tbear swag

“what about the poor little white kids just trying to have fun?” what about the poor little kids of color made to feel unsafe and unwelcome in a space that was supposed to be fun?

“why can’t poc just make their own redesigns and we can keep these ones” why cant you realize that your actions have consequences and that you should maybe try to not enforce racist stereotypes??

like ofc its ideal to have VARIETY among both villains AND protagonists, its when your characters look like this

that the issue arises

What if we do feel we identify fully with a gender on the binary, but not in a binary way, like being crosspronominal?

I cannot decide for you!

Maybe this from the homepage will help?

If you feel like [the gender binary] doesn’t fit your experience of yourself and your own gender in some way, you are invited to participate. This includes, but is definitely not limited to: - people whose genders change over time - people whose genders fluctuate in intensity - people who experience more than one gender at a time - people who don’t experience gender at all - people whose gender is neither male/man nor female/woman We also welcome anyone who: - rejects gender altogether - feels like they’re outside of gender - feels like they transcend or move beyond gender or the gender binary - doesn’t really understand gender as it applies to them - is questioning whether their flavour of trans might be binary or nonbinary It’s completely up to you whether you feel you fit any of these. This survey leans on the side of inclusive.

So, anyone who sends me an anon message asking if they're "nonbinary enough" to participate automatically qualifies.

[ survey.gendercensus.com ]

The 13th annual international gender census, collecting information about the language we use to refer to ourselves and each other, is now open until 13th August 2026.

It’s short and easy, for most participants it takes 5 minutes or less.

After the survey is closed I’ll process the results and publish a spreadsheet of the data and a report summarising the main findings. Then anyone can use them for academic or business purposes, self-advocacy, tracking the popularity of language over time, and just feeling like we’re part of a huge and diverse community.

If you think you might have friends and followers who’d be interested, please do reblog this blog post, and share the survey URL by email or at AFK social groups or on other social networks. Every share is extremely helpful!

Survey URL: https://survey.gendercensus.com

The survey is open to anyone anywhere who speaks English and feels that the gender binary doesn’t fully describe their experience of themselves and their gender(s) or lack thereof.

Thank you so much!

[ Link to survey ]

There have been over 1,000 responses since midnight, bringing the total to comfortably over 14,000 so far - great stuff!

During its busiest hour the survey received about 10 responses per minute (one every 6 seconds):

43% of participants are newcomers, and the more the merrier - my eternal mission is to get as many different types of people as possible represented in the survey results.

Another struggle is getting older participants involved. The age structure of a population varies a lot from country to country, but let's use the USA as an example since they're over half of Gender Census participants so far. In the USA generally more than 60% of the population are aged 30 and over. [Source.] In the Gender Census, only 25% are aged 31 and over so far:

So, since the survey relies on spreading by word of mouth, this is where you come in.

Older age groups tend to show up in the survey coming from Facebook, mailing lists, instant messaging groups, and (somewhat) Bluesky. If you haven't already, might you consider sharing in any of these mostly super easy ways?

If you are on the Gender Census mailing list, forward the email to any LGBTQ+ family members over the age of 30. (If you're not on the mailing list, you could just email people with the survey link?)

Share this post on Facebook, to your own profile and to any local LGBTQ+ groups you think might be open to it.

Hop into the WhatsApp and Telegram channels and forward a message to a any queer groups you're in on those apps.

Share this post on Bluesky.

Or just share the survey link one-on-one: survey.gendercensus.com

We have gained about 500 mailing list subscribers this month, which is EXCELLENT in this department!

Shares here on Tumblr are also obviously always welcome, and here is the end-of-survey page with all the sharing links.

This year we're not reaching as many participants as the two previous years:

So every little helps, even if you only share it with one person!

Thank you so much everyone. ✨ This survey is powered by people connecting with their people and I love that for us.

again. i did not say you were not oppressed. this post is literally about how you are oppressed. it is a reminder that you are not the most oppressed person in the world, a way i've seen a lot of white transfems acting lately. maybe not even necessarily in a detrimental way, but in a way that definitely leans towards the "white is default" lane of thinking, which erases black suffering, which erases progress towards black safety. this, to me, is troubling, which is why i made this post. it's important when building solidarity within our community to understand who the most vulnerable of us are, because the safety of the most vulnerable of us will ultimately be the safety of all of us.

"weird! i wonder why!" she exclaimed, whitely.

when considering the sexual violence against trans women, it's important to remember that "people only view us sexually" does not mean the same thing as "people only find us attractive". it means "people can only conceptualize of our existence within a sexual light" because that's how the majority of our coverage in media has been tinged in the past century. as a result of the chaste and patriarchal nature of modern capitalism, gender and sexuality are inseparable in much public discourse by virtue of propaganda, and as a result, a trans woman is seen as sexual because efforts towards projecting specifically femininity is only categorized as sexual. and when paired with the uncharitable perception of "man", that propaganda can often evolve how people view us directly into "sexual threat" anywhere, for any reason. i could be in the freezer aisle of costco looking down at the ground while i push my cart and i'd still get dirty looks for wearing a dress (this has happened).

when i say "they're either jerking off or sharpening a knife", i mean we're either viewed sexually, or as sexually threatening, in almost all scenarios.