…When I see someone who looks queer I can usually tell, can other people see that in me? It’s really hard to gauge what I look like from the outside? Like I don’t know what I look like? It’s dysphoric and I feel like I don’t exist? Has anyone experienced this ?? Thank u for ur help! (2/2)

I guarantee you that you cannot tell everyone who is queer just by their looks! I guarantee you there’s queer people who don’t “look” queer! I guarantee you that there are non-queer folk out there that you believe “look” queer! Queer is not a look. It is a label. It can be an identity or a political statement. It can be an experience and a part of who you are. But it is not a guaranteed, predictable look. That’s both a vast oversimplification of what queer is and what it means and why it was coined/reclaimed and, quite frankly, a bit of an insult to us queer folk to expect that we conform to some “queer look” to fit in some “queer box”, which is a large part of what calling yourself queer is resisting.

So stop being so harsh on yourself. You present for you. While you may need to present in some way to avoid danger, how you present should be at the core for you and what makes you the most comfortable. Your queerness is far more than your simple clothing. It is your experiences, a part of who you are. It’s how you feel and possibly what you’ve been through. It’s not your binder or your clothes or your hair or whatever. You may use those things to communicate and represent your relationship to being queer, but it’s not what makes you queer or not. 

Queer people do not need to act or dress a certain way to be queer. Do you like how you present? AWESOME! I’m so glad you’ve found something that works for you! If not, then play around with your presentation more! But make sure you don’t forget what’s most important: you. What makes you comfortable, what you enjoy, what projects the attitude you want to project. Some people may pick up on this being part of your “queerness”, others may not. Just like every single other person you see and think “queer” simply based on how they look and nothing more.

And yes, dissociating and depersonalizing and even derealization (like you described) are both common forms of dysphoria that people experience. But working more on breaking down internalized transphobia/queerphobia and self-love will go a lot longer to helping alleviate and cope with your dysphoria than just dressing one way will. Look up mindfulness or CBT and try to utilize tactics like that to recognize your dysphoria and self-doubt so that you can better cope with these awful feelings. <3

Originally posted by horrorandhalloween

[gif of a cute, little balloon-y ghost winking at you and holding up a peace sign on a nice, pale orange background]

~Tera

Yup! Start unlearning your internalized transphobia and dismantle this idea that there’s some “level” of trans you need in order to be valid, as well as the idea that just because what you want is not the popular story somehow means it “makes no sense”. Fight yourself. Build yourself up. Be kind and accepting to yourself. Correct yourself each and every time you even start to think something like “trans enough” and remind yourself that all you need to do to be trans is identify that way and that there is no pass you have to test to be valid. Follow more support and positivity blogs and get other people reminding you of these things on your dash. Use mindfulness and even meditation to help ease your anxiety and doubt over this to help you learn how to unlearn these harmful thoughts you’ve picked up. Take each day on its own. One step at a time. It’s a long journey but you can only make progress by trying. And you’re worth trying for!

Do what makes you happy and most comfortable. Don’t accept any less for yourself. Don’t put yourself down to make yourself accept less for yourself. You are worth the battle. You deserve happiness and joy and comfort.

~Tera

nonbinary is not a mix of the binary genders. whoever is telling you you’re not valid as an nb person is - how do we say this - Wrong.

nonbinary just means you do not identify completely as exactly one binary gender. if you feel nonbinary but are not comfortable with masculine-coded names/pronouns/words, you are still nonbinary - you just encompass a portion of the gender-verse that doesn’t include masculinity. and that’s still nonbinary! i don’t like male pronouns either, but that doesn’t mean the rest of my genderfeels are suddenly compressed into binary womanhood. -em

you do not have to be a cis or binary woman to id as lesbian!

you do not have to have dysphoria to be genderqueer!

do you feel like genderqueer and lesbian are the right labels for you? do they feel true to how you feel about yourself? do they feel natural to communicate to others? go ahead and be a genderqueer lesbian!!! 💜💗💚

(more specifically: do you feel like a somewhat fem-aligned person who likes other somewhat fem-aligned people? does being genderqueer feel like gender euphoria? the answers here don’t have to be yes for you to id how you choose, but if they’re not, you might also look into other labels and find ones that feel better to you. see our #labels or #lesbian for other resources/opinions. and you can change your labels as your genderfeels change!)

i used to struggle with this a lot! i’m not sure who is telling you these experiences aren’t yours to claim and why, but they are literally your experiences, and imo they don’t have the right to tell you they’re somehow not real!!

despite what our own self-perceptions and identities may be, the world still organizes us around a gender binary, and nonbinary folks who are read as women are still going to face misogyny, just like folks with uteruses are still going to face cissexist/misogynist attacks on reproductive rights.

i was part of a group of my sorority sisters (not just cis-ters, ha ha) who pushed our sorority to explicitly include nonbinary folks (successfully!). i think of gender-segregated greek life as kind of an extreme example of this - there’s a whole spectrum of people, but we’re all thrown into one of two buckets, and because we have to choose one of the two, it’s totally fair and warranted that “women’s spaces” or “women’s issues” actually include the experiences of a large variety of genders that experience misogyny for being read as female. - em

Your friend does not know your inner thoughts and feelings. Your friend does not get to describe you. Your friend does not get to define or decide who you are. Your friend is not you.

