#*lgbt

These venues don’t allow children. Children are not meant to be there. A food worker holding her kid in a club doesn’t mean the venue is for kids.

But they know that screaming and harassing people outside of a building where dozens of children are present—which would actually be relevant to their point, even if it’s dumb—wouldn’t look good.

And it also doesn’t achieve their true goal. It’s not about kids. It’s just the newest rebrand of ol’ fashion homophobia and transphobia.

They do not want us to have our own spaces. They do not want us to congregate in public. They do not want us to feel safe. They don’t want us in their neighborhoods or on their streets. And they have proven time and time again that they will use every means—including violence—to remove us.

Now, that isn’t me saying that there aren’t children and teens who identify as trans while not actually being transgender.

It’s just I think these individuals are primarily preteen and teen girls, and like other disorders (like eating disorders) there is not a singular identifiable cause of this phenomenon.

There is nothing people have said that convinces me that it's a legitimate gender. Other then self-reporting, there is not sufficient neurological data to support the existence of a non-binary gender like there is to support the gender incongruence of binary trans people.

I think a lot of the gender dysphoria described by non-binary individuals is either gender dysphoria that is actually binary or is actually body dysmorphia or poor body image miscategorized as gender dysphoria.

Without gender dysphoria, you cannot be transgender. So that also eliminates a lot of non-binary individuals who don't report gender dysphoria. I also believe gender euphoria and gender dysphoria are two sides of the same coin. It cannot exist without gender dysphoria.

I did used to believe in non-binary genders. When I was a middleschooler I actually identified as non-binary for some time. This was 13 years ago when tumblr was still relatively new. Until I met my friend who was actually transgender and was able to see what gender dysphoria entailed. We were not the same.

2/2 And after I told that person how kids can be LGBT and that sexuality doesn't change with age, they said: lEsBiAnS cAn ThInK tHeY'E iN lOvE wItH mEn" and changed my definition of lesbian from "women who only attracted to women" to "non-men attracted to non-men*". And they in the end added: "and the feeling was friendship. Thank you for coming to my TED talk". I was at my fucking limit so I gave up and blocked them, didn't want to continue that.

That's annoying. I know some people hate when others say this, but sometimes it needs to be said: they're fictional characters. We could argue about what their "real" sexual orientation is all day. I think the easiest and most obvious answer is that she is bisexual.

Compulsive heterosexuality is a thing. But I also know women who thought they were lesbians, thought the men they dated were just due to comphet, but realized later they've been bisexual this entire time. It can go on forever. Even with historical people, we often don't know the true answer because life is complicated and we can't read anyone's mind. We don't know if their sexual orientation was straight forward their entire life, if they secretly were gay or bisexual, how accurate the words they were using at the time were to their actual sexual orientation.

I think trying to get so meta about something like this in children's fiction especially is unnecessary. And then there's the context of Adventure Time. Fictional characters don't live in our world. Comphet isn't really discussed--the culture and morals of the world are completely different; comphet might not even exist.

They’re not women. They insist they’re not women, and differentiate themselves from us. That’s fine. The problem is that they feel like it’s appropriate to insert themselves into groups and relationships that don’t include them.

There’s a lot of discussion about how it isn’t fair women are expected to put their needs last and be accommodating to other people even at the expense of our wellbeing and comfort. Yet we’re expected to placate the feelings of people who unnecessarily insert themselves into exclusive spaces made by women, for women, and for women’s interests.

I do not care if they feel “connected” to womanhood. It’s not about connection. It’s not about proximity. It’s about what you are. And they are not women, plain and simple.

To be frank, it’s not even about you! If you’re not a woman, women’s groups aren’t about you or how you feel. We don’t need to take that into consideration.

If you’re going to differentiate yourself from women, you don’t get to turn around and access the exclusive groups we’ve made for ourselves. Especially not when there exists non-binary and coed groups that do include them, that apply to them, and where they are welcome.

This also applies to lesbianism. Lesbianism is for women. If you’re not a woman, you’re not a lesbian. It doesn’t matter if you’re a 13 year-old boy who thinks he’s a genius because he “likes girls too, so that makes (him) a lesbian” or if you’re a 38 year-old non-binary person. You’re not a lesbian. You’re also not sapphic or a WLW.

But I can’t just stand by and watch as lesbians and gay men/boys struggle with their sexual orientation because of the pressure to not only be “inclusive” in their sexual attraction, but also the expansive label system that has been created which can easily guide sexually repressed teenagers down a path of convincing themselves they’re straight and “demisexual” instead of gay.

It’s depressing that people (particularly women and girls) are figuring out at 16, 20, 24 years old that they’ve been gay/lesbian this entire time but grew up in an environment where they were presented labels that can easily reinforce heteronormativity.

When you grow up in an environment where straight is the default and being gay/lesbian is now being called descriminatory you can easily repress your own sexual orientation with the logic that “Oh, I just haven’t connected with the right woman/man yet. I’m not gay/lesbian, I’m a straight demisexual.”

And that’s why the “how and when” of sexual orientation isn’t just unnecessary, but can also be damaging to the LGBT community.