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gender theory

this is not an invitation for any more bad faith discourse but after some reflection (and please know I am speaking in generalizations there are always exceptions)

the main reason i wanted language for "transandrophobia" is because of the oddly hostile, shitty, assumptive behavior people project out since post transition.

i've felt misogyny and this is not misogyny.

i got a nice reminder of what being percieved as woman was like the other day because i chose to go out in drag.

people asking where the organizer of the event was, then literally talking over me or acting like i didn't exist, ignoring requests. makeup & a feminine outfit, magical juice that makes your voice inaudible unless you yell. bullshit. Also, misogyny is serious, misogyny can lead to death and violence, transmisogyny multiplies that risk. I don't want that downplayed. trans men can experience misogyny in a way that de-genders us, or misdirected transmisogyny. but there's this other thing.

and it does impact you: being randomly treated like a threat, having bad intent assumed, putting up with hostility for no apparent reason, being expected to put up with put-downs and mean spirited jokes, having trauma projected onto you, being perceived as and told your body is gross, undesirable, being perceived as a creep, or weird and perverted for being or wanting to be pregnant, being assumed unsafe for kids or "sus" because of perceived masculinity.

this is not MISOGYNY. AND GET THIS! these are things trans women experience too /for being perceived or misgendered as masculine or male/ so hear me out:

what if there were a word that could encompass the transphobic demonization of masculinity that is experienced across the artificial trans binary divide? (because intersex people who do not identify as trans exist and can experience this) because both trans men and women also do experience particular flavors of misogyny if outed/clocked. but I really, really really really really need to dig into this:

n, that part of the reason white trans men don't get targeted for as much violence as white trans women is that often we get de-gendered into the category of "woman" which equals "harmless" while trans women are denied that category, and assigned into "male" which equals "dangerous" in TERF ideology but once passable as male, also occupy this territory and experience disgust, vitriol, and abuse. What i am trying badly to articulate is actually that trans people serves AS SCAPEGOATS FOR CIS MEN. PERIOD. like if you see masculinity in a trans person you can punish them for it on a level which people don't feel impunity to do to cis men. trans men can try to retain protection by identifying as women, which trans women are not afforded. so the privilege is not aligned with whom is seen as most woman-like and targeted by misogyny, but with whom can escape being the sacrificial lamb for the violence cis men are not being held accountable for. so this is all because cis men are an (invisibly) protected class - but also the first victims of other cis men, as boys. bell hooks dives into this in The Will to Change. TERF ideology is extremely slippery. it is actually patriarchal to play this "women are the ultimate victims" card even if you're doing so as an attempt to validate trans women. Being perceived as a woman and experiencing misogyny for that is different than the experience of being punished for perceived gender divergence, for violating the holy category of manhood. BUT YOU AREN'T SUPPOSED TO CALL IT THAT. Patriarchal men refuse first and foremost, to acknowledge they are /protected/ as a class, but this refusal, to equal the playing field, is invisible and creates a culture of intense abuse in the ranks of that class. Its not directly analogous but its like white people refusing to acknowledge they have white supremacist notions and live in a system that protects them, meanwhile tolerating and covering up extreme abuse within that system to ourselves because of this completely baseless assumption that the protection is meaningful.

Men are only protected so long as they play the game, and they get more chances to fuck up. But its more comfortable within patriarchy to treat women as the sacred protected class. To paint women as victims, plagued by eternal suffering. To do so obfuscates both the perpetrator of the violence - we don't have a problem with battered women, we actually have a problem with abusive men, who are equal human beings who can and should be held to task for acts of abuse. So women can appear to fight patriarchy all while continuing it by not perceiving the cisheteronormative, colonial gender binary as a tool of control. Flipping the script logically, that if women are inherently victims, men are inherently abusers. And then this gets weaponized against men of color, used to aggress trans women, and attempt to pass on the patriarchy-perpetuating victim complex to white trans men by getting us to see ourselves as wronged women. Not gonna lie, that got me for awhile. I am someone who was wronged by men (and women) due to misogynist perceptions. I am also someone who has experienced far more alienation, social pain, aggression, and psychological abuse since I began being perceived as a man. And not just from men. No, men actually, have started being much nicer to me comparatively, when I pass until I violate some presuppostion of how men are supposed to act (until becoming fag in their eyes or trannyboy hole or whatever, some are respectful but I do my best not to out myself to men for safety reasons). maybe nicer is not the word, they are kinda mean to eachother, but they treat me for awhile like I'm in on the joke. Of course, I'm not, don't know the material, and am usually hypervigiliant the entire time. no, what sucks is the loss of women's community, exclusion from it, if you really buy into manhood and try to integrate into Dudes World (or gay cis men's world even tbh), its like being alone and sent out to these people you've been taught your whole life are dangerous, and losing your support because now you are dangerous (even if you haven't yet assimilated into toxic masculinity). and then on top of that, people with beef against men, suddenly have a perfect practice target for accountability, punishment, etc. You start enjoying your masculinity and women come out of the woodwork to shit on men and maleness and masculinity and its not the worst thing ever to happen, but its difficult emotion terrain. Especially when they then revoke your right to speak about actual misogyny you did or do experience... Trans men get abused to fuck, y'all, especially Black trans men in America, and trans men have the highest suicide rate among identity divides in trans people. I genuinely hate the co-optation of transsexuality with cissexual gender non-conformity (like being cissexual and using they/them pronouns) because then trans men start getting thrown in with "theyfabs" WHO I MAY ADD, are the "acceptable targets" for people's gripes with women. Non-binary people perceived as male it seems experienced the same kind of things trans men who develop "male" traits like beer bellies, chin clefts, yada yada you know the body parts used to caricature trans women as well, do. I.e. get treated shitty within the community as a proxy for people's issues with men. Do you see? Because of cis men's protected status, masculinity in the trans community can make you the scapegoat. Like when people on here were on one accusing gender non-conforming cis butches of male privilege. Because its easier to hold Frankie accountable and process your daddy trauma on her psyche, than it is to go fight your actual fucking dad or get your rapist a guilty verdict. Its easier to mock the fuck out of trans men than it is to confront how abusive cis society is to trans people and how impossible it is to hold cis men or women accountable. Trans women can certainly recount how they get held responsible for everyone's mommy issues and problems with women, in the community.

One more caveat: I also don't know if I have been conflating my experiences being autistic, with being perceived as a trans man, as a lot of hostility I face confuses me and even my friends and may be due to flat affect, or missing social cues, or something. But it gets compounded with masculinity, instead of being an awkward girl, I am now a "creep" for awkward behavior. I actively intervene at bars sometimes when clearly autistic or DD men are missing social cues, making people uncomfortable, and everyone is being cruel about it, and go talk to them. Because they deserve to know how to interact safely & pro-socially if they want to, not just made into a scapegoat for conventionally attractive allistic cis men whom, we know, have a fucking vice grip on our psyches. I want some avenue of respect that isn't participating in toxic patriarchal culture (losing game), or becoming a lapdog who will beat itself up on command. What I've settled on is taking Mr. Rogers and LeVar Burton as models of masculinity internally while also toughening and hardening up externally to deal with shit, and keeping my emotions to myself in real life (which is why they come out all over the place online), but honestly....I'm a needy, hyper, silly fagboy inside. I hate feeling like the only avenue to become expressive is through femininity that gives me dysphoria sometimes, because people react so weirdly to seeing a tough lookin dude with gay wrists, prancing around. But I'm really fighting it now, tapping back into that spiritual philosophical gender fluidity that is the inherent being of my nature - being queer shouldn't be about sexuality or even gender so much as the right to be who the fuck you are, full stop, whole human being in all complex dimensions, and asserting the right to that for everyone. So idk maybe transandrophobia isn't it, but we need to have better discussions about power dynamics that aren't "woman good man bad" for the love of christ. That's something I wanted to articulated, and now I've stayed up all night doing so. Gnight!

No offense but are you sure you want to have characters who require a gender study book to understand? Not to mention how hard to read it will be if they keep switching pronouns.

no offense but it's actually not that hard to understand at all. we can start with some basic vocabulary:

non-binary: a term for people whose gender identity does not fall within the traditional, western societal gender binary of man or woman. non-binary identities have existed for millennia and are found in various cultures and societies around the world.

transgender: this is an adjective used to describe someone who does not feel that their gender identity aligns with the gender they were assigned at birth. this includes trans binary people and non-binary people. trans people have always existed, and anyone that tries to tell you otherwise is factually incorrect.

gender identity: this is a person's own internal sense of self - what they know their gender is. someone is a man, or a woman, or a person, or various other terms and identities that exist outside the binary (like genderqueer, agender, bigender, etc). someone's identity is not always outwardly visible, since some people may express their gender differently than what is traditionally expected of them.

gendered pronouns: include he/she/they/zie/xe/ey/fae etc. this is how you refer specifically to a person when you are talking about them (or in this case, reading about them). some languages already have a gender-neutral pronoun that allows you to not ascribe gender to a person that you are not familiar with (for english, it's singular they). nb!Lea and Clementine both use they/them. pronouns are a part of someone's gender presentation, or gender expression, and some people use more than one set of pronouns.

gender presentation: how a person presents themself - typically in regard to fashion as well as pronouns and various other external characteristics. this is how the person chooses to express their gender identity. gender presentation does not always coincide with traditional gender stereotypes - this is gender nonconformity. a woman can present masculine. a man can present feminine. some people do neither, or both. a non-binary person can be gender nonconforming, they can be feminine or masculine or whatever they want; they are still non-binary.

