#nonbinary alien stereotype

Why does this need to be explained to people in July 2023.

If you want your nonhumans to be nonbinary, then great! Fucking go for it. But guess what. You also need to have some of those nonhumans be binary trans, identifying as a man or a woman even if it's not ""possible"" for their biology.

And you need to have human characters who are nonbinary and genderless.

If the only nonbinary people in your story aren't human, you are literally sending the message that nonbinary humans don't exist because biological essentialism says so.

[ID: An MS Paint drawing showing a stick figure, labeled, "Cis bioessentialist", in comic sans, drawn with the crayon brush smiling at the camera and pointing over their shoulder, saying, "Yeah, my book has Queer rep! This brick wall is aroace and agender, and uses it/its pronouns!". Behind the stick figure is a 3D brick wall drawing tilted at an angle to the camera. In the foreground, silowets of grey and black represent a crowded audience, as various people say: "Woah…" "This is the most amazing, progressive trans representation I've ever seen!!!" "OMG!!!" "Amazing!" "We stan!!" "It doesn't get any better than this!" "So progressive!" "What a perfect ally!" End ID.]

Looking at The Murderbot Diaries in particular with this post, but this also applies to anything it applies to. If you're thinking, "Does this apply to X?" The answer is probably yes.

And guess what. I'm aroace. I'm nonbinary. My pronouns are it/its. I'm not even human.

You must fucking reckon with the fact that the only reason Murderbot is aroace, agender, and uses it/its pronouns is because it's a robot who doesn't have genitals. It is the metaphorical equivalent of a brick wall in terms of attraction.

And at the same fucking time you must also fucking respect the fact that it is aroace, it is nonbinary, and it does in fact fucking use it/its pronouns and it's touch averse.

The fact that Murderbot was only written this way because of Martha Wells' long-standing bioessentialism does not change the fact that if you erase these traits from Murderbot you are being exorsexist, aroacemisic, and ableist.

"Murderbot is only written to be this way because Martha Wells has a problem with bioessentialism that she has yet to unpack since before 2011 " and "Murderbot is aroace, nonbinary, touch averse, and uses it/its pronouns and if you erase those traits and identities you are erasing the real people who share those traits" are not conflicting statements. They are in fact part of the same fucking sentence.

If you refuse to aknowledge the bioessentialism baked into The Murderbot Diaries (with potentially only one last chance for it to be fixed in System Collapse if she on from the series), you cannot be a true ally to the people that Murderbot represents, because you still don't understand what exorsexism, and amisia, and look like.

How can Martha Wells fix the bioessssentialism rampant in her books? By talking to trans people. Talking to nonbinary people. Talking to aroace people.

By including important, reocurring human nonbinary, aroace, and it/its user characters in her books.

By including robots and other nonhumans who have male and female genders as well as nonbinary ones.

She could very easily have one of the main human characters, say, Mensah? Ratthi? Come out as nonbinary in System Collapse. And have Murderbot either reveal, or remember, that it used to have different pronouns and gender assigned to it, and that it changed those assignments when it hacked its governor module.

Introduce robot characters who are not literally just genderless and attractionless because they're the character equivalent of a brick wall.

If Three comes back, have it explore its sexuality and gender. Because we literally don't even know that its pronouns are it/its because it's not like anyone bothered to fucking ask, because Martha Wells refuses to have characters tell eachother what their pronouns are.

That's no longer just you liking a character, you're now actively upholding the exorsexism that's already in place, by not just refusing to talk about it, not just ignoring the people pointing it out, you're now actively demonizing the people who are calling out the exorsexism.

And that's fucking exorsexist. Yes, even if you are also nonbinary. You do not get to weaponize your nonbinary identity to demonize and silence nonbinary people who actually put the work in to recognize and criticize exorsexism.

You either need to learn to recognize the bigotry in your favorite characters, or at least do everyone a favor and keep your bigotry to yourself.

It's one thing if there's literally no humans in your setting at all. In which case you can do whatever the hell you want. Go make that wolf nonbinary.

But if your setting does have humans? Especially if your setting is dominated by humans? And the only nonbinary characters that we get to see, who actually matter to the story, are all nonhuman animals, robots, aliens, or shapeshifters?

You're literally just perpetuating biological essentialism and saying that you think it's impossible for a real human person to be nonbinary.

Real human nonbinary people are not aliens or animals or shapeshifters. And guess what. They're literally still nonbinary. They have real human genitals and guess what. They're still nonbinary.

Stop praising biological essentialism as the epitome of nonbinary representation when it's literally just saying that real human people can't be nonbinary because they're not literal shapeshifters.

You can have nonbinary nonhumans. But if there are humans in the setting you literally fucking must also have nonbinary humans unless you just want to advertise to everyone that you're exorsexist as fuck.

This is not representation. It's literally just bigotry. And everyone needs to stop cheering for it like it's the most amazing thing ever.

[Image description start: Black text reading, "'Are you a boy, or a girl?'" in a pixely font like from the original Pokemon games. Below this are two sections. One is labeled, "Positive representation", and shows a stick figure smiling and responding, "I'm a shark!". The second section is labeled, "Literally just biological essentialism masquerading as progressiveness:", and shows a shark sticking its head out of the water to reply, "I'm a shark!". Below this split is more text that reads: "If the only nonbinary characters in your setting are nonhuman (including shapeshifters), that's biological essentialism! and that's called bigotry babey! Yes, even if you're also nonbinary!". The words, "even if you're also nonbinary" are italicized for emphasis. End ID.]

Fuck biological essentialism.

It's 2023. If you aren't willing to write main, important human nonbinary characters in a fantasy or scifi setting where humans exist, especially if humans dominate the setting, you're an exorsexist piece of shit, and you should feel bad about it.

Society if, if Martha Wells writes any more Murderbot books, she retroactively fixes a major source of the exorsexism in The Murderbot Diaries by revealing that Murderbot is literally trans and was assigned a different gender and pronouns upon construction, but literally hacked the system to overwrite its gender and pronoun assignments to be "indeterminate" and "it/its" and that, literally as a blatantly observable fact of capitalism that she can and should play off, any employees who did notice just literally did not get paid enough to care enough point it out to any superiors or give a single shit.

Society if Martha Wells introduces more bot and construct character who are binary trans or genderfluid or not literally /just/ agender.

Society if Martha Wells has one of the main reocurring humans characters come out as nonbinary to solidify the fact that literally anyone can be nonbinary and you can figure this out at literally any age or stage of your life, rather than just being something that only robots or aliens can be:

"Nikanj isn't male—and I doubt whether it really cares what either of us wants."

"Don't let him touch you! If you have a choice, keep away from him!"

The refusal to accept Nikanj's sex frightened her because it reminded her of Paul Titus. She did not want to see Paul Titus in Joseph.

"It isn't male, Joseph."

"What difference does that make!"