Tag: fences

stilesisbiles:

themintycupcake:

robotbisexual:

closeonmarksnosedive:

i’ve seen a lot of people concerned about questioning kids lately.

lots of people who were concerned that young girls might identify as nonbinary, for example, because of internalized misogyny. or young gay people who might identify as ace or aro, because of internalized homophobia.

i honestly have a lot of sympathy for people who mis-identify themselves. it’s something that most of us have struggled with at least once before realizing that we aren’t straight or aren’t cis. many of us have struggled with it twice, three times, or a dozen times!

it’s not fun to realize you were wrong. it’s not fun to live one way, feeling wrong and lost and strange and broken, because you wrongly believed that that must be who you are.

but. mis-identification is not caused by having “too many” options.

i understand this concern. i really do. I have no doubt that those examples i mentioned above do happen, very often. but it’s not really any different than my experience, and i would not blame it on any other person but myself. i was a “tomboy” little girl, i was gender nonconforming, i was a trans guy, i was a bi chick, i was a gay guy.

the way i choose to identify is ultimately up to me. i went through the trials of finding my identity in the haystack like everyone else.

i care a lot about the people who mis-identify, and i’d like to offer them support. this support does not mean that the groups that they mis-identified with are wrong or evil for allowing this person into their ranks. it means spreading the message that mis-identifying is okay! that it’s okay to change your labels as much as you want, and to try out different identities, and to change your mind or change over time. THAT is how you support a confused, questioning person.

try to remember that for every confused gay kid who thought they were ace because they couldn’t cope with the idea that they were gay, there was also a confused little ace kid who thought they were gay because they couldn’t cope with the idea that they were just “broken”.

try to remember that for every young girl who has been taught to hate femininity and herself, there is also a trans or nonbinary kid who is constantly being told “no, you HAVE to be a girl. there is no other option.”

we will make mistakes. everyone mis-labels themself. practically no one just knows themself without any effort – it’s a process of self-discovery, and it is painful and complicated. and we should be helping each other.

mis-identification happens when someone doesn’t know all of the options that exist. it happens because of stereotypes, because of bigotry, because of societal pressure and peer pressure and and and.

it is too complicated to blame on one thing. and you don’t know another person better than they know themself. assuming that is dangerous.

present all of the options to someone who is questioning instead of disguising, denying, or slandering some options rather than others. knowledge is power. that questioning person should be well-equipped to think, and try, and get to know themself, without you adding even more prejudice to the list.

concern is one thing, but pushing other people to identify one way instead of another because YOU think it’s right or better (or more likely!) is another thing entirely.

be careful. be kind. and support that questioning person no matter what they end up identifying as.

I identified as ace and gay before I accepted I was bi – a combination of confusion and internalized biphobia.

But I will forever be grateful to the extreme positivity I encountered in the ace community right when I was figuring things out that kept pressing on me /its ok if your identity changes. Its ok if you got it wrong. Its ok if its fluid./

That changed so much for me. That, over time, opened me up to exploration and released a lot of the pressure I felt to get my true identity exactly right, as soon as I could. I relaxed and delved deep until I understood things about myself, and all the wrong identities I used really helped me along the way.

Using incorrect identities for any amount of time isn’t the problem. Teaching people that doing so is wrong, makes them a fake, or that its not an option, is what makes that so hard on them.

We have got to start taking the most vulnerable people into serious consideration, and actually doing what helps them most and targets the source problem, rather than blaming all the symptoms.

I pretty much had the exact same experience while I was questioning, thinking that I was ace before realizing that I’m pan. I feel extremely fortunate that there was so much love and positivity for a-specs back then, I can’t imagine how much worse off I would be if there was as much hostility then as there is now. Questioning can be a confusing, scary time in your life and love, positivity, and support are extremely important. This post summarizes why exclusionary discourse is so harmful for questioning kids better than I could articulate. There’s nothing wrong with trying on identities just to see if they fit.

As a bi trans person I’ve been constantly told I ‘just have internal homophobia’ and that being out makes me a ‘danger to gay kids who will think they’re something they’re not’. People tell me I’m ‘actually a girl with internal misogyny and/or homophobia’ all the damn time. I’m told not to talk about being bi and trans because it’s literally ‘pushing conversion therapy by another name on gay people’ (as an ex-trans therapy survivor, thanks for that ‘comparison’).

Now I see a lot of people doing the same damn thing to ace and aro folk. Often bi trans people, even, when you’d think we know how it feels. It needs to stop. 

This stuff really is extra frustrating coming from people who have themselves been hurt by similar attitudes. A lot of it really does look like the “Don’t Say Gay”(and “Accurate Sex Ed Will Only Give Them Ideas”) rhetoric barely repackaged and repurposed to bludgeon somebody else over the head with. Turning that around to shit on other people who are different from you is just not on.

If you’re working under an assumption that access to more information and perspectives is liable to corrupt rather than help, please rethink that. Maybe especially where it involves such personal aspects of another person’s life. That type of controlling behavior is out of line, no matter what you think is motivating it or how much concern it comes wrapped up in.

People are not taking anything away from you by being different, or by having some different ideas/understandings of how things even work. Not everything is an attack. Not everything is your legitimate concern at all. How someone else experiences and conceptualizes their own relationships to gender/sexuality? Nobody else’s business. Hard to see how that could even hurt anyone else.

Trying to control how other people think and talk about important aspects of their lives? Aggressively harmful, no matter who is doing it or the ostensible rationale.

