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This is the third time I am writing this post because I feel like the idea I’m trying to convey keeps slipping away from me as I keep piling on context, and really, all it is… is just making excuses. I held transmed beliefs and questioned the validity of nonbinary gender identities back on Kiwi Farms. Now, I feel like if circumstances were slightly different, I probably would identify as enby.
Honestly.
The only reason I don’t is because my feelings towards being a woman are pretty neutral. All of my problems I had in regards to gender growing up was not so much being a girl, but being constantly told by other girls and older women that I was being a girl
wrong. Being a woman is perfectly fine with me; it’s the sexism and policing of what is acceptable gender expression I have a problem with.
I don’t think I can fully identify as queer, even though most of my friends are and I feel like they get me, so I feel perfectly at home. At the end of the day, I am fine with being a woman, and I am exclusively attracted to men. And I hate to say it, but it’s cis men and maybe AMAB enbies who are okay with presenting more masculine. I just really,
really like dicks. I don’t really like vaginas, even though I imagine most people who would look at me and how I dress myself would assume that I am. And I know this, because I have been called homophobic slurs in public.
Is simply being gender nonconforming enough to be queer? I’m not sure, because I don’t know if I’d ever be in a relationship that would be in danger because of legislation being passed. I could, however, see myself getting shit for my gender presentation, because I get people trying to clock me as either a trans man at the start of their transition or genderqueer. I’m in a pretty blue state, in a college town, surrounded by a lot of people younger than me who are overall much more accepting than I had been at their age, though, so realistically, I’m probably not in danger of being targeted for possibly being queer. Would that make me queer adjacent, though? I don’t fucking know, but at the same time… I feel at home hanging around a bunch of queer folks. One of my friends joked that I’m straight, but I’m pretty gay about it. There are a lot of times where I will feel like one of the only cishet people in a group. Maybe it’s because I’ve refused to give up the general subculture aesthetic and have been wearing graphic tees, ripped jeans and Chuck Taylors since high school, and I’m not going to stop anytime soon. I still get mistaken for being in my 20’s so I am going to ride that shit
into the ground, baby.
Things have changed a lot. Culture has changed. The internet has changed.
I’ve changed. Everybody’s on the goddamn internet now, including a lot of people who seem utterly clueless about its culture and history. I don’t have anybody in my circles of friends that would ever identify as “anti-SJW” anymore. There is no debate in any of the circles I’m in on the validity of trans people at all, or nonbinary people. I look to those who I might have either associated with loosely or engaged with their content, and they just seem like they spiraled into increasing extremism, and for many of them, it doesn’t seem like it’s just to keep the grift going. They’re true believers. And a part of me finds it kind of sad, actually, because they’re going to just be miserable fucks for the rest of their lives if they keep their current trajectory. The momentum of the trans rights movement is not going to stop. Normies are getting sick of politicians focusing on transgender people. And within the trans community itself, the infighting has pretty much stopped because of just how tight the screws are being turned as conservatives go all out on the last socially acceptable group they can go against. They’re being much more blatant about their bigotry in a way that’s so flagrant, it would have been unthinkable ten years ago. We’ve got bigger problems.
Why am I even writing all of this out? I don’t know. It’s not like these posts are going to show up on Google when people look me up and see “callout” after my username in the suggestions. But it’s important to me to map out these thoughts, I suppose, because actually changing means a lot more than grovelling and saying sorry to be accepted by people who wouldn’t be willing to hear me out in the first place. I don’t even think I fully regret being on Kiwi Farms; I more regret sticking around as long as I did, and if you’ve been paying attention to me posting about major life events I’ve been dealing with recently, you may have noticed I kind of have
a problem with sticking around toxic people or places out of some misplaced sense of loyalty.
I guess I’m just stubborn.
TL;DR I feel pretty bad about not believing nonbinary identities weren’t valid because I feel like I almost kind of sort of feel that? Also trans rights forever and ever.
