u/KallistaSophia

I had a rough introduction to a lot of queer stuff. Certainly, thinking that trans woman meant Female-to-Genderless meant I ended up on the shit lists of people I was earnestly trying to understand. (It took ages for me to realise anyone would want to be seen as a man or woman, and I don't think it occurred to anyone I talked to that you could consider yourself genderless without being a TERF). Gay was a slur when I was a kid, and even my gay loved one used it with a narrow meaning that meant you had a gender that was the same as someone else's. It all felt so confusing and painful.

And no matter how much gay and trans joy I try to surround myself with (I am, admittedly, an easily-overstimulated introvert), the pain of old, old, rejection, the fear of doing wrong and hurting people, the sense that I'm other and bad, still lingers.

I wish queerness could be home for me, but instead I feel like something broken and toxic. The feeling of hunching down in my classroom as other kids used my loved one's identity as a slur 25 years ago (small-scared-hurt) hits me every time someone shares their joy.

I'll settle in and focus on their happiness and for a while the hurt lifts, but it's always back the next day. Fuck these old triggers. I want to share joy without constantly pushing through this pain.

Hi everyone. I am probably agender or demiwoman?

I grew up being called a girl, with the expectation that I would become a woman. I can construct arguments (that I do not agree with) that I am one, and being a person who has those arguments expressed towards them feels like it's a big part of who I am. It's how I've developed.

But I also don't wholly internally align with it. I am mostly fine with this dynamic. I like the term "fake woman". I look like a woman, am treated like a woman, but internally I kind of want to complicate the idea that I'm a woman, or even make fun of it a bit.

I am so, so scared about how transphobes, and trans women who have been hurt by them, would react to this identity. Not everyone sees the words "who I am on the inside" and immediately thinks of one's spiritual & psychological internal reality.

My guess is that this is an identity I could only verbalise in places where the validity of trans womens' identities in not in question, but please let me know what you think, or if you have ideas about how I can otherwise express myself.

Hi everyone!

Something that really makes me feel good about my physiology is that while we make models that look like dichotomies -- reality isnt so simple. Male/female arent precise, complete, descriptions of biology, so anyone describing someone in those terms while (to put it crudely) acknowledging reality is knowingly engaging with an imprecise concept that is neither precise, nor describes all people.

(Other examples of biological false dichotomies I could compare it to are human/non-human (think neanderthal and australopithecus), and living/dead).

However, i think other people prefer explicit acknowledgement of diversity beyond duality and I suspect that's why they prefer a model of reality that includes many sexes? I think we dont really have popular, respectful ways to speak about people who the two-sex model is a poor descriptor for, too, and wonder if they thing it has power there?

(I use "model" to talk about these things because ultimately we humans are creating ideas to communicate with eachother about reality.)

Anyway uhm I am so curious as to what other people think and whether/why that way of thinking works for them! I am a bit anxious that this post might create ill feelings tho so if that does happen I'll delete it 😅