This Is My Breakup Piece With The Queer Community/Nonbinary Identity/Neopronouns/Othering/On Your Own Terms/Vogue Barnum and Bailey

I identify more as nonbinary each day that I exist in this world.

It is becoming a fundamental part of how I view

Gender and sexuality.

I also grow to resent they/them and neopronouns like xi/xir

More than I ever have, as

In practice, I find them

Othering.

I don’t want to stand out as special, or different

In any way, I identify as nonbinary

Because of the ways in which we are all

The same.

I don’t understand how unbelievably out of hand

This game of telephone has gotten in the media

On TV, on the internet and with

Other blogs and other “personal brand businesses”.

I do not believe in microdosing– as the full strength dose I take

–Is the one many internet providers say is a microdose.

I do not believe it’s possible to control the effects of your HRT–

At any dose.

I do not believe in presenting as

Both, neither, or whatever you believe in–

Not because of what you experience–

Not because of how you feel, how you express yourself–

But because in the world I live in, in my lived experience–

How I am perceived is

Completely out of my hands!!!!!!!!!!!!

My health, however, is not.

It is my responsibility, and

That alone is why I advocate for

Going to the doctor, and listening.

Do you feel like both genders?

So do most people, sorry. Honestly

I have never met anyone who feels

100% tied to the gender they were born as–

It’s like a name–

Something you were given.

Something assigned to you,

Something observed.

An assigned gender that you change

To be perceived differently

Is called being transgender.

If a tree in the forest

Identifies as nonbinary and uses

They/them pronouns– are they

Still a tree, or are they now

A woke, hip tree with an instagram account?

Lmfao my bad I enjoy my own bad jokes

More than anyone else.

I don’t mean to offend I mean to be real

I don’t understand why it is

That thin, pretty, tik tok and instagrammers

With brightly colored hair

Look more nonbinary than

The guy with no hair and a beard.

That motherfucker almost certainly didn’t choose

To have hair loss, the same way

Many trans women do not–

Does that make him less nonbinary somehow…??

What about a bald trans man who

Makes peace with the feminine in him by

Giving it space to live, thrive and grow–

Does he have to be soft, does he have to be seen as

Weak, effeminate, or gay or can we just

Let him be a man with delicate sensibilities, the way

So many other straight cis men deemed highly desirable get to be.

When it comes down to it, I see

A whole lot of sexism, transphobia, fatphobia and hypocrisy in the queer community.

More than anyone ever wants to admit to.

For whatever reason, instead of acknowleding

Your inner demons, you get to wrap it up as

Gender dysphoria, homophobia, transphobia–

Anything that makes you feel queasy.

Instead of saying–

“Hey, maybe my occasional desire to look more the other gender

Without losing the way that I already look as this gender

Or any of the privileges that go along with

This gender’s set– says more about me than I am willing

To reflect upon. Anyone that makes me feel insecure

About whether or not I am trans–

Is a transphobe”

Perhaps the only reason I’m being a dick is because

AFAB enbies are the only ones

Who are allowed to play these cards.

And if you’re Alok Vaid-Menon– well–

You’ve got to be expressing your feminine

Otherwise you aren’t really nonbinary.

If the amab doesn’t wear a dress are they even

Between genders…!?!

No one chooses the way their gender presents naturally.

HRT, like it or not, is a natural biological phenomenon

Brought on my medical intervention. You will experience

Changes, side-effects, and things you don’t expect.

You will not be able to dial it in in order to look a certain way

Are you miserable day in day out

With the body that god gave you?

Or are you miserable day in day out

With how people treat you–

This is my beef, this is my

Break up piece, with the queer community.

I can’t sit here and go along and pretend as if somehow

The shallowest, most superficial, most performative and

Physically expressive trans people are the happiest–

The freest somehow from their gender dysphoria–

What an elaborate and horrible lie to tell,

That I see plastered fucking everywhere.

Like depression, anxiety– when a

Pretty thin white person talks about their gender dysphoria

No matter what their identity–

They are met with a significantly different response

Than a black, brown, fat or disabled body.

Changing your body is only a small piece of the puzzle–

Changing how you are perceived by others

Is not something you can control much, unfortunately.

So– what is my problem exactly?

Stop equating trans identity with

Visible gender performance.

Not all of us want to be

Visible in whatever way

You decide is representation for

“The community” lmfao

I identify as nonbinary, not

Vogue Barnum and Bailey.

You don’t have to be anything, or look

Any sort of way, or have any sort of

Fashion sense, in order to be trans.

You just have to know it,

On your own terms.