If your worldview seems thrown into peril by other people existing as they are and having access to ideas and information which don’t fit into your ideas about how things must work? That’s not anybody else’s fault. Treating that fragile worldview as more important than the actual humans around you would appear to be the real problem there.

It’s just very frustrating how often these themes keep coming up.

alliecat-person:

karalianne:

rawshocks:

please stop using the terms hyperfixation and special interest interchangeably. they do not mean the same thing. both are used to describe symptoms of learning disabilities, but they are not for the same conditions nor do they mean the same thing.

hyperfixation is a term to describe a (you guessed it) fixation on a topic that isn’t consistent, but does have a very powerful positive feeling associated with it. it comes in waves, but isn’t something you’d be 100% obsessed with over a long period of time. it usually impares your ability to focus on anything else. it’s a symptom of adhd.

special interest is a term used to describe a consistent, long-term fascination and interest with something. you may be able to focus on other things, but the underlying excitement is always there. it’s a symptom of autism.

if you, like myself, have both autism and adhd, it can be SUPER hard to tell them apart, and you probably will never need to.

i’ve been made fun of for having both hyperfixations and for having special interests, but i need people to understand that they are two different experiences.

Before I start, I want to apologize if I get testy; I have an important medical appointment tomorrow afternoon and I’m starting to get really anxious about it. But I had to comment on this because I do every time something like this comes across my dash.

Hi there! It’s great to see that you care about the language people use. Unfortunately, your opinion here is not based in fact. And yes, I have links and information for you on this.

Post about some of my history with the online autism community and more specifically about the history of the word “neurotypical.”

Post about more of my history with the online autism community and more specifically about how it was originally incredibly accepting and open to people who weren’t autistic, and we all used each other’s words.

Post about more of my history with the online autism community and more specifically about the changing language surrounding what are now called “special interests.”

Post about the history of the term “hyperfixation” that includes links to studies where it was used in relation to autism as well as to the discussion in 2015 when it was proposed on Tumblr (which I was a part of).

Post about how excluding people from using terms is actually divisive and against the concept of neurodiversity.

Long reblog chain including lots of information about these terms and how and why people use them, mostly correcting autistic people who are gatekeeping the use of the term “special interest.”

I mean, based on your definition of “special interest,” my DECADE of reading everything about autism that I could get my hands on, to the point where it was one of the few topics I could actually talk about coherently, was a special interest. Except also by your definition, it wasn’t, because I’m not autistic. So which is it?

Sorrynotsorry, I’m going to continue using the words that fit my experiences, and I’m going to continue encouraging other people to do the same thing. Because I know the history. I was there for the history.

And I am so OVER people thinking they own experiences and words.

@karalianne is completely right. See also: this meme.

Over-adherence to diagnostic labels and medicalized language does not serve the interests of neuro-atypical people. I personally don’t really get the distinction drawn here between “special interests” and “hyperfixations,” and I resent having them referred to as symptoms. My experiences are my experiences. They don’t always fit into a neat box described by someone else, even if that person and I happen to share a diagnostic label.

We need to be more welcoming of other people with similar experiences instead of trying to erect barriers around words and concepts. Whom does that really serve?

I’ve made it very clear that even though i’m born female in this society that I don’t go to or perform in any space that is titled ‘women born women only.’ I am very happy to go to a space that says ‘all women welcome’ because then it is drawing like a magnet all those who self identify, who want to be in women’s spaces, and I feel like all people who are oppressed or discriminated against in this society have a right to get together y’know whether that be a third world caucus or it be a women’s dance, whatever it is. But, I think that when you begin to set a policy that defines who’s gonna be a women, and police the boundaries of it, then it’s not only a threat to everyone who doesn’t fit that, y’know ‘gee her feet are kind of big, her voice is kinda low, look at that beard growth, what do you think about that one’ it sets up a unhealthy atmosphere. Who’s pure enough to decide who’s women enough? And I think also that it reverts back to a biological definition of women, which, biological determinism, it’s always been the club used against women! You can’t suddenly lift that up as a liberating weapon. I think that that kind of definition ‘women born women, that we’re all women, that we have identical experiences, it’s innate,’ is a setback to the women’s movement. I have always said that the only time I’d go into a space that had been ‘women born women only’ is when I could go together with my transexual sisters

Leslie Feinberg, when asked about Mich Fest in this interview

(to show to any trans exclusionary radical feminist or biological determinist when they try to claim Leslie as one of them)

The interview is titled “In the Life: Interview with Kate Bornstein, Leslie Feinberg [unedited footage]” and is dated October 21, 1996. The link was posted by the UCLA Film and TV Archive.

The quote starts around 38:40. It’s a great interview, and the further context of the quote just hammers it home even more.

