2/3 the white gender binary and are acting in bad faith. B wasn’t just ‘denying’ the term to white nbs but denying the power/privilege dynamic underlying the idea of ‘binary privilege’ as something trans poc can have over white nbs. The reasoning behind this is not hard to understand, and it’s pretty damning that white nbs merely gave lip-service to the idea while trying to repackage the original concept, then pointed to their own ~confusion (the fact that they can’t get B’s conclusions to fit

3/3 their preestablished framework) to say agreeing to it was a mistake. It was never just about who can use which term, but about the concepts and frameworks being employed.

I am going to give this one more shot, as you are clearly operating in good faith, but I feel like we’re talking past each other.

You are right, I made a mistake when I said “binary trans people.” As I said at the time, and several times since, I was operating on memory of the event. I was wrong, and I am sorry for that.

However, you seem to think that I will eventually agree with you that the underlying concepts which are called binarism or exorsexism are faulty.

I will not, because in my opinion they are not faulty. This is where Biyuti and I disagree, and are unlikely to ever agree.

It’s also interesting to me that you continue to characterize everyone who disagreed as being white, when that is demonstrably untrue. Neither myself (as you well know) nor the person who created “exorsexism” (as I expect you know), nor a great many other people of color who disagree with biyuti on this subject are “white nb’s who gave lip service while trying to repackage the original concept.”

You seem to be operating on the assumption that every descriptor for a type of oppressive force requires the existence of a contrary privilege.

This is untrue.

Just because exorsexism exists does not mandate that binary trans people have privilege over nonbinary people. It means that the way they are attacked by the gender binary looks different. 

There are many examples of this complexity in existence. Let’s take, for example, allism (the centering of non-autistic people in society). 

Allism undeniably exists, but there is no “allistic privilege,” there are plenty of people who ADHD, PDs, Down’s, and a host of other neurodivergences who are also not centered in society. But the way ableism (the broader centering of neurotypical and able bodied people) affects them looks different than the way it affects autistic people.

The same is true in race. My girlfriend is first nations, and I am levantine. Both of us are people of color. But orientalism, racism against people from asia, looks different than anti-native racism. Neither of us is treasured and protected by white supremacy, and yet, both of us experience very different kinds of racism and imperialism. 

Over and over, we see the same oppressive systems manifesting differently against different groups, and label them accordingly.

However, in the context of queer theory, there is a desperate urge to present one or another group as privileged rather than different. And so, any discussion of unique manifestations of oppression is hampered by this unnecessarily commitment to privilege dynamics.

We saw this happen with binarism, which was decided to contain a “binary privilege” even though it does not, and thus the entire word and underlying framework were declared invalid. And so, for years, discussions of nonbinary identity and experience were hampered by people feeling they were not allowed to describe their own lives and experiences. 

We saw this happen with monosexism, which was decided to contain “monosexual privilege,” even though is does not, and thus the entire word and underlying framework were declared invalid. And so, for years, multiply-attracted people were denied the opportunity to talk about their own lives, because it was “inaccurate” to do so.

We are still seeing this happen with allosexism, amatonormativity and dyadism, all of which are currently being declared unacceptable because people assume a privilege dynamic where none is required. 

If a-spec identities describe how you experience attraction rather than who you are attracted to, the argument that allo privilege cannot exist because LGB+ people are marginalized for their attraction is invalid.

*sigh*

I really like the Robot Hugs comic, but their strip today about tone policing felt to me like it painted such an incomplete picture.

Like, on the one hand, it’s important to call out tone policing when it happens as described in the comic -- in a way that fails to draw a distinction between emotionality and irrationality. Or when it happens in a way that’s oblivious to context, in a way that disrupts pockets of safe space.

It made an important point, but that important point looks misleading to me without what I see as the other half of the way the phrase “Tone Policing” gets used.

That is, when people -- (depending on how you define the word) -- “Tone police” by reacting to these kinds of situation:

1) Anger about oppression -- rather than just being expressed -- gets directed at a specific person/group in a way that’s hurtful and out of proportion with that persons/group’s behavior.

When people react to that, I feel like I’ve seen it get labelled as “tone policing,” but, like, I think it’s important to be able to denounce that kind of behavior. It’s important to me to protect people from situations where they’re treated as the mistakes they make first and as a human being second. And to denounce that treatment in a way that still acknowledges how important the underlying problems are that people are reacting to.

2) People explain oppression and privilege in ways that are genuinely untruthful, which is super easy to mistake for explaining it in a way that’s passionate. Like how saying, “Everyone in such-and-such group makes fun of me,” may not be true, but tends to feel true in the context of the emotions a person has about it.

So when someone says, “wait, that’s not actually true,” that gets labeled as “tone policing,” even though the thing they’re reacting is not the tone, but the idea being communicated.

Example two presents a complicated question, because I certainly do think having spaces where people are allowed to exaggerate this way is super important. Just because the correction is not specifically about tone doesn’t mean it’s automatically okay to correct someone that way.

But it’s also true that I’ve found it amazingly helpful to be in spaces where that kind of exaggeration gets respectfully called out. Helpful in terms of being able to communicate effectively, and in terms of being more able to cope with my own anger and hurt. Helpful in terms of being able to think clearly, and not feel overwhelmed all the time, and have faith in humanity.

And frankly, when I’m in a space like tumblr, I feel like the social norms are heavily slanted toward not questioning the wording/thinking distortions that go hand-in-hand with anger, generalized hatred, paranoia, and despair.

I think that’s bad for my mental health, and bad for my capacity to deal with the forms of oppression I deal with in my life. It makes me more paranoid to hear all the exaggerations and oversimplifications about how violent and dangerous men are. It makes me less happy to be told that thus-and-such group hates me, when a five minute conversation with someone from that group would prove that they like me very much, but are under-informed about certain aspects of my life.

I guess my point is, the umbrella of things that get called tone policing is more broad than I feel like that comic deals with. It involves a variety of motivations and moral grey areas, and I’m really tired of seeing grey areas get swept under a giant rug of “they just do this to oppress us.”

Which, like, I don’t want to undermine the truth that sometimes tone policing is as simple as a tool for oppression, used consciously or unconsciously by a privileged person. That’s true. That’s important. I don’t want to silence that message.

I’m just frustrated, and I’ve been frustrated about this for a while. I feel like a comic I respect has contributed to the thing I find frustrating. I guess that brought things to the surface for me.

Also the expansion of phobia phrasing and privilege phrasing into areas it doesn't apply or would be obnoxiously redundant (butchphobia, vanilla privilege)