[CW: Internalized Queer/Transphobia, Self Hatred, Suicidal Ideation, and Mental Health]
I recently made a (now deleted) post about how I have much discomfort about the way the concept of “passing” is handled by a lot of trans and cis people. I am a non-binary transfem who has no desire to pass. Unfortunately, it seems like, in the process, I reeled in comments that just seemed as if they were a wholehearted attempt to invalidate my experiences and speak over me.
I do not desire to pass, but my ideal presentation would be viewed as androgynous to a lot of people. To frame how this works for me in the construct of passing, my idea of androgyny is one that makes me the most comfortable. I’m not trying to necessarily strive for what explicitly makes me the most androgynous, but rather I’m trying to strive for what makes me the most comfortable in my own eyes. What this condenses down to is me seeming very androgynous to a lot of people, but I must stress that this is not necessarily the mindset I’m operating under, and that makes it very different from a lot of mentalities that some trans people have about passing.
There is a good deal of validation when someone gets confused about my gender presentation not being easy to shove into a binary box, yes, but it’s still beyond the point. The reason why I go by any and all pronouns is that I just want to look in the mirror and see a version of Angel that makes Angel the most happy. Whether this means going outside yields most people calling me a he, most people calling me a she, or most people not knowing what to call me isn’t something I can bring myself to care about. If I’m happy with how I perceive myself in that mirror, then I “pass” enough to myself, and that’s that.
Unfortunately, due to me phrasing that I desire androgyny, this led to a particular user saying “weLl AcKchYualLY, you Do wANT TO pasS! YOU jUsT wAnNa paSs As noN-BINarY!!!”, and this type of comment, that got upvoted mind you, made me highly uncomfortable. I don’t sense bad intentions, but it’s deeply inconsiderate of the point of the post. I’m rejecting the boxes that typical notions of “passing” put people into. For someone to handle this by turning around and trying to shove me back into a box by making a new take on passing to apply the term “passing” to how I handle my gender identity felt incredibly invalidating to me. Be careful to not turn gender binary into a gender trinary because this reeks of that. Furthermore, it also concerned me because it seems vaguely enbyphobic by trying to convey a certain idea of “passing as non-binary,” when non-binary experiences are just so damn diverse.
Speaking on that last point, there was another user who identified themselves as non-binary but saw themselves being adjacent to binary trans women in many ways. This user thought that because, in my context of me being non-binary and speaking on how my experience differs from a typical binary trans person’s experience, this means that I’m invalidating non-binary people who feel they can relate a lot more to binary trans people than I can. Once again, this was not my intention nor is anything I said at odds with accepting that non-binary people are highly diverse. I’m wholeheartedly aware of the diversity of non-binary experiences and that a non-binary person can experience gender in the way this user brought up. However, I wasn’t speaking for the entirety of non-binary people obviously; I was speaking for how my sense of non-binary gender identity relates to this issue specifically. This is why, once again, this seemed like an effort to speak over me for not being “all-encompassing” about speaking on non-binary experiences, an experience that will, undeniably, be very diverse by default.
The last comment I want to speak on was a comment that made me uncomfortable, where a user chimed in saying that they don’t have a sense of “wanting” to pass, but they still pass for safety reasons. Once again, this is not an invalid sentiment, but it rubbed me a very peculiar way for this to be stated. I hope they weren’t trying to give advice because I simply cannot go about my gender this way. Me shoving myself into a notion of being cis-passing is inherently dysphoric for me. Trying to live out my life as a binary woman or a binary man will cause dysphoria, distress, discomfort, and a feeling of inauthenticity either way. For all intents and purposes, me trying to pass for safety is like a binary trans woman living her life out as a man for safety. I just cannot do that and simultaneously be comfortable with myself. If I could, I’d just stop taking my hormones, cut my hair short, and be as masculine/gender-conforming as possible to live out my life as a cis man, not as a binary trans woman.
This all caused problems because, even before making this post, I was going through a rough moment of deep internalized hatred, something that you can even see reflected in this post [CW: (Internalized) Queerphobia] I made just a bit ago. My internalized hatred gets exacerbated when I feel like my unconventional experiences as a queer person are not valid. I feel like even other queer people oftentimes feel like I don’t deserve the same basic respect and decency that they’d give for other queer people because I’m just too fucking queer I guess. I’m too freakish, disgusting, weird, abnormal, anti-assimilationist, and just too much of a d-generate and an abomination for even other trans people to think I deserve basic decency in having my queer experiences heard and respected, and apparently this extends to Hexbear of all places!
