So You Think You Might Be Queer

My last post was about different 'invisible identities', that is, queer identities that most people haven't heard about or think are just 'Tumblr words.' I'm aromantic and genderfluid and have friends that are aromantic, asexual, and nonbinary. These words are real, and there are hundreds, if not thousands, of people around the world that use them. Maybe you do, too. Maybe you did before, and maybe you do now that you know what they really mean. Maybe you want labels. Maybe you don't. In any case...

• If you're nonbinary or genderqueer, you don't necessarily have to do anything. If you are fine with using the pronouns associated with your birth-assigned gender, that's fine and you don't have to correct anyone. If you would rather use a different set of pronouns - no matter how "made up" they sound - that's fine too, and the people in your life should respect that. You don't have to start dressing differently if you don't want to, you don't have to change your name if you don't want to, and you don't have to 'pass' if you don't want to, no matter where you fall under the gender variant umbrella. Do what makes you feel comfortable and happy, take care of yourself, and surround yourself with positive people who respect you. Some men wear dresses. Some women wear tuxedos. Anybody who can't deal with that isn't worth your time. 

Even with all of this, though, you have to remember that gender variant people are statistically very likely to be raped or murdered (ex. the six trans women of color, Kristina Gomez Reinwald, 46; Penny Proud, 21;  Vasmin Vash Payne, 22; Taja DeJesus, 36; Ty Underwood, 24; and Lamia Beard, 30, who have been murdered in 2015; as well as the one white trans woman, Bri Golec, 22, who was also murdered) or to face emotional and physical abuse from our families, as well as romantic and queerplatonic partners. It would be a good idea, for your personal physical safety, to carry a weapon and/or a can of Mace, as well as to take a self-defense class, and to keep the numbers for domestic abuse and transgender safety hotlines. When I'm walking alone somewhere, I try to keep a sharp object with me, even if it's just my yarn hook or a pair of scissors or a set of keys; part of the reason I'm trying to get more physically fit is that I will be better able to fight off an attacker if I ever need to. Remember that there are no rules if and when your life is in danger. That said, if you ever are violently attacked, the attack was not your fault.

• If you're aromantic, remember that you are not broken. You're not just 'waiting for the right person'. Especially if you are not a cis man, this 'magical right person' often oh-so-mysteriously seems to be a cis man in the eyes of the concerned friends and relatives who tell you about your alleged need to find them, and you are likely to be called frigid or bitchy or snotty if someone shows romantic interest in you and you say no (also, if you are a woman who is aromantic and allosexual, you are likely to be called a sl*t or a wh*re, or to be chastised by 'concerned' people, if you have sex...or do anything that could possibly be interpreted to mean interest in sex. That's called slut shaming and it's completely unacceptable, but I don't want to derail here).

 Most media portrayals of people with your romantic orientation are shown as tortured or unfeeling and you will often be erased, even within the queer community. It can be easy to internalize that oppression. But you're not unfeeling or tortured. You are real, you are legitimate, and you deserve respect. There is more than one way to fall in love. If someone is harassing you, you have every right to feel offended and hurt, to tell them to...I don't know...go stick a cactus up their butthole or something...and to take whatever measures necessary to make the harassment stop. You are not obligated to allow anyone to talk to you, to touch you, or even to be in your presence if you feel uncomfortable or unsafe with them there. You are also, like every other queer person, not obligated to come out if you don't want to. You don't owe anyone anything.

Most of this, if not all, also applies to asexuals, who are in terms of culture and oppression, very similar to the aromantic community.

And I think that's it. If you'd like me to add something, just let me know in the comments.

Invisible Identities

I personally think a lot more people would identify as asexual or aromantic or nonbinary if they knew what the terms meant. So I'm providing a list.

Invisible romantic orientations:

gray-romantic (what I am)

demiromantic

lithromantic/akoiromantic

WTFromantic
cupioromantic

recipromantic
requiesromantic
abroromantic

Invisible sexual orientations:

asexuality

gray-a

demisexual

pansexual

cupiosexual
recipsexual
requiessexual
abrosexual

Invisible (a)gender identities:

genderqueer

agender

neutrois

genderfluid (what I am; this falls under the genderqueer, nonbinary, and transgender umbrellas)

polygender

quadgender

demigirl

demiguy

bigender
nan0gender
Gender Trojan
maverique

On Being Gray-Panromantic

TW: mentions of pregnancy and genitalia, mentions of queer in-community prejudice, discussion of amatonormativity, cissexism, and heterosexism

Something awesome about realizing you're queer is that, depending on your situation, you learn about things about queer culture that most cishet people would never even consider. You learn new words, like demisexual, genderqueer, and queerplatonic. You learn that there are many different ways to be queer, and the differences between gender and sex, polyamory and threesomes, gender presentation and gender identity, sexual orientation and romantic orientation, sexual orientation and sexual behavior.