(via toreblogallthethings)

Source: tuffdyke

autismserenity:

solitarelee:

autismserenity:

oodlenoodleroodle:

autismserenity:

bizexuals:

certifiedacehet:

autisticdixon:

spyrothediscourse:

i’m glad there are people making posts explaining why it’s bad to compare lgbt people (specifically trans people, specifically trans women) who don’t want cishet aces and aros to be part of the lgbt community to terfs but also it pisses me off so much that that even needs to be a thing………… don’t compare trans people to terfs literally for any reason especially not trans women….

terfs arent just “bad mean hatekeepers who dont want trans ppl to be in the community just like u dont want ace/aros to be in the community uwu” theyre like… violent abusive bigots who actually have a history of attempting to drive trans women to suicide, doxxing trans women and trans girls to get them fired or outed to their bigoted families, celebrating the death of trans women, advocating for trans women to be denied basic human rights, advocating against trans people being allowed to medically transition and spreading literal 100% false lies about the process of medically transitioning, spreading literal actual fucking nazi propaganda, spreading around articles that literally call for the extermination of all trans women, actively condoning eugenics, physically assaulting trans women, sexually harassing young trans boys (and sexually harassing cis women in relationships with trans women), threatening trans boys with abuse and rape if they continue to support trans women, and even congregating in huge groups offline in the real world to have conferences about how trans women and trans people in general don’t deserve equal rights….

if you compare trans people to terfs because they don’t want cishet aces and aros in the community you’re a disgusting transphobe and transmisogynist and you have no idea how serious of a statement you’re making

@certifiedacehet @the-mega-trans-sjw

THE FIRT PERSN TO CALL HATEKEEPERS RHETORIC SIMILAR TO TWERFS WAS A NON-ACE NON-ARO TRANS WOMAN WHO WAS (RIGHTFULLY) PISSED OFF AT AN APHOBE WHO’S RHETORIC WAS INDISTINGUISHABLE FROM ONE THAT A TRANSMISOGYNIST HAD USED AGAINST HER. SHE HAS SINCE STATED “DON’T BLAME THIS ON ACE PEOPLE, IT WAS ALL ME.”

NOT ONLY THAT, BUT SHE SAID SO TO A CIS GAY PERSON WHO SAID “LOL STOP BEING OFFENDED” WHEN SHE CALLED THEM OUT ON THEIR TRANSMISOGYNY.

IM SUPPORTING WHAT A TRANS WOMAN HAS SAID ABOUT THE TRANSMIOGYNY IN THE LGBT+ COMMUNITY AND OUTSIDE, AND IT BEING TERRIFYINGLY SIMILAR TO APHOBIA, AND IM DOING SO AS ONE OF THOSE TRANS BOYS YOU MENTIONED WHO’S BEEN SEXUALLY HARRASSED BY A TERF AND HAS EXPERIENCED THE SAME TYPE OF HATE, GATEKEEPING, AND HARRASSMENT FOR BEING ACE.

@acephobia-is-real
has to refer hundreds of people to the Trevor Project because so many ace/aro people are seeing disgusting cases of hatekeepers literally telling them to die, kill themselves, that no one cares about their identity or the experiences they have specific to being ace/aro. Young, suicidal aces/aros are seeing blatant hatred of aces/aros in the tags that are supposed to be specific to them. Not to mention the fucking 21 r old cis gays who have said to me, a sexual assault survivor, “That didn’t happen stop lying.” after I pointed out that yeah, aces experience corrective rape and therapy too.

This is putting people in physical danger of killing or hurting themselves.

No one is saying you guys are the exact same. We are saying that your rhetoric (specifically the “str8’s are str8’s” being similar to “males are males”) is terrifying, and as a mother fucking trans person, (who’s also been a victim of sexual assault more than once due to my acenes, and a survivor of a long term bullying scheme that consisted of corrective harassment and assault over the course of two years, as well as being pressured by my parents to receive corrective therapy to “fix” my aromanticism and asexuality) I’m going to fucking call out the similarities and how it is fucking disgusting, false, and putting real people in danger.

the reason I make these comparisons, the reason I say repeatedly that the logic anti-ace people use is the same as TWERF logic, is because i know JUST how serious the similarities are. i don’t do it as a joke, or for the lolz, like people bandy about “cishet” to the point where it’s lost meaning. i do it because people, rightfully, see TWERFs as bigots, and i hope, somehow, by making the comparison, someone will look at their rhetoric, their weapons and look at the people they claim to hate so much and realize they’re looking in a fucking mirror. and maybe they’ll decide to put the weapon down and do better because they don’t want to be like that. 

i know that the same people who will say “but cishet aces are straight sweaty (:” are the same people who have “don’t follow me if you’re terf” in their about. they KNOW how dangerous TWERFs are. and they’ll turn around and use the same language and the same rhetorical devices that TWERFs do. INCLUDING constant misgendering. the cognitive dissonance required to devow one group of bigots, and then put the same exact bigotry on another target is incredible. 

aphobic people have actively tried to stop the trevor project from training their suicide hotline about how to help ace teens. they wanted to take away resources that are helping suicidal kids. how is that not trying to get them killed? 

also, just as an fyi, there are trans people who are TWERFs and there are trans women who are TWERFs and they kick the shit out of their siblings just to get a seat at the table because of their internalized transphobia/transmisogyny. saying “you can’t call me a TWERF because i’m trans” is ridiculous because everyone can internalize shit and everyone can punch their siblings and no one gets a free pass for bigotry. 

/facepalm/ this is the post i was looking for, about having to refer hundreds of aces to the Trevor project because abuse from exclusionists makes them suicidal! I only had to google it?!

i misremembered the “per month” part is all

The other thing that is super important with pointing out TERF rhetoric like this is that TERFs do this on purpose! They say things that sound reasonable unless you can decode the message and hear the dogwhistles! We have a genuine serious problem with TERFs coming at young LB people on here and twitter – and they don’t get them with the “hey we hate trans women and want them dead” -rhetoric! They gotta be sly, they gotta play you. (PS the so-called “alt right” does this exact same thing, they start with the more “reasonable” sounding shit, this is literally bigot tactic 101). 