Noel is a non-binary person who uses two sets of pronouns alternatively. he has a more traditionally feminine gender expression but still prefers traditionally masculine gendered terms. xe likes to wear makeup and dresses and likes to be called "sir." alternating pronouns for xem is very easy - i just did it. a little bit of practice and you can do it just as easily.

if you're worried about getting confused in scenes with m!Lea, don't worry, it's already something i am being careful about. it's something i've always considered with my gender-selectable characters, and is why i previously changed Noel's nb pronouns to begin with, since i didn't want it to be confusing in group scenes with Clementine and nb!Lea.

of course, there are plenty of games where all ROs are genderlocked one way or the other, and have the same pronouns - people don't seem to have any problem differentiating characters in those games when all the ROs are together, and i'm sure people will have no trouble with my game, either. or maybe this is just your first time reading about a character with neopronouns, which in that case - how exciting! the more you read the more familiar you will get with how these pronouns work.

if you're still confused then maybe you should pick up one of those "gender study books", i'm sure it will help. or you can use google, which is probably easier. there are plenty of lgbt and trans resources online now if you are curious to learn more. the older you get and the more people you meet the more you are going to realize that not everyone has the same experiences as you, and sometimes you may not understand something right away; that's not a bad thing. it's a chance to learn something new, and a chance to better understand people that are different than you.

and, no offense, but if it's too difficult for you to spend a few minutes searching this stuff up, if it's too difficult for you to have an open mind and consider other people & their identities & their experiences, then maybe this story isn't for you, and you can go back to reading all the other IF games and romance novels that were made for you with their cishet love interests & non-existent trans or gay characters.

trust me, there are plenty of those, with all the gender stereotypes and boring gender roles you could want. that's why i'm writing this game with all the trans characters i want :-)

What is an Achillean Femme?

I am a queer person, I have been for as long as I can remember. As a young boychild, I was very feminine. I loved pretending to be Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz (very on-the-nose) and lip-syncing to Britney Spears songs with my sister. As an adolescent, I came to describe myself as gay, and through YouTube and Tumblr, came to better understand my gayness. Around 18, I began identifying as non-binary. Now at age 26, I have coined (as far as I can tell) a new term for my queerness that descibes both my sexuality and my gender identity: achillean femme.

The LGBTQIA+ wiki page for achillean says that “achillean refers to a man or man-aligned individual who is attracted to other men and man-aligned people''. The same wiki’s page on the term femme says that “femme.. often refers to a person of queer gender expression [or identity] that embraces, reclaims, or subverts their culture's understanding of what it means to be feminine.” I think that the term is pretty self-explanatory once you understand the terms that comprise it. An achillean femme is an achillean person, meaning a man or someone who identifies within the realm of manhood, who is a femme or describes themselves as feminine. 

I love the term achillean because it makes sense to folks who have been apart of the gay male or man-loving-man community and spaces for any amount of time. Achilleans who are 60, 70, 80 years old know “gay men” who are feminine and flamboyant who barely align with any societal definition of manhood yet are lumped in as gay men. They also known bisexual men in the community who have called themselves gay for decades, eventhough they’ve always been attracted to, and been with, folks of other genders. Millenial and Gen Z achilleans are more and more describing themselves as non-binary and not aligning themselves with the terms “gay man” or “gay male” because they do not see themselves as cisgender men, even as they still identify within the realm of gay manhood. I believe that many of these folks would feel much more comfortable using a term like achillean that allows them linguistic space within the MLM community without confining them to strict identification as monosexual and/or cisgender men.

The term femme has taken me longer to come around to using. I love the term femme, but trans-exclusionary discourse in online feminist spaces for a long time gatekept me out of using the term to describe myself. I feared that cis lesbians and cis sapphic women would dogpile on me online and try and dox me for being a person assigned male at birth who describes themselves as a femme. It has lesbians and sapphics on twitter and tumblr, many of whom are non-binary and trans themselves, who helped me overcome this fear and embrace my femmeness. No two femmes are the same, there are as many experiences of femininity as there are feminine people, but what unites us is a common understanding of our devaluation under patriarchy and the experience of empowerment that we feel when we live authentically into our feminine inner-light. My femmeness is energetic, funny, and contagious. When I am being my femme, fairy self, people enjoy being around me. Living out my authentic feminine soul, allows others to do the same. That makes me happy.

So who are achillean femmes? Achillean femmes are fat non-binary bearded ladies like myself. Achillean femmes are magical fairy gays who strut into a gay club in a jock strap, butterfly wings, platform heals, and a tiara. Achillean femmes are drag queens of many stripes. Achillean femmes are the queeny old gays at brunch in a kaftan, sharing gossip, drinking mimosas. Achillean femmes are the trans fags who are often excluded from predominantly cis gay male settings and continue to fuck with gender anyways. Achillean femmes are anyone and everyone who feels at home in a gay club and a tea party. Achillean femmes are cis men, trans men, non-binary AMAB and AFAB people, intersex folks, and genderqueers. If you love your femininity, however you define it, and you love guys, dudes, bros, lumberjacks, bears, muscle daddies, hunks, and twinks then you are probably an achillean femme. If you are none of these things but the term feels right to you then join me, let’s be fags together! Let’s be achillean femmes!

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Flag Design: Flag uses the achillean flag design (created by Trumblr user pridenpositivity in 2016) as a base and then pulls colors from the femme flag design (created in 2017 and posted by the noodle tumblr blog). The final design is mine and was created and posted by tumblr user achilleanfemme on December 12, 2022.

I wish I could relate to general trans culture, but I don't. I never had to deal with the overwhelming internalized transphobia by transmedicalists. I haven't dealt with being demonized because of my birth gender, instead of the general misogyny that's not necessarily to do with being trans, or about being socialized as one's agab. I never had to deal with overwhelming dysphoria to the point I need medical transition.

At best, if I called myself trans, I'd probably be called by a "transtrender" back 5 years ago. But I didn't identify as trans or nonbinary 5 years ago.

I still have to deal with transphobia, weird misgendering, terf bullshit, etc. But not to the same amount as other people, as I am heavily closeted and still gender express as feminine.

But I am multigender, I will never have a normal trans experience, and it kinda makes me feel alienated from the trans community. I don't identify as trans, but as nonbinary, because I feel like I'm not allowed to exist in that community. I still somewhat identify with my agab, I am still multigender.

I align with more, funky silly gender, playing with gender, performing unique gender. And that's the place I feel like I belong. I don't really belong with binary trans people and that's sad. Unfortunately, I will be seen as cis by some transmedicalist or very binary trans people.

So like, when I talk about trans issues, know that I don't feel welcome necessarily, but I will support innocent people's opinions. Like, I believe in transandrophobia, because I've enacted some of it, when I was younger. I think transfems deserve respect as well. But I don't belong in the transmasc and transfem binary. I don't belong in either category, and I feel alienated from it. Even if part of me is technically transmasc, my male alters don't necessarily identify with the body regardless of what I do.

So like. I am surely affected by transphobia too, but its strange for me. I feel more cis than binary trans people and feel more trans than cis people. And it's a strange dichotomy. Maybe one day all of us with unique, conflicting or controversial genders will find a place to belong. I deserve to be a man in a skirt sometimes, I deserve to be a pretty girl, I deserve to be an eboy, I deserve to be a man with long hair, I deserve to be a sapphic princess. And I deserve to exist outside of the binary, whether I'm a faerie or a dragon or a crow, or some type of magical creature, with no concept or regard to gender, whether I am an alien where they're all the same. I deserve to freely express that, even if people still see me as non-passing. I will never pass.

I will never be what the trans or cis community had in mind. But I will always be nonbinary. And that's the place I belong.

An Essay on Trans Genocide

Content warnings for genocide, violence, transphobia/queerphobia, and mentions of the holocaust and CSA/child abuse

There's no question that minorities have always been the target of violence throughout history. There's no shortage of examples of minorities being targeted, both by individuals and governments as a whole, and the world has seen many genocides as a result of this kind of violence. One of the most well known and recent examples is the holocaust; the truly devastating and unforgiveable genocide that took over 11 million lives, most of which were Jewish and Roma people. As a jew myself, I still see and live with the effects of the holocaust in my own community and I believe that we will never truly recover from it. And I believe that it is the duty of all of us to make sure that the world never again sees that kind of horror. 

The Montreal Holocaust Museum released a list of the ten stages of genocide - things we should all look out for to ensure this never happens again - and here in the US we have progressed dangerously far down this list, with trans and queer people being the targets of such violence. As stated on the Holocaust Museum's website, these stages may happen in any order or concurrently.

The first stage of genocide is classification. Classification is when groups of people in power start highlighting and categorizing people based on a minority status, and employing an us vs them mentality. I believe this stage began when the controversy of trans people using public bathrooms entered the public sphere. Both individuals and politicians started believing and spreading the idea that allowing trans people, especially trans women and trans feminine people, in public bathrooms posed a risk and threat to cisgender people and children in particular. It became a very widespread belief that trans people couldn't have the right to use the bathroom that aligns with their gender without cis people losing the rights to privacy and safety in public bathrooms. Obviously this was never truly the case, but it was heavily emphasized and publicized that there was no compromise to be reached and that both groups could not have rights at the same time. This idea of having to choose one or the other is clearly using the us vs them mentality outlined in stage one.  Even now, we see states like Arkansas trying to criminalize trans people in public bathrooms, with the most recent legislation proposed that would charge all trans adults in public bathrooms with minors present with sex crimes against children.