I understand how easy it is to let doubt creep in, but don’t let your “friend” upturn your whole world like this. That was absolutely out of place for them to say to you and was not at all the right or a good reaction to coming out.

You know you best. You get to define yourself and describe yourself. You get to decide who you are and how you identify and what you share with the world. 

Self-doubt is natural. It’s the result of living in a gender binary and a transphobic/exorsexist world. It doesn’t make you invalid or mean you’re faking it. 

~Tera

That kinda depends on how you want to try and handle it.

Do you want to try talking with them and educating them? Is there a local QSA type thing you could go to and invite them to where they might learn about and from more nonbinary people?

Do you wanna just try avoiding it altogether and work on changing the subject whenever it comes up?

Do you wanna not have to deal with it at all and let them know you’re upset by making snarky/upset comments anytime they try to deligitimize you and your experiences?

Do you wanna just ignore it and pretend it isn’t happening and utilize things like meditation/meditation techniques, CBT techniques, and distractions such as zen/calming apps and game apps until they’re done?

Do you wanna just do whatever you can to get through it while working on moving out?

There’s a lot of ways you can cope with this. What do you have the energy for? What are you most inclined to do? Since these are your roommates, I would assume/hope you have/had some sort of positive relationship with them, so I would personally start with trying to have a conversation about this with them and working on correcting their incorrect and harmful assumptions. Don’t just let it slide when they say stuff like this. Confront and correct it.

“Just because I don’t experience being trans in the same way you do does not make me any less trans or nor trans. I am trans. I do not identify as the gender I was assigned at birth.”

“Putting trans on a scale where you have to meet some random, arbitrary standard of “enough” to be valid is really harmful to trans people, even binary trans people. Beliefs like this help uphold the belief that trans people have to hyper-conform to their gender in order to be valid.”

“Even though you two are both trans men, that doesn’t mean you’ve had the same exact experiences or understand exactly what each other has gone through. Same with me. Though I am trans, you two do not understand my story or my experiences. That doesn’t make me invalid. It means I am individual.”

“Instead of dismissing me, why don’t we talk about what it is you think I won’t understand? If I don’t understand, I can then understand more. And if I do, maybe you’ll learn something new about me.”

Good luck! This really sucks to have to live with. You are valid!

~Tera

gaylouies:

y'know as a nonbinary lesbian I’m like……. really tired of sapphic blogs telling me that “as long as you’re fem-aligned, you can be sapphic” and “lesbian means you’re a female (or female aligned nb person) attracted to females”

Like yeah, I guess that’s true. Sure. Whatever. And I AM fem aligned at the end of the day. But FFS I shouldn’t have to conform to your binary standards. And neither should scared nonbinary kids hitting up your inbox for validation. I used to follow a l o t of sapphic blogs and almost every day there was an anon asking “if I’m nb/genderfluid/agender/demigirl/genderqueer/etc can I be a lesbian/sapphic?” And guess what the blog will answer. “Yes, as long as you’re fem-aligned” or in the worst cases “No.”

Like, anon already knows that sapphic/lesbian means woman attracted to women. Everyone does. By claiming the lesbian/sapphic label and wanting to use it a nonbinary person has already conformed to the binary, but they’ve done it WILLINGLY for the sake of labels and community. I’m sick of being reminded of it. ESPECIALLY from cis girls.

tl;dr. If you run a sapphic/lesbian​ blog and an anon asks you “I’m nonbinary, can I be a lesbian/sapphic?” The answer should be “Yes, if you feel it fits.” “Yes, if you want to be.” “Yes, if you feel that you are or might be.” Nonbinary sapphic people shouldn’t have to call themselves “female” for the sake of cis people’s comfort. We’re sapphic. We’re lesbians. That should be enough information. Ugh.

I don’t know. Honestly, I’m not fond of the tone policing that you seem to be enforcing (while at the same time recognizing that if you don’t like a blog’s tone, you are 100% free to unfollow and/or block it because a blog being allowed to employ a tone doesn’t mean you have to have it on your dash or in your life), but I personally blocked them a while ago when they outed themselves of exclusionists and not supportive of aro/ace people. (Some of the mods there claim to be supportive, yet still participate on a blog with a bunch of exclusionists who make exclusionist posts…).

