im so fucking sick of the dysphoria debate. sam smith comes out as nonbinary and the comments are like “but do you experience dysphoria?????” like what makes you think you get to ask such a personal question? when someone comes out and tells you how they identify thats all you have to know. respect them and move on. the fuck is wrong with y’all

yre all ignoring this post bc yre fuckin cowards who dont want to admit asking a trans person who just came out “but do you have dysphoria?” is the SAME as cis people asking “but have you had the surgery”

[Image description - Image of the queer chevrons with the text: I don’t have to be more specific. End description.]

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Creating new labels has been the norm throughout history for non-cisgender, non-binary, non-heterosexual, non-allosexual, non-monosexual, and non-perisex folks.

Those of us whose identities, experiences, bodies, and lives fall outside of what is considered most common? We’ve always had to create our own language, because too often the words we so desperately need in order to understand ourselves and connect with others like ourselves simply don’t exist.

Newer words and labels are not less valid than older ones. More popular labels and identity terms are not more important than lesser known ones.

Some of our language will eventually fall out of usage as newer terms are created to take their place. Some of our labels will stand the test of time and become widely used and understood.

All of this is okay.

But, attempting to erase identities, deny history, or police other communities language usage?

Not okay.

You deserve spaces to explore your identity without having to navigate around people who hate you.

[Image description - Images of the rainbow pride flag and the trans pride flag with the text: Trust me, I know myself better than you do. End description.]

You don’t have to be diagnosed to know that you’re nonbinary.

You do not need permission from professionals to call yourself trans. You do not need permission from professionals to call your gender dysphoria what it is.

You can go your entire life as a trans person without being “diagnosed as trans”. Trans people who aren’t diagnosed with Gender Identity Disorder or Gender Dysphoria are not less valid as trans people than those who are.

Doctors and therapists are not the arbiters of transness.

And, for that matter: you do not have to consider your transness or gender dysphoria to be a disorder or “condition”.

You do not have to medicalize your transness and you do not deserve to have your transness medicalized by others without your consent.

Trans people are the authorities on transness. Your are the ultimate authority on your gender and experience of transness.

trans people do not have to medically transition to be valid in their gender identities

lots of people cannot medically transition at this point in their lives

lots of people don’t want to medically transition 

trans people who don’t transition are still 100% valid in their gender identities 

I think this speaks for itself. Accepting a person doesn’t mean you get to put limits on their freedom. You can’t be an ally and want us to stop talking, or labeling, or demanding to be heard.  

Acceptance has no exceptions. Period. 

Hey fuckos, guess what

You don’t get to decide who is or isn’t trans. It’s up to the individual, not you.

I don’t care if you yourself are transgender. That doesn’t give you the right to tell a person they “can’t be trans” or that they “aren’t trans enough.” If you are willing to tell a person that their name, pronouns, or labels are invalid, you are being transphobic.

Some people define dysphoria differently. Some people consider non-binary and demigender to be under the trans umbrella. Everyone experiences gender differently.

So fuck off with the bullshit. No amount of harassment or hatred is going to make people suddenly identify differently.

All the time I see people being told BY OTHER TRANSGENDER PEOPLE that they are invalid, or that they don’t count. That their pronouns are made up. That their identity doesn’t actually fall under the trans umbrella.

As a transgender individual, you should know how it feels to be told you are invalid, or messed up, or wrong. Yet this is EXACTLY what you are saying to people who are demigender, or bigender, or agender, or non-binary people, and people who identify as a gender you may not have heard of.

Stop comparing these people to “chair-gender” or “plant-gender” or other inanimate objects. You know full well how idiotic you sound. And you’re being a bully. These are the same things transphobic cisgender people say to us.

Transgender people can be transphobic. I see it all the time.

Knock that shit off you sniveling cumdrops.

Sincerely, a transgender man who is tired of seeing his friends and peers being bullied by other trans people.

Language

(This post is going around.  Since I pretty much like the post, I’m making my own post rather than introducing this in the responses there, but I do want to link to it for context.)

A really cool and classy trans lady I corresponded with for a while on a different social site used words like “transsexual” and “transgendered.”  She spoke of herself as being born in the wrong body, and she spoke of herself as being biologically male, MTF.

She was in her late 60s.

I did not correct her.  I would not in a hundred years have dared.  

Given the social climate and hostility she had endured, I was fortunate to be speaking to her at all.

I have occasionally seen younger people criticizing older people quite harshly for that sort of thing.  That hurts.

The use of language changes, my friends.

It is so, so very important to help people outside the community understand what language is most appropriate, and it’s important to discuss this stuff within the community so that we can reach some kind of consensus (however messy) moving forward.

