Social Justice Druid

this absolute fucking scholar:

So. I read a fandom meta essay on non-con works in fandom written by a survivor a while ago out of curiosity, and it was very interesting! I enjoyed it, personally, and it really enlightened me. Truthfully, it also helped me come to terms with my own personal stuff as well. Not necessarily directly relating to this specific kink, but other sexual kinks that I have entertained both online and in real life, and have always felt kind of weirdly ashamed about.

The mottos, “don’t like, don’t read,” and, “your kink is not my kink,” and, “ship and let ship,” used to be very important in fandom, and have sort of been lost (or more-so, challenged) over the evolvement of fandom, especially due to the upsurge of liberalism in social media.

Need I remind everyone: fandom was created and meant to be a safe space for us to enjoy content, especially since it’s occupied by a majority population of women (not that men in fandom don’t exist but their numbers are much lesser than ours). Those kinds of rules are important to keep the peace and respect amongst everyone in a fandom. (Without it, chaos ensues. I’ve witnessed this happen so many times it’s ridiculous.)

Sure some things are going to make me do a double take and possibly not want to associate with the person who created them (I have a very large allowence for this.) But that doesn’t mean it’s inherently wrong for them to create them.

For instance, I have a friend who is in her late 20s and writes underage fics (16/18) because as a lesbian raised in a homophobic Catholic environment, she was robbed of having consenseual teenage experiences or even been able to see anyone like herself in media. She has also written csa fics because she is a call survivor.

While I don’t particularly want to read her underage fics I understand why she writes them and believe she has the right to do it, even if it makes me uncomfortable.

There are subliminal messages in media that affect us because that’s how real life works more or less but that doesn’t mean you’ll read a rape fic and suddenly think rape is ok.

Underage: having been in fandom since age 10 plus been an early bloomer, and having for most of my youth been interested primarily in my own age group, the vast, vast, vast majority of people writing fics with 14 year olds or younger are that age (you can tell because none of them know how anatomy works let alone sex. Or writing). I wrote my first smut fic at 13. It was Terrible, but I got some positive comments even, because I was writing for a rarepair f/f ship in a fandom with basically no femslash. Fandom was huge in helping me process and accept my attraction to girls, tbh

I’ll also admit to having read some explicit adult/child (or child/smaller child) fics when I was 10-12. Every. Single. One. Was extremely, immensely explicit about the adult being a villain and Evil. The vast majority had a second part or hint at an epilogue where the victim got Revenge. I don’t know the authors’ stories, but you could kinda tell it was often vent fic? (I had anxieties about adults hurting me because I was abused and was starting to be sexually harassed some by unrelated adults and teens, those fics really helped with realizing that even if things ever got way, way worse I’d eventually be fine)

(Society: Oh, honey, adults won’t hurt you!) (demonstrably false)

(Adult/child vent fics: when adults hurt you the lead up looks like this, they are Evil and you can STAB THEM) (actually cathartic + helpful)

Re: anxiety, there’s also a major part of fiction that’s. Basically preparing yourself to react to things? Like, someone tells a story about the Worst thing that ever happened to them and how they reacted. You get to turn it over in your head. Play with it safely. Do a kind of light exposure therapy. (I do this with pregnancy fics, I have a massive phobia/ repulsion towards the idea of getting pregnant so I like to explore the variety of possible reactions to unexpected or unwanted pregnancy, and I’d be shocked if a lot of writers of darkfic weren’t doing that too)

Teacher/student: when I was 15, our Spanish teacher had a baby and took time off. The long-term sub was in her early twenties. She spoke five (five!) languages. She was extremely dedicated to working personally with each of us. I had a Hella Instant Crush. Which is really common! I hadn’t previously found any ships that involved anyone over 17-ish at all interesting, because I’d previously been pretty sure Adults Are Icky, but I found myself delving into basically every teacher/student fic I could get my hands on in my primary fandoms. Some of them portrayed it as unquestionably romantic (these usually involved older students who often had graduated by the fic’s time). Some portrayed it as abuse. Some portrayed it as mutually fucked up and terrible for everyone involved, including the teacher. Some had the student pursuing and convincing their reluctant teacher.

