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Down Girl is a powerful, rich, and compelling account of the logic of misogyny. Manne's account advances previous work on the connection between sexism and misogyny by theorizing misogyny as the structural enforcement mechanism of patriarchy, rather than as merely an individual psychological disposition of some persons. Overall, Manne's analysis is sophisticated, illuminating, and, I think, largely correct. Perhaps the most controversial set of arguments in the book concern rejecting dehumanization as the best explanation of the brutal and degrading, in short, inhumane, treatment of members of subordinated groups by dominant group members that occurs both in war and, all too often, in every day life. My comments are directed toward thinking about how to extend Manne's analysis to forms of subordination on the basis of gender that she doesn't explicitly consider—in particular, the experience of gender non-conforming persons. In the course of developing those insights, I will engage with her arguments concerning dehumanization and argue that recognition of subordinate others' humanity is not an all or nothing matter. This tension between both recognition of humanity and denial of it, in some sense, provides additional explanatory power for the gender policing gender non-conforming persons experience and, in some cases, women as well. Early in the book, Manne offers a detailed accounting of the limitations of her project and its perspective (Manne, 2018, p. 24-30). Among those limitations is the lack of development of an account of how patriarchy and so misogyny function together in the context of gender binarism and heteronormativity that serve to oppress, exclude, marginalize, and subordinate those who occupy a space, or identities, outside these structures—including transwomen, gender non-conforming persons, and gays and lesbians. (footnote: For an interesting argument and analysis of the oppression of trans and nonbinary persons in dominant gendered contexts, see Dembroff (2020). /end footnote.) That work, Manne rightly notes, would require an additional, and separate, book. I attend to the following questions, as a preliminary to what that work may reveal: 1. If misogyny works by creating and sustaining the structural conditions and mechanisms for keeping women "in their place," how are those conditions connected to the subordination of gender non-conforming people? How might we understand the oppression of persons who have "no place" within a system that demands gender conformity to a binary set of alternatives? 2. How can we understand claims of dehumanization in light of the ways in which gender nonconforming persons are often read as both human and, yet, not intelligibly human? footnote: Thanks to Robin Dembroff for comments and discussion on earlier drafts of this piece. /end footnote.

I. MISOGYNY AND MISANDROGYNY (footnote: I vexed over what word to us be hostility towards gender non-conforming persons. I settled on "misandrogyny" even though it may carry with it the thought that gender non-conforming people are all committed to androgyny, which is false. Thus, I used the term to capture the hostility, both interpersonal and structural, that gender non-conforming persons face, but reject the implication that gender non-conformity entails androgyny. /end footnote.) Manne argues that misogyny is a set of interlocking practices built into our social world and environment that function to keep women in their place. "That place" is one of subordination relative to men, and includes gender role division such that women are defined and coerced into playing a service role to men whether that be emotional, sexual, or by providing material care. Patriarchy sustains itself by structuring the conditions in which men are entitled to this subordinate service, and deviations from those expected roles are punished through misogynists practices. The misogynist form of such punishment and enforcement involves enacting consequences upon women who step outside their gendered role, who fail to stay "in their place." Women are punished as women, in a man's world, when they are judged to transgress their "duties" as women. Yet, as Manne rightly recognizes, compliant women are "rewarded" for their complicity, even if the reward is a degraded one that takes the form of "honored for submission" or at least not being punished. In reflecting on Manne's analysis and my own lived experience, I was led to think about occupying a social space in which there is no system of rewards, only a system of punishment. As someone who is routinely misgendered, or whose sex cannot be interpreted by my gender presentation, I often occupy the space of placelessness. (By the way, I am a woman, and identify as such, but live in a world in which the way I present myself is not compatible, in most environments, with being read or understood as a woman. Thus, although I am a woman, and identify as such, my social identity is a gender non-conforming person.) Such placelessness sometimes includes being read and treated as a "failure" as a woman. Instances of being perceived as a "failed woman" can be illuminated by the idea that in failing to conform to dominant standards of femininity, I have stepped out of line. Yet, sometimes I am read as a man, including being treated as a man—though often some movement, expression, or other behavior will give me away, and then in those cases, I am read as "failure" as a man. Sometimes my placelessness is communicated as simply being a gender failure—an unintelligible body in a binary world—a person with no place. I have been called "it." Asked directly: "what" are you? As an outsider to gender binarism, I have learned, experientially and often painfully, the only way to have a place, to be socially intelligible, to navigate much of the social world, is to announce explicitly and redundantly, through dress, hair, adornment, posture, manners of speaking, and so on, a gendered identity as either man or woman. Gender non-conformity is broader than androgyny, of course. And, this insight about social intelligibility is intended to be inclusive of the ways in which the demand for gender conformity (alignment between dominant ideals of bodies as "sexed" and "appropriate" gender norms for bodies as so perceived) is made upon gender queer, queer, and other non-binary identities.

