is dyke? So is mine.

Gender is about identity but it's also about how you're perceived and how you move through society and how you live your life. It's a matrix of power and oppression, and within that matrix my gender is nonconforming and doesn't make sense in wholly binary terms but I live as a woman because I love women.

Doesn't this mean you're basically cis?

No. I don't always identify as trans either but my experience with gender doesn't really line up with being cis.

But you don't experience transmisogyny.

Neither do lots of other trans people.

But there's no difference between you and a cis woman, besides how you identify.

I do think some nonbinary people are functionally cis and can absolutely be categorized that way but my gender expression and transition goals don't put me in that category. I don't know many cis women who use he/him pronouns or masculine-coded terms or have considered legally changing their gender to male.

Okay, so you're nonbinary. But I thought nonbinary people weren't male or female, and you're calling yourself a woman.

Most nonbinary people aren't totally neutral, and nonbinary just means you're not strictly male or female. Plenty of us are fluid or lean more toward one side of the binary than the other.

But you use he/him pronouns and masculine terms and have talked about feeling connected to the label transmasculine. Doesn't that make you a man?

Plenty of people have a complicated relationship with gender, and if you've ever been remotely affiliated with the trans community or social science you probably know that gender identity and gender expression are both complex and aren't necessarily the same thing. What I'm more comfortable with is expressing my gender in an androgynous way, but that doesn't make me a man any more than my hairy legs or shaved head or a packer do.

If I were going to choose a really specific nonbinary label, it would probably be something like genderfluid androgyne demigirl or maybe like, neutrois woman or librafluid or something. So in general I feel like I'm sort of like, when you think of what the line is between a GNC woman and a trans man, I basically am the line. Some people call that being a cusper, but I choose not to use that label.

And it's sometimes fluid, almost never really male persay but occasionally sort of like, libramasculine, which is this thing I heard somewhere that apparently means you're agender but you're also sort of not? Back when Mod Roman wrote for this blog, it described its gender as like a projection on the movie screen, where its womanhood is the light that shines on the screen but without it it's just a blank space. That's sort of how I feel on my "guy days", like I'm not really a man, I'm kind of neutrois, but it's kind of a projection of manhood.

Those days happen pretty rarely, and they're a thing in my life. Not significant enough to where I feel comfortable identifying as male aligned or have any ability to benefit from patriarchy or where I even really acknowledge them, but in the interest of transparency they are a thing. If you've ever heard of people identifying as transmasculine agender, it's like that. Still not a man though. I thought I was one, used to identify as one, but it just didn't fit the way nonbinary woman did.

I'm a nonbinary woman, I just happen to have a complicated relationship with gender and express that in ways that aren't typical of women. Plus, it makes me feel a little more balanced, if that makes sense. Like, my gender is "feminine", but my pronouns are "masculine."

I feel like I'm rambling and this isn't making sense. Let me try it another way. You know the gender unicorn right? That purple monstrosity that's used to educate about nonbinary people in sociology classes and shit? Google it if you've never heard of it. There's a lot of criticisms of it but I'm going to use it anyway for people who do better with visual aids.

Let's focus on the top part. Gender identity. How you internally feel and identify and how you relate to patriarchy and cisnormativity. It's separated into three sections, and there's arrows to indicate the extent to which you identify with a thing. So, for me, female/woman/girl is maybe....0-100% of the way down the line, depending on the day? And male/man/boy is like, 0-20%. "Other genders" is like, anywhere from 20-100%. And sometimes I just want to smash gender with a hammer lmfao.

Are you still with me? Good. So next is gender expression. Your pronouns, your clothing, your name, whether you bind or pack or go on hormones or whatever else. It's divided similarly to gender identity, with feminine at the top arrow, masculine in the middle, and other on the bottom. The feminine part goes anywhere from 0-90% but is generally around like 50%. Masculine is anywhere from 30-80% but is overall around 50%. "Other" is pretty much always 100% because what the fuck even are gender roles. So like, my point is, it doesn't match up and it doesn't have to. You don't have to use she/her pronouns because you're a woman any more than you have to wear a dress because you're a woman.

I'm gay/a lesbian/straight, and I'm attracted to a nonbinary person. Do I have to change my sexuality label?

It's not necessarily useful, accurate, or necessary to change your sexuality label just because you're attracted to a nonbinary person, and being attracted to men and nonbinary people but not women or vice versa doesn't make you bisexual. We can't really be conceptualized in terms of attraction the same way men and women are, because we just don't fit into the binary the way they do and being attracted to us doesn't necessarily work the same way as being attracted to a man or a woman when our experiences with gender are just so diverse. Also, I feel like if you're a nonbinary person, or even really anyone else, who is uncomfortable dating gay and straight people...then you just shouldn't date gay and straight people? Like, don't date someone who is otherwise straight or gay and tell them they need to change their label, that's just toxic coming from anyone. Date someone who is actually compatible with you, regardless of what your gender is.

Can I be bisexual and be attracted to all genders, or does that mean I'm pan?