Tagging wasn’t really a Thing back then, the only thing you warned for was slash content, so the abuse and romance and fucked up fics were all jumbled together and there was nothing to say which was right. I, being possessed of better analytical capacity than a five-year-old, was able to pretty easily figure out that the Yeah This Is Fucked Up fics were more realistic, while also satisfying my pretty stubborn crush with the romantic ones because they let me live vicariously. Knowing me I’m decently sure the main reason I didn’t approach my teacher to make vague attempts at flirting was that I had an outlet in fic.

Generic terribleness: tbh I have a violence kink. And a blood kink. And a fighting-as-foreplay kink. Fighting is High Emotions and Adrenaline and all that exciting stuff, and I’ve always been a bit to a lot of a masochist. In general, things that are taboo are interesting! Humans like exploring and playing with them.

Fandom cultural things: the Ultra Super Duper Problematic groups are usually way, way, way more chill. Like, Naruto fandom. The three Big Pairings couldn’t go five seconds without massive flamewars (many of them internal). I meanwhile was (and still am) sitting in the How Terrible Can We Be To Characters Let’s Find Out corner chilling with some pretty nice folk enjoying a drama-free life.

I see what you’re saying, and I agree to some extent.

If being “non binary” were legitimate – and please excuse my terrible scientific language, I hope that this makes sense – then it would randomly affect people due to whatever mutations or womb-hormones etc made them that way.

But doesn’t it strike you as strange that we’re supposed to accept that this random quirk of biology exists and somehow only affects people that have Leftist (or, most commonly, far-Leftist) political views? 

I mean, if that changes and there are some hard-Right-wingers that say that they’re “non binary,” then of course I’ll be more than happy to reevaluate my views and most probably change them.

I mean, we’ll put aside the likes of Blaire White and Milo Yiannopoulos for a moment. We’ll even ignore that the leader of the Scottish Conservatives, Ruth Davidson, who’s a lesbian, and forget other LGBT Right-leaning politicians. We’ll even put aside the Log Cabin Republicans in the US, along with the other LGBT organisations in Right-wing political parties.

We’re on Tumblr. In Discourse Tumblr Hell – of which I am clearly a part – you can easily find LGBT people who are all over the political spectrum.

I mean, look at trans people for example. You’ve got everyone from far-Left “You don’t need dysphoria to be trans even though I have it” trans people, to “I have gender dysphoria and am trans but am also a TERF” people, all the way across the political spectrum to the most infamous trans Nazi Wasp.

So please don’t attempt to deliberately misinterpret my argument and then dismiss my views about the “non binary genders” as a hand-waved “people are faking” when I make it very clear that I believe that the vast majority of those people that use those labels are misinformed and confused and have other labels or issues that have encouraged them to use it.

You know exactly what I’m saying, and I’m sorry, but that kind of passive-aggressive nonsense could easily be avoided by proving me wrong and finding me a single politically-Right leaning person on Tumblr that unironically and seriously uses the term “non binary” to describe themselves.

But I genuinely don’t believe that you can.

…but we both know that my argument is valid, and because you don’t like it, you’re forced to misrepresent it.

The point is that innate identity labels have nothing to do with political thoughts and ideas. Thoughts and ideas change. Identity labels do not. Sure, there are people convinced that they’re one thing and then realise that they were actually another thing all along, but that’s not the issue.

At the end of the day, you could quite easily prove me wrong by showing me different individuals with those differing beliefs. 

But while I’m sitting here, able to show you examples of every other identity represented across the board, apparently you and others can’t show me a single example of a Right-wing person that sincerely calls themselves “non binary.” 

It’s not about which group is “most prominent.” It’s about accepting that if an identity label is contained only within a specific set of personal ideals – ideals which are not innate, are informed and can change – then there is clearly something dodgy about that label.

Now, you can view it that way if you want. But given that you yourself have claimed that political thoughts and ideas are separate from identity labels–something which isn’t true from an entirely literal sense given that certain identities are innately intertwined with politics and that’s just how it is, just want to point that out–then why is it that you’re going after non-binary people? It doesn’t make sense.

I tried to reblog this to my discourse blog with a long post, twice, and Tumblr ate it both times, so I’m not sure if someone has blocked my discourse blog or what, but my main doesn’t seem to be blocked by either of you so I’m just going to attempt to briefly recapitulate here the reasons why there aren’t more nonbinary conservatives to be found:

Self-selection bias is a thing - political affiliation is a choice. Not hanging around with people who want to kill you is the choice that most people make.

