Genuine question, because I don't know a lot about the topic and you're:
If someone identifies as non-binary and genderfluid, which from what I've gathered means something like "human" instead of male or female, doesn't that imply that women are not humans , like whole complete people with richer inner lives? And why is a dislike for (performative) femininity combined with a preference for things that are stereotypically associated with maleness an indicator that one is genderfluid? Does that mean a woman is only a woman if she loves to do make-up, wants to be a mother, only wears skirts, dresses and high heels, shaves daily, is always kind and never angry, has long hair, hates to get dirty and so on? Because I have never met a woman who's exactly like that in my life, but plenty who liked gaming, sports, being loud, opposed to shaving & make-up, who wore pants every day.
I do not believe this is a genuine question, but I'll answer it as if it was, just in case other people have to deal with this, and would like someone who is patient enough to give them the words.
The argument you're making here is something that already stems from a deep logical fallacy in the beginning argument. You assume "If you are neither A nor B, and instead C, you think that A cannot be C."
It is a logical fallacy to say "X implies Y" when it does not do so. By this logic, I also believe men are not human. By this logic, I believe only nb people are human.
Some - but not all - rectangles are squares. Some - but not all - animals are dogs. Some humans are nb.
I have given no information about how I present, nor my interests. I am not going to give you that information, because it's irrelevant. What I need you to understand is that, again, you are making the incorrect logical assumption that "If a person dislikes X and likes Y, they must be Z." For all you know, I dislike performative masculinity and like stereotypically feminine preferences.
You then assume your own statement is correct and move forward with your logic as if I had debated you. This is not a "genuine question" about how nb people work, this is assuming being nb is based on a series of preferences.
As a teacher, I do think it's important to tell you: even if this is coming from a genuinely confused place: you are conducting bad research. You begin with an inherently flawed question, as it biased and assumes a position I must defend against - "why don't you see women as people?" Then you make logical conclusions about my personhood and experiences and ask inflammatory questions as if you were debating me, which I am not interested in doing.
If you were my student, and genuinely curious about how nb people see gender, I'd have no trouble with you asking an out nb content creator. If you're really trying to collect information, ask honestly, without personal bias. Here's some examples of what a genuine question would have looked like:
- Do your preferences play into your gender identity?
- How has being nb informed how you see femininity and masculinity?
- What tools do you use to express your gender?
You are mistaking gender expression and gender roles as being part of my identity.
You are most crucially mistaking being nonbinary as being part of the binary and having to exist "in opposition" to other genders in order for it to "make sense". One of the most freeing things about realizing I was nb is that I don't exist in opposition to anything - and also that all gender works similarly.
Gender is a describing word, and this can be confusing for some people. In general, we tend to learn describing words in binary - short/tall, old/young, kind/mean. Therefore, there are (many) people who think - feminine/masculine must be oppositional. Gender is also a feeling word - and again, these are words that can be taught in opposition to each other. Hungry/sated, happy/sad, feminine/masculine.
But because gender is such a rare type of word - feeling and describing - it exists outside of binary. It exists more like art exists.
Green can exist in opposition to red, but it also just exists as its own color. Blue is a part of green, but it is also a part of yellow - blue is still its own color, and yellow is still its own color, and green is still its own color. One painting titled "still-life with fruit" may be a series of vague colors and boxes. Another may be a hyper-realistic singular plum. They are both how the artist expresses their personal vision of the fruit. They might even be by the same artist! And although we may compare them, they are not opposites.
One song by Hozier is not in opposition to one song by Britney Spears. They are different styles, not oppositional styles. You may choose to see them as oppositional - but that is your personal opinion, and not fact. And some people may feel and experience those songs as being actually incredibly in-line with each other.
This is why we say: gender is a spectrum. That all gender roles are made up. Personality, interests, and experiences may shape how someone sees and feels their gender, but it does not define how they see and feel their gender.
When we question gender roles and gender expression like this, it tends to make people upset. People like me tend to make people upset. So much bigotry is based on the lie that "feminine" and "masculine" are oppositional. Opposition is rigid and important - it keeps white hegemonic structures in power. I don't have time or space in this post to talk about how rigid gender roles/enforced gender expression rules are not just sexist but also racist, classist, ableist, homophobic, and bigoted; but I really recommend you do the research on how disruption of the gender binary might put the patriarchy at risk.
