you control the buttons you press

yes* the image most people have in their heads of a nonbinary person is someone white, thin, lacking breasts, lacking a visible penis, lacking facial hair, lacking makeup, lacking lacking lacking. but why is it that when people critique this image, they never critique the idea that this is how we are defining androgyny? people loving talking about how this image is neutral-masculine as proof it favors transmasculine/FTX people, but there are plenty of transfeminine/MTX people who also go for this neutral-androgynous look.

meanwhile, many nb/gq/gnc people of all assigned sexes and genders are hairy, fat, have breasts (or give themselves breasts), have penises (or give themselves penises), dresses using both feminine and masculine clothing, etc. hell, just look at how stigmatized the androgyny of intersex people with PMOS & other kinds of hyperandrogenism are. the image of a fat hairy person with large breasts and a deep voice is repulsive in patriarchal culture; this is androgyny, too. to act like "androgyny" is one simple thing is to erase how misandrogyny actually functions.

"Oh what if they're wrong—" GOOD, MOTHERFUCKER! If they learn they were wrong but they've gotten immense amounts of support and knowledge from us, guess who's likely to become a valuable ally? What would happen if they were right and you shunned them because you didn't think they're "intersex enough"?? What if they WERE wrong but they're scared of saying it because they think you'll yell at them for "deceiving them" or some equally stupid shit? And ultimately, fuck man, let people be wrong! It doesn't matter as much as you think it does!

Kinda makes me sad even in reblogs of my posts, particularly the intersex ally one recently, where people think they need their doctor's clearance of having an accepted intersex variation to identify as such. Like actually! I don't care about that! You can just pick it up right now if you really want! And figure out the medical shit later! Any person who insists you have to know your variant AND have it professionally diagnosed is not someone worth listening to!

Not necessarily. Horoscopes are a form of divination, and I don't think gender liberation means treating gender as a way of predicting divine will.

What gender would look like would ultimately be up to communities themselves. The idea is that gender is acknowledged as constructed, while also acknowledging that the construction of cultural identities is a natural thing humans do, and that people have a right to want to be a part of their culture/s and to engage in social construction.

Gender could still have meaning. I think its a mistake that we think acknowledging something was made up by humans means there is no or less value in it; humans are a part of the world, culture is a natural thing for our species to create as a way of maintaining social bonds and navigating life, our social constructs are no less meaningful or valuable than a dam made by a beaver. It's just a thing we do. Like many things humans do, gender has become a powerful tool for oppressive systems to control people and exploit them for power. But I don't think our options are "gender has meaning to people, and is a source of harm" or "gender is meaningless and thus cannot harm anyone."

Here are some examples. I'm sure others can do better but I am sick and this is what I came up with

"I was raised afab..." -> "I was socialized as a girl..."

"I was amab so..." -> "I was born with a penis/testes so..."

"As someone afab..." -> "As a man who faced..." / "As a person who..."

"Puberty as someone amab was..." -> "My puberty was..." / "Androgenizing puberty was..." / "During my puberty I..."

"But I'm afab so..." -> "But I'm cis so..." / "But I'm a woman so..."

etc!

I mean sometimes they do yeah. I know a white guy with monolid eyes and zero known Asian ancestors and he absolutely experiences anti-Asian racism on a fairly regular basis because people think he’s mixed Asian/white. I know a woman who was told throughout her life that she was Native as an adoptee with no known history or background who experienced incredibly violent amounts of anti-Native racism until she discovered as an adult through DNA test that she is 100% white. I know white people who tan incredibly dark in the summer comparatively that are constantly accused of being mixed race and experiencing racism due to that, usually anti-Mexican racism perpetrated against white people with Greek or Italian ancestors.

If you think cis butches don’t experience both transphobia and misogyny and homophobia for daring to be women who break gender roles while still holding onto their womanhood you’ve sorely misunderstood just how bad butches have it in this world sorry. If you don’t think cis queens experience transphobia and homophobia and misogyny for daring to be men who break gender roles while being loud and proud about it and still holding onto their manhood then you’ve sorely mistaken just how bad they have it in this world as well.

Not to mention all of the cis men who wear dresses and skirts and makeup and nail polish and heels simply because they like them who experience all of these things. All of the cis straight women who simply just exist but something about them doesn’t pass society’s “woman enough” test, leading to them being caught in bathroom bills and sporting rules and being attacked by people who mistake them for being transgender or gay.

Just like how straight people experience homophobia to such a degree that they literally beat their children out of any potential deviance from rigidly upheld gender roles and let politicians make jokes on national TV about how they’d drown their pre-teen kids if they came out as LGBT. Do you really think a straight kid still figuring themselves out hears that and doesn’t internalize that homophobia? Doesn’t rigidly hold themselves to some impossible standard so that no one could ever possibly think they’re gay? You don’t think straight teenage boys who maybe don’t pass some bully’s straightness test are getting the shit kicked out of them for “being gay” when, surprise, they aren’t? You don’t think all those kids being attacked by their priests and coaches and teachers are being told “this wouldn’t have happened if you weren’t gay” when they’re literally not gay? Do you know how many straight kids had close calls at my school that famously expels all gay kids, because someone made up a believable enough rumor? Do you know how many of them still got their shit kicked in even though administration ultimately decided to let them stay?

All bigotry is violent and all bigotry catches people it doesn’t “intend” to and hurts them as well. It doesn’t matter what someone’s label is, or if they even have one. It matters if the person enacting the violence is doing it because their victim didn’t pass whatever “acceptable enough” test they didn’t know they were being subjected to.

Talk about how most of us can never legally transition because even if legal transition is an option it's typically restricted to the binary.

Talk about how even non-binary gender markers which seem like the solution actually force us into a double bind of either misgendering ourselves constantly or outing ourselves constantly.

Talk about how there is no way to "pass" as non-binary and that the only way to be stealth is to be closeted one way or the other.

Talk about how "non-binary" as a term was meant to be an umbrella term for a myriad of gender identities but was forcibly homogenized into one "third gender" by others.

Talk about how the MOGAI movement which sought to give names to the wide breadth of gender identity and experience was relentlessly mocked both by transphobes and other trans people alike, abandoned by our own communities because our identities were "too weird."

Talk about the slur "theyfab" and its misogynistic and transmisogynistic usage. Talk about how it contributes to the rampant erasure of amab non-binary people and treats all non-binary people as "whiny little wome- i mean afabs."

There is one issue with this whole thing and that is: none of these things that tech bros are advertising are actually inconvenient, and in most cases they're the exact opposite.

Setting up apple pay (in my experience) is a hassle, and is a security vulnerability (the more companies directly connected to your bank, the more likely it is to get hacked), all for what? So you can take 3 less seconds taking out and swiping/inserting a card?

Untangling wired headphones? A hassle sure. Not as much of a hassle as losing only one ear pod, or one ear pod consistently dying faster than the other, or pairing issues, or worse sound quality at a higher price because it's wireless. How is any of that more convenient? It's like the same amount of convenience

Or how about siri and google always missing hearing what you say? Censoring swears despite being an adult? Going off when you don't say it's name?

Having algorithms currate your own feed leading to echo chambers, and radicalization pipelines, and making it harder to find the stuff you want,with yts new horrible search algorithm etc etc

None of these are more convenient, they're the same amount or worse. But guess what? They make money. So they're sold as convenient.

i feel like online discourse around neurodivergence has led us to both trivialize the actual impairment associated with these conditions while simultaneously pathologizing normal variations in human personality

like i have no problems sustaining attention or prioritizing tasks. i do not struggle with socializing or interpreting abstract language or concepts. i have strong emotional regulations abilities.