Despite this, I keep meeting nb people who earnestly advocate conservative views (I spend most of my time on @lines-and-edges complaining about them and their binary lgbtq+ peers). They just don’t want to associate with people who use identity labels like right-wing or conservative, because right now those identity labels are associated with hating or denying the existence of nb people.

In-group jargon is also a thing. I have met Republicans who say “well I’m not really a man or a woman but I was born this way and I guess I’m just sort of going along with it,” which is basically the socially acceptable option for them, I guess?

This is one reason why promoting the idea that brain scans are important “scientific evidence for being transgender” is a terrible idea. Even if it’s true that trans people tend to have particular results on brain scans, it’s utterly inevitable that lots of trans people won’t have those particular results. And then the brain scans will be referenced in order to socially (and medically) de-legitimize those trans people.

So here you go. Here’s the lauded, applauded “difference” between “male” and “female” brains that so concretely determines gender.

A bell chart showing the results of a study on male and female brain connectivity. The two curves are almost completely overlapping, however, there is a slight offset between the male and female results.

This is one of the many reasons why statistical significant and practical significance are not the same things.

Statistically, yes, there’s a difference. But for practical purposes outside of extremely specific forms medical research? No. Not at all.

Even in regards to statistical significance, the difference is limited in both scale, and in scope- in the very narrow purview of connections between brain regions, women are very slightly more likely to have a very slightly higher connectivity between hemispheres. But, then again, there is no statistical difference in the composition of the regions being connected. 

(I too personally know centrist and right-wing nonbinary people (all of them white) because I know a lot of nonbinary people. But nonbinary people are often leftist for the same reason other marginalized identities are anywhere from often to overwhelmingly leftist - the right is really, really fucking hostile towards us, and current established nonbinary communities are hostile towards Trump supporters, so nonbinary rightwingers tend to present only one half of their identity with either group. What happens more commonly is someone realizes they’re not the Right Wing Gender Ideal, realizes the right wing ideal might be wrong about other shit, and then leave that community. The vast majority enbies I know have right-winger families)

Here finds that around 89% of LGB folk are solidly to slightly Democratic or Independent. That doesn’t mean LGB folk are all lying for attention, or that being LGB is a political statement. 

But. Like. Jewishmagpie likes to join truscum in bullying trans minors, so. And refuses to listen to evidence. And correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m also pretty sure is cis? Doesn’t say one way or the other, but usually words things like she is? Which. Like. Cis people get zero say in trans intercommunity issues.

The scientific evidence for being transgender and/or nonbinary is the exact same as the scientific evidence that introverts, extroverts, and ambiverts exist, and that neurodiversity exists. I have the exact same proof that I’m trans and genderfluid as that I’m queer, that I’m autistic, that I’m bipolar, that I’m an ambivert - internal experiences, and since you’re also anti-self dx, also that a psychiatrist confirmed what I already knew (for autism, bipolar, and trans status). (Yup! Scientists acknowledge nonbinary genders, what a radical idea. The scientists who don’t are the same ones who don’t acknowledge anyone as trans, or who insist that trans people must perform their gender more intensely than cis people. Please read this (APA on nonbinary genders), this (identical twins, one is trans other isn’t - clearly not a womb or genetics thing) and this (national geographic summarizing the basic science))

Left to Right: Agender, Lesbian (Lipstick), Pansexual, Bisexual, Transgender, Gay Pride,  Nonbinary, Genderqueer, Asexual, Intersex, Demisexual, Genderfluid, and Aromantic. (Demi kind of broke the barcode, but meh)

go be a camp counselor or make friends at conventions or join a community theater or - something. literally anything that gets you interacting on an equal level with people more than a year or two older than you. school creates an artificial power imbalance that is highly dependent on age, that’s not how maturity works. You SHOULD be having more and more experiences as you approach adulthood where you’re on equal footing with adults. Having adult friends who aren’t directly responsible for your wellbeing is healthy and it’s insane and concerning to me that that’s so RARE now.

(When I say “responsible for your wellbeing” I mean, like, legally liable in some way. A decent friend shouldn’t endanger you or help you break the law, that’s not what I’m talking about here.)

without infantilizing teenagers or thinking they’re the same as young kids, any reasonable adult knows that there is still a difference in maturity and experience between a teen and an adult.