As Manne rightly notes, women are subordinated within the patriarchal system, including a commitment to a gender binary, that produces, structures, and supports male entitlement. Gender non-conforming persons are subordinated as outsiders to that system, and are, as such, a threat to the coherence of the system itself. (footnote: Manne explicitly notes that "the gender binary system—where people are divided into two mutually exclusive and exhaustive categories, of boys and men, on the one hand, and girls and women, on the other—as inaccurate and pernicious." (Manne, p. 26-27.). /end footnote.) Women have a claim to existential entitlement, if they stay in their place. Gender non-conforming persons have no socially recognized claim to even exist. (footnote: Trans women and men, but especially women, often describe their experience in similar terms. I will not explicitly explore the experience of trans women here, in part, because I am not competent to do so. /end footnote.) And, even more, face active and hostile resistance to demands for any kind of recognition. As Manne aptly writes, the gender binary, in the dominant perspective, is an "uneven, gendered economy of giving and taking moral-cum-social goods and services"(Manne, p. 107). But, gender non-conforming persons neither have entitlement to be takers nor a social script in which to be givers. They/we are outside the gendered moral economy. The subordination of women, the enforcement of their subordination through a set of social scripts and normative imperatives to stay in their place, is so effective, so all encompassing, in the context of a gender binarism that refuses to permit non conformity to gendered bi-furcation. Part of the social and existential "threat" of gender non-conforming persons is the way in which their very existence exposes the contingency of a gender system that presents itself as natural and hence justified. Misogyny and misandrogyny work together to ensure the complicity of some women, punish those who step out of line, and reinforce the system of domination in which men, as men, occupy a privileged gender position.

II. DEHUMANIZATION The point that systems of oppression, including patriarchy, stabilize themselves through the complicity of some set of the subordinate class, securing the meager "benefits" and degraded "entitlements" within the oppressive structure, leads to a further insight regarding Manne's claim, perhaps controversial, that misogyny relies upon the inclusion, rather than exclusion, of women from the human community. Contrary to the view she calls "humanism," Manne argues that the reactive attitudes that underwrite the hostility and accompanying violent behavior that subordinated groups, specifically women, are subjected to presupposes their humanity. Manne's argument that dehumanization is not the best explanation of violence and terror against persons as members of subordinated groups can be plausibly challenged. In particular, if one interprets the claim of dehumanization as a failure to secure the conditions of equal standing necessary for full recognition of human status, and the accompanying rights, rather than as a description of the psychological belief state of perpetrators, then Manne's arguments are better read as narrowly attacking one interpretation of what it means to "dehumanize" persons. (footnote: For example, I do not read Catharine A. MacKinnon's work as advancing the humanist theses Manne criticizes. Manne does not offer extended analysis of MacKinnon's work in the chapter devoted to humanism, so she may agree with me. However, the book opens with a quote from MacKinnon ("When will woman be human? When?") and the passages on Langton's work as an extension of MacKinnon's analysis of pornography suggest that, perhaps, Manne locates MacKinnon in the humanist tradition as she defines it. Against this possible reading of MacKinnon, I read her as arguing that human rights law, in particular, has been built upon men's experience of such violations and that human rights law itself must change to conceptualize the specific group-based injuries women experience because they are women. This argument doesn't rest on attributing psychological states to perpetrators of violence against women, including mass rape and genocide. Rather, it says the concept of human rights violations, and indeed humanity, had to be expanded to recognize that "group-based injuries [are] central to the denial of humanity, with sex- and ethnically- based harms at the core of, rather than peripheral to, human rights" (MacKinnon, 2005, p. 2). Thus, the critical point of MacKinnon's arguments about equal standing within the legal frameworks designed to secure human rights. As she writes: "Legally, one is less than human when one's violations do not violate the human rights that are recognized" (MacKinnon, p. 3). Thus, Manne's arguments that denying women's "humanity," as it were, depends upon hierarchically organized group divisions as socially situated forms of inequality is quite congenial with MacKinnon's position, rather than opposed to it. /end footnote.) Nonetheless, the arguments she offers claiming that many of the reactive attitudes that function to underwrite misogyny depend upon attributing human status to women provide grounds for thinking about gender non-conforming persons' relation to the category "human." Manne argues that the conflict that generates, supports, and structures hostility towards women, both in its structural and personal forms, relies upon attributing and recognizing the humanity of women—as the reactive attitudes of resentment, perception of rivalry, perception of another as threat, as out of place, depend upon a kind of recognition of the status of the other, the aggriever, as within the human moral community. Central to grounding these reactive attitudes is the perception that the other, women who fail to fulfill their subordinate, relational role, denies their superior some good to which they are "entitled." Misogyny works, in part, to both punish the transgression and to restore the claimed entitlement thought to be denied.

