I am curious, I sense a possible culture shift but I am not sure about it.
We used to build walls, separate out, in this section. Then came the big rift, it all came down due to invalidation, trying to impose a standard trans narrative on nonbinaries. Innocent enough but explosive in the end.
But what I am thinking I see is that its not so antagonistic any more. And I am wondering if thats true, or something I dreamed of that I am projecting, or what?
I always have worried that I am too strongly sh'e for the section, that it would drive the nonbinaries away. Even though I am nonbinary.
Then I get worried that I am too nonbinary to post in the transsexual sections, and that I will get eaten alive over there, or triggered.
Since that time, I became centered personally in who I am. So now I am triggerproof. Back then, I was not. And that would true of any nonbinary identity being led into a ts narrative of full social transition and full tilt girl or boy. Personally that would have killed me. Was bad enough as it was, I fought hard for my sanity until I learned and accepted that not everyone, whether TS or NB, is inevitably going to fully socially transition, or even physically transition.
We had a lot of folk that had gone full out, lost big time, and recentered as nonbinary. Some folks did this and lost their lives. You don't here about it, they dissapear. Others, did the recenter and came back mad as heck.
But I see a shift, like its finally ok to be ts and nonbinary and vocal about it, like people are understanding that there is no one size fits all solution. Like when SOC 7 launched and we got our rights to what we needed without having to pretend we were full out binary trans, maybe it relaxed a little.
Fear drove all of this, ya know. Fear, then anger. And lack of understanding of who people are, trying to take our own paradyne or understanding and saying to others they must go down the same path.
Truth is there are a million paths in the forest leading to your truth.
Did you find your path?
Has this place changed? In fact now, not just in lip service or politically correct terms? I think it may have.
I think the rift between nonbinary and binary trans may actually be healing here. It is in real live, as we fight to pee, as we keep being killed, we are realizing these artificial walls must come down. Meanwhile, if cultures are unsafe, there are more resources out there to be helped, you tube, stuff not competing with Susans, there is just more information out there now as the knowledge explodes across the digital world we live in.
I saw Cindy crush a divisive thread in here that was hurtful to nonbinary. She shut it right down, wouldn't tolerate it. I could have been drawn into it, but instead, it clearly was not being tolerated.
Thank you for that darling. If I may be so bold.
Blessings
Satin Joy
peace and love from an existential; Hippie
I can help you understand this. Transgender unites us and non binary or transsexual divides us. I treat CIS and transgender the same on the site and my actions are blind to where you fit in. My help is offered to anybody free of judgement and if I take action as a moderator, only the violation is important. Yes, I help people determine where they fit but I am not keeping score. I refuse to force somebody where they will not be happy.
I am far from unique. Everybody I know of on the forum staff feels this way and I am sure many of the site members feel this way as well. I have only been here about a year but that is what I see.
That is encouraging.
Still skittish.... But im talking more, trying to reconnect.
Sj.
Heya Steph. I remember you from when i came...
I've seen the non-binary sections go through lots of changes. When I first joined we kind of reveled in our weirdness. That "thread that can't be derailed" originated from that era.
There came a time when I was pedal to the metal on my transition and I spent a lot more time in the MtF area and those dealing with transition stuff.
When you and the others who came around the same time began a whimsical fascination with the unicorn forest, I was lured back. When Nero died there was a little bit of fear because he had been our major champion, but I think Cindy really understands what we're all about and keeps a close eye.
I like where we are now. We're a resource for people who really want to understand what is possible.
I think so too.
Nb can be pretty rebal gendered and a wild nonconforming bunch. Or just folk that dont fit the binary definition of man and woman.
The trick is to keep everyone free to really safely explore themselves.
Its quiet in here...echoes in the forest.
I know we are here. Spin your threafs dear ones, let us play and fly.
Freedom to be who we are is everything. Let us dance the unicorn dance and pass the dark away.