It is also very, very important to respect the elders among us, and to understand that their experiences and the wisdom they have to share with us are of tremendous importance and incalculable value.  And the language they use?  Is part of their history, and our history, and respecting that fact in all its complexity is part of respecting them . . . and respecting ourselves as a community.

Language is so important, but in thirty years I guarantee you some of the language we defend so vigorously now will be woefully outdated, and many of us will still be clinging to it, much to the consternation of the younger generation.  

I’m not saying it isn’t important to strive to create the most respectful, helpful language possible, and educate others when it is right to do so.  It is vitally necessary that we do so.  But we have to remember that this is a process that, thank heavens, never, ever ends.

Language cannot, and should not, stop evolving.  Look at us.  Look at all of us.  So beautiful, so many.  We are a dynamic community, a vivid community, full of art and history and passion and pathos and great, great power.  Something so lively is always surrounded by change.  That is so beautiful, and should be welcomed going forward … and it should be respected looking back.

There are words not yet invented that will apply to those not yet born.  Those people should be respected when they join us.  And the words we use now, they are good for now, and we should be respected.  And our elders should be respected.  Letting language take that from us is a horrifying prospect.

So.  Let us not forget that language is primarily meant to be what helps bind us together.  Let us remember not to let it set us apart, to squeeze us like a fist.

Please remember your history when discussing language.  You will eventually be part of our history.  You already are.  Please.  Go with open hands.

Yes. This.

This goes for other marginalized communities as well. I have a teacher who (in his words) “suffers from” depression. I am a strong proponent of the idea that everyone should have the right to define their own existence in their own words. So while I personally favor the neurodiversity model and I much prefer the neutral “has [x condition]” over “suffers from [x condition]”, I am not going to correct my teacher’s language because it’s his choice to define his depression for himself.

Thank you for bringing mental illness into this, because it didn’t occur to me, but there are many parallels, and as I myself am mentally ill and disabled because of it, I feel like I can actually talk about this with some authority.

Speaking as someone with an anxiety disorder and depression-dominant bipolar, I heavily identify with the “suffers from” narrative.  Not everyone does.  But if I said “I suffer from depression” and someone tried to “correct” my language to be more in line with what genuinely should be the default when you don’t know how the other person relates to their issue, they would get a gentle earful.

When someone tells you how they relate to some part of their core being, you believe them.  If they use the “trapped in the wrong body” framework for themselves, respect it, don’t correct it.  If they describe themselves as “suffering from X”, respect it, don’t correct it.

Some conditions do not inherently cause much suffering and while some people may indeed be miserable with these conditions, for the most part it’s society’s lack of accommodation that makes those conditions painful to live with.  (From my understanding, autism, many forms of physical disability, blindness, Deafness, etc., would all reliably fall into this category.)  (This is the social model of disability in a nutshell.  The idea that if people were afforded necessary accommodations, these issues wouldn’t be too much of a problem.)

Some conditions absolutely tend to cause inherent suffering simply because that is what they do.  What I have is, IMO, one of those things.  While I personally know people who have the same exact illness I have and actively enjoy it (mania is apparently enjoyable for a friend of mine), most people who are bipolar, in my experience, do not.  That is simply the nature of what bipolar is.  Likewise, my anxiety disorder: if it did not cause suffering, it would not exist.  That’s what it is.  It causes discomfort, sometimes so acute I cry or feel like I’m going to throw up.  You can’t accommodate me out of it, though you can damn sure make it worse by not allowing me to take care of it.

It’s a fact that if we accommodated these things better, the suffering would be less.  For instance, if I were afforded enough money to live on each month, adequate medical care by competent professionals willing to treat me as the authority in my illness, and appropriate medication, I would be a lot happier.  I do not have those things.  I am absolutely made more miserable because of it.  But no level of accommodation will stop my neurotransmitters – or lack thereof – from making me miserable from time to time.

The language that it is appropriate to apply to someone else may very well differ from what they use to describe themselves.  There are some things it is not okay to impose on other people, even as it is perfectly okay to be those things.

Language develops and grows, and we are always seeking good terms to use that describe people without assigning them characteristics or narratives with which they may not identify.  That’s a good thing.  I get very frustrated when I see people complain about changing language, or “made-up terms”. That attitude is an active resistance to positive change.

I also get very frustrated when I see people trying to stamp out words without knowing their history, or respecting people who use those word, and have used them for decades (e.g.: “queer”, which you will pry from my cold dead fingers).

We need a better understanding of the necessary divide between personal experience and group descriptors.