Are the kinds of reactive attitudes persons experience when confronted with gender non-conforming persons similarly premised upon some recognition of their humanity? And, how are they related to the kinds of reactive attitudes projected towards women? To explore these questions, I distinguish three types of reactions people often display when confronted with a gender non-conforming person, whom they cannot intelligibly judge as a man or a woman or whom they judge to violate dominant norms of gender/sex coherence. These will be oversimplifications, of course, but if that can be forgiven, I think the distinctions are useful: 1. The misguided altruist: Here I have in mind the person who is aware they cannot read your gender, but this fact makes them uncomfortable because they don't want to get it "wrong." They may hesitantly call you Sir? Or Ma'am?, with inflection and a particular kind of eye contact that looks to see which salutation you will accept. Fear of causing you shame or embarrassment, should they get your gender "wrong," underlies their hesitancy to address you at all. Note though, the assumption of gender binarism is alive and well; however, the misguided altruist aims to get "it" right, they think, for your sake. Such persons may experience befuddlement, but this doesn't necessarily lead to reactive attitudes that hold the gender non-confirming person responsible. Rather, they internalize the responsibility to "get it right." 2. The oblivious genderer: Here I have in mind a person who fixates on any aspect of your gender presentation that they read as fitting into either the man or woman category, genders you as such, and so treats you as such. Important to describing this kind of reaction to a gender non-conforming person is that the "oblivious genderer" doesn't register that there is any gender non-conformity happening; they just see a tie, for example, and a body that is sufficiently masculine, and attribute the category "man." Here too, as with the misguided altruist, possible reactive attitudes are not especially salient for thinking about the status of the gender non-conforming person, as they are not perceived as such. 3. The hostile enforcer/punisher: Here I have in mind the person who grasps that your gender expression and your body do not fit dominant norms of cohesion. And, as a result, they are pissed off. The expression of their anger can range from a hostile dismissal, to a refusal to interact, to a public confrontation aimed at your humiliation, to threats of violence, to actual violence. This case provides the most fruitful comparison case for exploring the relationship of misogyny to misandrogyny, as they project a range of reactive attitudes holding the gender non-conforming person responsible for their reactions. 4. The fourth category is small, but growing: those that get it. I won't say much about them here but they do give cause for hope. They may display reactive attitudes that reflect praise.

Women as well as men are members of each group. Though when they are members of the hostile enforcer category, they typically do not rely on threats of violence or violence directly. Sometimes, though, they may draw on men (their husbands or boyfriends) for authority to indirectly threaten