~Tera

Er, okay. I don’t talk on this a lot because I’m honestly just Tired with a capital T, but… Um, I came out when I was 16/17 as a panro ace and was so thoroughly harassed and discouraged due to gatekeepers attacking my asexuality that I’ve never considered myself apart of the LGBT community (though I have found solace and support in the queer community). But to place the actions of some and put that on the entire community isn’t fair. Recognize that the LGBT community is a very broad term for a huge community made up of a ton of people. (Also watch out because these days it largely tends to be exclusionists who use LGBT or other very specific acronym versions while leaving out the A and/or the +.) Also recognize that most of this hate is pretty solidly only online and that these people saying this here have long been barred from LGBT+ meet-ups in the real world due to being toxic and harassing other LGBT+ members. Yeah, there’s a lot of intracommunity problems (biphobia, transphobia, racism, ableism, etc.) that we still call out and need to work on stomping out, but it’s also unfair to look at these problems - including the gatekeeping and harassment you mentioned - and 1) put that solely on LGBT+ people like the same exact thing doesn’t occur from cishet folk, or 2) decide that the people who enact these violences are worthy or writing off all LGBT+ people, even the aro/aces, nbs, disabled folk, and poc.

I really think you both need to step back and take a break. I 100% get how draining this is and how personal it is. I’ve been there, nearly a decade ago now. It’s hurtful. It’s exhausting. It builds up. So block and report these tumblrs harassing you and others. Don’t ignore it when others stand up for you and your friend - because there’s also plenty of people out on tumblr doing just that. Then go look into a meet up or volunteer event or something with a local organization. I promise you’re not only likely to meet people who identify similarly as you in these events (and even running them!), but you’re going to meet people who 100% accept and include you. I’ve branched out to real life meet-ups very few times, but the times I did…

- Was our unofficial HS GSA where I was specifically dragged to with all my friends who didn’t pretend for a second that I wasn’t welcome

- Was our college Queer Association of the Area where I was not the only ace by a longshot and which I believe a nonbinary person sat on the ‘board’

- Was a local Pride (that my lesbian sister specifically invited me to not as an ally but as someone who belongs) where I made my own pride shirt for my various identities and got nothing but compliments on it all day long

Please don’t let yourself believe that the actions of an extremely vocal minority are everyone’s beliefs. That’s unfair to the community. It’s unfair to other aros, aces, nbs, and even bppq and other trans folk who are in the community and fought and fight for their own acceptance as well as yours. Don’t let the bad seeds get you down because there’s plenty of good seeds out there. Plenty of wonderful people.

If you don’t identify with LGBT personally, I get that. As I said, I don’t. But step back and take a break for your own mental health. Look around for a different perspective from more accepting folk. Let the positivity into your life. You belong and you’re allowed to be happy.

It’s so easy to become embittered. I totally get it. I was in that area for a long time. But when you’re surrounded by so much negativity and hate, it’s so important that you balance that out with positivity and love. Here are some blogs I follow or otherwise trust and recommend for your various needs (positivity, validation, advice, media, meta, headcanons, personal, etc.!):

@apersnicketylemon, @fandomshatelgbtqpeople, @bi-trans-alliance, @aroacecotd, @asexualadvice, @metapianycist, @askanaroace, @asexualagendablog, @theasexualityblog, @askanonbinary, @genderfluidsupport, @genderqueerpositivity, @fuckyeahasexual, @searchingforartemis, @aspecpplarebeautiful, @aroacezine, @aroacelibrary, @whatsnew-lgbtq, @aspecselfies, @makingqueerhistory, @arospecinitiative, @justacepositivity, @aroacestories, @nonbinaryheadcanons, @nb-stuff, @nonbinarycuties, and more tbh!!!

~Tera

You do not need dysphoria to be trans!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Originally posted by bravec0ward

[gif of the blonde guy from The Road to El Dorado opening his arms with the caption “Comine into my arms!”]

All you need to do to be trans is identify as trans, which means not (completely) identifying with the gender you were assigned at birth.

~Tera

Friend, I need you to take a second and look at what you’re saying here.  You’re coming into the inbox of a nonbinary blog – meaning that we recognize that gender is not restricted to two categories.  By saying that the gender spectrum refers to falling somewhere among masculine or feminine is adhering to the gender binary.  And we’re literally a whole blog dedicated to not being that.

Gender is made up.  It’s a social construct.  That doesn’t mean that it’s not incredibly valuable and important, it just means that there aren’t rules.  If someone feels like dinosaur or whatever else is the most accurate representation of how their gender exists to them, then that’s fine.  It’s not hurting you, it’s not hurting them, and it’s not hurting anyone else.  The only harm being caused here is you and other gatekeepers making folks feel invalid for no good reason.  

So basically, chill the fuck out.

-Quinn

Like pal, people with less common genders don’t have any more of a choice in it than you do. They are who they are and the way they feel and express their gender is an incredibly individualistic and person experience just like it is to you and everyone else. If you don’t like it, mind your business.

-Quinn