The second stage of genocide is symbolization. Symbolization is when people are identified as being a part of a minority group and made to stand out from the rest of society with certain colors or symbolic articles of clothing. I believe this stage is much more complicated in modern times and especially in the US in these circumstances. Since sodomy laws were repealed and gay marriage was legalized nationwide, and in large part due to a culture shift especially in the workforce and professional world, queer people now feel much more comfortable and safe to experiment with fashion, gender expression outside the binary, body mods, and alternative fashion than ever before in history. A majority of modern alternative fashion subcultures also originated from early queer fashion, and these things have been culturally important to queer people for a long time. While not all queer and trans people enjoy expressing themselves this way, (and certainly not all people who enjoy these things are queer or trans), an ever growing number of us do, and all of these things stand out as a stark contrast between the christian values of a culturally christian nation. We have yet to be symbolically identified because a majority of the people pushing this genocide believe that queer and trans people can be identified by appearance alone. 

The third stage of genocide is discrimination. Discrimination is when majority groups use political power to deny the rights of minority groups. The minority groups may be denied civil rights and even citizenship in some cases. There are so many examples of queer and especially trans people facing systemic discrimination that I would need to write a whole other essay to even begin to scratch the surface of this issue. One example - and one of the fastest escalating - of this discrimination is trans people being denied healthcare and discriminated against be medical professionals. According to the National Transgender Discrimination survey, lead jointly by The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and The National Center for Transgender Equality, 1 in 5 trans people have been outright denied medical care because of their gender identity or expression (out of a sample size of 6,450 people from all 50 states and multiple US territories, with an average racial distribution compared to the US population). I am personally among this group, and was denied further testing to rule out breast cancer because of my gender identity. Dozens of bills have been introduced with the intention of banning trans people from receiving medical care, or banning insurance and doctors from covering and providing medical care to trans people. There is legislation being proposed practically every week now in different states that would forcibly detransition and deny healthcare for both trans children and trans adults, and there are already states such as Tennessee that have passed the legislation to take away access to hormones and puberty blockers, which is outright denying life saving medical care to trans people. Another example is employment discrimination, with only 23 states explicitly banning it for both queer and trans people. Trans people are routinely denied jobs because of their gender and routinely face harassment from bosses and coworkers when they are employed. This list goes on a terrifyingly long time, and dozens of new discrimination bills are being released weekly. 

The fourth stage of genocide is dehumanization. Dehumanization is when a minority group is seen as less than human, and this idea is spread through propaganda. The majority group compares the minority group to animals, insects, diseases, predators, and criminals. This propaganda and dehumanization started around the same time as the controversy of trans people using public bathrooms. It started as transphobes spreading the idea that trans people only wanted to be allowed in bathrooms because they are sexual predators who want to prey on women and children in these spaces, and it has only escalated from there. When monkeypox had an outbreak and started spreading, news outlets as well as politicians spread a propaganda similar to that spread in the 80's about HIV, calling mokeypox the new "gay disease" and talking about how it was a divine punishment for degenerates and sexual deviants. Recently, West Virginia released a bill that would criminalize trans people for even being in the vicinity of children, with the idea that trans people are so disgusting and so predatory that children even seeing them should be a criminal offence. Another sentiment that's gaining popularity is that trans and queer people are a disease that should be kept away from children and the public so that they don't infect them with their transness. Several politicians, public speakers, celebrities, and micro celebrities have said that trans people are corrupting and mutilating children, and trans people have been called a plague and an epidemic. People have surpassed just dehumanization, and are outright saying that we are an infection that needs to be wiped out for the greater good. The parallels between this and the beginning stages of the holocaust are horrifying. 

The fifth stage of genocide is organization. Organization is the stage when the state and it's military, as well as hate groups and militias start designing and planning their genocidal killings. This stage, unfortunately, is incredibly difficult to recognize during the genocide without having intimate knowledge of the government and military's plans. I do know that hate groups, such as the proud boys, have started showing up pride events heavily armed with the intention to intimidate people into hiding, and have even started coordinating and planned unsuccessful attacks on pride events. It is unclear whether they have started organizing mass killing events yet or not, and we may not know for sure until it is too late. There was also an attack where people shot the infrastructure supporting the power grid, leaving an entire city of 40,000 people without electricity to stop a drag show from taking place. These plans may already be developed or under development, but if they aren't, they will be soon as this mass extermination even progresses. 

The sixth stage of genocide is polarization. Polarization is when propaganda is employed to highlight the differences between the minority group and the majority group. Interactions between the two groups becomes discouraged or forbidden, and moderate members of the majority group that holds power are killed. I believe the polarization started even before the trans bathroom controversy, and has been one of the slowest progressing stages. This stage started when people started talking about the differences between trans and cis women, and started saying that trans women are not real women due to biological and reproductive differences. This is especially being highlighted and weaponized against trans women and trans feminine people, with the idea that biological differences make trans women a physical threat to cis women and children. A lot of the differences that are being spread as propaganda relate to queerness as a whole being in direct opposition to  christian values, and since the US is a culturally chrisitan state, these differences are seen as being in direct opposition of American values as well. The bill I mentioned earlier proposed in West Virginia that would prohibit trans people from being near children without being criminalized (including living within a certain distance from schools and daycares, working in these places, and the bill could even be interpreted to trans people's OWN children whom they have custody over) is an incredibly clear and perfect example of the beginning of the minority and majority groups being prohibited from interacting with one another. Other states have presented bills that would ban children in public schools from being exposed to anything related to gender identity in school, and this would effectively mean that trans children would no longer be allowed to attend these schools and that trans educators would no longer be allowed to be employed in these schools either. None of these bills have passed into law yet, but it is not looking hopeful. The moderate people in the majority group have not yet started being killed either, but the line of who in the moderate group is acceptable has been shifting further and further right since before Trump's presidency. People like Joe Biden (who has failed to pass any meaningful or substantial legislation protecting queer and trans people) are being called the "radical and degenerate left" and propaganda about them destroying this country and its values by not intentionally furthering this genocide have already started being widespread. 

The seventh stage of genocide is preparation. Preparation is the point at which the victims are identified, separated, and forced to publicly self identify. This is also the stage where people begin to be deported, isolated, forcibly starved, and when then death lists are drawn up. Unfortunately this stage has already begun as well. The bills being proposed in many states that would ban trans people from receiving healthcare and being near children, and the bills being proposed that would classify supporting trans children as child abuse (punishable by both prison time and the lost of custody of said children) are forcing people to flee for their lives and safety. While it is not an explicit deportation, people being forced to flee for their lives and safety, and move to very specific parts of the country, is forced separation and isolation. We have not yet been forcibly starved or forced to self identify with symbols (though, again, the majority group believes they can identify us based on appearance only, so it is unclear how this will progress), but we have already started seeing lists compiled in certain states. In Texas, for example, they have created a list of every single time someone has changed their name or gender legally in the state over the past two years, and released a statement saying that they have not yet identified the individuals on this list but have the power to should they need to do so. Florida also proposed creating a registry of all trans children in the state, but it was denied for the time being. It is unclear whether other states are keeping track of things like legal gender and name changes or a registry of trans children, but highly likely that they are. 

The eighth stage of genocide is persecution. Persecution is when the victims are identified and isolated based on their minority status. At this stage, death lists are definitively drawn up, and victims may be forced to wear identifying symbols. This is also the stage where victims property may be seized and stolen.  I don't think that we have quite reached this stage yet, as the bills that would support this have not yet passed into law. As a whole right now, we are still allowed in public, schools, and to own property and hold jobs. We are still allowed to vote and hold public office as well, (though a lot of these bills that criminalize things like living near schools, if passed, would also be used as a voter suppression tool since felons cannot legally vote and people in violation of these laws will be classified as felons). 

The ninth stage of genocide extermination. Extermination is when people are rounded up and the killing en mass begins. The majority group considers this extermination of pests and vermin because they do not see their victims as entirely human, and believe that they are ridding the world of something evil and disgusting. We have not yet entered this stage, thankfully. There are no forced labor camps, there are no ghettos for queer and trans people, and there are no death camps at this time. There is also no government or military patrols, and victims are not actively being hunted or searched for. 

The tenth stage of genocide is denial. Denial is when the perpetrators deny committing these crimes, and hide evidence and intimidate victims and witnesses. I believe this stage happens from the very beginning of every genocide and continues for years or decades after the fact. People will not admit to their role in such heinous and evil events voluntarily, especially not while these things are still progressing, and they must be held accountable by the rest of the world. 

The genocide can be stopped at any of the first nine stages, but I fear that we have already passed the point at which we can stop this genocide on our own, and we must rely on other countries to see something and do something to stop this from progressing through the last few stages. This has been a terrifying and devastating progression over the past few years and we are truly running out of time now, faster than ever before. I hope that by writing this essay and spreading the word, we can all work together to spread awareness and stop this genocide against trans and queer people before it becomes a tragedy similar in magnitude to that of the holocaust. We absolutely must start organizing within our own communities, setting up networks of mutual aid, and coming together as a community to make ourselves heard and keep each other safe. We will not be able to do this on our own, and it seems that right now our community is the only thing we truly have to help us. The time for discourse and intercommunity fighting are over. We absolutely MUST stand together right now in the face of this or we will fall alone. 

