This smacks of my regular duty on r/LGBT before I migrated, which is to remind everyone:
a) Everyone is valid. The malicious ones will be managed by the mods, but even they need love to, for those up to the challenge. And…
b) That big, beautiful catalog of terms to describe ourselves and extend the alphabet is there for you to figure out who you are. It’s not there for erecting a gatekeeper checkpoint or to correct others who identify differently than their behavior (and they will identify differently than their behavior. Go watch Bob and Rose. ) If you only allow gold star lesbians to your pot luck, then your friends will stop telling you who they are.
Right now in the US (UK, Canada, Australia…) neonazis and white power militants and Christian nationalists literally want to kill us and are following the recipe worked out by the SD in the German Reich about a century ago. Every time we have to put out an internal fire, it weakens the defense of the community. So it’s a really good time to practice unconditional regard for your fellow queers and allies.
As a Puppy this hit me hard. Had a friend who posted a really cute barking video years ago on Tumblr and got so much hate mail and so many death threats he nuked his account. It’s such a shame.
It’s toxic AF. Years ago when I was finally first starting to figure out that I was non-binary I tried to join a few online spaces to talk to people. The amount of places I was outright banned from or just made to feel I was clearly not welcome because I’m AMAB and was not on or planning to start HRT and my very existence was “triggering” to people there already was insane. And then there was the seemingly neverending parade of trans women who saw me as just an egg in need of cracking because of course they knew my gender better that I could possibly have and I’d be so much happier once I let go of all that internalized misogyny that was obviously the only thing keeping me from being an out and proud trans woman.
Never had anyone do that to me IRL. Even looking like the dudeliest Dad this side of a barbecue and the literal textbook definition of a Bear.
With the useing slurs, you should still be mindful about where you use them. I personally am still far too exposed to people who use them to degrade people to be entirely comfortable with them.
If you’re in a place that you aren’t entirely sure if you’ll be harassed for being gay, don’t make the people who would be harassing you more comfortable with the idea of doing so. I had to explain this in a game of CS:GO once mere moments after getting kicked out of a game for refusing to play because my entire team were raging homophobes.
On the topic of voices:
I was once very puzzled and confused when a voice didn’t match what I imagined it would sound like based on someones’ appearance.
Then I started watching F1NN5TER, and after just a few weeks, I stopped giving voices a second thought. Hearing his voice while seeing someone looking so undeniably feminine is the most normal thing in the world.
Whatever voice someone has, that’s just their voice. That’s all there is to it.
I was already well on my way toward no longer getting stunlocked on gender expression years ago bit F1nn5ter took me from 100% complete to 3000% complete over the course of mere weeks. Like, I had NO IDEA it was possible to be this unfettered from the pointless contrived false dichotomy of traditional gender roles.
Some annoying, confounding, stifling barrier in me cracked and shattered into fine powder.
Before it broke, my brain was still trying to pigeonhole people into predefined categorizations and gatekeep me on how I viewed and valued others even though I knew it was a waste of energy and a pointless barrier between me and happiness.
After this mental block broke, gender abruptly CEASED being a monolithic fundamental trait that dictated a person’s life AT THEM, and became a tertiary detail which they defined according to their own being; as mutable, varied, and personal as one’s spirituality.
Thanks to F1nn5ter, now I enjoy the ability to appreciate beauty in all human beings, even if my personal tastes find certain configurations more aesthetically pleasing than others.
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