Satin Joy
I think I was really lucky to realize I'm non-binary now. I didn't even know what transgender was up until two years ago. I realized I was FtM. But There is fluidity in my gender, and often times I forget I have a gender. People then, who knew nothing about transgender, wouldn't have understood me being FtM let alone being non-binary. I think non-binary's mostly don't know they're non-binary. I had to really dig deep to find myself. I'm still pretty young, but I'm old enough to remember when anything LGBT was taboo. I remember standing in front of a mirror thinking I was a freak and the only person who felt this way.
However, I haven't been knowingly non-binary til recently. I haven't seen the changes that have happened. I remember hearing about how non-binary people weren't even recognized by some members of the trans community, and definitely not from a cis perspective. I remember how scared that made me. It seemed funny to me how a group of people fighting so hard to be recognized could exclude a whole other group of people going through the same thing they are. Because, if you think about it, most non-binary people are trans. Transgender means to identify as a gender different from what you were assigned at birth.
Yes, there have been changes but it's not just here. Non-binary genders have become more mainstream.
For example, I remember the sheer joy, only a couple of years ago, when one of my students showed a draft of a form for collecting some research data, and in the background section she had, on her own, put a set of check boxes with 'male', 'female' and 'other' as the options for gender. That's pretty much commonplace now.
Lol i drew a box and checked off other on an employment app.
The missed it and found it after i was already under contract.
That was an interesting convo that followed. And legally tied their hands.
It is changing isnt it? Its evolving to another level.
Satinjoy
I wander the spectrum of so many presentations. I slip into both binary and nonbinary appearence and self.
When i am full out sh'e the binary conformity confuses and scares off the nonbinaries. When i am out andro or genderqueer or he it confuses the binary trans people.
I am part of all and yet alone in my fluidity. I feel like a rebel but im not.
Im just someone that doesnt fit a box. Just a person with gender dysphoria trying to live in a world that wasnt designed with me in mind. But i exist, as do you all, and what shall be done for the divergent of trans?
I feel pretty lucky actually, i sat next to an enby the first time i went out to a trans event. Not the first trans person i knew, but the first after questioning. Ze was pretty nice, and although i was too nervous to ask too many gendered questions, ze still picqued my curiosity. I don't know about this section since I've only been here for a short time, but outside, enbies seem to be pretty lively. :)
Sent from my MotoG3 using Tapatalk
Fun isnt it.
:)
I guess for me, what's missing is the sense of community. When I first came to Susans and was still trying to figure myself out, this was the forum where I could say what I felt and find people who responded.
I think that is because I don't really have a gender inside and I resent that people keep trying to push a gendered narrative on me. (One of the reasons I walked away from a previous website was that people kept insisting on interpreting how I dress as a statement about my gender.) Here I could talk about what I felt and there were people who understood, or, if not, at least recognized that they didn't. I can't separate my self into the "gender" part and the "non-gender" part, so I needed a place where I could talk about my whole self and have it seen and reflected, and I found that in the non-binary forum and I've never found it in the other ones. I didn't always get the more fanciful topics, but I was glad that I was in a place where people felt free to express that part of themselves.
It's funny, because I'm moving towards a more binary (female) presentation, but I don't feel any more binary inside. I feel a little like some of those Russian Jewish immigrants, who left Russia / USSR because they were disadvantaged for not being "real Russians." I've emigrated from Dude-istan and chosen to move to Feminia because, although it's not a perfect fit, it's far better than Dude-istan and there seems to be enough freedom for me to fit in and have a life. But I'm not a native Feminian and don't really want to turn myself into one. I spent too many years being pressured to turn myself into a "real Dude" to be in a hurry to abandon myself to be a "real Femme."
I noticed when I was at the Philadelphia Trans-Health Conference (PTHC) last year, I tended to hang out with the young non-binaries. I've spent too much of my life under the regime of the gender police to be really comfortable adopting a non-bindary expression, but I find the mindset a lot more compatible with my own than the more binary folks.