Ok now that we have primary sources I can discuss more in depth.

Reddit section:

Generally the posts here fall into a few categories, relationships, sexuality, and anime girl memes.

On relationships, the first one about the cis femme divorcing the mtf. Yeah it’s definitely a bad relationship with a manipulative partner, however, all the comments tell her things along the lines of “I am a trans woman and you should leave that person.” I don’t really feel compelled to believe a significant portion of trans women behave this narcissistically in relationships, especially based on the overwhelming support for the cis woman leaving the relationship. For the one about the trans woman saying she felt like she needs to uphold a very patriarchal image of femininity. Yes, I think it’s valid that her partner felt offended and worried that her spouse also believes that she should uphold that same standard (shaving, submission, etc.), but it also appears these are more self imposed standards rather than ones the trans woman is holding her partner to. Plenty of woman are incredibly misogynistic and uphold the patriarchy because of societal brainwashing, this seems to be part of what’s happening. However, the main part seems to be that this woman is unhealthily coping with the fact that she does not feel that she passes well enough, therefore searching for anything that’s easy to change that might make her appear more feminine. Toxic way of thinking, but again, plenty of cis women, even lesbians, uphold patriarchal norms of being.

About sexuality, most of the posts in this section are about consuming a lot of porn or just genderally viewing women in a way that could be perceived as lust but is actually jealous to look/be perceived in that way. I’m getting tired of repeating this but, cis gay people do that too. It’s so easy to find countless “do i wanna be her or be with her” posts in wlw oriented memes. Disregarding the glaring issues with porn in general, because that’s a different topic, having trouble distinguishing between envy and lust is fine. The outlier posts regarding sexuality in here are one asking about how to achieve better orgasms as a pre-op trans woman on HRT, one about acting slutty for validation, and one about a woman feeling attracted to herself. I still don’t get the problem with these. For the first one, it’s a properly tagged post asking for other trans women to give advice on self pleasure. For the second one, this is harmful in the long run, but probably only to the op. She’s exchanging pics with a consenting partner and acting in a way that makes her feel sexy. When your sense of worth is derived mainly from other people finding you sexually attractive, things are wrong. However, pre-transition when I was in a bad relationship I did this too, lots of people, especially fem identifying people, have. It’s sad, but not really harmful to anyone except herself. Third, the way she worded it is admittedly a bit strange, but try to empathize with the experience of finally feeling like your body is as you feel you want it to be. I think it’s a completely normal reaction to marvel at the confidence and sexual power one might get from experiencing that for the first time.

Third, the only category in here I take broader issue with. Catgirl/anime girl memes are really popular right now, and I think most of them are posted with a harmless intent. Since most of these are meant to be stand-ins for the self in this context, I can understand the experience of wanting to align with something viewed as very cute and feminine, especially if you don’t feel that way in your real life. However, there is a pretty sinister undertone. The sexualization of young women, especially young east Asian women, is a massive problem in anime and in popular culture at large. But once again, this is not a trans exclusive problem in the slightest. Fetishization of one’s own youthfulness/innocence is a huge trend in many demographics of women. It’s often a trauma response, and I’m not blaming these girls for romanticizing their own victimhood, but just take a look at some of the videos Shanspeare’s done on the subject or take a dip into many tags on this very website to see tons of cis women posting way worse stuff than “what if I was a cute girl with cat ears and I could have BDSM sex with someone.”

First tiktok: You don’t have to date anyone, especially if they don’t fulfill traits that you require in a partner, like a vagina for example, you shouldn’t date them and that is not what this tiktok suggests. if someone has all the qualities (physical and personality wise) that you are attracted to and the sole reason you don’t want to be with them is because they’re trans, that is transphobic.

Second tiktok: I don’t believe porn is inherently harmful, but almost all of it is because we live in a misogynistic, patriarchal, and capitalist society. However, she is right in the fact that porn addiction is not (at this point) medically recognized as an addiction, even though many people have a deeply unhealthy relationship with it. (I generally feel that treating unhealthy relationships with porn as addictions is counter-productive to fixing the underlying roots, but that’s neither here nor there.) Additionally, the people pushing the fight against porn addiction, are generally not doing it for feminist reasons, usually religious or pseudo-religious instead, and are deeply misogynistic themselves. Therefore, I don’t watch her content enough to know if we agree on the more nuanced topics regarding porn/sex/kink in general, but I don’t find a major problem with this video.

Third/fourth tiktok: They’re horny on main. The SuperBowl themed one obviously has a more overtly comedic tone, but that doesn’t matter. The second woman is expressing fairly tame fetishes for the internet. I have issues with pet play/age play stuff which I covered above, but they’re both adults ostensibly having sex with other consenting adults, what’s really wrong with that? Trans women are so often treated as gross or predatory for expressing sexuality in ways that, problematic or not, cis women are not punished for to nearly the same degree. Separate tangent regarding autogynephilia as a concept: yes, most trans women who wish to medically transition feel more aroused picturing themselves in sexual situations with breasts and a vagina than flat chest and a penis. I really don’t see anything wrong with that.

Fourth tiktok: I generally agree with this one. I think a joke here or there is fine, but so often cis people go on and on about how repulsive other people’s genitals are. It’s great to set clear boundaries with people you may be intimate with about which parts you are and aren’t willing to interact with, but publicly body shaming other people simply because you are not attracted to them is over the top. This isn’t just about trans people either. It’s died down over the last 10 or so years, but the mlm community has misogyny problems and are often too comfortable hating on cis women's bodies because they are not sexually attracted to them.

I’m gonna likely rewatch and take notes on the Jessie Gender video tomorrow, so whatever there is from that I’ll post publicly. After that though, I think I’m done. Based on your very barren account and the tonal switch between your post on your account and your comments on mine, It doesn’t really seem like you’re here in good faith. I’ve put some energy into trying to be helpful so you “don’t become a full on TERF,” but by scrolling through your likes for a minute and what you’ve been saying, it seems like you’re there already.

if any of my trans mutuals on here, especially transfemmes, want to add their own perspective, either dm her or talk in the comments of my last post, no silliness though please.

my body is too feminine to ever be read as masculine, but my behavior is too masculine to pass as a "normal" woman, but still a little too feminine for the people who were told to be feminine but decided to be masculine to embrace me as one of them. i don't fit the cis narrative but i don't fit a trans one either. i'm incapable of pretending to be anything other than what i am. i can remember trying to fuck with others' notions of gender way back in childhood before i even knew that's what i was doing. i would alternate between referring myself as a girl or a boy & treat adults like THEY were the freaks for being bothered or thrown off by it. i still don't think i should have to alter anything about my body or my style or my behavior to align with anything more decipherable because if the way i am bothers or confuses people that's simply their own shit to unpack. my expression will always be fluid & contextual & conversational & cultural & is fully shaped by my BPD & whatever flavor of neurodivergence i have going on. my gender is gay, my gender is dyke, my gender is animal, my gender is borderline, my gender is YOU tell ME what it is. i have found it lonely & confusing to move through a world that wants me to know the answer to a question i can't figure out, but we create language for what we experience, we don't mould our experiences to fit the language. i yam what i yam. i would rather die than fake anything. i just want to feel it all.

@scorpiathevirgo thinks thoughts: gender edition

some relevant context: i'm afab, sapphic and identify as a woman. i'm quite possibly neurodivergent (though admittedly undiagnosed, but i think it's pretty likely), which could provide an explanation for my experiences and my feelings on the matter

_______________________________________________________

When thinking about my own gender, the first thing I concluded is that I see two types of "gender":

The first one is basically what you see yourself / identify as (the commonly accepted definition of "gender"). In my case, I see myself as a woman on the basis that my body is female, that my experiences are often affected by that fact, and I wouldn't change that. my gender matches my biological sex, which would make me cis. I'll call this one "mental gender" for the sake of this post.

The second one is one I'll call "social gender". It's basically more about the role you play in society, which therefore affects how others perceive you. In my case, I was never really close with people of either gender in school. I was a girl, so I obviously wasn't one of the boys. But the girls didn't really consider me one of them, either. I dunno how to explain this, so I'll leave screenshots of a Reddit thread I stumbled upon, as well as a TikTok someone posted on Instagram.

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Context for screenshots: The original post was a screenshot of a Tumblr post from a trans man. He describes how women generally felt safe around him pre-transition because they perceived him as one of their own, but he noticed that women now act more distant from him now that he passes as a man, perhaps because they see him as a threat(?). I don't completely remember the post, as I'd have to look for it. I'll leave credit here if I ever find the post.

UPDATE: Anna Akana made this video the other day discussing the Tumblr post in question: https://youtu.be/nNME0cloyyM

Although these people's experiences vary slightly based on their gender and cultural circumstances, I relate heavily to them (especially u/iveroi and u/hipster_doofus_ , as well as u/AnIndianGuy38's point about same-gender people not engaging in platonic intimacy with him).