I’m sorry you didn’t recognise sneaky TERF rhetoric. I’m sorry you fell into the trap. But even if you were doing it by mistake, you gotta stop fucking spreading it. Now. You are making them seem more legitimate. You are hurting actual people with what you are doing. You either stop or someone will have to make you stop. Those are the only options. Hurting people must stop. 

This is very fucking true. The most obvious example I’ve found is the Feminist Current website. The entire thing is basically TERF rhetoric, framed in ways the average clueless cis person would totally agree with.

I’ve had to fucking fight multiple people on Facebook who posted stuff from it. And their damn friends. And I mean people who are actual friends, who have known me since before i transitioned, who would consider themselves to be trans allies.

Cis white women in particular, in my experience, tend to get really defensive about it immediately, and deny that what they shared is cissexist, transmisogynist TERF rhetoric. And then demand that you explain HOW it is. And then you’re stuck trying to explain this detailed, decades-long context for every phrase.

At least non-TERF exclusionists cut straight to “YOU’RE transphobic for even SUGGESTING such a thing! I know two trans women exclusionists and I’m going to try to hide behind them by acting like all exclusionists are trans women. Just admit you hate trans people!”

Or the ever-popular “lmao I’m nb,” where people who are not affected by transmisogyny try to pretend that it’s impossible to be trans AND be a fucking demon to trans women. And it’s ALWAYS people who aren’t affected by transmisogyny using it as a shield.

When I got to Tumblr and saw a ton of trans women being like “trans guys and nb people on that spectrum are NOT our allies, we have NOTHING in common, and they need to stay off my blog,” I was surprised. Because the community I came out into was way more integrated and mutually supportive, and most of the spaces were run by trans women.

But god-fucking-damnit if it isn’t true here. I read things like fucking sleepdontvisit’s bullshit post about how trans people have AAAALWAYS been a part of the community, and only TERFs ever tried to say different, and the acronym has ALWAYS been LGBT, and if you say otherwise you’re erasing the brave trans women in the Stonewall riots, and I’m just. So fucking embarrassed and angry with “my side”.

OK I swear I’m done ranting now.

I mean there’s posts by terfs actively recruiting aphobes and pointing out all the similarities and aphobic and nbphobic gatekeeping on this site was straight up created by bigots to help get their rhetoric into the common mind AND HAS ABSOFUCKINGLUTELY WORKED and created a hugely violent and unsafe place not only for aspec people but for non-cis and non-l/g LGBTQ+ people but yeah op go off I guess. And I hope one day you think about all the people you hurt and helped kill and feel super great about yourself.

I was just thinking last night that I’ve been in a lot of different online communities…

the local BBS, a text-based MMORPG, different newsgroups (alt.drwho.creative and some group for sharing and getting constructive criticism on poetry, for example), an RPG on AOL where my co-mods turned out to be really skeevy on having even lesbian relationships portrayed, some forum for nerds at my college, friendster, MySpace, Livejournal, Facebook, Twitter, off the top of my head)…

And none of them have been ANYTHING like this.

Other online communities are like… “Hey, there are a few jerks, but in general we try to treat each other with respect, especially on divisive topics. Ignoring or blocking the jerks is worth it, to find your people and talk about all the stuff no one else in your life understands or cares about.”

Tumblr is like, “Hey, there are a lot of really funny and interesting posts and you can learn a lot and meet amazing people, but also, complete strangers will routinely be really fucked up to you just for fun. And if you discuss any kind of divisive topic, or are a part of a hated group, many people will do their best to make you shut up and leave at best, or fucking kill yourself at worst. And a lot of them will obliviously complain about what a ‘hellsite’ this is while they do that.”

That was too long. How about:

Other communities are like: “welcome! Be cool to each other, block the haters!”

Tumblr is like, “Hating people is a fun sport! I hope you like looking at cute dogs, interspersed with all the bullying you can take and more! You can’t ever really block them, they’ll just do it behind your back until you see it! MUAHAHAHAHAHA 🐶 🐶 🐱 😻😾🙀🐕”

mikalhvi:

iamnotadamnedmonkey:

vyknightadark:

iamnotadamnedmonkey:

uglynb:

discoursecherry:

if you think fuckin 11 year olds can be asexual ur super gross please don’t talk to me bye

I was asexual at 11 years old

I mean, I was sexual at 8 years old, why can’t someone be asexual at 11?

I’m going to guess it’s because that kids at 11 are way too immature (physically and mentally) to realize if they’re ace or not. Especially since a lot of kids doesn’t start puberty until like 12 or 13. So if you keep trying to enforce the idea on your 11 year old that they’re ace, and turns out they aren’t. They’re going to keep trying to be asexual because you’re their parent and they trust you over themselves.

So please, let kids work it out by themselves and support then while they do it.

But it helps if they know the option is out there. No one is forcing kids to be asexual, but if you let them know it’s an option, ace kids might feel like nothing is wrong with them for not wanting sex. Like, it’s ok to educate people.

I knew I wasn’t a girl at like, 8 or 9. Are people trying to claim I was “too immature” then to know I wasn’t cis?

madgastronomer:

thinksnake:

catsoftheworldunite:

Gatekeeping is a trans term. Gatekeeping is not an ace term.

gatekeeping is a disabilities term. gatekeeping is a trans term. gatekeeping is an ace term. gatekeeping is a fat term. gatekeeping is a race term. gatekeeping is many many things and includes ace and trans and so many other things that I will never be able to list here.

