Gotta have something besides " 
" to acknowledge that, man!
19 Likes
And that’s very consistent with my experience, as well. A few decades back I when I didn’t really feel like a man or a woman, I didn’t know of other alternatives. Something didn’t feel quite right, but I just shrugged and used my AGAB because what else could I be? Speaking with trans friends, I could see similarities up to a point, but we still didn’t line up enough for me to draw the conclusion that I was trans.
Eventually I met some other enbys and as I learned more I realized I finally had that missing piece. It’s like finding out at 45 that you’ve been wearing the wrong size clothing your whole life – too big or too small, but never your actual size – because you had never found clothes in your actual size.
Once I had the information I needed, yes, it was absolutely something I just knew about myself because I finally had words for it!
22 Likes
I had a very interesting conversation over Discord last night (that ran ~ an hour!) about gender, labels, how one perceives themselves, and being respectful to the rest of the community. He was scrambling around to find something that matches his unique flavor of queer, and while I am not any sort of authority on it, I think that he made a good choice settling on genderfluid / genderqueer, although he’s probably leaning toward the latter, mostly because the only thing he want to change about his body is to get it in better shape. I also strongly suggested that he find a professional to talk things over with, if only because they would be better prepared than I to have any sort of authoritative suggestions in that regard.
17 Likes
When I first came out, I did a deep-dive into gender and sexuality labels and identities, and tried to find my box. I learned a heck of a lot, but at the end of the day I realized I don’t need to fit into any pre-existing categories. I can just be who I am.
If I have to explain it, I just say I’m a transfem nonbinary lesbian. The big umbrella labels are all I need to get across the stuff that’s most important, but once you get into the weeds with micro-identities/MOGAI stuff it can get pretty silly. I occasionally pull out those I identify with when talking with other queer people who are interested, but trying to find your box is pretty futile, IMO. I’d prefer to identify as just queer, but that causes misunderstandings that lead to men being really inappropriate in my DMs (more than they already are).
19 Likes
As I see it there isn’t really one perfect box, there’s a big complicated Venn diagram with a whole lot of overlapping blobs that aren’t even circles.
It felt pretty important earlier on to try to define myself with labels, until I realized that none of them were ever going to be perfect or precise enough, just varying degrees of “does apply” or “does not apply” or “kind of applies sometimes”…
16 Likes
Exactly! I consider myself my own category at this point. My labels are very general and not completely accurate, but it’s just too much explanation to define and most people are not really interested anyway. It’s the ‘polite society’ version of me, and even that’s way too much for a lot of people.
So I tend to use very general labels that are widely known for most things. For instance, my sexuality. I don’t know what exactly it is. I mostly like women and femme presenting people, but not entirely exclusively. There are masculine people I am attracted to, but they’re so few and far between that putting that out into the world means I get attention mostly from the very masculine presenting people I am NOT interested in. And thanks to the way those people behave online, if I don’t explicitly exclude all masculine people, I get swamped with propositions from people I most definitely do not want attention from (i.e. cis men) to the point I can’t find the people I do want to talk to. Cishet men are numerous and project their weird ideas about trans women on me constantly. So I use the label lesbian, because most people are familiar with that and it reduces the number of audacious cishets who think I’m a walking fetish.
One thing I’ve found very interesting in terms of how I label myself is how me and a lot of other queer people I know code switch our identities. I’ve alluded to that a bit above, but in my job and in general company, I use one set of identities that’s not really all that accurate, but convey enough in terms that are generally well known to satisfy people’s demands when it comes to my identity. In those spaces, I identify as a trans woman and use she/her and present pretty heavily feminine. I generally don’t talk about my sexuality in these contexts.
In queer spaces with a lot of cis people, I’ll identify as either a nonbinary transfem or a trans woman, depending on the crowd, and call myself a lesbian. Even in LGBTQIA+ friendly spaces, transness is risky, but gets worse as your deviance from the binary increases. I’ve learned in some spaces the only acceptable non-binary people are very androgynous and use they/them. I am not interested in this presentation and I really dislike they/them for myself, so I tend more to the gender binary.
In gender fuckery type of spaces, where I can be myself, that’s when things like fae/faer pronouns (i.e. my true pronouns) come out and I feel comfortable expressing attraction to some masc folks. This is where I prefer to spend my time as it’s where I can be truest to myself.
There’s a lot of layers and complexity involved in gender and sexuality, and it boggles my mind that a lot of people are stuck at ‘penis = man, vagina = woman’ with no exceptions allowed. It stifles the beauty of human experience and if they didn’t try and constantly make my life hell, I’d feel sorry for them.
Don’t even get me started on the fact I’m polyamorous, that’s an entirely different can 'o worms!
I’ve pulled back the veil a bit more here when I created this topic than I would on most of the rest of the internet because the people here are largely lovely people and I am very open to providing education and to sharing my experience as a gender weirdo, but I usually keep this pretty close to my chest outside of my carefully curated online spaces.
So thanks to all y’all for allowing me this space to share this stuff safely. 
23 Likes
I have more serious thoughts for later, but right now I’m going to share something I sent to one of my partners this morning.
24 Likes
Mine’s got a faerie on it. 
16 Likes
9 Likes
I might have briefly mentioned something related to this topic at the old place. I was working up the courage to discuss it in more depth here, and actually looking forward to hearing the opinions and advice of people I respect, and maybe using that to help decide where I go from here. Then Trump won. Now it just doesn’t seem worth the risk, even here, among friends.
11 Likes
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) summoned reporters on Tuesday afternoon just to make sure they’re clear that he’s against transgender rights.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) on Tuesday even reportedly said in a closed-door meeting she would “fight” any trans woman who tried to use the women’s restroom near the House floor, in what was likely a reference to McBride.
And here we are already. With Congress calling for violence against trans women.
18 Likes
House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) questioned the focus on trans issues during his own press conference on Tuesday ― while also avoiding a question about whether there should be accommodations for a trans lawmaker.
Accommodations? She doesn’t need accommodations. She’s not disabled.
22 Likes
If an accommodation is required; it should be provided to the person who has the Intermittent explosive disorder.
Perhaps they can give Marge a time out cubby or a separate restroom. If she assaults someone; she should be arrested.
She should be censured for threatening violence against another congressperson.
18 Likes
All Congress members already have their own private bathrooms in their offices. Which is more evidence that this is all theater.
18 Likes
It’s not theater. It’s violence.
21 Likes
Of course, but the “issue” is a complete fabrication, as it was during the campaign. And the more I think about it, the angrier I get at the Harris campaign for choosing silence as a response instead of pushing back against the lie.
18 Likes
At this point I think that using theater as the descriptor is insufficient - it’s real violence and it’s an incipient pogrom. Progressing quickly to actuality.
They’re encouraging violence immediately against other Congress members and visitors seeking to access our government.
Which they promote happening everywhere. They’re criminals.
20 Likes
No lied detected… 
12 Likes
You’re right. I just don’t think MTG personally actually gives a shit about any of this. She’s using us as a means to gain power and that’s absolutely violence. Theater isn’t the right word.
16 Likes
I think she can convince herself of anything.
And she’ll assault her and others regardless. I don’t give a fuck what’s in the shriveled, blackened remains of what passes for her heart.
14 Likes