You can, in queer spaces, announce that you're not entirely sure what your gender is or that you have two moms or that you're voluntarily having your testes removed or that you sometimes feel like there's a phantom penis between your legs or that you don't have any gender at all, and no one will bat an eye. Talk of pregnant men isn't relegated to speculative fiction; colors, clothing and toys have no gender; no one assumes you're straight when you mention your significant other; polyamory isn't just for Mormons; ranting about which bathroom to use is a thing; and "What are your pronouns?" is a legitimate, important, and (somewhat) normalized question. It's great. (I mean, the queer community is still really fucked-up and allosexist and monosexist and cissexist and kinkphobic and misogynistic and racist in a lot of cases. Still, there are some things that only other queer people understand.)

Of course, everyone's different, but this has been my experience and that of some other queer people I've talked to. I never knew I was genderfluid until I became involved with queer culture because of my bisexuality. I barely knew of gender diversity beyond cis men and cis women, so how was I supposed to understand that there are literally thousands of awesome and beautiful ways to experience gender?

But that's not the topic of this post. The topic of this post is that, since I'm queer, I have mostly queer friends, and I'm pretty active in the community, I have a better understanding of queer culture in relation to romantic and sexual orientation than most. I understand, where most cishet people wouldn't, that sexual orientation and romantic orientation are two different things.

I mean, I'm still not some Guru of Rainbow Wisdom (as awesome as that would be...). Until a gray-romantic friend of mine explained her romantic orientation to me, I had no understanding of what the term gray-romantic meant. I hadn't realized that my general indifference to and bafflement concerning romance (Yes, this includes cis men. I don't want a husband or wife or wubby or kids. I want a platonic life partner who I have sex with without it being weird, a cat because CATS, an apartment in Royal Oak, and some friends' kids that I can occasionally spoil. I can be happy for and even ship alloromantic couples, but I rarely want romance or experience romantic attraction myself and it's sometimes weird or uncomfortable for me to see alloromantic couples being cutesy right in front of me in real life) and lack of initial romantic attraction meant I wasn't biromantic, as I'd originally thought upon realizing I was queer. For people like me, who fall in the gray-area between romantic and aromantic, things aren't so simple.

What being aromantic doesn't mean:

• That I'm unfeeling
• That I can't love (love is more than just romance)
• That any sexual relationship I have, with anyone of any gender or sex, is based on only lust (thus far, I haven't had any sexual relationships with anyone)
• That it's just a Tumblr thing
• That I will never experience romantic love (aromantic identity is a spectrum. Not all aromantics experience being aromantic the same way. However, I have ever really gotten a crush - which, to me, means that I have seriously thought being in a not-totally-platonic relationship with them would be really nice - on two people. The first time, I lost interest pretty quickly and the second time, the person had been someone I'd known and been friends with for awhile. Neither of them have been guys. One person had been nonbinary and the other was a cis girl.)

What being aromantic (gray-panromantic specifically) does mean (this applies to me only because aromantic experiences are very diverse and all aromantics are different):

• That, approximately 90% of the time, I feel no interest in romance
• That I can develop romantic interest in someone whom I've already formed a strong platonic bond with (i.e. if I've been close friends with them for awhile and I feel safe and comfortable around them)
• That I occasionally feel slight romantic attraction, but this doesn't happen often
• That I could have a queerplatonic, quasiplatonic, or romantic relationship and be happy
• That I need to feel completely safe, happy, and comfortable with someone before I can develop romantic attraction to them
• That, when I do develop romantic attraction and/or interest in someone, gender (or lack thereof) doesn't really affect my feelings toward that person.
• That, when I do develop romantic attraction and/or interest, it can be toward someone of any gender (or lack thereof). This, and the bullet immediately above, is why I also label my romantic identity as pan.

And that's pretty much it. Hey, I've used this blog to come out as bisexual, pagan (well, omnist, but I do tend to lean toward paganism on many issues), and genderfluid. Why not as aromantic?

Everyday Feminism

I love this magazine, and it has some really great intersectional and feminist articles. So I'm reblogging them for Women's History Month.

Celebrating the Love between Queer Women of Color - in 25 Gorgeous Photos

Patricia Arquette's Heart is in the Right Place and We Still Need To Call Her In

How Misogyny Shows Up in the Queer Community

"Witch Hunt" by Arati Warrier

When Street Harassers Are the Only People Calling You Beautiful

Things Straight Women Should Stop Saying to Queer Women

"Brown Girl" by Yesika Salgado

Why Black Women with Dark Skin are Beautiful

"For Teenage Girls" by Clementine von Radics

Consent vs. Silence

"Word Choice" by Imani Cezanne

"Trigger" by Terisa Siagatonu

Rejected Princesses

I just love this Tumblr blog and it's great for Women's History Month. Yes, the author (a straight white man) is incredibly privileged, but he still seems to be an awesome feminist and ally to women. So, yep, read it because it's awesome.