Gatekeeping is originally an academic term, and has been adopted by various groups from there.

Save Trans Words!!!

autismserenity:

aspergyneity:

autismserenity:

thephoenixspeaksmythos:

a-tiny-pigeon:

thephoenixspeaksmythos:

autismserenity:

vas-rayya:

autismserenity:

beingalostboy:

autismserenity:

I just read this piece where Julia Serano (trans activist and author of Whipping Girl) writes, “[T]here is no perfect word: Every term will have its detractors, and so long as trans people are stigmatized in our culture, some people will use these terms in disparaging or exclusionary ways.” 

She coined the terms word-sabotage and word-elimination to talk about this. 

Word-elimination, as you might guess, is when people rally against a particular term. Usually because they find something about it offensive, or inferior to their preferred term. It’s “don’t use this word.”

Word-sabotage is similar, but indirect. It’s when people “sabotage” one term by talking about how this other word is better – in ways that imply negative things about the first term. Or when people decide that one word sucks and is terrible because another word is so great or inclusive. 

One example she gave was that when the term “trans*,” with the asterisk, became a popular way to be inclusive, people started saying that “trans” (without the asterisk) was exclusionary. Even though both terms had been used in the exact same way. And, of course, as the asterisk rose to power, people started critiquing it as well. 

(If you’re interested in language and/or in trans issues, you’ll probably enjoy reading her mini-history of the different words that we’ve embraced and then thrown out.)

But she also comes up with the term saving words. Because here’s the thing: words about controversial communities change a lot. We’re constantly under attack, and we’re constantly evolving.

And we tend to turn around and attack the people who are still using the old words. Even when we don’t actively attack them, we’re doing it by implication. We tell everyone not to use FTM and MTF, or trans*, or lots of other terms, when tons of trans people still embrace those terms. And so newbies and cis people come along and assume that those people are exclusionary, or have internalized transphobia, or are practicing some kind of lateral aggression, or are just bad and wrong.

But she explains it better: 

“But more importantly, the people who use trans-related terminology the most (by far!) are other transgender/trans/trans* folks. And whether intentional or not, attempts to undermine some specific trans-related term will have the effect of undermining those transgender/trans/trans* individuals who use that term in their activism and/or to describe their experiences.

“It is really easy to condemn a word: to take offense when people say it, to tell others it is disparaging or exclusionary, and that they should not use it. But it is not the only path (or even the best path) moving forward. Perhaps instead, we could try saving words, by calling out the negative or narrow assumptions that sometimes latch themselves onto trans-related language. When someone uses a trans-related term in a disparaging or exclusionary way, perhaps we should challenge the misappropriation of that term, rather than surrendering or undermining the word itself. It is not the words themselves, but the negative assumptions and sentiments behind the words that are the problem—so perhaps they should be our primary target.” (emphasis mine) 

I’m all about this. The ideas behind new and changing words are usually great and important, and they’re also often the same ideas that were behind the old words. 

We all have different associations with specific words, and usually when it’s a negative association, we assume that the person speaking has the same association and that they’re expressing something bad. What if we all supported each other by listening to and talking about what we each mean instead? 

This.

this is very timely BC this is an older post but I have been thinking about it a lot lately

Like, how long before the discourse is “don’t say nonbinary people are trans, that word is only for binary dysphoric people and always has been”

(I’d give that one about a year at the outside, since so many people already think nonbinary people by definition don’t experience any kind of dysphoria ever, and don’t transition ever, and people already say things like “trans and nonbinary people”)

how long until “it’s transphobic to call it transitioning, or to say you want to transition! you’ve always been that gender, you’re not transitioning to it”

how long til “it’s transphobic to use they/them as generic gender-neutral pronouns, because those really are the pronouns for nonbinary people, and you’re implying they could be used by anybody”

(I know the last one excludes neopronouns. I just think a lot of people would use it as a convenient tactic to marginalize and erase neopronouns)

Just want to point out that I’ve seen people already making the argument that the word trans is only for binary dysphoric people.

yeah, I might be splitting hairs here. Because I’ve seen it too, in the form of truscum claiming that nb people just plain aren’t trans – that those of us who transition are “confused” and really binary, and those who don’t shouldn’t be allowed to because they’re “not trans” (??????)

I was thinking that we hadn’t reached “nonbinary people are their real gender (or genders, or genderless) and can transition, but trans isn’t an umbrella term, it only means the binary part of the community.”

But that’s not really all that different.

I’ve seen every single one of these arguments, even the pronouns one. In fact, a while back, there was a blog dedicated to replacing “them” pronouns with their own so-called “universal pronouns” (and appropriating from another religion – Buddhism I think – in the process). I have no idea if that blog is still around or not. 

On topic, though, I agree with this post entirely. As long as those same people don’t apply it to people who don’t want it applied to them personally, it should be fine for people to use the terms they see fit. After all, we all should have the right to define our own experiences and language, no? 

Perhaps that’s a given, though? Or at least one would hope. 

-Ryan 

my personal opinion is that nonbinary people are inherently included under trans and there’s no need for the asterisk to be there (we’re represented by the white stripe on the trans flag after all)

 but i’m not going to flip shit (anymore, haha thank god i smartened up) if someone uses trans* with the intention of including enbies (plus there are nonbinary people who don’t ID as trans, this includes them)

language is important and in a perfect world we’d be able to seriously sit down and talk about all these words, and even come up with stable definitions- but that’s not really how language works. Words evolve and change and fall in and out of use over time.

