Non-Binary Suggestions

Bioessentialism: trans men can never escape from being soft and frail because they are AFAB. They're also more atuned to their feelings and more caring, which makes them perfect partners. They are also hysterical and emotional so we shouldn't take what they're talking seriously until someone can verify it.

Not bioessentialism: A lot of trans men have vaginas and can get pregnant therefore they need gynecological care and obstetric care.

Bioessentialism is the act of coupling your born genitals with personality traits and acting as AFAB or AMAB people are a monolith with the same characteristics ofer and over again.

Prioritizing certain stories from QTBIPOC, can slip fairly quickly into erasure. So here is a reminder: colonial powers benefit when we only focus on individuals and erase the long complex queer histories of cultures that have been colonized. Cultures and communities that have been colonized deserve space in our discussions of queer history.

Because I believe the butch shortage is a real thing. The reason I believe that is because I'm a gay man who's into femboys and there is also a fairly gnarly Femboy shortage. But I think, if you're really a feminist, you'll understand me when I say that there's a fairly obvious reason for that that has nothing to do with trans people.

I know you spend 100% of your time obsessing over us, but trans people are not actually that common, we're common enough, but it's like demonizing red heads or twins. Additionally if you talked to a trans man instead of just deciding what our deal is for us the way that cis men do for you, you'd know that the "lost lesbian sister" thing doesn't bear out in practice. I like men. A lot of us like men. A lot of us also aren't very masculine, personally for me even if we lived in a post gender society where sex traits didn't mean anything I would still be on testosterone and cutting my boobs off because I just don't like those body parts. My life would be easier as a cis woman, I'd make more money, I'd have an easier time dating, I wouldn't have had to fight my family, but my body just wouldn't be right.

The point is that if I wasn't transitioning, I wouldn't be butch, I'd be dead or I'd be a feminine scene girl Instagram influencer who's boyfriend in a marginally successful screamo band who is holding her back from jumping and locking up the sharps or has joined a super goth 27 club suicide pact with her. Like you guys are not bagging me as your butch gf I've got long green hair and I'm paying luxury car amounts of money for a penis because I want to make a guy's masquara run down his face while I fuck his throat so bad it makes me look stupid.

No trans guys are not your enemy, some of them are masc and like women but those guys would have transitioned in any decade, there's evidence of them doing that going back as long as we've been writing things down. It's guys like me who have an easier time pretending to be female that are running up the transition numbers in the 21st century. In the 50s I would have just killed myself as soon as I got pregnant and that would have been that because as a feminine homosexual manhood wouldn't have been worth transitioning into at the time.

The butch shortage is actually happening because people who would be happier as butches are pretending to be feminine straight women. The same way the Femboy shortage is because all the men who want to be feminine are DL. I know this because I go onto Grindr and I see 12 men who are like "oh I like to cross dress please fuck my ass but I won't send you a face pic" and then if I meet up with that guy I'll find him in a frat house and he'll meet me wearing a hoodie and basketball shorts and he'll have a secret drawer where he keeps his lingerie. It's like, dire out there. The men that the gods put on this earth to be makeup twinks are not becoming women, they're becoming Brad. And so, because misogyny is reinforced with violence, I must assume that the women put on this earth to wear a pit stained wifebeater and a cut off jean shorts and cut their hair off are becoming Chelsea with perfect makeup and long bleached hair and entering undiscussed lavender marriages with Brad the would be makeup twink, when she should be dating you (well probably not you because you're deeply unpleasant, but a lesbian who's into butches) and he should be dating me.

In the year 2000, there was not a single country in the world where they could have gotten married.

The first country to legalize same sex marriage was the Netherlands in 2001.

Now, in 2026, there are thirty-eight countries with same-sex marriage, with another two on average being added every year (x). Including three of the most populous countries in the world (the US, Brazil, and Mexico, x).

Altogether, over a billion people now live somewhere that same-sex marriage is legal. Twenty-five years ago, that number was zero.

Things are hard right now, but in so many ways they are so much better than they have been for a very, very long time.

Prioritizing certain stories from QTBIPOC, can slip fairly quickly into erasure. So here is a reminder: colonial powers benefit when we only focus on individuals and erase the long complex queer histories of cultures that have been colonized. Cultures and communities that have been colonized deserve space in our discussions of queer history.