You can be bisexual and be attracted to all genders. Read this.

Does that mean pansexuality is unnecessary?

I don't think it needs to exist, but I'm also not going to fight people over identifying as pan because I think they genuinely mean well and I have other issues to deal with. I will fight them if they're being biphobic or saying they're the only ones who can be attracted to nonbinary people or trans people though.

What's your sexuality? 

I question a lot.

I have a complicated relationship with being attracted to men for a lot of reasons, something I'm trying to work through. I can exclusively see myself with a woman or nonbinary person in the future, but I do feel like I do experience a tiny amount of genuine attraction to men. It's just that it's insignificant to my life, I'm way more attracted to women and nonbinary people, and I don't particularly feel any desire to act on it. I'm almost exclusively attracted to women and nonbinary people, I only want serious romantic relationships with them, only want sex with them, and only really feel desire for them. I'd say I'm just shy of a Kinsey 6, like 99% gay and not really sure I care about the other 1% that's directed toward men.

So, that puts me in a bit of a tough spot. Because I do feel a tiny amount of attraction to men that I think is genuine, but it's largely theoretical and doesn't have much of an effect on my life. So, does that make me gay or bi? 

I know a lot of lesbians who would say bi. But I also know that, for most people, if they saw a woman who felt exactly like I did about men instead of women, they'd say she's straight. So...how am I automatically not gay?

 

If you're femme and attracted to butches, why not just be straight?

How come people only ever ask gay women this? Gee, Chadford, why don't you just be gay with a nice feminine guy if the only thing that matters is how the person dresses?

Why do gay people have to shove their sexuality in everyone's face?

Do you want the nice answer or the mean answer? You're getting both.

Nice answer: Gayness isn't just about sex, it's also about who you love and want to spend your life with. It can complicate your relationship to all genders. It has a culture, a history, an entire world. I often can't fully relate to straight cis narratives in fiction or in real life any more than you can relate to mine - but yours are often the ones centered. Therefore, when I or anyone else happens to bring up plans with a same-gender romantic partner or correct others on our pronouns, we're automatically perceived as aggressive and shoving our identities in people's faces, but we're really just participating in normal human interaction the same way you do every day. 

Mean answer: Listen, Karen, I live every day in a world where it's constantly assumed that everyone straight, where straight people can grope each other in public, where straight people can talk about their sexuality and attraction and relationships without a second thought and nobody cares and there is no space where it is unsafe to be straight. Babies are given "lock up your daughters" onesies and when I kissed my two-month-old cousin on the head our uncle called him a ladies' man. Gay people are expected to be comfortable and content in an environment designed for and dominated by straight people, but that expectation never seems to go the other way.

Hetties are constantly making their heterosexuality a major part of themselves, and that's honestly fine because dating is a big part of our lives. Plus, interracial, interfaith, and interrabled couples are still punished for their relationships even if they're straight. I just want being bi, lesbian, or gay to be just as normalized. If I can listen politely while a straight woman talks about her annoying boyfriend for two hours, she can go with me to a gay bar without complaining.

Well, okay, but what about transgenders? At least gays just want to be left alone, but transgenders want everyone else to participate in their fantasies!

First of all, fantasies? Don't sexualize us. Being trans is not a fetish.

Second, imagine if you were a boy who was raised to be a girl, or a girl who was raised to be a boy. One of those classic corny horror movie plots. You were dressed in the wrong clothes, called by the wrong pronouns, the wrong name, told you were shameful when you tried to assert your real identity or when you realized how you were raised was wrong. And maybe you didn't even hate all of it, maybe you didn't realize what was going on until adulthood, but that doesn't change the fact that it was still incorrect and still pushed on you when you were too young to understand.

And nobody believed you when you told them otherwise. So, when you're finally able to get out of that environment and express yourself in a way that feels more comfortable for you, even though it's hard and scary and people you trusted are turning on you, you're assertive about your needs and you expect people to go with it and be supportive. You deserve as much access as anyone else, right? You deserve to be treated as your real gender, and even on the off-chance that you're wrong - which you're pretty sure you're not - how is changing something as simple as a pronoun to make you more comfortable so terrible? Why are they all so upset about it?

That's what it's like to not be cis.

With that in mind, using our correct pronouns and name is an issue of our safety. When you misgender us, you're outing us, and you don't know for sure that you're doing so in a safe situation. So maybe it's all fun and games for you, but will it still be when you get someone fired or beaten or killed because you couldn't change just a few little words?

Do you realize what it's like to live with that kind of fear, to know that you're essentially at the mercy of the cis people around you? Do you realize how mentally exhausting that is, how repeated misgendering is even a risk factor for mental illness and suicidal ideation? Do you realize that asserting your disregard for our genders encourages other cis people to do the same, that it normalizes discrimination and causes a chain reaction, that every time you intentionally misgender someone for your own discomfort, you're putting their safety at risk? Is it worth it, because you're old or you're religious or whatever your excuse is and you don't want to change how you speak about us?