People on here love to talk about stuff like who is and isn’t “allowed” to use x or y term or which terms are Valid and which are Problematic but I’ll tell you right now ask a fairly supportive cis person how many genders they know and they’ll probably say male, female, nonbinary/agender/genderqueer/both/neither, and maybe genderfluid.

(Same for sexualities: they’ll say gay, straight, bi, potentially pan and ace)

Gender and sexuality are amazing and diverse experiences, of course people are going to make tons of words in an attempt to describe theirs. Can it get confusing and complicated and risk freaking some people out because they can’t find a label that fits them just right? Yup. Does that mean we should do away with the whole system entirely?

Nah.

So some words will be more popular. Some will only be known by insiders. They’ll change as our collective understanding of gender and sexuality changes. Try to keep this in mind when you hear someone using outdated terms; sure they could be a dick, but they could also just be ignorant, or y’know, from a time when that was the Correct Word.

Normally it’s seen with older people but with how fast information spreads now you can have people less than 10 years apart with completely different lexicons about gender + sexuality. 

Basically, chill and try not to jump on someone just because they used a word that you think is Wrong.

(disclaimer: words that are slurs should obviously be used carefully, and only to refer to people who are comfy being called that word. people, especially older people, may make this mistake, be kind but firm in correcting them. and if they’re just being assholes, let ‘em have it if you feel safe to do so)

^^^
This is a really good addition and one we agree with. A lot of things are said here that we wanted to say, but didn’t know how to quite put into words. 

(Thank you.) 

especially the part about how fast it changes. @rainbro-stache at 37 years old, once said to me: “did you know that FTM is outdated now?!” I was like “yes bc I’m on Tumblr” but like… We used to be able to say things like “on the FTM spectrum” to indicate that someone was not binary but shared life experiences with binary trans guys. And the same for MTF.

And now we’re stuck with things like “AFAB/AMAB,” which describe the person solely in terms of what they were born with (and doesn’t overlap well with a lot of intersex experiences).

Or “transfem/transmasc,” which… to me implies that people on one spectrum are inherently “masculine” and people on the other are inherently “feminine” or “femme”? Which I fucking haaaaate: because I’m fairly high femme… because butch trans women and butch “transfems” need support and visibility really badly… and because where does that leave people who are gender fluid or agender?

Right back in “what’s important about you is what binary box we want to assume you’re in,” that’s where.

/rant

What fascinates me about the “trans*” thing is that I was on tumblr around that time, and I very clearly remember people being really excited for that at first! People loved it and really made a case for using it all the time! …and then, suddenly, somehow, all the same people who were praising it were saying that it’s terrible and no one should use it because “trans is already inclusive of non-binary people, if you have to make an extra show of being inclusive then you’re not really.” The turnaround time seemed to be like…a few months, too?

What’s even worse is that it actually ended up making the whole thing very Americanised, because a lot of British documents and guidelines (for things like the NHS and helplines and other decent trans services) STILL use “trans*” and make notes about its inclusivity. So it’s like the official guidelines are trying to be helpful, and then people are seeing on the internet “actually they’re not helpful, that’s SO outdated and they don’t know what they’re talking about.”

So yeah, this sudden rushing around, creating and then abandoning terms is just…wow is it not actually helpful in the slightest.

Omg yes. I’ve seen posts, that flatly state that anyone using “transgendered” inevitably turns out to be an ignorant bigot. And… maybe if they’re cis?

But for years, in the late 90s, we used both transgender and transgendered. I remember vigorous debate about this on several trans listservs. I still have a trans anthology FROM 2006 where at least one, maybe several, of the authors calls themself “transgendered” in their own bio.

I was rooting for “transgendered” myself. I know, we lost, the community has clearly gone with “transgender.” But I am not a fan of the unilateral “this word and everyone using it is Problematic” bullshit. (Especially since I’ve also seen that said about MTF/FTM, and there are still a LOT of trans people on Tumblr using those terms for themselves!)

Like, I love discussion about what different words imply, what connotations different people have with them, what people personally like to use and why.

It’s when we get into “and therefore this term is Right and these terms are Wrong and if you use them you’re also Wrong” that it gets… “Problematic” to me.

allosexisterfs:

trannyfem:

vaspider:

noirsatanslip:

ghostqueenofthesun:

h8keepers:

christopherokamoto:

linguisticparadox:

rhodeboats:

when ur ace and u wanna follow a blog

TBH

When you see an otherwise decent post containing “cishets” or “LGBT”

when you openly hate lgbt people so much that seeing “lgbt” on someone’s blog will stop you from following them

Obviously they said that because people who use LGBT instead of LGBT+ or LGBTQ+ etc are leaving a lot of people out. It’s not clever to intentionally misunderstand something like that.

^^ what??? That’s not even close smh did you drop an /s or something??

So what’s wrong with cishet then in that case?

Nope. It’s unfortunately a dogwhistle on this site at this point. I have found, much to my chagrin, that I’m usually better off checking to be sure that someone who just uses LGBT isn’t using it to exclude people on purpose, the same way that I would check to be sure that someone using ‘female’ or ‘male’ in a post isn’t a fucking TERF.

It sucks, but there it is. It’s not consistent – not everyone who uses ‘female’ in a post is a TERF, not everyone who uses ‘LGBT’ is trying to leave people out, but it’s common enough that I usually think it’s a good idea to check before following or reblogging.

