[ SECRET POST #3548 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3548 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.



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02.
[Dark Souls 2]


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03.
[Ouran High School Host Club]


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04.
[Darren Criss]


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05.
[Great British Bake Off, Sue Perkins, Mel Giedroyc]


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06.
[The 100]


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07.
[Death in Paradise]


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08.
[Xena Warrior Princess]

















Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 24 secrets from Secret Submission Post #507.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Definitely agree about her identifying as female throughout being a good thing.
I related to her a lot, for a while, because she's gender-non-conforming but still unambiguously female in her identity. (Her story doesn't speak to me so much now, because my own sense of gender has shifted, but that doesn't mean that the time when it did isn't important for what it was. And I have no interest in twisting it into something it's not.)

I'm gonna agree with feotakahari about your use of "special snowflake" being kinda uncomfortable though.
Nonbinary people do exist, it's just that Haruhi has never seemed like an example of one (to me, as a nonbinary person).

[(Anonymous)]

Nonbinary people do exist, but most people on tumblr claiming to be NB are exactly what OP described in the secret: people who believe that you can't not fit some very restrictive gender stereotypes without being genderqueer in some way.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, one of the most aggravating things about that section of tumblr is how fanatically devoted they are to gender essentialism and how insanely tenacious they are about insisting that not fitting your assigned, super rigid gender role absolutely means that you must not "really" be that gender. I feel like a lot of them are probably rebelling against environments that claim you must fit into your little box or you aren't womaning or manning correctly, but they don't seem to realize that they are pushing that idea exactly as hard as the people who are trying to put them in little gender boxes.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm not trying to be rude, but isn't that what being nonbinary means? Like, how else do you define it besides presentation and feelings?

[(Anonymous)]

nayrt - which is precisely why I don't "believe" in it (or rather, people can call themselves what they like, but I don't see it as a valuable category). It's not comparable to transgender, when someone wants to physically change their body and live as the other sex. The only real nonbinary people are intersex. At any rate, if we say presentation and feelings are valid for an identity- which for personal identity, I agree with, by the way, just not wide-scale categorization - then Otherkin and what have you is also equally valid.

[(Anonymous)]

You're wrong. The difference between being genderqueer and being Otherkin is that believing that Otherkin are valid requires a belief that a fictional character's soul is a real thing that's inside a large number of people. Belif in genderqeerness requires a only an acknowledgement that a person doesn't apply special internal meaning to their body parts and doens't feel a special social link towards people who happen to share them. It's not hard and definitely not impossible.

Let me put it this way - describe what, in your opinion, is the difference between a "trans woman" and a "man who prefers to have a female body type", without referring to non-biological, non-culture specific social gender stereotypes of what it means to be a "man" or a "woman". Last time I checked, things like "she" pronouns, names like "Anne", putting "female" in your ID and even the very word "woman", were not an intrinsic biological need of every member of our species, and are not even considered specificially female in another language and culture. "Men" and "Women" are social categories, not a biological ones. Biologically, we have a certain sex and no amount of surgical modification can change it. To "change genders" is to switch a social category only, not a biological one. While I can fully understand and accept that an individial would prefer to look differently, insisting that they also have a biological need to be reffered to with English-language "gendered" pronouns, names and words is bullshit to me, a person who grew up with completely different set of vowels and consonants that I was taught are intrinsically linked to female identity.

If trangenderism was completely, utterly distinct from social gender roles and stereotypes, then transgender people would opt for surgery without switching the social category as well and would be perfectly fine with a law that allowed them to transition physically while banning them from the use of bathrooms for people born with XX chromosomes, or form putting a different sex in their ID (which would actually be good for them, because in the case of an accident the doctors would be able to apply treatment that wroks best for a person with their sex). But this is not the case, because transgenderism is largely performative and depends heavily on cultural and social ideas of what constitutes feminity and masculinity. And that's ok! I'm all for letting people choose the social category they personally feel most comfortable with. And that's why it would be awfully nice if they extended the same courtesy to me and stopped forcing a category I'm not comfortable with on me, while insisting that they know my feelings about my body and my place in the society better than I do.