The thing you feel trapped by - that "being a woman" is a complicated series of rules - is exactly the kind of thing a nonbinary person would agree with you about. We have to fight hard to be recognized for what is a basic truth about our identity - of course we don't believe that gender expression is equivalent to gender identity.
And truth be told... I think you kind of knew that. I think you kind of knew all of this. I am going to hope that you are young. I'll tell you this: I was raised by someone who was a far-right extremist catholic asshole. I certainly didn't have the research/knowledge/exposure to interrogate this stuff honestly until I was probably 23.
I am so much happier now. I hope one day you get the same opportunities as I had. I hope you choose to move away from bigotry.
love u anyway. all this in kindness only.
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smth smth uhhh tsurune character analysis time wsg
i've never done this before in my life and i shouldn't even be doing it cause that's crazy tf BUT hi :blush: i'm Kisaragi Nanao's number one fan and hater simultaneously and i need to talk about it. chances are none of this will make the slightest bit of sense, cause thinking about his brain for more than five minutes usually has me going around in circles like a headless chicken. its been almost a year and i have not been able to stop thinking about him, not even in my most trying times so i might as well do the one thing i'm good at and write each and every single one of my thoughts down so the void can eat them all up. my friends are tired of hearing me talk about this so now its your turn, people in the tsurune but more specifically the Nanao tag on tumblr dot com. i'll try to avoid the Kaito talk as much as i can cause i wanna make this solely about Nanao, but i also understand that a lot of their character development goes hand in hand with one another, so it's sort of inevitable
to be completely honest, i wanted to be a Ryohei girlie so bad, i would've even settled for Seiya. i just knew the moment Nanao pulled up and was presented as the flirty annoying playboy, i wouldn't like him. i said it with my whole chest, firmly believing i would find absolutely no reason anywhere in his character to enjoy him. motherfucker i have never been more wrong in my life. at first glance, it doesn't even look like there's much to talk about, cause he doesn't do a whole lot in the first season. except he does. there's only snippets of depth in his character that exist, but he does not let show in order to watch over everyone around him. his introduction is loud and frivolous, especially with one of his first spoken sentences being about his "hakama beauty."
sure, he's good at kyudo, but he's not particularly excellent nor passionate about the sport. this, however, is not true, which builds up in his character as the first season progresses and eventually overflows in the second season. for a character that, in universe, is shown to be in the spotlight consistently ever since he was a child, he's none of that on the range, because that isn't his place. his position on the range is not as important as it is outside of it; he is the yonteki, he is neither at the beginning nor the middle nor the end, he cannot show off, he cannot be the centre of attention as he tends to be. it's true that he attracts a lot of attention and plays into it naturally, because he enjoys it and extroverts, however unfortunate, do exist, but he knows when to take a step back and when to go all out.
there's something i can't ever seem to quite put my finger on. although he is naturally easy-going and playful, this is only a ramped-up front he uses to watch from the back. it's like he's hiding, like he's staying nonchalant and uncommitted so things wash over him. he's blunt. he's so blunt. he really doesn't sugarcoat things, he just doesn't say them until he needs to. i don't wanna call it manipulation, cause that's got a rather negative connotation, but i do wanna call it manipulation, cause that's what it is. he knows how to manipulate responses and reactions with how easy he reads the people around him, and he uses all of that in a very level-headed way to keep peace, though it's always mainly Kaito. it's as if people are malleable to him. it's in the way he pulls Ryohei into doing that whole charade to get Kaito to like Minato, in how he straight up tells Kaito "yeah, it's cause you're being annoyingly tsundere, we're just giving you a push," or in how he tells Minato "yeah, Kacchan don't like you, but he's working on it."
he knows, he's watching, and he's making sure everyone is being accounted for without meddling too much. he sets things into motion with the right push, but he stays out of it, uninvolved. he keeps going on and on about how he's only doing kyudo with nothing but simple bull-headedness, like it doesn't matter all that much, like he can just shrug things off and let Kaito's impulsive comments not get to him. he plays it off, he plays everything off, leaning into that flighty, frivolous prince charming persona, but at the end of the day, he's the most mature and emotionally intelligent of the bunch.