2) how many times do I have to say “friends” and “don’t do anything illegal” in one post before someone jumps wholesale to calling me a pedophile for…. saying that young adults and late teens can and should be friends?

3) given the number of people calling 16 year olds “literal children”, I’m not at all sure that infantilizing teens isn’t what’s happening here

I’m currently a mentor to some high school aged queer teens; and there really, really isn’t that big a gap between us - we all struggle with queerphobia and schoolwork and (sometimes) jobs, and I’ve been where they’re at in other cases. And where there is a gap - it’s good to have different perspectives on shit! It’s good to be able to bounce problems and ideas off of someone who experienced and survived the same shit you’re going through. Adults don’t magically become Disney villains the day they turn 18, I promise.

Tbh I liked hanging out with adults better, because they didn’t bully me relentlessly like other kids and teens did.

Can I talk to you for a bit?

And i’m seriuos i’m not bieng sarcastic or wanna hurt you or anything like that, I legit want to talk to you and have a decent adult conversation with you in order to understand why you think shipping pedophilia is ok.Becuase let me get one thing straight, I DESPISE maxvid and other pedo ships but I find that other people constantly yelling,sending death treaths and harrasing you, WILL NOT get us anywhere and is honestly just a horrible way to go about this situation. So instead i just wanna talk, becuase while i hate the ship i don’t think i can bring myself to hate the person without getting to know their personality better.

Oh and another thing, anti-shippers better stay away from this post if all you’re gonna do is get mad and yell at them, This post is here so that we can hopefully make peace and understand shippers instead of just bieng bitter and angry about them all the time. You’re free to interact if your going to be respectfull. but if you just wanna hate and be a jerk then find your own post becuase this one isn’t meant for you.And you better miss me with that,

“they’re pedo’s and pedos hurt minors and csa survivors so they dont deserve respect uwu”

bs becuase on top of the fact that you would need MUCH more then the fact that they ship gross ships to prove that they touch children IRL, you realize that alot of shippers ARE CSA survivors…riight? You realize that alot of them are MINORS like 12-17 right?

“B..b..but they can’t be csa survivors! They ship pedophillia and csa survivors hate those things! It triggers them! Why would any csa survivor ever do that?!”

That’s just the thing, I don’t know, and neither do you, but im not gonna sit here and assume that i do then act as if ostarizing them is somehow gonna help anyone at all, and neither should you. The entire point of this post is to figure out why they ship it so if you’re really curiuos then read carefully, But don’t come here screaming at young children and then telling me you wanna protect them. If you wanna tell a child that they’re doing something wrong do it maturley please, they’ll probably grow out of it eventually later on anyways. You know what? don’t yell at anyone without a good reason period.

I should qualify: I’m not active in the maxvid fandom, though I’m around because I know people who are, and because some serious doxxing and threats have happened there. But I have other age gap ships, and while “they’re not real” is reason enough, there is a BIT more to why I ship problematic stuff.

For me, I grew up in an INTENSELY Christian cult. And I’m not straight. So my sexuality, until my late teens, was tied up with crippling feelings of guilt and self-loathing. Even after separating myself from the cult and getting help, that kind of thing doesn’t just go away. And reading about those feelings in fiction, playing with the ways that they shaped me, was helpful in processing those feelings (I mean, “the forbidden” is a common theme in loads of sexual and romantic content anyways, and there was a certain degree of thrill in knowing that being discovered with my girlfriend could ruin my life. I mean, it was also fucked up and traumatic, but it sure did kick a lot of adrenalin and endorphins around.)

Of course, fictional characters aren’t real people, and so I don’t feel nearly the same empathy for them as I feel for real people - so I had no qualms about putting them through hell. I LOVE seeing characters struggle with guilt and self-loathing over who they’re attracted to, and I’m not really bothered by the form that comes in - maybe it’s a 90’s high school AU in the height of homophobia, maybe it’s a character in a committed relationship cheating on their partner, maybe it’s a character realizing they’re attracted to their brother, maybe it’s a teacher realizing they have a thing for a student. I don’t “ship” these things for good feelings or because it’s goals or whatever - I do it because guilt and sexuality and romance are really intensely bonded for me, and fiction is a way to have an outlet for that. To be totally blunt, fiction is a safe, healthy way of dealing with the part of me that wants to still feel guilty over sexuality.

I copiously warn for everything, so my readers aren’t being hurt and I’m not being hurt and the characters can’t be hurt. So all things considered, as emotional outlets go, it’s really one of the best.