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Credits for video: Original video by @/mariatheflowerchild28 on TikTok; reposted by @/actuallyautistictiktoks on Instagram.

https://www.instagram.com/tv/CcdtmKTAiRf/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

This one is pretty self-explanatory. She basically described my relationship with femininity (except the overweight and bullying parts). I cut my hair short a few years back though, which makes me look more androgynous, which in turn plays yet another part in this sort of exclusion from femininity. I know it's not quite the same thing as fatphobia, but you get my point. Also, while my interests often aligned more closely with those of the guys I knew, I wasn't really particularly close with them, either. And that line about "not having the right to participate in femininity"... that hit hard. Although I often switch between presenting more femininely and more masculine/neutral (and genuinely like doing both), I still feel "not feminine enough" when I present fem. In part because of the hair, but also because of the role I've played to everyone else in society, which was "not one of us women". Womanhood should be my birthright as a woman, but I feel like I'm often denied that right, whether that's because of circumstances out of my control (the neurodivergence, to an extent my queerness), or as a result of my leaning into being in this "other" category (the haircut and masc/neutral presentation).

_______________________________________________________

Given these circumstances, that makes my "social gender" something along the lines of genderqueer: too female for maleness, and not woman enough for womanhood. Depending on what type of gender you look at, I'm either a "cis woman" (physically and mentally/psychologically) or a "genderqueer/nonbinary woman" (socially).

As for pronouns and gendered terms, I go mainly by she/her (ella/la in Spanish) and prefer feminine language (daughter/hija, girlfriend/novia/jeva, etc.), although I don't mind (and actually kinda like) they/them and neutral terms.

rosa is pondering gender again

Incoming thoughts that are likely disjointed

Gender is complicated. It feels unknowable. I look inside myself and I don't know what I'm feeling, or if I'm feeling any way at all, or if either are remotely close to what I "should" be feeling.

I ask myself, "what is a woman?" women are strongly associated with femininity, and many women express their identity / feel validated by the feminine. But what is feminine is determined by culture, not a constant thing. And, I know for certain that there are women who remove themselves from femininity entirely, therefore womanhood is determined by something else. So if it's not femininity... what is it? The same goes for when I ask, "what is a man?" (a miserable pile of secrets?)

I look at the well-known options for gender identity. You've got male and female (cis or trans doesnt matter, same thing), then like... bigender for both at once, demigender for I think partially one and partially another (commonly "nonbinary"), genderfluid for if it varies, agender for nil, and the ever-mysterious nonbinary for "something else."

Okay... but like, what is the "something else?" I remember, we went on and on affirming that there's more than two genders, but in the present day I still see two genders with different coloured sprinkles on top. Maybe even two-and-a-half genders. It feels like the queer community in my field of view is solely focused on boys, girls, something in-between, or neither. It frustrates me, because that can't be it. I know that gender identity is vast and complex, there's no way there can be just four categories. But I don't see anyone talk about anything else. I rarely see people who id as nonbinary who also don't align with masculine or feminine. I don't think I've ever seen an agender person in my life before either.

Maybe the cause of my internal conflict is because my gender is something isolated from this commonly accepted interpretation of gender as a whole. I don't know.

I don't know what I am. I'm me. Am I supposed to have even a hint of a feeling of what direction my gender lies in? Is it supposed to-

Maybe I am agender. Funny, I feel as if a label for my experience- a great disconnect from gender like an endless chasm- betrays just how much nothing there is. "agender," "voidgender," you try to convey that there's nothing there and yet the labels look and act the same as all the others! At least with asexuality, I feel comfortable with it because I believe my lack of sexual attraction doesn't contradict itself as its own sexual identity.

Maybe it's the difference between a box being empty and the box not existing at all. My box of sexual identity is empty, it's got some stickers on it though. Ask me to pull out my box of gender identity... What box? There's no box here.

But then, if I just say to other queers "oh I have no gender, it's all made up to me," what they HEAR is "I think sex and gender are the same thing and anyone who says otherwise is sick in the head" just like the c*nservatives who ignorantly declare that they have no pronouns

I feel a bit less stressed after writing all this but I'm not much less confused

I’m rewatching ContraPoints like I said, and...

[/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pTPuoGjQsI&t=29s&ab_channel=ContraPoints “Gender Critical | ContraPoints”

Oh, shit! 

*Before we get into it: I’ll be using she/her to talk about Natalie. I want the focus to be on the ideas, not her own identity.*

“In the past on this channel, I’ve always caricatured TERFs as being like angry, man-hating bigots, whose only real tactic is accusing trans women of being creepy men. And there definitely are some people who are really like that, but I want to be fair, I want to be balanced, so in preparation to make this video, I posted an invitation on Twitter asking people who used to be gender critical feminists to share their stories with me.

And I got hundreds of responses, a lot of them from women who have had traumatic experiences with men and who at one time found comfort in a rigid view of gender where women and men are completely separate species, where women are safe and men are dangerous. And for a lot of those women, allowing trans people into their picture of the world at first challenged their sense of stability and comfort. It was difficult emotional work, work that they needed to do, but still difficult. And that makes total sense to me, like it’s very easy for me to understand why someone would feel that way.” Starting off here, she’s way more invested than ~feminist man-hating~ than transphobia. 

[...]

“You know it’s like you’re not even allowed to ask questions anymore or you’re accused of transphobia. We’re all just expected to conform to this gender ideology that we the public never got a chance to debate. We didn’t vote for trans orthodoxy, yet here we are permitting biological males to run rampant in women’s spaces, foisting penises on lesbians, and indoctrinating our children with the ludicrous dogma that girls can become boys with a change of costume. Oh, it rattles my chromosomes.” Her caricature of gender critical people. The “foisting penises on lesbians” comment bothers me because there’s a very real problem with this in online spaces. I know because I’ve experienced it when I identified as a lesbian. In some online spaces, especially those meant for lesbians, have discourse about genital preferences and whether or not they’re okay. It typically results in shaming and guilt-tripping towards women who aren’t comfortable with penises. 

“And the same goes for people telling me, you sure do like wearing nails and makeup, is that all you think there is to being a woman? Could you define womanhood for me? Like they don’t actually care, they’re just trying to make my life worse for 20 minutes.” Though I understand why she feels like this is invasive of people, it doesn’t mean they’re trying to make her life worse. That’s assigning some intent that simply isn’t there. 

“Listen, sweaty, first of all, my girly voice is very f*cking real. Second, my clothes, makeup, voice, none of this makes me a woman. No trans woman thinks that femininity and womanhood are the same. Rather, we’re using a cultural language of feminine signifiers to prompt others to see us for what we are.” To the bolded: Are you sure? You may not, but there are several people who align with gender on the feminine / masculine spectrum and treat *that* as gender. 

“I think butch or gender non-conforming cis women sometimes side-eye hyper-feminine trans women because they don’t identify with this vision of womanhood at all and they’ve had to struggle since childhood against a society that’s told them they have to be feminine. And I completely sympathize with that. I think there should be more gender freedom, less coercion, less restriction. But also, I’ve had to fight against the same society that told me I should really, really, really, not be this, so, I feel like we should be able to form some kind of solidarity here.” I get what you’re saying but you do realize that you turned it around on those women, right? By going, “Yeah, but what about my pain?” This is starting to go in the direction of “cis women are just JEALOUS.” 

“Like you’re targeting the people who are the most vulnerable under the present system and the leveraging that system against them under the pretense of abolishing it. You know, you don’t see gender critical feminists in Kim Kardashian’s Instagram comments like, why are you wearing a dress, Kim, you creepy misogynist.” Natalie, gendercrits critique celebrities ALL THE TIME. Where have you been? So many people online hold her up as THEE example of patriarchal conditioning. And for you to call trans women “the most vulnerable under the present system” is tone deaf, considering that gendered scrutiny is very much a thing for women who were born female. We just lost a big legal protection of abortion. And back when the video was uploaded (in 2019), it was a hot button issue in politics. 

“It’s almost like when they say abolish gender, what they really mean is abolish trans people. It’s almost like this is a hate movement hiding behind a handful of pseudo-feminist platitudes. But surely, I must be missing something.” No. In the most anti-trans spaces, being anti-trans and wanting gender to be gone for everyone as well is a common perspective.

“But I’ve had cis feminists of my race and class tell me that I have no idea what it’s like to be talked over and interrupted by men. – [Man] Actually, Kropotkin. – Or to experience street harassment or to have to treat every first date like a potentially life-threatening situation and it’s just bizarre to me that they think that. Like, what do you think my experience in the world is? You think men treat me as their equal? You think street harassers are gonna treat me with dignity and respect because I have a Y chromosome?” Only when you navigated society as a man. Don’t play dumb. You were literally a philosophical scholar pre-transition. You were definitely “the mansplainer” more than once in your life. 

“Come on, people, use your heads. When you have Germaine Greer calling trans women it, what do you think the guy on the steps of the liquor store is gonna say? When a trans woman doesn’t pass, it’s not like society simply treats her like a man. No, you get treated as monster gender, pronouns it and spit, and male privilege is not a good description of that experience at all.

Once you start passing as a woman, it’s really a step up, even though women get treated bad, because it’s still better to be a she than an it. Now gender critical feminists are really skeptical of the whole notion of passing. They think they can always clock a tran and they assume everyone else can, too. But that’s just not reality. I mean, I’m only a year and a half into my transition and at this point, I’ve had zero surgeries and it’s been like six months since I was last misgendered offline. I mean, a person with a good eye for it will probably clock me and maybe a lot of people have just been indoctrinated into politically correct gender ideology, but like, you really think the gas station attendant and the nail technicians and the heating and plumbing guy are all calling me miss and ma’am because of postmodernism?”

