[ gently takes young and / or newly out binary trans people by the hands and looks you directly in the eyes with compassion and understanding ]
Nonbinary people are not your enemy.
Nonbinary people are your siblings in the struggle that is systemic transphobia. Our collective pain, our collective erasure from society is the goal. We are allies to each other.
Gendered liberation is not your enemy.
Gendered liberation as a goal is there to allow us all to exist freely in the ways that are most comfortable for us all. The goal is to uplift us all, to liberate us all, to give us the ability to have autonomy and agency over our own expressions, lives, and bodies — this inherently includes you and your right to find comfort in your identity and presentation however it may manifest.
Gender abolition is not your enemy.
I know that's a scary sounding one. It used to scare the shit out of me too. Especially right now. Especially when, if you are a USAmerican trans person, our government is directly attacking our right to exist publicly and privately. Especially when TERFs and other radfems have completely bastardized the concept of abolition into a blunt anti-trans weapon.
Gender abolition is not about telling you that you have to stop being a woman or a man — especially if you're a trans lesbian or gay trans man. Gender abolition is also not about reassigning coercively assigned physical sex as the "true" marker of someone's identity.
The goal of gender abolition is the dismantling of the roles and structures we forcibly and coercively assign to gender identity, often with a focus on the impact of imperialism and settler colonialism on those structures (when done within a solidarity oriented framework). Much like other forms of abolition work — like prison abolition — it is a practice meant to dismantle and repair generations of systemic harm and trauma.
I know that that seems lofty, especially if you are white. You may feel especially disconnected from that struggle and simply want to exist in the world you're already familiar with in a way you are already familiar with — but this fight is bigger than just you.
Audre Lorde — notable black, lesbian, feminist scholar — once said "I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own." and in that same spirit, you are not free while any trans person is unfree, even when their shackles are very different from your own.
We must exist in solidarity with each other — it is vital for our collective survival.
jbbartram-illu
dededos
tangentwithtanner
germansingergirl
areudirty
jacobvanloon
2087