(And yes, my therapist knows about and approves of this. Coping with intense emotions and messed up associations due to trauma through fiction is a pretty common thing.)

By the way? I really, really appreciate “Why would any survivor do that? I don’t know, and neither do you.”

People writing disturbing stories are often working through a mix of active imaginations, anxieties, and intense emotions; it’s considered normal and is not a cause for concern.

This book goes into great depth on trauma victims and people with PTSD gravitating towards disturbing literature to deal with the emotions and experiences of trauma

Here’s an article which interviews people who have used fiction as catharsis and a doctor who recommends the same

Here’s a psychologist who uses horror, including erotic horror, in cognitive behavioral therapy

Here’s a fairly comprehensive review on the ways fiction is used as catharsis in therapy, with particular notes on dealing with unresolved emotions and on having distant, unrealistic, exaggerated stories sometimes be better for this since they allow a greater distance from ourselves

This one’s a personal anecdote, but the author is a doctor. I especially liked this quote: “I have to find a way to make sense of the pain and anxiety in my body—and so I match that internal tumult with the scariest story I can create.” (The same general concept applies to other unwanted and overwhelming emotions, I’m sure.)

Theres also many, many, many anecdotal stories of therapists using fictional trauma as a gateway to talking about real trauma (google search “trauma fiction therapy” or similar).

I tend to age them up in AUs and do a lot of imagining with them later in the series, because I’m interested in people my own age, but I still occasionally play in the sandbox with their original ages. I’d ship them if in source material they were older, too, and would currently prefer that, though I probably would’ve started shipping later since at 12 I wanted at least one partner to be vaguely close to my own age. But the ‘I like this pairing’ switch in my head didn’t magically flip to ‘off’ the day I turned 18.

(I had a fleeting teacher/student ship, too, that was entirely me exploring and working out my crush on a teacher in a safe way, but I stopped shipping it once I finished processing those emotions. But ‘teen is attracted to adult, wants a sandbox to explore this in rather than approaching actual adult’ is a very common use case, and should be encouraged because for most people your imagination is the safest sandbox available. If I hadn’t had a proxy for emotions, I might’ve tried flirting with my teacher, which would’ve put me at risk. Cousin/cousin ships I also have a bunch of lying around, because they were a good way for me to process having a crush on my actual cousin, and actually helped that attraction fade)

A lot of people also kind of... Skipped their own childhood/ teenaged years, and are living them vicariously. I never got a chance to pursue my queerness as a teen, so I like stories about queer teens who can be the people I’d wanted to be.

Here’s the thing: characters aren’t real. That’s... Really very obvious to me, I can experience all the ups and downs of their relationships and all the kink buttons their relationships push, then walk away from the computer and not think about it because nothing actually happened. It’s fiction, and pretty damn far from reality. The siblings aren’t real siblings. The minors aren’t real minors, and despite the occasional anime 16 year old pushing my buttons, I find RL minors unattractive

Also literary history: this sort of shit’s been popular for ages. Catharsis is part of the whole point of tragedy and horror, that tragedy and horror also being sexual doesn’t somehow magically change that. ‘This is terrible’ is a common reason to read something. A lot of people find terrible ships more interesting than non-terrible ships, because terrible ships are dynamic and tense and dramatic, and all those things are elements of stories. Same general reason we go to haunted houses. (I personally find coffee shop AUs and 100% pure organic certified non-GMO ships boring af, I don’t mind no major internal fighting but please at least hang one of them off a cliff so there’s some angst)

The bi community tends to use “attraction to two or more genders” or “attraction to more than one gender” as its definition, not the one given here. @garlicsister please listen to bi people defining their own orientation, not others defining it for us.

first, a man who is attracted to women and nonbinary people is simply transphobic. he is looking at nonbinary people and either seeing different flavors of women, or he’s seeing something to fetishize. if he’s attracted to women, nonbinary people, and men, there’s still a possibility that his attraction to nonbinary people is rooted in transphobia, but we now have a guarantee of attraction to at least two genders.