This is a big thing in the autistic community. Older folks (I’m talking the >35 set by and large) lean more towards person-first language. Younger folks (like me I admit) lean more towards identity-first. 

And there’s a good reason for that in both cases. Folks who grew up in the 70s and earlier were around for the early disability rights movements - they remember the time when identity-first was used to dehumanize and other. Person-first is their way of fighting back: I am a person, you will not forget that. 

Younger folks were around for Autism Speaks and its co-opting of person-first language for its own bigoted ends. For the era of forced normalization, of passing, of “I Am Autism” and “Autism Every Day,” of being portrayed as demon-children while your abusers and the killers of people like you get fawning attention because it’s ever-so-difficult to be around people like you, and of personhood and autism being considered mutually exclusive and personhood being conditional on passing - so if you pass, you’re not autistic and don’t have a right to an opinion because you’re not severe enough, and if you don’t pass, you’re too severely affected to really understand how wretched you are, and therefore you don’t have the right to an opinion. For us, identity-first is a way of claiming our voice - it’s an extension of nothing about us without us. I am autistic, and I am a person, and you don’t get to choose which of those you respect. You will listen to me, because of both, not in spite of one.

What I’m pointing out here is that sometimes generations can have mutually-exclusive language preferences for what amounts to the same underlying reason, owing to differences in culture at the time of the generation’s coming-of-age. Person-first and identity-first are in fact mutually exclusive - someone cannot simultaneously respect my wish to be called autistic and another person’s wish to not hear autistic people referred to as autistic. But they’re both rooted in a demand for respect, a demand to be recognized as a full person. 

The autistic community has mostly settled this issue by saying you have the final call in how you are referred to, but you don’t have the right to push others into identifying differently. The wishes that get respected in an instance are the wishes of the person being referred to. So you would refer to me as autistic, and you might refer to someone else as a person with autism, and both are okay as long as you’re respecting the identity of the person in question.

I think the QUILTBAG community could really benefit from taking that sort of attitude, too. Case in point: For me, I would never refer to myself as dyke and would get really fucking angry with anyone who did refer to me as dyke- I lived in a very old-fashioned community. Dyke was a tool of dehumanization and a threat. I hear someone call me a dyke and I’m 8 on the playground having my face smashed open on a chunk of ice to the tune of “Dyke bitch! Dyke bitch!” again. No amount of reclamation is going to lessen that association for me. But other people want to reclaim it as a sense of defiance - I’m a dyke, what of it? I respect their defiance, and I respect their right to choose the language with which they identify. 

This is such a cool addition to my post. Thank you.

Great post on language. And it’s not just by age that language differers - the uses and meanings of language are always highly contextual, differing between languages, between countries, between classes, and more.

bad

I identified as a lesbian when I made this comic. The comments on this post are why I never got along with most other lesbians. To be called “lesbophobic” when literally all I do with my life is contribute to lady-lovin’ culture is not just upsetting, it’s wrong.

I was never a “gold star” and that made me “contaminated” to a lot of lesbians. I was 99% attracted to women, but had rare crushes on boys. I figured that we don’t call white people who are “1/64th Cherokee on my mother’s side” biracial, because outlying statistics don’t really define us, so calling myself bisexual wasn’t correct. For 15 years, I was absolutely a lesbian.

The thing about the word “lesbian” is that it isn’t a scientific term. It’s a social term, and it doesn’t have a strict definition. Consider that the word lesbian comes from the birthplace of Sappho, who was actually bisexual. I still stand by my statement that a homoromantic bisexual or biromantic homosexual can be considered a lesbian because some people put more emphasis on sexual attraction and some put more emphasis on romantic attraction when determining their identities. That is up to them and not anybody else.

I don’t have a problem with lesbians, even though I don’t identify that way anymore. (And as an aside: y’all loooooove sexual fluidity so long as it’s only flowing toward getting more gay dontcha.) I have a problem with gatekeeping, holier-than-thou elitists who would rather disqualify a large chunk of the lesbian population than welcome them into the fold. I was a lesbian. Now I’m not. And it’s not because I fucked too many boys to qualify anymore. It’s because I did some soul-searching and queer now feels more honest. I’ve only dated women for the past 15 years, I have a girlfriend I intend to spend my life with, I move through society with all the disadvantages of being a lesbian. By my own definition, I could still consider myself a lesbian. Homoromantic pansexual or whatever.