Gender nonconforming women also experience this. And Natalie, you do realize you were an internet star by this point, right? Your experience with being misgendered isn’t going to be like any random trans woman. 

“I know some of you are gonna sneak off to your shitty little RadFem forums and obsess over how manly and clockable I am, but like at the end of the day, what am I gonna trust, the deranged hate-posting of 25 frothing anons or every social interaction I’ve had for months? I’m so sorry you can’t handle that I’m natural fish. I’m ahi tuna and you’re mackerel sweaty. Take a f*cking sip, babes.” Very strange comment, considering that you’ve never had a vagina. What’s the point of making stigmatizing jokes about a set of genitals you don’t have? 

“Many trans women are feminine and queer before they transition, and have basically always experienced a kind of femmephobia that is rooted in misogyny. Some trans women also identified as women years before transitioning and internalized society’s messaging about women more than society’s messaging about men. Now that’s still not the same as living in society as a girl from birth, but it’s also pretty different from the socialization of masculine cis men.” Femmephobia? 🙄 It’s not a hatred of femininity, but homophobia. They clock pre-trans tw as gay men. Femininity in gay men is hated because it’s viewed as a mark of their gayness. There’s definitely misogyny in it because gay men are viewed by homophobes as dollar store women, and the name brand is hated to begin with.

[...] 

“It reminds me of what in the trans community are called transmedicalists, people who insist the only real trans people are those who experience agonizing dysphoria. In both cases, there is a sense that the essential thing that confirms your identity is pain. What it is to be trans is to despise your body, what it is to be a woman is to be brutalized by men. ‘You didn’t suffer like I’ve suffered. You don’t know what it’s like!’” Not quite. Gendercrits view biological femaleness as the only prerequisite to womanhood. They believe trans identity is a way of appropriating the pain that comes with femaleness, not that pain is an inherent function of femaleness. 

[...]

“But of course, no individual woman experiences all the things women experience and individual women understand the meaning of womanhood in drastically different ways. For some women, having babies is the most essentially womanly experience. For others, maybe it’s having an abortion. I mean, not actually, but you know, TERFs pretend it is to own the tr*nnies.” No, love, they think having a vagina is the most essentially womanly experience. 

[...]

“But in fact, medical language that assumes that everyone with a uterus is a woman erases trans men and non-binary people who menstruate and get pregnant. So saying pregnant women in this context erases them, whereas saying pregnant people includes them and cis women and doesn’t erase anyone except for Cincinnatians because we all know they’re not people. Take your shitty chili elsewhere.” You do realize medical care pertaining to the female sex is a women’s health issue, right? That the lack of maternity and menstrual considerations for women, the lack of research, and medical misogyny are dependent on articulating the issue as a women’s health issue because the state is oppressing female people for their status as female? If we count all of the trans men and nonbinary people with vaginas, most people who get pregnant will still be women. 

Okay, I’m done here. There’s more in the video, but I’m covered the big issues I’ve had with her talking points. “Inclusivity” is erasure if it co-opts the movements of existing marginalized groups. It’s like saying “All Lives Matter” in response to BLM.

Hi! I'm very curious about something regarding the Spanish language. I'm currently studying A2 Spanish but I had this question and my teacher did not seem too willing to discuss it. Here it goes:

I know that Spanish has, something my Spanish teacher says, linguistic gender. I was wondering how do the people who don't align themselves with the gender binary (masculine and feminine) speak/write in it? I have read this article about Spanish speaking people from US adding "x" Or "@" and people from Argentina using "e" to make the words gender neutral.

Thank you so much for responding, whenever you get to it. Also love your blog. ❤

Short answer, in general speaking terms people are tending towards the -e now because the other two are very hard to actually speak, and because Spanish-speakers feel the -e is more authentic

What you're most likely to see in Spanish is masculine plural as the default, or in written things you might see todos y todas or like un/una alumno/a "a student", or like se busca empleado/a "employees wanted" / "looking for an employee"

If it's something official or academic you typically include both [todas y todas] or you go masculine plural [todos] unless it's specifically feminine plural

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Related, linguistic gender applies to all things, not just people. Why is la mesa "table" feminine, but el libro "book" masculine? Just linguistic gender. I can tell you that most loanwords (that aren't people) in Spanish are masculine, and that there are certain words that come from Greek are masculine, and that -ista words are unisex most of the time... And I can tell you there are some words like testigo or modelo that are unisex and don't change for gender. Aside from that, speaking about nouns and grammatical gender... those particular things are harder to parse for regular people, but if you go into the field of linguistics you can explore that more deeply. Some of it is source language (i.e. "it came from Latin this way") or things like that. And in general when talking about nouns it's unimportant and not considered sexist, that's just how it is.

There is such a thing where it gets a little too far the other way and people will say "history? what about herstory" which is a nice thought but the etymology has nothing to do with gender there

When it comes to people - and when it comes to gendered attitudes - that's where it gets more confusing and more complicated.

I believe there was an experiment where people had French and Spanish speakers [I believe it was Spanish] try to identify how a "fork" would sound. French people gave it a more feminine voice because "fork" is feminine in French, while Spanish speakers gave it a more masculine voice because it's masculine in Spanish.

Whether we like it or not, certain gendered things do influence our thoughts and feelings and reactions. A similar thing in English exists where the old joke was something like "There was a car accident; a boy is rushed to the ER and the surgeon but the father was killed. When they got to the ER the doctor said 'I can't operate on him, he's my son!'" and it's like "well who could the doctor be?" ...and the doctor is his mother. We associate "doctor" as masculine and "nurse" as feminine.

There's a gender bias in our language thought patterns, even though the language changes. And that does exist in Spanish too, to different extents.

There are certain cultural and gendered stereotypes or connotations attached to certain words, many tend to be more despective or pejorative when it's women.

For example - and I know this has changed in many places or it isn't as prevalent - el jinete "horseman/rider", while the female form is la amazona "horsewoman/rider". Because la jinete or la jineta was sometimes "promiscuous woman".

There were also debates about things like la presidente vs. la presidenta or what the female version of juez should be, whether it should be la juez or la jueza

Most languages with gendered language have varying degrees of this, and all languages I'm aware of have gendered stereotypes related to professions or cultural attitudes in some way, and not just for women, and not all in the same way with some of them being very culturally based

-

The longer answer involves a bit of history, and I'll be honest, some of it is contested or considered a little controversial in Spanish-speaking countries particularly in the conservative parts (which honestly should come as no surprise)

The first symbol that I know of that came about was the X

First piece of contested history: As far as I know, it was the trans/queer and drag communities in Latin America who started the trend of X. When there were signs or bulletins that had the gendered endings - specifically masculine plural as the default plural - people would write a big X through the O. This was a way of being inclusive and also a very smash the patriarchy move.

Some people attribute this to women's rights activists which may also be true, but a good portion of the things I read from people say it was the trans/queer/drag communities in Latin America doing this.

I've also read it originated in Brazil with Portuguese; still Latin America, but not a Spanish-speaking country.

Where it's most contested is that some people will say that this trend started in the Hispanic communities of the United States. And - not without reason - people are upset that this is perceived as a very gringo movement.

That's why Latinx is considered a very American-Hispanic experience

-

The arroba (@) is relatively new. I remember seeing it in the 2000s. I don't know if it existed earlier for gender inclusivity.

People used it because it looks like a combination of O and A, so it was meant to be cut down on saying things like todos y todas or niños y niñas in informal written speech

I remember quite a few (informal) emails starting like hola tod@s or muy buenas a tod@s or things like that

I think of it more as convenience especially in the information age where you never knew who you were talking to and it's easier than including both words, especially when masculine plural might be clumsy or insensitive

Still, it's practically impossible to use the @ in spoken Spanish, so it's better for writing casually. You also likely won't be allowed to use the @ in anything academic, but in chatrooms, blogs, or forums it's an option

-

I love the E ending. And the gender neutral form in singular is elle... so it's él "he", ella "she", and elle "they (singular)"

The -e ending is I think became more common within the past 10 years though it might have existed longer than that. These sorts of changes tend to come from the queer or trans communities and tend to be more insular before becoming more of an outside thing that then the general population finds out about

It came about because there are some adjectives in Spanish that end in -e that are unisex. It's not an A, it's not an O, but it's something grammatically neutral for Spanish

It's not as awkward as X, and E exists very firmly in Spanish so it's not perceived as some outside (typically gringo) influence

The good news is, it's pretty widespread on the internet. Not so much in person (yet), but especially in Spain and Argentina at least from what I've seen, particularly in the queer communities and online culture.

The only issues with it are that for non-native speakers, you have to get used to any spelling changes. Like amigo and amiga, but to use the E ending you have to add a U... so it's amigue.

That's because there are certain words where you have to do spelling changes to preserve the sound; gue has a hard G sound like -go does [like guerra]... but ge has the equivalent of an English H sound [gelatina for example]. Another one is cómico/a "funny" which would go to cómique. Again, because co has a hard C/K sound, while ce is a soft sound more like an S or in some contexts TH/Z sound; like centro is a soft sound, while cola is a hard sound

Unless you make it to the preterite forms where you come across like pagué, alcancé, practiqué with those types of endings... or subjunctive forms, pague, alcance, practique ... Basically you'd have to be exposed to those spelling rules or you'd be really confused if you were a total beginner.