Unfortunately, at Susans, the Great Stoush led to most of the non-binary crowd here leaving, mostly never to return, and it's been way too quiet here. With Satinjoy's return, it's picked up a little but one or two people can't create a thriving community by themselves. Back in the day, when I made posts like I do now, I'd get far more responses, and many of them would pick up on the nuances in what I was trying to say and respond to them. Now, the responses are pretty much what I'd get in the binary forums, only there are fewer of them.
So now I don't feel like I really have a home at Susans.
I don't see the binary folks as hostile to non-binary people. I think they try to recognize that non-binary exists and even help people to consider they might be non-binary when appropriate.
It's just that when the overwhelming majority of the people are in one mindset, especially a mindset reinforced by society at large, those with a different mindset will feel marginalized despite the best intentions of the majoritarians. It's a little like being someone to whom making music is their life having to live in a community composed of people whose appreciation of music doesn't extend beyond ringtones. At some point, you want to be among people who "get" you.
Quote from: Asche on May 12, 2016, 06:01:56 PM
I feel a little like some of those Russian Jewish immigrants, who left Russia / USSR because they were disadvantaged for not being "real Russians." I've emigrated from Dude-istan and chosen to move to Feminia because, although it's not a perfect fit, it's far better than Dude-istan and there seems to be enough freedom for me to fit in and have a life. But I'm not a native Feminian and don't really want to turn myself into one. I spent too many years being pressured to turn myself into a "real Dude" to be in a hurry to abandon myself to be a "real Femme."
I love that analogy so much <3. There this girl welder at work that I am so much more envious than anybody in the office really, because she clearly has given the finger to fem pressures but doesn't try to act like one of the guys either. Lol, I guess I have some cis role models for being trans and NB (I'm assuming she's cis, who knows, but I at least know she was pregnant before getting transferred away from welding fumes) :) She's fabbed some pretty nice stuff
Quote from: Asche on May 12, 2016, 06:01:56 PM
Unfortunately, at Susans, the Great Stoush led to most of the non-binary crowd here leaving, mostly never to return, and it's been way too quiet here. With Satinjoy's return, it's picked up a little but one or two people can't create a thriving community by themselves. Back in the day, when I made posts like I do now, I'd get far more responses, and many of them would pick up on the nuances in what I was trying to say and respond to them. Now, the responses are pretty much what I'd get in the binary forums, only there are fewer of them.
That sucks, but if don't frequent here very soon, I at least wanted to say thank you, I mostly have just lurked, and that isn't really cool...
You may remember that Avatar. I was tortured by dysphoria at the time.
I've held back from thread spinning, feeling on unfamiliar ground now. It had been hell back then, and a few souls knew i was walking a path to death or insanity. They intervened.
I still walk the edge between ts and nb. Physically i need the ts body. Socially i need fliidity and peace. Mentally i need to be aware of the blend of my gender or dysphoria will bite. It bites hard when it does.
I have to know its safe. Culture depends on safe. I dont fit the traditional trans narrative and i dont fit some nonbinary narratives. That threatens some people's genders. So i dont say all that much. But i could.
That was a rough ride back then. We cannot repeat it. They are out there, some went their separate ways, some are grouped up. Some are here. I never left. I said something divisive and had to sit it out for 6 months and cool off.
We used to have folks in dire straights in here. Some we had were genious in nonbinary trans. Lost to this forest now but the posts remain.
Its up to the community to regenerate itself, and that happens through love, safety, and freedom.
I was rather fiercely protected when i was here. I was vulnerable, and was on the edge of going insane. Went very close to it. You need the warriors of trans...
Where will it go? The unicorn forest is back. Click your heals and fly over the rainbow, and look down from the view. The world of trans is changing, the times of the nonbinaries has come.
Find your diamond hearts of trans, and light up the world with your passion and love.