But when I did identify as a lesbian, when all I wanted was girls and nothing else, I was surrounded by some snobby, elitist lesbians. I was the “fake geek girl” of lesbians. They’d quiz me, fling a bunch of narrow criteria at me for entry into this exclusive club. I didn’t pass. It really felt exactly the same as going into a comic book store and having a bunch of guys there tell me I wasn’t really a comic fan even though I do it for a living. They made me more ashamed of being a lesbian than church ever did. I prayed that I could be bisexual just so I could have some kind of community to support me. I only dated bisexual women because they didn’t give a shit if I was “tainted.” Finding the queer community was like removing a 50lb weight from my chest. I identify as queer despite only having romantic feelings for women because the bullying I experienced from other lesbians while I was growing up left me feeling too ostracized to even want to fight to be included anymore.

Let’s look at some of the comments on this post. “This is the worst thing in the world and I’m suing the artist for making me see it” “Non lesbians need to fock off and leave us asshole dykes alone” “Idk who made this comic but they need to not even talk to lesbians ever again” One comment is just a bunch of knife emojis. Most of them just assuming I didn’t live 15 years openly and loudly identifying as a lesbian with all that experience just because my opinion didn’t validate their elitist views.

I’m writing this because I know I’m far from the only girl who identified as a lesbian but was told by other lesbians that I didn’t get to be part of the club. There’s so many reasons we fall short. Once had a crush on a boy. Too femme. Has had a penis. Not a gold star. I want you to know you’re not alone, and your identity is valid. If you look inside yourself and “lesbian” feels the most honest, you keep using that word. Don’t let other people tell you not to. You deserve a seat at this table if you want it. You can take my seat. I’m not using it anymore. But it was a good and comfortable seat while I sat in it. Nice velvet cushions. I got it all warmed up for you.

I can relate to a lot of this. 

Let’s be clear

Nonbinary genders exist. Not just agender and bigender. Not just genders based on the binary. All of them.

You don’t have to be binary to be trans. I’m trans because I’m nonbinary. So are lots of other people.

You don’t have to be trans if you’re nonbinary. Some people identify as nonbinary but not as trans.

You don’t have to have dysphoria to be nonbinary or trans. Some people aren’t aware of dysphoria until they start transitioning. Some people feel gender euphoria instead. Some people don’t have physical dysphoria, or social dysphoria, or either.

Presentation, pronouns, and dysphoria are correlated with gender identity, but not perfectly. Guys like wearing skirts and makeup, girls like growing beards, and nonbinary people use he and she pronouns. They are all valid gender expressions.

Woman-aligned/fem-aligned nonbinary people aren’t “basically women/basically female.” Man-aligned/masc-aligned nonbinary people aren’t “basically men/basically male.” They’re still nonbinary.

Not all nonbinary people are binary-aligned. Some are neither. Some are both.

If your politics don’t account for nonbinary people, or account for them by shoving them back in the binary, you need to change your model.

Male and female aren’t opposites. They are the two binary genders. If you mean “the other binary gender,” say so.

Nonbinary people aren’t “sga” because they’re attracted to other nonbinary people. Nonbinary people aren’t “het” because they’re attracted to other people. The only words we have to describe attraction that account for nonbinary people are bi, pan, ace, aro, diamoric, enbian, ceterosexual/romantic, womasexual/romantic and similar, and masexual/romantic and similar.

Possibly unpopular opinion, but honestly I think there really isn’t an age where you’re too young to consider yourself aromantic (and probaby ace too, to some extent). It’s a word I could have easily found use for back when I was like 10, maybe even younger. Aphobes can say all they want that kids are too young to feel nonplatonic attraction, but be sure to tell that to almost all of my old class, who were constantly wrapped up in who was dating who and who was kissing who back in fricken’ 3rd grade while I just sat there being so confused at why they considered these things appealing. And yeah, maybe when you’re around that age, those “crushes” aren’t the most legit of feelings, but whatever. As an aroace, my lack of desire to take part in things commonly associated with sexual/romantic attraction is as important to my identity as the lack of attraction itself, so… (not saying anyone who just doesn’t want to date or something is aro, but hey, if the label helps anyone feel less lost, I say go for it)

Me, upon seeing what appears to be a ‘straight couple’ at a pride event: *stays in my goddamn lane because I’m not about to assume someone’s gender/sexuality*

honestly yikes @ all the non-aces talking shit on aspecs for “oversharing” and/or “overcomplicating” their sexualities. there’s such deep comfort in labels and it hurts when people insist you give that up right after finding it. sure, i can “just say i’m asexual” but that wouldn’t even come close to the level of accuracy and with it reassurance that “autochorissexual” holds. if your sexuality is a simple thing for you in any way, shape or form, i’m happy for you but it doesn’t mean everyone’s is like that. let us fucking live and put whatever “overcomplicated” labels on our blogs on the fucking internet if that makes it easier.