Iβm tired of pretending this isnβt a problem.
Iβm a 21 year old trans man. Iβve known who I am since I was 7. I learned the language to describe it when I was 12. Iβve been openly trans since I was 13. I have diagnosed gender dysphoria the kind that wrecks your brain and your body, the kind that makes living in the wrong skin unbearable, and the kind thatβs been at the core of what being transgender actually means for decades.
And letβs be clear about something: gender dysphoria is not new. It didnβt just appear out of nowhere in 2013. Gender dysphoria was first formally recognized onΒ July 6th, 1919, in Berlin, Germany, at the Institute of Sexual Science (also known as Sexology). That institute became a refuge for early trans people and a pioneering center for gender-affirming medical research. But onΒ May 6th, 1933, the Nazis raided and burned it down in one of their infamous book burnings. With that destruction, much of the early research and recognition of gender dysphoria was deliberately erased from history. The condition itself never went away it resurfaced 80 years later in medical documentation, but it had already existed and been treated long before.
This is important: older trans people didnβt just wake up one day and decide who they were. They received medical care, diagnoses, and transition-related treatment because gender dysphoria has always been acknowledged, even when history tried to bury it. So when I emphasize this, itβs not gatekeeping itβs grounding ourselves in reality. These have always been the rules.
So let me be blunt: You need gender dysphoria to be transgender. Otherwise, youβre not trans. Youβre gender nonconforming and thatβs fine, but donβt water down what this word means. Trans isnβt a vibe. Itβs not a trend. Itβs not an aesthetic or a game of pronoun dress-up. Itβs a painful, often dangerous path of confronting your body, your past, your identity, and society just to be seen as who you are.
Iβve been discriminated against, mocked, misgendered, physically assaulted, and calledΒ βitβΒ to my face like I was some kind of creature. That word was never cute or quirky, it was used to dehumanize me. So when I see people online choosingΒ it/itsΒ as pronouns and saying itβs empowering or βnonbinary,β I genuinely canβt wrap my head around it. Youβre free to use whatever language feels right to you, but letβs not pretend it doesnβt come with history. For those of us who were calledΒ βitβΒ not by choice but out of hate, itβs not gender-neutral. Itβs erasure.
When it comes to neopronouns, I personally struggle with them Iβve tried to use noun-based neopronouns in sentences, and they just donβt function naturally in the way pronouns are meant to. That said, I do accept and respect pronouns likeΒ ze/zemΒ when someone is fluent in a heavily gendered language that lacks gender-neutral pronouns. In that context, creating and using an alternative makes sense because it fills a real linguistic gap. But in English, whereΒ they/themΒ already works as a neutral option, many of the newer noun-based neopronouns often end up feeling more like self-dehumanization than empowerment, which honestly just makes me feel sad. I wish the people using them saw enough value in themselves not to adopt identifiers rooted in being treated as βother.β
We fight for hormones. We fight for surgery. We fight to be taken seriously and when you tell the world that βyou donβt need dysphoria to be trans,β you erase everything we went through to survive. You donβt get to rewrite the definition and then shame people like me for calling it out. This isnβt gatekeeping, itβs protecting the meaning of a word that saved my life.
And while weβre at it, I donβt care if people want to use neopronouns likeΒ kit/kitselfΒ orΒ bun/bunselfΒ as nicknames, for OCs, or as personal flair. Go for it. But letβs stop pretending these are real, gendered pronouns tied to an actual identity in the same wayΒ he/him, she/her,Β andΒ they/themΒ are. They arenβt. The more you push made-up pronouns as valid genders, the more fuel you give to transphobes who already donβt take any of us seriously. Youβre not helping the community youβre making it harder for people who actually need to transition to survive, to be seen, heard, and respected.
You can identify however you want. But stop hijacking βtransgenderβ and stop acting like criticism is oppression. Weβve earned the right to speak up.