(And the fact that @ghostqueenofthesun was responding to one of the best-known anti-ace blogs, who literally take their name from a joking conversation between myself and @scribbleowl where one of us mistyped ‘gatekeepers’ as ‘hatekeepers’ and I posted laughing about it, is preeeeetty much all you need to know about how very intentionally they are misunderstanding, and why.)

Oh – and the thing about cishet? It’s been appropriated by the REG crowd, which sucks. They deploy it against ace/aro folks of any persuasion, but are glad to slap it in the general direction of anyone who thinks ace/aro folk are part of LGBTQIPA or Queer communities. (I cannot count the number of times I’ve been called ‘cishet’ by exclusionists, despite being neither.) So if I see it? I check to be sure they aren’t just dogwhistling for ‘ace/aro ppl or people who disagree with me about including ace/aro ppl.’ 

I feel it’s time we stop pretending like dogwhistles aren’t being used, and also stop pretending like people don’t know they use ‘em.

People are most definitely manipulating and skewing these conversations a lot, and they fully utilise dogwhistles to do so.

And will deny any such a thing when it’s brought up – and even resorting to use more dogwhistles. Which we see exemplified above.

People are wary of dogwhistles, so when people see that, they respond by using more, and pretend to mistake the wariness of dogwhistles, with what they’re pretending the dogwhistles mean.

So when someone is wary at “lgbt”, these people clearly often mean “not nb/pan/ace ppl” a huge chunk of the time, but people shut that critique down by trying to paint you as actually being distrustful of what lgbt literally stands for (and not the context of its use), so being wary of lesbian, gay, bi, n trans folks.

And I really thought by now that this was apparent and obvious, that these people are clearly being manipulative, because, I mean, it’s manipulation being criticised to begin with.

Also, the other point, cishet, when people show wariness over that, again, people will act like you’re wary of people talk of their oppressors, and not the context and intent of its use – where the person believes this includes people who aren’t even “cishet”.

See their tactics. Recognise them. And don’t take their manipulative rhetorics as genuine critique, but as simply shit to try to paint you as vile and immoral.

Anyway, it’s pretty reasonable in an lgbtq+ context, when there’s so many polarising and hateful ideologies in the bunch.

People are trying to twist dislike of ideology, to be about dislike of a minority. To make themselves seem more in authority in this, thus more in the right. Conflation of identity and ideology is pretty common thing to do as well to skew the conversation.

This is also the EXACT SAME FUCKING THING as TERFs constantly screaming “lesbophobia” and “just say you hate lesbians go on admit it” any time someone mentions, for example, that they check for TERF posts when they see a URL like vulvacentric or clitoridyke or lavenderlesbian.

Us: So many people in this community use these words as dogwhistles to signal to each other that they hate us, and want us to fuck off and die, that now I check before I follow someone using them

People who want us to fuck off and die: JUST SAY YOU’RE A BIGOT WHO HATES EVERYONE IN THE GROUP WE’RE BOTH IN

Why should we fight for marriage when it’s been so bad for so many women?

fierceawakening:

ferenofnopewood:

fierceawakening:

moranion:

fierceawakening:

argumate:

It peddles pro-marriage propaganda that lesbians, of all people, should not support. We should remember why we became lesbians in the first place, and reflect on our own heroic efforts to evade the social role fixed for females worldwide. Marriage is a conservative institution developed in order to organise the servitude of women. For many women it remains so.

holy shit

People saying stuff like that happened here too.

heeey, turns out i want to fuck women just because men are gross, not because i genuinely want to fuck women, who knew?? lesbianism is an alternative to heterosexuality! much progressive so revolutionary!

Yep. Everyone go project their sexual feelings onto women for a better world

Ah look, *political lesbianism*.

Oh, I know. But I sometimes see the sentiment on here that this kind of thinking is a strawfeminist that “anti-SJW” meaniefaces invented or exaggerated, because Kids Today are much less likely to run into people literally saying this stuff.

Even tumblr’s crop of TERFs, from what I’ve noticed, tend to treat lesbianism as pleasurable and not see getting off on sex with women as a sin.

Why should we fight for marriage when it’s been so bad for so many women?

Yesterday an ADHD ask blog i follow said that special interest is for anybody to use, and it isn’t autism exclusive. They use it in place of hyperfixation every time, even when referring to other people who have already used the word hyperfixation to describe their interest. I told them it isn’t okay since they’re allistic and they told me that i’m wrong and it isn’t autism exclusive but i thought that the term special interest IS autism exclusive!! am i wrong???

karalianne:

lysikan:

teasugarsalt:

lysikan:

jessycarpenter:

lysikan:

k-pagination:

chavisory:

autism-asks:

Special Interest is exclusive to autistic people as we have been pathologized for our special interests.

Hyperfixation is the community wide term, and was coined specifically so people with ADHD could talk about the shared experiences around having hyperfixations/special interests without appropriating special interests.

– Os

That “special interest” is autism-specific and people with ADHD should say “hyperfixation” instead is not a consensus of the autistic community, and the human brain is not actually configured according to our political distinctions in terminology.

My opinion is that the ADHD blog (whose author I know personally) was correct, and autism-asks is incorrect.

Neurodivergent people should be able to use the words that accurately describe what we are experiencing.  (FWIW, I am autistic, I do not have ADHD.)  Some people with ADHD experience interests or passions in a way that isn’t substantially distinguishable from the way in which autistic people experience this phenomenon.  They may not be pathologized for it in exactly the same way, but that isn’t what determines whether the experience itself is pretty much the same thing.