most of his development is built around connections. whenever Kaito reminds him that he is not taking kyudo seriously, that kyudo is not a game, that kyudo is more than just fun and looking pretty in hakama, Nanao keeps quiet. it's something he knows very well, because none of those are any of the reasons he ever picked up a bow in the first place. he has been watching over Kaito since they were children, going so far as to follow him into kyudo and into the same high-school. however, this is something that Kaito does not recognize for the longest time—not until Nanao actively blows up on him and spells it out for him. Nanao doesn't need for his efforts to be recognized, because he is only doing it to keep peace and read everyone carefully—not only Kaito—to figure out what makes who tick.
he supports his buddies from the back and intervenes only when it's necessary. he aims to please without being self-abandoning; he keeps true to his own self while being a perfect fit for everyone. despite claiming his reasons for shooting are frivolous and superficial, Nanao has an understanding of what sets the people around him off that makes keeping him around necessary, because he shoots for Kaito and now for this team, rather than the target in front of him. he knows, he's so perceptive of it all. there's a scene stuck in my head where Ryohei tries to speak up about the whole Seiya-Nikaido interaction that was bugging him, but he ended up going back on it last minute, and Nanao straight up went "bro, either you commit to it or don't talk."
idk!! call it his big brother instincts, cause that's another thing. things do kinda make a lot more sense when you consider that he is the only one out of everyone in the club (that we know of, cause there's not much about my girls) who is an older sibling. Kaito has two older sisters, Seiya has an older brother, Ryohei has an older sister, and Minato is an only child. Nanao is the only big brother. god i'm losing my fucking mind.
i called him loud and i'll keep calling him loud, but in all honesty Nanao is a lot more silent than he seems. he flirts with his fanclub and attempts it too with the girls in the club, he is quite loud with his "Merha!", he pushes and prods all around with funny comments because, at the end of the day, he is still an entertainer, a mood-maker, and most of all, he's a child. he's still a fifteen-year-old kid that's just dicking around with his friends cause it's not that deep. he's a kid. however, he is consistently reading everyone around him, keeping peace from behind them, working his way around everyone’s quirks and kinks. he's been somewhat forced into this caretaking role, taking comments like "it'd be nice if you and Kaito went to the same school so you can keep him in check" to heart. he too wishes he could be there for his cousin to reel him back in when he steps out of line. and he does, he tries, being the first one to react and try to pull Kaito back before he can bash Minato's face in.
he does things carefully in a way that won't put pressure on anyone other than himself, watching and watching and watching and being so hypersensitive to the smallest of mood changes from anyone. that one little sigh Ryohei gave, to which he immediately went, "what's wrong?" while nobody else batted an eye. when he is the one whose patience finally runs thin, he confronts Kaito about it with truths he has never needed to explain because Kaito would not have been able to digest them properly, and Nanao has always known.
he competes not to win, but to keep up, to stay with his cousin and his team; not approaching a sport with a competitive mindset would be a hindrance to the team, which does not mean he is competitive himself. and he loves kyudo, too, just as much. his expressions and mannerisms are subtle and soft in a way that anyone would miss, but he is happy to see the people that surround him stay on track, with or without his help.
i lose my train of thought every time i start a new sentence cause there's so much i have to say about Nanao. there's a crazy amount of points i go over in my head time and time again. the fact that his hit rate is so consistent, enough to keep up with Kaito and almost with Seiya. how he does not give one flying fuck about Noririn, but he indulges Daigo anyway cause it's fun and it works and he's got nothing to lose by showing a little bit of interest in some guy's idol obsession. how he was watching from the outside, because Kaito never told him what happened with Masaki or why he suddenly wanted to start kyudo, but he was so into it that he was going in all on his own. (i say "never told him" but there's that audio drama where he did, in fact, tell him and the boys.) how kyoani uses him as a sort of bridge between the girlies and the boys just cause he's that much of a social chameleon, i guess. how he's the only other character aside from Minato, the MC mind you, who has not one but TWO features in the character songs album. he's a bridge dawg he's a fit for everyone and anyone. i dunno man i have so many thoughts and zero words to articulate them, but i love this kid. shoutout to this kid, i hope he's having a great day and his lemon teas are always the right temperature. lil bro needs a pat on the back and i wanna be the one to give it to him.
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