My posts have gotten tagged LGB more and more often lately. Usually accompanied by the worst additions imaginable. People are starting to whittle down and choose who they think of as disposable, so let me say this:

Queer as in trans people

Queer as in asexual people

Queer as in aromantic people

Queer as in nonbinary people

Queer as in bisexual people

Queer as in unlabled people

Queer as in anyone who counts themselves as queer.

I grew up not knowing a single trans person til I was in my twenties and I still turned out trans as shit

There's millions of us and we're everywhere and we're better than ever at connecting with each other.

join your local queer discord / signal / affinity space / community center wherever and whenever you can. as always link up with each other. c'mon out to OITO if you're local to us. go to that cheesy meetup for old gay fogeys if that's all you can find. whatever!!

YEAH BUD first thing you do is you get yourself to CenterLink!

Find your closest one. Get to their website and sign up for their mailing list. Then go over to Programs or Events or Offerings or whatever they got and pick one. Put it on your calendar. Show up.

If you don't have transportation, if you don't know which one to pick, if you're not sure about any of this: EMAIL THEM. Introduce yourself. Say "hi, I need my people".

I'm so serious, there are people employed by centers all over this dang map whose job is to check their email and go, "oh! Hello, a new queer person near me! How can I get you hooked into our network of support and care? Here's three suggestions you tell me what works!"

If there isn't one near you, email the nearest anyway. Say "hi, I'm located here, you're the closest one I got, what you got for me?" The answer may be "sorry, nothing", but it may also be "here's a meetup right next to you! It's offline but we know about it because that's our job. Go say hi."

That's probably plenty for now. But just in case you want another way in, here is the NEXT THING YOU DO. Check the EIQ map:

and find you a gay third space near you. Coffee shop, bookstore, comic shop, what-have-you.

Go. Sit in the corner and be shy the first time. Check the bulletin board for events and meetups.

The best way to find good online spaces, too, is to show up offline and ask.

^^^ EXACTLY THIS.

Show up. Go to the thing. You don’t have to be a sparkling socializer, you don’t have to forge deep and lifelong bonds on day one. You will still benefit from going, and the space will be better because you are there.

And, one more possible way: join your local community theater group if you’re a theater gay, or if you ever thought you might be. See if you can find your people there. Make friends and tell stories. I have never bonded with people faster and stronger than when I built a story with them.

Last week I talked with the playwright of the play I’m directing, who was gay in the 1950s and lived through bar raids when the fash were arresting us for cross-dressing. “Impersonating”. Her stories are going up on stage this weekend because my cast is telling them again, and in so doing we’re connecting more deeply with each other.

I also sat for an interview about Shapeshifters with a local historical society. They recorded my stories for the future. I talked about the play too. Carrying it forward.

Hi everybody. Eli here.

Here's that second part of the post I promised.

On December 19th, the day after signing that sale contract, we received word that the FDA had sent Shapeshifters a letter, and sent similar letters to eleven other companies that sell chest binders. The gist: they allege that chest binders are medical devices, and are subject to a large host of regulations. The FDA Commissioner also made a series of statements at the same time, which appeared to target the same set of companies, but did not align with anything said in the letters. (Source)

And of course: not every shapewear company received a letter like this. Underworks is absent from the list of recipients. So is Spanx. So is any company that sells compression shirts, rash guards, or sports bras. 

The target is clear. In all posted letters, any phrase that contains the word “dysphoria” is cited. In one case, “gender euphoria” is cited (source). If you use these words, you’re in violation. If you sell binders for cis men, you’re not.

This is a targeted action against transgender folks, just like every other targeted action against transgender folks that this administration takes. No-one we have consulted has been surprised, only grim. The only real option available to us is to respond within the system, with professional help, in expensive and stressful ways.

On top of all this, Shopify, the current store platform, just disabled its built-in payment processor because we have been anonymously flagged as “predatory or deceptive” by anonymous “banking partners” whose decision is final. If you’d like to let Shopify know what you think of them cutting off the income of trans people without process or recourse, I suggest sending a message to the “Trust and Safety” team at [email protected]. To be clear, this will probably have no effect.