And like a LOT of people are diagnosed with ADHD (whether correctly or not) before they’re diagnosed with autism (whether instead of or in addition to ADHD).  Their “hyperfixations” do not suddenly become “special interests” when their diagnosis changes.

And a lot of people who don’t qualify for any specific diagnosis experience isolated features of autism, because autism is caused by the combined effects of lots of common genes.  90% of mothers of autistic kids, whether they’re autistic themselves or not, experience some kind of sensory processing anomaly.

They deserve to be able to call those experiences what they are, in a way that enables them to make themselves understood.  Nobody is helped by falsely separating out the allowed language for who is experiencing what, if they are substantially the same thing.

I do not know how things got this way, but I think some folks could stand to…learn to appreciate that some neighborhoods of the autistic and ADHD communities think of these topics a little differently than they do.  People with ADHD who subscribe to this way of talking about them are not in the wrong.

(And some of us with autism hate the term “special interest.”  Honestly, ADHD’ers can have it for all I care.)

I am kind of done with gatekeeping tbh going on like… My opinion is to agree that the ADHD blog was correct. I’m autistic and have ADHD so like… definitely not a consensus in all parts of the autistic community that it’s “appropriating” “special interest.” 

As a person that has a great deal of difficulty with words – yeah, I am done with people trying to gatekeep them.

If a word fits what you mean to say please use it. Making up new words for each subset of humanity makes communication HARDER not EASIER.

Words have meanings, not owners.

I generally agree. It’s describing the same damn symptom. I’ve heard that “special interest” is an ableist term from an abusive therapy so that’s why its autism exclusive, but I’ve never seen any sources for it so _(シ)_/.

Actually, the term is REALLY OLD. Was not originally related to anything specific – no diagnosis or anything. Clubs and social organizations have been using it since before autism was a diagnosis (see Mensa, for example). Most older social organizations have “Special Interest” groupings of some sort, aimed at attracting people who have some really strong attachment to specific topics. It was not used by the abusive groups BECAUSE of that affiliation with respected organizations – they do not want to imply the members of elitist clubs are ‘bad’ in any way – that’s where they get their funding.
The attempt to say it is “only for autistics” is just gatekeeping to try to make being autistic some exclusionary thing – and as a nonverbal autistic, I say no – do not try to make my life harder just to grab at some bit ‘exclusionism’ you (general) can use to feel special.

Honestly, ADHD person chiming in, the reason, the only reason, I use hyperfixation, is because the way I experience my hyperfixations does seem to be substantially different from the way people experience special interests.

For me, hyperfixations are intense while they last but can end up dropping themselves for the next shiny thing much more easily than it seems from out here that special interests can. (I say drop themselves because I’m not consciously doing the dropping.) They can also go latent for weeks, months, years, decades. The infodumps seem to be shorter, too. I *need* to tell you about my hyperfixation, but only for a minute or two. My hyperfixations are marked by brief, fiery intensity, where I have very little control over how incredibly focused I am on them, but they might end or pause at any time. This makes sense, as they are the subjects of my hyperfocus.

Examples:

Babylon 5 – I know a whole heck of a lot about it, can recite a lot of it, keep coming back to it…but I might go years without watching an episode. If someone brings it up, or I feel wounded inside and need reliable comfort, though, Babylon 5 comes roaring back. I go through cycles of hyperfixation with Babylon 5.

Second Life – When I did it I did it for hours a day. I loved it intensely. I did cool things with it. I shut out the world when I was on it. It was all I wanted to talk about. Then it stopped running well on my computer and I found other things to do and *poof* hyperfixation gone.

If an ADHD person has a special interest, they should probably be allowed to describe it as a special interest. However, if I say I have a hyperfixation, I don’t mean special interest, and I would be frustrated if someone labelled it one.

Is why I said “If a word fits what you mean to say please use it.” in my first response 😀
Telling people what words to use based on which subset of which divergence they might have and the color of the sky at the time they are speaking is making word salad out of what used to be perfectly useful terms.

Words have meanings, not owners.

One thing I do want to clarify.

I use “special interest” when answering the “hyperfixation” asks if I think that’s what they’re talking about, because I’m not always sure. “Hyperfixation” was proposed as an umbrella term, which means it could be used in place of “special interest” OR “hyperfocus” OR “obsession” OR any other term related to these kinds of phenomena.

In the previous uses of the term “hyperfixation” in the psych literature, it was used to mean exactly the same thing as “special interest.” This just adds to my confusion when people use it in asks. Like, I totally understand where @teasugarsalt is coming from, and that use makes way more sense to me than the way ADHDers are being told to use it.

When someone writes in asking about a “hyperfixation” I answer it the way I think the person means, and I use the corresponding term that seems to apply for two reasons: first, to make sure I’m understanding correctly; and second, to make sure the person knows the other terms are okay to use. Because a lot of people who use “hyperfixation” do so because they’ve been treated badly by other people for using a different term.

I use “special interest” for myself, as well, and sometimes when I’m answering an ask about “hyperfixation” I end up talking about my own experiences with special interests. This is another clarity issue.

The proposal of “hyperfixation” in 2015 muddied the waters way too much and I don’t think anyone has actually figured it out yet. Also, if you use “hyperfixation” in general company you may get blank looks. “Special interest” will get everyone nodding along.