violence. This is especially true when it comes to policing bathrooms. Manne's explanation of internalized misogyny can help to explain women's policing of gender non-conforming people as well as their policing of other women. Some women, no less than men, have a deep investment in the gender binarism even as it distributes status unequally (Manne, p. 146). Gender non-conforming persons and "misbehaving women" both, in different ways, "threaten to undermine the system on which many women have staked their futures, identities, sense of self-worth, etc" (Manne, p. 147). Two further points can be drawn from these reflections that may aide in thinking through how Manne's insights can be extended to think through the kinds of gender policing gender non-conforming persons face. First, whether persons are attributed the normative status of human moral persons is not an all or nothing matter. And second, the concept of humanity is itself shot-through with normative meanings, some of which are hierarchical. In the archetypes sketched above, the misguided altruist, the oblivious genderer, and the hostile enforcer, we can see a conflict in recognition of gender non-conforming persons' humanity as underwriting the reactions, whether they contain reactive attitudes or not. All of the orientations, even the altruist, rest on a kind of judgment or perception that the gender non-conforming person is a kind of failure at being a human being, because human beings are intelligible only as men or women. The failure to conform to the ways of enacting humanity is what is so befuddling or enraging. Gender non-conforming persons, I think, are met with such attitudes because they are perceived as occupying a space of contradiction: human and not intelligibly human. (footnote: Persons with disabilities-particularly visible and atypical-are similarly situated in many ways as perceived/judged as "failures of humanity." Such persons are recognized to resemble full human moral persons, but their bodies, their difference, is all too often met with shock, disgust, anger, exclusion, subordination, and shunning-or worse. /end footnote.) Their bodies and self-presentation do not fit within the schema of intelligible humanity. Normative notions of humanity carry with them the gender binary. One is never simply a human. They are a kind of human, a man, a woman, a member of a racial group, and so on. Manne's analysis highlights that the conflict expressed here—seeing persons as both human and not intelligibly human—is underwritten by hierarchical social structures that serve to ground the entitlement of the dominant class relative to the subordinate ones. And further, that the particular agents issuing judgments and enforcing/enacting penalties upon members of the subordinated classes are in the grip of a powerful ideological backstory that "justifies" their superiority and subsequent judgments. But, unlike those drawing on misogynist ideology to punish women for "stepping out of line"—for aspiring beyond their place, as it were—the hostile enforcer of gender conformity relies on the ideology of gender binarism to insist that the gender non-conforming person is entitled to no space, no place, no existential entitlement. There is no place for the gender non-conforming person to retreat and exist as such. Retreat—conformity to the gender binary—entails annihilation, non-existence. Misogyny's logic doesn't entail the annihilation of women, as a category, even if many forms of its practice target some women for annihilation. Women are permitted to exist, so long as they stay in their place. None of this is to suggest that women's existential choice set—adopt compliant femininity or face penalties—serves their interests or represents a superior position to the gender non-conformity person's choice set—adopt a gender or fail to have a social existence. Both choice sets are manifestly unjust.

III. LIBERATION AND EQUALITY Substantively dismantling social hierarchies that serve to divide persons, on the basis of group membership, into classes of dominators and subordinates is essential to the project of securing substantive

equality for persons, and thus a precondition to liberation, or real freedom. Beyond this necessary first step, it is hard to imagine what liberation from oppressive social roles looks like, for we lack a diversity of sustained models for non-hierarchical relations that include group distinctions/difference. Moreover, many people are deeply invested in their gendered identities, gender presentation and self-expression as gendered beings. The early radical feminist suggestion that liberation meant androgyny for all is not a call many want to heed. As a final thought, I want to reflect on the role of gender non-conforming persons and their role in creating the conditions for liberation for others, even those who remain deeply committed to a binary gender identity and presentation. One feature of gender non-conforming persons is that their bodies and external presentation disrupt expectations both about bodies, how they "should" be, and expectations of how bodies and gendered appearance and behavior relate to one another. In dominant social spaces, this disruption of expectations is troubling, unsettling, and often leads to anxiety and frustration for those confronted with bodies they don't understand. Or worse, it leads to violence targeting gender non-conforming persons. For the gender non-conforming person, being misgendered, misunderstood as a gender, or rendered the object of ridicule and judgment, can lead to shame, anxiety, fear, self-doubt, self-hatred, and an overwhelming desire to simply disappear. Yet, in resisting the dominant force of gender binarism, by refusing to submit and by simply existing, by claiming a social space and living out their gender ambiguity, and gender queerness, gender non-conforming persons are an important symbol and substance of resistance to the gender binary that sustains misogyny. Misogyny depends upon the gender binary—the organization of persons, their bodies, their identities into categories of dominant and subordinate—in Manne's words into "takers and givers." A system of symbolic meaning, including gendered dress, hair, adornment, self-expression, movement, space taking (or lack there of), talking, walking, gesturing, and so much more organizes persons so that they are readily and efficiently identifiable in the taker (Man) or giver (Woman) category. The repetitive and redundancy of gendered expression, announcement, underscores how little deviation is tolerated within a system of norms that function to keep women in the subordinate position. We don't just announce our sex/gender in one or two ways; we announce it in hundreds of ways, while never explicitly announcing it at all. I think we can glean from this discussion that the project of liberating women from misogyny and the project of creating a space for the social existence of gender non-conforming persons are intimately related, and that women, as a class, will neither be substantively equal or free until and unless gender non-conforming persons are allowed to exist as members of the human community. Women will not be equal or liberated until gender non-conformity is a way of being that is allowed to be. Thus, women and gender non-conforming people have a shared interest in dismantling both patriarchy and the structures of misogyny. Structurally and politically women and gender non-conforming persons are allied—even if not always in practice—for dismantling hierarchical gendered binarism is ground zero for equality and freedom for both. Down Girl offers a significant contribution to that shared project.