second, lesbian, gay, and bi people (i leave trans people out of this particular point because it’s not the place for those particular nuances) are oppressed for the attraction we feel. gay men are oppressed because we are attracted to men. lesbians are punished for attraction to women and their inherent unavailability to men. bi men and women are oppressed because they experience some attraction to their own gender, and are not correctly performing their expected role of “exclusive heterosexual attraction” (nonbinary bi people are oppressed on two axes here: not conforming to their birth assigned gender and not correctly performing their expected role of “heterosexual member of their birth assigned gender class”).

third, “are you cisgender” was my first node by design. nonbinary people can see that question and say “no, i am not cis” and follow it to the termination point that says “yes, you are lgbt” without ever having to consider their attraction. nonbinary people are lgbt regardless of their answer to “are you attracted to your own gender?” i am aware that the question can be irrelevant and at times even impossible to answer, so i placed it second, so that it would be a determining factor only for cis people, who are necessarily men or women

2. Are you saying bi people are only oppressed if they have “"same gender attraction”“? Because “bi people are sluts!”, “bi people are more likely to cheat!” and other biphobic beliefs target bi people for being bi, not “part gay” or whatever. Not to mention, some studies have found that bi people experience higher rates of sexual assault than gay men and lesbians, which doesn’t make sense if bi people only face homophobia, and not biphobia.

3. Again, I’m not nonbinary.

And biphobia applies to all bi people, not just ones that experience “same gender attraction” (like me). If a person says they’re bi, straight biphobes (the ones with the power to oppress non-straight people) aren’t going to ask “oh?? Are you same gender attracted??”

Also, how do you know that these bi people are fetishizing their nonbinary partners, as opposed to simply…. liking them? It seems like calling bi people straight without any reason.

every (cis) person who says “i’m bi” experiences biphobia because people assume it means that the person in question is attracted to their own gender. Joe Blow isn’t gonna say “i’m bi” and have Hetty Betty ask “but wait, are you ‘bi’ as in ‘into dudes’ or…” because like… attraction to one’s own gender is necessary & sufficient for a cis person to be lgbt. 

And a biantagonistic, exorsexist asshole who thinks that it’s his G-d-Given Right as a Gay Man to minimize our struggles, redefine our attractions and our fucking identity, and tell us that we’re fundamentally unlovable, should we be politically inconvenient to him. Gee, I wonder why he thinks we should just quietly melt away into heteronormative society.

SIT YOUR BINARY MONOSEXUAL ASS DOWN.

We are not your possessions. You don’t get to define us, our struggles, our attractions, or our identities. You do not control this community you don’t even seem to fucking want.

And… yeah, it’s exactly as coherent as, say, “allistic” or “cis” or “goyische” or “neurotypical.” It means “people who are fucking well not us,” and in this context, it means you’ve just swerved across like three different lanes in your eagerness to lay claim to shit that does not fucking belong to you.

I am bi. I am not attracted to my own gender (because I don’t have a ‘same or similar gender’) or to binary men. I am still bi. The definition of bi doesn’t magically vary between nonbinary and binary people. (My current datemates are a girl and a nonbinary person; if I had to choose a binary gender I’d pick male, does being a Dude-ish attracted to women and nonbinary people but not men make me somehow magically transphobic?)

Also if biphobia is solely homophobia lite then please explain the numerous, numerous biphobic lesbians and gay men. Please explain the conservatives I know who’d readily accept a Proper gay man or lesbian but not one of those Horrid Bis, they might be *gasp* promiscuous!

Thought about how the asexual, aromantic, and nonbinary flags all include black (and white), so I made this triangle graphic for aroace nonbinary people.

but why do you think you can be trans without dysphoria?

but with most of the points you presented, i still consider those to be valid truscum points. if someone experiences your form of gender euphoria, they probably have a form of very low functioning dysphoria.

a lot of truscum have no problem with people you describe in the post, but my personal problem lies within those that purposefully identify as trans (without experiencing your definition of gender euphoria) and do it purely because

a) to follow the “down with cis mentality”

or

b) want to be considered different and special

and believe me, i’ve seen lots of people later admit to being a part of b.