Satinjoy
And i need to appologize for not helping in here more. Time is an issue, i am spread thin.. But i should try to help more.
I'm new to this forum but not to the queer community. I found out about non-binary in the late 1990s, but my only real exposure to that was drag queens (of course, drag queens are not all the same gender). Though I did meet some gay-identified nonbinary ppl through the gay community. Now in 2016 I have a close friend who has just come out as NB. My local trans support group is run by an enby (and self-described Aspergian).
On tumblr there has actually been a fad (and a lot of fighting, too) over non binary identities. Some of that has spilled onto Youtube.
You know how back in the day gay people would often come out as bisexual first because it sounded less bad than being a ho-mo-sexual? (Settle down, bi people, I know how that sounds.) Well, these days, many young trans people come out as non-binary first because it seems less likely to upset their families (yes, weird, I know) and also because these kind of excessively everything transsexual narratives are out there which confuse a lot of young people. "Yes, I knew when I was two that I was a boy, never been girly, set dresses on fire, blah blah blah." There is a lot of patrolling and policing going on as to who can claim what label. I was dismayed to see after trans* for the umbrella get popular (to include the dysphoric and the non dysphoric) and then a couple years later get scrubbed out like we were living in 1984 as double plus ungood transmisogynistic speech.
Well, the bad thing about binary people thinking they are non binary at first is that they will turn around and assume anyone who identifies as non binary just hasn't been educated yet on how they are actually binary and they need to transition exactly the same way they did.
Also, there's been a backlash against 90s vintage queer theory (which I think kind of uses non binary trans people to make a political point at the same time that it shames binary trans people) and that has spilled over into members of the community talking bad to one another and getting rather paranoid and wingnutty. If you want to get really depressed, pour yourself a stiff drink and google truscum/tucute. Just a bunch of mostly trans, some cis, people in a circular firing squad of marginalized sexual minority folk.
Quite the read. As the heat is on, the divisive stuff has to go. Its life and death serious now, and unfortunately, the current hate and brutality and violence is killing us. I lost a friend to an overdose last week and a facebook acquaintance in north carolina to suicide.
This place has apparently come a long way. Its time to make a difference in peoples lives and stand in the gap for the ones who are struggling. That starts with self esteem and finding ourselves, and moves into reaching out to others.
Light a candle for the fallen my dears, and live your truth.
Satin Joy
I enjoy being very social here and in real life. Diversity fascinates me. I love meeting queer and transpeople and am active with several groups. It seems to me that the younger folks i meet are creating new labels for identity and are equally comfortable with no labels at all. "I'm just being me, you be you, you're best at that" This seems to be our future unfolding and part of what is changing here and IRL. If some people need or feel more rigid confines for expressing their gender identity they can go for it and find lots of company. Transgender is a very big tent. Instead of making smaller circles that defines others out. We can draw ever larger circles that bring all of us IN. ;D
There is more that we share while divisions are often manufactured and manipulated for what ends?
Quote from: AnxietyDisord3r on June 04, 2016, 12:16:52 PM
I'm new to this forum but not to the queer community. I found out about non-binary in the late 1990s, but my only real exposure to that was drag queens (of course, drag queens are not all the same gender). Though I did meet some gay-identified nonbinary ppl through the gay community. Now in 2016 I have a close friend who has just come out as NB. My local trans support group is run by an enby (and self-described Aspergian).
On tumblr there has actually been a fad (and a lot of fighting, too) over non binary identities. Some of that has spilled onto Youtube.
You know how back in the day gay people would often come out as bisexual first because it sounded less bad than being a ho-mo-sexual? (Settle down, bi people, I know how that sounds.) Well, these days, many young trans people come out as non-binary first because it seems less likely to upset their families (yes, weird, I know) and also because these kind of excessively everything transsexual narratives are out there which confuse a lot of young people. "Yes, I knew when I was two that I was a boy, never been girly, set dresses on fire, blah blah blah." There is a lot of patrolling and policing going on as to who can claim what label. I was dismayed to see after trans* for the umbrella get popular (to include the dysphoric and the non dysphoric) and then a couple years later get scrubbed out like we were living in 1984 as double plus ungood transmisogynistic speech.