Review: Gender Policing: Comments on Down Girl (Lori Watson) in jpg form. text form here.

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genderkoolaid

Anonymous asked:

LMAO hey what's up i'm one of the old mods from transunity & part of why i left the blog was feeling that our current transunitist theory did not adequately account for racialized experiences. i appreciate you pointing it out and continuing these discussions in my/our absence because i simply do not do discourse publicly anymore (anxiety).

genderkoolaid answered:

thank you so much!! i really do believe in transunity and want to see it grow and develop as a transfeminist thread of thought. i think the fundamental framework of the three transphobias, and understanding misogyny/misandry/misandrogyny, are really important theoretical contributions for all trans people and for feminism as a whole. If I ever do get around to writing a piece on my transfeminist approach, transunity will definitely feature heavily.

chimken-nuggets

Transunity > transfeminism

genderkoolaid

I see transunity as an extension of transfeminism, not something in opposition to it. Transunity is born from transfeminism and more broadly the discussion draws greatly from feminist works. I am not about to concede to cissexists that feminism is only for women, and that therefore transfeminism is only for trans women. It's both/and, nor either/or.

chimken-nuggets

Absolutely! However as I already said in the tags, it seems like the current state of transfeminism is too focused on transfeminine people and women, thus theres is little or no space for the rest of us. Whenever I start talking about transandrophobia or exorsexism, I got told Im transmisogymistic. And its NOT “just a few bad apples”.

Also its been a while but if I remember correctly part of why Tranunisity “failed” is because trans women and fems here on tumblr couldnt stand trans men and mascs get to have a voice and talk about their oppression.

genderkoolaid

A lot of the backlash to transunity did use claims that it was exclusionary to trans women. Its not just a few bad apples, but it's also not all trans women and it's not only trans women. A LOT of trans men are behind the virulent pushback against talking about transandrophobia.

Also, not trying to nitpick, but when you said in the notes "transfeminism focuses only on transwomen and fems" alongside saying "transunity > transfeminism," that read more of a statement on what transfeminism inherently is/does, rather than how it is currently being used, so that shaped how I responded.

I agree that's a problem with the current state of transfeminism, but I think saying "transunity > transfeminism" cedes the grounds of that term rather than encouraging people to see transunity as a better approach to transfeminism. A lot of people already use the term transfeminism to talk about trans men's and nonbinary issues, anyways. I'm just not a fan of treating transunity and transfeminism as opposing choices, or treating transfeminism as synonymous with how trans-divisive feminists use it.

genderkoolaid

i love nonbinary killjoys. i love nonbinary people who are bitter and stubborn and don't smile or laugh off exorsexism. i love enben who insist on their nonbinarity and make it the world's problem. i love enben who disrupt binary people's language and spaces and force them to acknowledge nonbinary existence on our own terms. i love nonbinary people who are cunts. who are scary. who are bitchy. who make binary people feel threatened. who don't water down their names or pronouns or gender to make it easier for others to swallow and who are demonized for that. i love enben who demand respect every single time that binary people receive it without question. i love enben who are tired of fighting and keep doing it anyways. i love enben who are their own first and last defense.

you can't imagine how much you matter to our community. you are on the front lines, demanding our rightful place in society, making sure we are not forgotten. carving out a space for the nonbinary people who can't put up that fight. even if you are never recognized or appreciated, it matters.

genderkoolaid

Anonymous asked:

genderkoolaid answered:

chimken-nuggets

Transunity > transfeminism

genderkoolaid

chimken-nuggets

genderkoolaid

chimken-nuggets

Oh, youre absolutely right, there are quite a few bootlickers and white knights.

When i made that comment i was angry and didnt think youd respond - glad you did but that comment of mine wasnt very well thought out.

While Im happy there are attempts to make transfeminism properly inclusive, it still leaves a bitter taste in my mouth - because the everyday user of that term define it as “trans woman feminism and only that”. But thats my problem I need to work on.

How do you deal with the push back and the bigotry from our very own community?

genderkoolaid

Totally fair!