I didn't used to have dysphoria. However, as a smol bean (like preschool-kindergarten-early grades) I considered myself a boy. I tried to use the boys bathroom, I thought girls were that weird mixture of pretty and icky, I had mostly male friends, I wanted to wear the boys uniform not the girls, I played boy games, I'd wear boys clothes (unless I had something sparkly in girls clothes, I liked sparkly). But I didn't consider my body at all wrong, and when people called me a girl I just got confused because I obviously wasn't. (The intersection of autism and transness can get a bit weird). Then in middle school I considered myself neither, heavily identified with a fictional alien who used itself pronouns and said it'd be rude to use gendered pronouns on it than to call it 'it', wanted to sing baritone in chorus and was proud of my deep voice at the same time as being proud of my developing feminine body, then I considered myself female for a while, then boy again, then in college I joined a queer+ally frat, heard the words genderqueer and genderfluid for the first time and realized those were me. I didn't start experiencing dysphoria until I'd identified as not-entirely-and-solely-female for fifteen long years. I still don't always experience dysphoria, even on boy days. I don't even always experience euphoria, most days I just... Know. Like, people have self knowledge! That can include current gender!

This is a glossary of different gender + orientation terms that may be helpful for people who are questioning, as well as terms that are frequently used on this blog and in LGBTQIA+ discussions that you may want to know the definition to. If you’re looking for a specific term please press CTRL + F and type it in, and if the term you’re looking for is not in this glossary then feel free to send me an ask and I’ll give you the definition. If anyone sees any terms that are missing from this glossary or if any of the definitions here are incorrect or need to be modified, please feel free to send me an ask about that as well! Also if you (or someone you know) coined any of these terms and want to be credited, I’m 100% willing to do so too!

Last Updated: April 13, 2018

whew ok i made a powerpoint thing for nounself pronouns…..

Anyway, @rivergst did a transcription!

Transcription:

nounself pronouns and how to use them

by otherkinlogic/vulpinekin/roborenard

b/c everyone keeps complaining about these pronouns/ asking how they work and it needs to stop

with unironic comic sans bc it’s helpful for dyslexics

what are nounself pronouns??

* nounself pronouns are “newer” pronouns that replace traditional binary ones such as he/him and she/her

* nounself pronouns may also be called neopronouns, non-binary pronouns, or otherkin pronouns

* they are very useful for anyone who is uncomfortable with the more traditional pronouns and the gender binary that goes along with them

so how do they work??

* to make a set of nounself pronouns, you first need a noun! i will be working with the noun “bunny” or “bun,” which are a very common set of pronouns.

* the pronouns need to be set into 4 different categories- personal/subject, possessive, reflexive, and object pronouns

subject/personal pronouns

* personal pronouns are pronouns to *represent* something. traditional examples of personal pronouns are he, she, it, and they.

* an example sentence would be, “he walks around.”

* for our nounself pronoun “bunny,” the personal form will be “bun.”

* example sentence, “bun walks around.”

possessive pronouns

* possessive pronouns are pronouns to show the *possession* or *relationship* of two or more items. examples of traditional possessive pronouns would be his, hers, its, or theirs.

* traditional example sentence, “that is his hat.”

* for our nounself pronouns, the possessive form will be “buns.”

* “that is buns hat.”

reflexive pronouns

* reflexive pronouns are used to show when *something is done* by a noun/another pronoun *to itself*. examples: himself, herself, itself, themselves

* “rowan likes himself”

* with nounself pronouns, you can usually just take the noun and add -self to the end. reflexive form of “bun” would be “bunself”

* “rowan likes bunself”

object pronouns

* object pronouns are pronouns used alongside verbs to show *who or what the action is being done by/to*. traditional examples: him, her, it, them.

* “i hugged him.”

* for the bunself pronouns, the object form is “bun.”

* “i hugged bun.”

now, how do you write it all out?

* usually, pronouns are put in the form of personal/possessive/object/reflexive.

* he/his/him/himself for example

* with the bun pronouns, it will be set as bun/buns/bun/bunself

* if you’re confused by someone’s pronoun set, ask for some example sentences!

i don’t support these pronouns, but i’m able to learn them. can i use auxiliary1️⃣️ pronouns instead?

* no

* definitely not

* this is intentional pronoun misuse

* it’s very rude, disgusting, and transphobic

* you are intentionally making another living thing uncomfortable by refusing to learn 4 new words. that’s very disappointing

1️⃣️ auxiliary pronouns are a secondary pronoun set that can be used if you are unable to understand/ use nounself pronouns!

i’m neurodivergent/ english is my second language/ disabled. can i use the auxiliary pronouns?

* yes! definitely!

* it is totally understandable to not be able to understand these pronouns. they can be difficult for anyone.

-You thought you were genderfluid

-You decided the label didn’t fit