It all makes sense when you speak it, but spelling might be harder before you learn those rules

The other drawback is that the E endings are sometimes not applicable. Like in damas y caballeros "ladies and gentlemen" there's not really a gender neutral variation on that, it's all binary there. And while la caballero "female knight" does exist, you'd never see a male variation on dama; the closest I've ever seen is calling a guy a damisela en apuros "damsel in distress" in some contexts where the man needs rescuing, and it's feminine una/la damisela, and it's very tongue-in-cheek

There are also some contexts like jefe vs jefa where I guess you would say jefe for "boss" if you were going the neutral route, but it's a bit weird because it's also the masculine option.

I can't speak for how people might feel about those if they're non-binary or agender because every so often you kind of get forced into the binary whether you like it or not

I totally support the E, I just recognize there are some limitations there and it's quirks of the Spanish language itself

Important Note: Just to reiterate, E endings are the ones most Spanish-speakers prefer because it's easiest to speak and doesn't have the American connotation that X does in some circles

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Where it gets very "Facebook comment section" is that you'll see many Latin Americans traditionalists and conservatives claim that "this is just the gringos colonizing our language" and "grammatical gender doesn't matter in Spanish". They'll say that the "gender movement" is an American feminist movement and that it's a gringo thing and doesn't reflect actual Latin Americans or Spanish-speakers

Which on the one hand, yes, English does have a lot of undue influence on other languages because of colonization, and American influence and meddling in Latin American politics is a big important issue

But as far as I'm aware of the X (and especially the E) were created by Latin Americans

The other issue I personally have is that any time this conversation comes up, someone will say something like somos latinOs and claim that masculine plural is gender neutral

To that I say, first of all, "masculine plural" is inherently gendered. Additionally, there is a gender neutral in Spanish but it's lo or ello and it's only used with "it" so it sounds very unfriendly to use on an actual person... and in plural it looks like masculine plural and everything applies like masculine plural

Second, the reason masculine plural is default is because of machismo. It's more important that we don't possibly misgender a man, so it has to be masculine plural. It's changed in some places, but growing up when I was learning Spanish, if it was 99 women and 1 man you still had to put masculine plural

I'm not opposed to there being a default, and I understand why it's easier to use masculine plural, but some people get very upset at the idea of inclusive language

...

In general, my biggest issues with these comments come when people act like non-binary/queer/trans people don't exist in Spanish-speaking countries, like English invented them somehow. So it's nice to see linguistic self-determination and seeing native speakers using the E endings.

My proposal for a mlm / nlm / vincian / achillean flag. I am aware there are plenty of other flags out there, but I just wanted to do my own take! (Also, I designed this a while ago, I just decided I should upload it here). 

This is a flag for anybody who identifies as men-loving-men / mlm, nonbinary-loving-men / nlm, vincian, achillean, etc. I will not gatekeep anybody from using this flag for not being explicitly masc-aligned or otherwise strictly tied to manhood as gender is complicated and there are many blurred lines and grey areas. Anybody who relates to the mlm / nlm experience can use the flag if they feel it fits them.

Stripe / color meanings under the cut!

Brown Stripe - Represents BIPOC in our community who were at the forefront of our fight for equality and the originators of much of what we now consider to be LGBTQ+ and gay / mlm culture. We must never dismiss the unique intersection of oppression faced by queer people of color. I also use it here to represent healthy masculinity, as love between men - romantic, platonic, familial, and otherwise - is essential to combating toxic masculinity. I specifically use the brown stripe for this as many men of color have their masculinity either diminished or demonized due to racism, and embracing their masculinity is a display of courage and self love in the face of oppression.

Pink Stripe - Comes from the original 1978 rainbow pride flag designed by Gilbert Baker, intended to represent the gay and lesbian communities as a whole. I use it here to represent love and sexuality, as it did on the original iteration of the flag. It also represents gay men in our community, in honor of the origin of the rainbow pride flag.

Tan Stripe - This color comes from the bear pride flag. I use it here to represent body diversity, body positivity and self love. People of all body types deserve love and respect, and self love is an absolute essential part of our community as its a key part in embracing our true selves.

White Stripe - This stripe represents unity and community. We are all different and have unique experiences, but we unite under common causes and shared experiences. We have a built a community despite hardships and attempts at division. We can never forget our shared history.

Light Blue Stripe - This color comes from the trans pride flag. It represents the gender diversity and huge variance of gender expression within our community. Transgender men, trans masculine people, nonbinary people of all kinds. Some are masculine, feminine, androgynous, and anything in-between or completely outside of that. There’s far too many nuances to police labels or try to restrict who is apart of our community.

Dark Blue Stripe - This represents our strength and perseverance in this face of adversity. We have existed all throughout human history and despite constant attempts to erase us from history or destroy us altogether, we have persisted. We will never back down. This color was also borrowed from the bisexual pride flag and represents all multi-spec mlm / nlm whether they be bi, pan, etc. Love for people of  other genders does not diminish same or similar gender love and this has always been apart of our fabric. 

Purple / Indigo Stripe - Finally, this stripe represents our ceaseless courage and pride. It takes courage to embrace who you are, and even more so to have Pride in it. We do not ever have to be ashamed of who we are. This color was also borrowed from the asexual pride flag, and represents all asexual and aromantic spectrum folks in our community. Asexual, aromantic, demi-, grey-, etc people have no reason to feel shame for their unique mlm / nlm experience. 

Hi! I admit I went lurking in your lgbtqia tag, and somewhere in the tags you said that while you are a cis woman you know this because you consciously thought it through, and I would like to ask about it if you don't mind (feel free to ignore this if you do). So, how did you go about it? If I start to think about it I always end up thinking that if you strip away all stereotypes and physical attributes there's nothing left, and I could best describe my experience with gender as (1/3)

„society said I’m a girl and I don’t care enough to say otherwise”, like I don’t have any reason to think I’m not cis but when I think about what makes me a woman I can’t come up with anything other than „they said so”. I didn't want to ask a trans person about it, because when I put it like this it seems really dismissive of what they go through, and on top of that I really don’t want to be *that person* by seeming like I’m demanding that they validate their identity to me when I just (2/3)

get stuck not even halfway through my thought process about this, and I’ve had like multiple crises over this, so I’d like to get this over with if I can. This seemed like my best chance to get an answer without possibly hurting someone, so I will be very grateful if you can answer me, but don’t stress about it if you can’t or don’t want to. (And thank you for reading through this novel-length ask in the first place, really, and sorry for loading all of this on you. Crises, as I said…) (3/3)

(cut because this is gonna get a bit rambly)

First up: I think if you’re having multiple crises about gender it’s ok - in fact imperative - to ask questions about it, you’re not dismissing anybody else’s experience. I hope this answer helps you in some way.

The tl;dr is that, as trans people have taught us, the primary symptom of being [gender] is wanting to be [gender]. The long answer is...longer. 

I totally get where you’re coming from on “if you strip away all stereotypes and physical attributes there's nothing left”, but I don’t quite think it’s true - at least not in the way I interact with gender - and I’ll try and break down why. 

The thing is, gender is more or less fake. And when I say it’s fake I mean that it’s a very broad-brush system of grouping people which is made up in order to explain, very generally, who people are when you don’t know much else about them. And as a tool that is used to group people on an extremely broad level, it is inextricably intertwined with and born of whatever society you and your gender are operating in. So to start with, you can’t really consider gender outside of society. For me, it doesn’t mean anything when you take it out of the context of interacting with other people. Having (or not having) a gender matters because it’s a way of telling people something about who you are.

In terms of figuring out what things about you say what your gender is - I think of it like...there’s a big bucket of all the attributes people can have that are used to assign them a gender, or for them to pick that gender. Two people from the same society/cultural background will broadly agree on what goes in which bucket, and what the buckets are called. The more different your society and cultural background is, the more different the contents of your buckets are. Some stuff that’s in one bucket for your culture might be in a different bucket for another culture (like colours). What the buckets are and what’s in them changes over time. And, to make it even more confusing, no one person’s gender is made up of all the same attributes from that gender’s bucket, even comparing them to someone of the same gender who agrees with them totally on what the buckets are called and what can be in them. And lots of attributes are in multiple buckets! They can make someone feel lots of different genders depending on the person doing the feeling.

So, ultimately, gender for me is both incredibly, incredibly personal and totally inseparable from my cultural background. And that means that yeah, some of the bits that feel to me like they make me a woman are about my body or ‘stereotypical’ things - and that’s totally fine as long as I don’t make the mistake of thinking that this means someone for whom a DIFFERENT set of attributes makes them female is ‘wrong’ about that. Or the mistake of thinking that the things that make *me* feel like a woman are automatically female attributes for someone of a different gender. 

For example, for me I feel the ability/possibility of bearing children is pretty strongly tied to my gender - but I know nonbinary people and men who’ve borne kids, and they’re not women. And I know lots of women who don’t want to or can’t bear kids, and they’re definitely women. So as a marker of femininity, it’s not much use to generalise with. I can only say it’s in my particular gender bucket.