Well, the bad thing about binary people thinking they are non binary at first is that they will turn around and assume anyone who identifies as non binary just hasn't been educated yet on how they are actually binary and they need to transition exactly the same way they did.
Also, there's been a backlash against 90s vintage queer theory (which I think kind of uses non binary trans people to make a political point at the same time that it shames binary trans people) and that has spilled over into members of the community talking bad to one another and getting rather paranoid and wingnutty. If you want to get really depressed, pour yourself a stiff drink and google truscum/tucute. Just a bunch of mostly trans, some cis, people in a circular firing squad of marginalized sexual minority folk.
Still thinking about this.
Labels can create divides. Gender dysphoria is rough and maybe they anchor.
I prefer to ditch the labels and have a gender of my own understanding that has no limitations.
Nero died?
I didn't know that. We had a complicated history but that's hit me.
Quote from: Pica Pica on June 16, 2016, 02:59:05 PM
Nero died?
Sadly, yes.
Nice to see you here, it's been a while...
I was here a lot before that last NB section shakeup, and there are a lot of people no longer here that I miss from it. That is part of the reason I have been scarce. But maybe I am back more now. :)
I think at the time there was a lot of B/NB inadvertent invalidation going on. With binary folks trying to force a one size fits all model on NBs when there is a need for us to experiment, compromise, and balance, which wasn't good. And NB folks in their slower, more winding paths, trying to find balance and compromises in their lives, triggering the binary trans folks, who often have had to fight against family or society trying to compromise when they absolutely cannot.
It does seem like the tensions are much lower and that is good! :)
Hopefully we can have the introspective weirdness and wandering through the unicorn forest and have everyone get along. As long as we can respect that there is no one size fits all solution, and that everyone's path is different it will be great. I'll adamantly defend NB as a legitimate thing to my binary friends, acquaintances, GT, and Endo, but with my next breath I will just as fiercely defend my binary brothers and sisters who must get to their endpoint with absolutely no compromises from those that try to make them compromise.
I also think even for binary folks a healthy non-binary section and perspective are a very good thing. Some people need a halfway point to figure themselves out and find their way along to the other side. (Or the social cover of moving slowly as their family adapts) And we must lovingly help them find their way to the binary-trans side. At the same time we need our binary brothers and sisters to understand and respect that NB really is a thing, and not force their own paths, endpoints, and narratives onto it.
I still consider myself NB, but I am lined up for for HRT and likely full social transition. But even if society sees me as female or a transwoman, I'll always have some options that binary people wouldn't, and there will be things that binary trans people MUST do, that I shouldn't do. I'd never have gotten so far with out this and other NB resources, at best I'd be stuck in an extremely bad dysphoric place, if alive at all. There needs to be more information out there, and GT's need to know more about it too.
I think labels can help us understand and help ourselves and each other better, if we don't take them too seriously and act lovingly. We just need to cling more tightly to the umbrella that we share than hair splitting that pulls us apart.
- Jaded Jade
Well said Jade. My journey has been a very social one and I frequent trans groups and events. One perspective is that younger people are less likely to utilize a solid goal oriented label and fluidity is more the fundamental floor. And why not? It would seem that teens and younger people are appropriately trying out and experimenting with roles and creating their identity as they grow. They also seem more likely to have support from peers and family.
We can applaud a boi who wears lipstick and skirt if they choose or a grrl that allows themselves to present in combat boots and a jeans wardrobe too. More importantly they can imagine and feel themselves in greater control of their destiny. We can welcome those willing and able to push this envelop open that we might all take deeper breaths and feel the freedoms.