[(Anonymous)]

Nayrt
You confuse otherkin and fictionkin. But that aside:

And I quite honestly believe that the vast majority of people doesn't actually have as strong an attachment to their sex as is generally assumed, so calling yourself nonbinary for not ~feeling like~ your birth sex is superfluous in my eyes.
I generally reject the word transgender in favour of transsexual. So for me, non binary people are only valid if they are people who actually wish to live in an androgynous body. Same with transsexual people - if you are perfectly content with your body the way it is, you are probably not trans.
I'm aware surgery isn't an option for everyone so my general opinion is: If a trans or NB person was hypothetically asked to magically change their body to their preferred sex, no side-effects or anything- and they'd refuse, I would not consider them trans or NB.

[(Anonymous)]

And I believe that majority of people are to some extent bisexual, but I'm not going to question the identity of every lesbian who "used to date men before figuring out she's a lesbian".

I assume you're also fine with "misgendering" a transsexual? Because that's my beef - I am ok with a person feeling dysphoric and wanting to change their sex, I just don't see why on earth would that mean that they also absolutely must change their pronouns, names and everything else that goes with it. I am also perfectly fine with a person who wants to change their name, pronouns and everything else that goes with it but doens't feel liek changing their body. If that perosn's not trans, what are they?

[(Anonymous)]

False equivalent but nice try.

And no, sorry to disappoint. I have a general rule of being polite to people and will address them according to their wishes, if their choice of pronouns stays in an acceptable range. I will be highly skeptical if someone presenting as a super stereotypical girly girl insists on male pronouns, but sure, whatever, no skin off my back.

"Doesn't feel like changing their body" is where the example I gave comes in - as I have said, I understand that surgery is not for everyone.

But yeah, someone who insists on special pronouns and a different name but wouldn't even think of wanting to change either their gender-presentation or anything about their body, that's what I'd call the classic special snowflake talked about in this thread.

[(Anonymous)]

First off, you are equating Otherkin with Fictionkin. And even with your attempt at brushing that off, I don't see the difference. Why can't I believe that I'm actually a cat? If bodies don't matter, after all, and it's my feelings that are really important, and everyone knows cats are a real thing. How is that different than being genderqueer?

Onto your second point, many, or most non-trans people don't actually self-identify as man/woman beyond the basic necessities? Most people don't spend all day obsessing about their sex/gender. I don't have strong identity as a woman, and don't feel that defines me as a person. But I'm also fine with being a woman. It's my body, I don't feel any dysphoria with it, it's what my body looks like. I'm a woman. I have no desire to go through surgery to become to opposite sex. If I were transformed into a guy, fine, I'll live my life like that. That doesn't mean genderqueer. That means, person who doesn't care about their gender overmuch.

Thirdly, gender and sex are both biological categories, and social ideas. But they are social ideas only loosely speaking - since you're right, male and female don't mean anything if we separate them from sex. It is about self-identity, in addition to societal practicalities and language. Which is why if you want to "live as the other sex", that's fine, because you're switching existing categories. Making up new categories isn't useful to anyone, and it's not useful to you, either, because "man" and "woman" mean nothing when separated from sex. Absolutely nothing - only what you yourself make of them. You calling yourself "nonbinary" is utterly meaningless unless you are intersex (or say, get surgeries alter your body to be intersex).

It seems like this desire to "transcend gender" because self-identity is just too "complex" for one mold or the other is missing the point that gender is meaningless. Again, it's one thing to identify how you feel comfortable, go for it. But it's not a useful category to try to have others put you in.

[(Anonymous)]

There are some people who would like to have an androgynous body and strive for getting it via surgery, so these are basically the only NB people (intersex people who choose not to present as either sex aside) we the term nonbinary is actually correct.

Genderfluidity, on the other hand, is in my eyes largely bullshit.

[(Anonymous)]

Have fun calling post-surgery people with their real (aka birth) name and pronouns then, because last time I checked, that shit ain't in their biology in any way, shape or form. It's purely social and has nothing to do with what you want between your legs.

[(Anonymous)]

This comment doesn't even make sense in connection to the comment you replied to.