So, having worked through that - and because, like you, I started at ‘well I was assigned female at birth and I don’t disagree’ - I gave up on trying to think about gender as a question of specific attributes. I think of it as: does it make me feel good to be assigned as a woman, in this society I live in, and would it make me feel bad to be assigned as a different gender?

And the answer to both is yes. I like being perceived as female! I feel happy and affirmed in myself when I tick “F” on a survey. I feel more secure in female-dominated spaces. I want to be a woman, it makes me happy to be one, ergo I am one. 

Moreover, I don’t want to be perceived as another gender - I point out that I’m a woman if someone’s ever unsure. This was really brought home to me, don’t laugh, when I did a playthrough of Stardew Valley and accidentally made my character male (I get the little symbol confused shush they’re very similar) and spent the entire run through being upset whenever my character was addressed in-game as “Mr Anne”. I wasn’t a Mr! I didn’t want to be! It did not feel good! I have been misgendered occasionally IRL but only for momentary interactions, not persistently - I didn’t realise just how much I wouldn’t like it even in this very harmless context. 

But, here’s the thing: I’m not totally sure that I would be a woman or be so confident about being perceived as one if I lived in a society that had very different gender buckets, or put different things in them. I’m a cis woman because I align with the category of ‘woman’ as determined by 21st-century Aotearoa New Zealand. Would I be a woman in, IDK, second-century Scotland? Fucked if I know. And that’s fine, because like I said: for me gender is specifically a way of telling the society you live in something about who you are. I want to tell people I’m a woman, it makes me happy to do so, so I am one; and I was raised as a girl, so I’m a cis woman. It’s as simple and complicated as that. 

Why do trans deny their scientific/ biological sex? I understand not identifying with your assigned sex, but I can't understand denying what you are born. To put it bluntly, how can you deny being male or female if you have a penis or vagina? When I ask this, I'm called a transphobe or am accused of using science to justify transphobia. Neither are true, I'm just trying to learn and to be more understanding.

It sounds like you don’t fully understand the difference between sex and gender. That’s fair because the terms are often ambiguous and their conceptions sometimes change over time. It’s important to know that sex and gender are related but not the same. I lean into the American Psychological Association’s understanding of the terms. No single definition is perfect, but this resource provides several good descriptions that may help you. 

Sex, alone, does not translate into societal norms and expectations for men and women. For example, certain expectations of hair length, dress, occupation, and many aspects of femininity are not inherently tied to whether I was born with XX or XY chromosomes. Societal and cultural norms are ascribed at birth based on sex, but they are not inherent characteristics of ourselves, like our anatomy.

That’s where gender comes in. The reason why pink is associated with female-ness is not because of one’s genes, but because of the standards that society has ascribed to women over time (note: there’s much more to gender than superficial things such as colors but I’m simplifying for explanation’s sake). An individual can be born as a genetic male, but she may identify with and feel more comfortable expressing herself as a woman, by our cultural and societal understanding of woman-ness. 

Most people are fully content living within the scope of their ascribed gender that aligns with their sex. Of course, not everyone does. People whose gender does not align with their sex are transgender or gender non-conforming. In this sense, no one is denying their male- or female-ness. They are embracing their authentic identity rather than the one that was decided for them via societal expectations and upbringing.

If this still doesn’t make sense, I encourage you to look into the intersex experience. These people are born with an ambiguous genetic make up but parents (or doctors) often make choices for the individual when they are a baby, forcing them into a particular gendered and sexual mold. This process requires societal norms and culture to build their mold into what their parents want. If we can’t differentiate sex and gender, how are intersex people accounted for? Food for thought.

Ok now that we have primary sources I can discuss more in depth.

Reddit section:

Generally the posts here fall into a few categories, relationships, sexuality, and anime girl memes.

On relationships, the first one about the cis femme divorcing the mtf. Yeah it’s definitely a bad relationship with a manipulative partner, however, all the comments tell her things along the lines of “I am a trans woman and you should leave that person.” I don’t really feel compelled to believe a significant portion of trans women behave this narcissistically in relationships, especially based on the overwhelming support for the cis woman leaving the relationship. For the one about the trans woman saying she felt like she needs to uphold a very patriarchal image of femininity. Yes, I think it’s valid that her partner felt offended and worried that her spouse also believes that she should uphold that same standard (shaving, submission, etc.), but it also appears these are more self imposed standards rather than ones the trans woman is holding her partner to. Plenty of woman are incredibly misogynistic and uphold the patriarchy because of societal brainwashing, this seems to be part of what’s happening. However, the main part seems to be that this woman is unhealthily coping with the fact that she does not feel that she passes well enough, therefore searching for anything that’s easy to change that might make her appear more feminine. Toxic way of thinking, but again, plenty of cis women, even lesbians, uphold patriarchal norms of being.

About sexuality, most of the posts in this section are about consuming a lot of porn or just genderally viewing women in a way that could be perceived as lust but is actually jealous to look/be perceived in that way. I’m getting tired of repeating this but, cis gay people do that too. It’s so easy to find countless “do i wanna be her or be with her” posts in wlw oriented memes. Disregarding the glaring issues with porn in general, because that’s a different topic, having trouble distinguishing between envy and lust is fine. The outlier posts regarding sexuality in here are one asking about how to achieve better orgasms as a pre-op trans woman on HRT, one about acting slutty for validation, and one about a woman feeling attracted to herself. I still don’t get the problem with these. For the first one, it’s a properly tagged post asking for other trans women to give advice on self pleasure. For the second one, this is harmful in the long run, but probably only to the op. She’s exchanging pics with a consenting partner and acting in a way that makes her feel sexy. When your sense of worth is derived mainly from other people finding you sexually attractive, things are wrong. However, pre-transition when I was in a bad relationship I did this too, lots of people, especially fem identifying people, have. It’s sad, but not really harmful to anyone except herself. Third, the way she worded it is admittedly a bit strange, but try to empathize with the experience of finally feeling like your body is as you feel you want it to be. I think it’s a completely normal reaction to marvel at the confidence and sexual power one might get from experiencing that for the first time.

Third, the only category in here I take broader issue with. Catgirl/anime girl memes are really popular right now, and I think most of them are posted with a harmless intent. Since most of these are meant to be stand-ins for the self in this context, I can understand the experience of wanting to align with something viewed as very cute and feminine, especially if you don’t feel that way in your real life. However, there is a pretty sinister undertone. The sexualization of young women, especially young east Asian women, is a massive problem in anime and in popular culture at large. But once again, this is not a trans exclusive problem in the slightest. Fetishization of one’s own youthfulness/innocence is a huge trend in many demographics of women. It’s often a trauma response, and I’m not blaming these girls for romanticizing their own victimhood, but just take a look at some of the videos Shanspeare’s done on the subject or take a dip into many tags on this very website to see tons of cis women posting way worse stuff than “what if I was a cute girl with cat ears and I could have BDSM sex with someone.”

First tiktok: You don’t have to date anyone, especially if they don’t fulfill traits that you require in a partner, like a vagina for example, you shouldn’t date them and that is not what this tiktok suggests. if someone has all the qualities (physical and personality wise) that you are attracted to and the sole reason you don’t want to be with them is because they’re trans, that is transphobic.

Second tiktok: I don’t believe porn is inherently harmful, but almost all of it is because we live in a misogynistic, patriarchal, and capitalist society. However, she is right in the fact that porn addiction is not (at this point) medically recognized as an addiction, even though many people have a deeply unhealthy relationship with it. (I generally feel that treating unhealthy relationships with porn as addictions is counter-productive to fixing the underlying roots, but that’s neither here nor there.) Additionally, the people pushing the fight against porn addiction, are generally not doing it for feminist reasons, usually religious or pseudo-religious instead, and are deeply misogynistic themselves. Therefore, I don’t watch her content enough to know if we agree on the more nuanced topics regarding porn/sex/kink in general, but I don’t find a major problem with this video.

Third/fourth tiktok: They’re horny on main. The SuperBowl themed one obviously has a more overtly comedic tone, but that doesn’t matter. The second woman is expressing fairly tame fetishes for the internet. I have issues with pet play/age play stuff which I covered above, but they’re both adults ostensibly having sex with other consenting adults, what’s really wrong with that? Trans women are so often treated as gross or predatory for expressing sexuality in ways that, problematic or not, cis women are not punished for to nearly the same degree. Separate tangent regarding autogynephilia as a concept: yes, most trans women who wish to medically transition feel more aroused picturing themselves in sexual situations with breasts and a vagina than flat chest and a penis. I really don’t see anything wrong with that.

Fourth tiktok: I generally agree with this one. I think a joke here or there is fine, but so often cis people go on and on about how repulsive other people’s genitals are. It’s great to set clear boundaries with people you may be intimate with about which parts you are and aren’t willing to interact with, but publicly body shaming other people simply because you are not attracted to them is over the top. This isn’t just about trans people either. It’s died down over the last 10 or so years, but the mlm community has misogyny problems and are often too comfortable hating on cis women's bodies because they are not sexually attracted to them.

I’m gonna likely rewatch and take notes on the Jessie Gender video tomorrow, so whatever there is from that I’ll post publicly. After that though, I think I’m done. Based on your very barren account and the tonal switch between your post on your account and your comments on mine, It doesn’t really seem like you’re here in good faith. I’ve put some energy into trying to be helpful so you “don’t become a full on TERF,” but by scrolling through your likes for a minute and what you’ve been saying, it seems like you’re there already.