Quotes on Womanhood by Women

Happy Women's History Month!

“It’s the fire in my eyes, 
And the flash of my teeth, 
The swing in my waist, 
And the joy in my feet. 
I’m a woman 
Phenomenally.” - Maya Angelou

“Anything may happen when womanhood has ceased to be a protected occupation.” - Virginia Woolf

“I will never be scared to love me.
I am a force to be reckoned with.
I am beautiful.” - Alexandra Elle

“The hardest part has been learning how to take myself seriously when the entire world is constantly telling me that femininity is always inferior to masculinity” - Julia Serano

“The start of empowering women comes with acknowledgment of thought that every born child is equal irrespective of its sex. ” - Nikita Dudani

“For my relationships with men to change, I needed to change my relationship to myself as a woman.”  - Gloria Ng

“In trans women's eyes, I see a wisdom that can only come from having to fight for your right to be recognized as female, a raw strength that only comes fro unabashedly asserting your right to be feminine in an inhospitable world." - Julia Serano

“A woman with opinions had better develop a thick skin and a loud voice.” - Anya Seton

“Even to me the issue of "stay small, sweet, quiet, and modest" sounds like an outdated problem, but the truth is that women still run into those demands whenever we find and use our voices.” - Brene Brown

“I want to be strong and empowered. I want to shock everybody.” - Vanessa Hudgens

“I'd rather be thought of as smart, capable, strong, and compassionate than beautiful. Those things all persist long after beauty fades.” - Cassandra Duffy

“Books make dangerous devils out of women.” - Yxta Maya Murray

“Like other women who sought equality, the amount of trouble I cause is inversely proportional to my physical size.” - Cassandra Duffy

“Our mothers were largely silent about what happened to them as they passed through this midlife change. But a new generation of women has already started to break the wall of silence.” - Trisha Posner

“A woman brings so much more to the world than birth, for she can birth discovery, intelligence, invention, art, just as well as any man.” - Shannon Celebi

“The one person who will never leave us, whom we will never lose, is ourself. Learning to love our female selves is where our search for love must begin.” - bell hooks

"I am not only a casualty, I am also a warrior." - Audre Lorde

"Before I die, I will see our community [the queer community, but specifically trans women] given the respect we deserve. I'll be damned if I'm going to my grave without having the respect this community deserves. I want to go wherever I go with that in my soul and peacefully say I've finally overcome." - Sylvia Rivera

Dear Cishet Boy

This poem was inspired by all the crap queer youth face from our cishet male peers, as well as the violence queer people (especially trans women of color) face from cishet men.

Dear Cishet Boy

Dear cishet boy, get over yourself.

You are not a sex god.

That lesbian is never going to beg for your dick.

She's not interested, not in any guy -

It's not that she just hasn't had sex with YOU.

Your genitalia ain't magic, son.

Dear cishet boy, making fun of gay guys is not amusing.

It's not a joke.

It's not a game.

And the so-called faggot

That you think is hitting on you?

He's not. So shut up.

Dear cishet boy, trans people are not confused.

We're not tr*nnies, crossdressers, or sick.

We're trans.

You're confused.

Dear cishet boy, we don't give a damn if you're Christian.
Some of us are Christian too,
And from the ones that aren't?
God doesn't hate us. You do.
We may not be able to change your beliefs,
But you need to understand that your religious freedom
Ends with you.

Dear cishet boy, trans women are not tricking you.
They're not trying to 'turn you gay' or lying or pretending,
Faking, drag queens. They are not obligated to disclose,
As if they were not real women. Trans women are REAL WOMEN.
Their bodies simply look a little different than a cis woman's,
But why should that matter? They are beautiful.
All bodies are beautiful, worthy of love and praise,
Worthy of so much more,
So much more than the tragedies, the violence, your fellow men
Subject these women to.
And we shall forever remember their names.

Dear cishet boy, WE ARE PEOPLE.
We are people in all our rainbow glory,
Transgender, bisexual, lesbian, gay,
Ace, pan, aro, nonbinary.
We are PEOPLE.
We are VALUED.
We are BEAUTIFUL.
Every color of the rainbow and then some.

Dear cishet boy,
Our queer siblings have been murdered,
Slandered,
Misgendered,
Beaten,
Raped,
All of these by people like you.
They have bled, they have cried,
They have died.
But we will survive
And we will forever remember their names.