A lot of really kind and wonderful folks have reached out to ask how they can help. So we set up a legal fund to defray some of the costs of responding to the FDA while the store income is down, and that is here: https://gofund.me/4dd707af7

All proceeds of this fundraiser will go to covering legal costs of responding to the FDA. If we exceed the goal, the excess will cover lost business income from Shopify cutting off credit card processing.

Bryce and Gwen are doing an incredible job of getting up to speed on all the regular operations of Shapeshifters amidst all of this shit, and I could not be prouder or more impressed by how they've taken the helm. I cannot wait to see how they run Shapeshifters when given a damn minute to breathe. Thank you all for your support in helping them get there.

All my love,

We also didn't have a Gay Straight Alliance chapter yet. Virtually every support group you could find, even in navy blue states, was a local chapter of the GSA. You were much more likely to find that acronym than LGBTQ+.

Our school decided we wanted one, but we wanted to be inclusive, because we knew there were other letters. We called our group "Spectrum", because it would cover everyone, including allies.

It took three meetings in front of the school's board of directors to get permission for the club to exist. Again, this was a private school, in a mid-Atlantic state that has been navy blue and "progressive" for decades (even at that point).

Other than the one (1) kid who was out? Every single other member said we were Allies.

Nearly 20 years later, almost every single one of us is out as some flavor of queer.

A lot of us knew we were huge supporters of queer rights, we just didn't quite know all the reasons why yet. Asexuality wasn't discussed the way it is now, neither was any type of gender nonconformity. Hell, bisexuality was barely acknowledged, and even then it was mostly only given a nod as "girls who turn guys on by kissing girls" (biphobia was strong, and unfortunately still is).

Making sure allies have a space at our table ensures that people have the space to explore their own identity, to question if one of our labels might work for them too.

It also allows people who may have some baked-in prejudices realize that those prejudices are wrong. That we're not evil and hateful, that we are actually pretty nice and friendly.

One time, some friends and I were at a pretty famous local gay bar, and this guy walked in looking like he was ripped out of the pages of Redneck Magazine. He looked super uncomfortable, but he was polite to the hostess and she sat him alone, near us. A lot of people were tense, and watching him out of the corner of our eyes, because we all knew what happened at Pulse.

But one of my friends is the person who knows absolutely everyone and goes out of their way to make new friends. He's also a cis straight guy. He leans over, compliments the guy's Carhartt jacket, and asks if he's ever been to the place before.

The guy, who is still kind of tense, says his name is Johnny and no, he's never been to no queer bar before, but his sister just came out to the family. Their parents were awful about it, and while he "didn't understand it", he didn't think his sister should be disowned and hated the thought of seeing her cry, so he wanted to try and understand.

I remembered the story that's made the rounds here- about the guy named Earl who went to a drag show and everyone made him feel welcome because they knew he needed to have a good time to prove we queer folks were safe.

So I invited Johnny to sit with us. "It's more fun than sitting alone. Here, have some of my fries, I'm probably not going to finish them anyway."

He sat at our table, and when he found out that my friend was also a cis straight guy, he visibly relaxed. So did a lot of other patrons, once they realized he wasn't there to cause violence.

Over the next few hours, he ate great food, had a couple beers, clapped and smiled at the drag shows, and asked a LOT of questions. At first, he was using language we might call "un-PC" (the kind that would get you cancelled on this webbed site). But he realized we were using different words, and asked. He asked why the old words were wrong, why the newer ones were right, and how not to be offensive.

The staff found out what was going on, and eventually a card got passed around the whole joint and everyone wrote supportive messages for Johnny's sister Lila. This big tough man felt safe enough to cry a little in front of us queer strangers, because we instantly accepted his sister as one of our own, as family, even though we'd never met her.

I'd later found out from the staff that Johnny had returned, more than once. A couple times with Lila herself, and a couple times with his friends... who were gruff and suspicious at first, but won over by the end of the night.

We need to be a safe space for allies. For people who may not use all the Correct And Accepted Special Words but genuinely want to understand and accept us. As someone who is both asexual and nonbinary, I felt way safer with Johnny (despite him using outdated terminology for a while) than I do with a lot of people on THIS QUEER ASS WEBSITE.

Allies are sometimes members of the family that don't even know they're in the closet yet, because they don't know the closer includes people like them.

Allies are sometimes people who don't know the right words or behaviors, but still want to support someone they love.