I don't know, really. I feel that I am in the right in the stances I take on trans activism and feminism, and that I'm grounded in intersectional feminist theory and also have valid criticisms of how (trans)feminism has approached (or not) certain topics in its history, and I believe that things can change for the better through collective efforts.

The attitudes people have are often frustrating and disheartening, but I don't know. I feel they are in the wrong, while also understanding that a lot of factors go into their worldview and why they have those attitudes, and the only way to combat those attitudes is to present different attitudes, to create different factors that incentivize people to change their perspectives. I try to keep up my own work, understanding what I advocate for and why and always trying to learn more and develop that understanding, and to take notice of how this work positively impacts the world and can help contribute to larger changes in our community, and hopefully society as a whole.

I think this quote from an organizer in Rojava sums up a lot of my feelings, specifically:

But it’s not about your personal feelings in that situation, it’s about the slow process of social change, and acknowledging where a community is, so it can eventually be somewhere else. People feeling heard in a room will maybe slowly change the needle, and that process will make a lasting impact on the community at large. [...] When we’re doing this work, we’re doing it for and with the community, and that’s where your sense of self will come from. That’s where our sense of self should arise from, is from being a part of community and being of service while also honoring yourself and your boundaries.

genderkoolaid

Anonymous asked:

begging everyone to remember exorsexism is a term and we can’t divide everything into transfem transmisogyny and transmasc transandrophobia. Saw an attack helicopter joke called just transandrophobia. What are we doing here chat

genderkoolaid answered:

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

i need people to get so serious about the fact that exorsexism has always been the biggest red flag for reactionary bullshit in the trans community. exorsexism is how the trans bar becomes the transmed bar becomes the log cabin republican bar if you catch my drift. exorsexism is literally always at the scene of the crime and NO ONE ever fucking talks about it and then you have major voices like Jules Gill-Peterson & so many others who insist on this narrative that nonbinary & genderqueer people are this bourgeois secret society sneering down at the poor binary trans people and calling them boring and regressive and throwing tomatoes at their HRT (which we never take).

sorry saw red a little bit there. my point is that nonbinary & genderqueer people are not and have never been peripheral to the trans community or trans activism & i need everyone to start taking misandrogyny and exorsexism so deathly serious or we are fucked.

genderkoolaid

seeing more people use enben makes me so happy. take me hand lets use enban to refer to a singular nonbinary person and enben to refer to multiple nonbinary people (in addition to not in replacement of person and people). lets take nonbinary-gendered language seriously and not just gender-neutral language. but also use more gender neutral language too

vaspider

genderkoolaid

Anonymous asked:

exorsexism is my partner every time we (both nonbinary) see something trans-related (specifically groups or communities or resources for trans people) and i go “that’s us!” and they go “no, we’re not actually trans. we’re just nonbinary. it doesn’t count” or something like that.

like, i get it if they don’t feel comfortable using the term trans for themself. but the fact that it’s because they think “we don’t count”… is exorsexist. like nonbinary people can’t be trans. like they don’t think *i* count even though i have told them before several times that yes, i fully consider myself trans despite being feminine and female. i’m still nonbinary! you can’t tell me im not trans!

thisisexorsexism answered:

this is exorsexism

genderkoolaid

Anonymous asked:

the way that the only two types of nonbinary representation you ever see, if any, are in one of two categories: genderless/"i don't identify as anything" or super close to a binary gender

like man, isn't it convenient that the only two types of enby rep you ever see are "doesn't have a gender" (read: doesn't have a binary gender) or "basically binary with a touch of weirdness in there" (so we can just ignore the fact they're nonbinary, right?)

this was something that genuinely messed up my ability to figure out my gender, because i didn't fit either of those categories and it made me think that i couldn't be nonbinary because i didn't feel like either of those things

thisisexorsexism answered:

this is exorsexism

genderkoolaid

i love you dysphoric nonbinary people whose dysphoria doesn't make sense to binary people. i love you dysphoric enben who struggle to feel affirmed in their gender because there's so many less cultural avenues for affirmation when you aren't binary.

i love you euphoric nonbinary people whose euphoria doesn't make sense to binary people. i love you euphoric enben who struggle to share or express their euphoria because it is seen as cringe or performative or threatening.

and most of all i love you enben who are denied medical transitions, legal transitions, and social transitions specifically because you refuse to be binarized.

the rest — Review: Gender Policing: Comments on Down Girl...

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