I was going through so much fucking hell that morning that I reached a point of suicidality, and I had to have my partner comfort me to a point where I could sleep off all the emotional turmoil I was feeling. I’m now awake, and after making that post I just referenced in the above paragraph, I had to talk to her again just to feel human. Most places I go to, be they online or in real life, have a hard time reassuring me that I deserve to be treated with respect, dignity, and even have basic human rights. I do not want Hexbear to become another one of those.
This has been bugging me so much, and you see that because even after waking up, I still felt immensely self-hating and suicidal. My partner, who is a cis woman, is the only reason I kept myself alive because, for some reason, she’s the only person that has ever been able to truly make me feel understood and heard. I feel less distressed after being able to work things out with her, and she’s currently busy doing some work, but I told her I was going to be speaking out about this issue on Hexbear more, so here it is.
As a black non-binary person, I’m used to most trans people not wanting to listen to anything I say. At this point, I don’t expect a lot of trans people, even on HB, to understand how painful that feels, but at least this fucking once, I really want people to understand the pain that I’m feeling right now.
Thank you.
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we must war against assimilationism
I’m sorry you got such uncomfortable responses to that post! I thought it was a really good post and I was in the middle of typing up a comment that was a rant about my own nonbinary experiences when you deleted it (an understandable deletion, I want to emphasize).
Thank you for being unapologetically nonbinary and anti-assimilationist here, it makes me feel more at home, for sure! It’s wild being nonbinary in this binary world.
Also, for anyone reading this who isn’t nonbinary themselves, I want to emphasize the following: there is no single nonbinary experience. Do not make the mistake of thinking there are three genders (man, woman, nonbinary). The way I’m nonbinary (extremely agender) is very, very different to the way someone else might be nonbinary. For me, the answer to “what gender are you?” is “no thank you”, but I can easily imagine someone for whom the answer to the very same question might be “all of them, I’m all the genders”, which, again, is different to someone who might answer with “I’m mostly a man, but occasionally something else” or “I don’t really have an internal sense of gender but people treat me as a woman, so I’m more or less a woman”. And all of these are valid gender feelings that could fall under the nonbinary umbrella.
Take my power!!!
As a generally confused enby transfem who also very much wants to present androgynous this post makes me happy to see you and the other commenters are out there. I have no answers but you have my unlimited support!
I have a lot of internalized hatred of various stripes and I know how that weight can feel. I hope you find peace <3
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The last comment I want to speak on was a comment that made me uncomfortable, where a user chimed in saying that they don’t have a sense of “wanting” to pass, but they still pass for safety reasons.
This almost vaguely seems like it might be referencing my comment? At least, your comments here seem similar to your response to my comment on that thread. I was just mentioning there’s conflicting interests that occupy at least some of my brain-space, but I don’t put try to pass as a binary woman and I definitely don’t pass as one (only recently even started HRT and I certainly am not naturally androgynous or fem). Well, I’m still boymoding, sorta*, so I guess I try to pass as a cis guy at work despite considering myself transfem, but it is tolerable. Not sure if that counts?
*I was gonna say at least no one has said anything yet, but I forgot a while ago, one person/group seemed to maybe suspect something - they asked me something like if I was a “mister or miss” and called me a “removed” I think in consecutive encounters.
I hope they weren’t trying to give advice because I simply cannot go about my gender this way.
I wasn’t. I never meant to imply others should try to pass as anything. I find how common it is for people to want to pass confusing. Trying to pass often means people try putting themselves in boxes they don’t necessarily fit, whether they’re cis or binary trans or non-binary trans, so I don’t think this is even necessarily a NB-exclusive problem.
Earlier today, I was listening to a song called Nvr Pass, which I think is by a binary trans woman (but I don’t know much about the singer, so I could be wrong - maybe she’s an NB woman) that about how trying to fit in the pink box is almost just as bad as never coming out of the original box and that she would never try to fit into that box. Anyways, I was thinking about how when I turned on this song for my brother for the first time, I describe it as a “happy song”, because I saw it as a celebration of being oneself despite societal pressures to conform, but he saw it as a sad song for some reason (but maybe its because he sucks at listening to lyrics and only actually listened to the chorus of “I’ll never pass”). I guess the fact that people have to deal with the brainworms at all, even if they ultimately dismiss them as bad, is sad, but doesn’t seem like a reason to call a song about ignoring them sad.
Yeah, it might have been your comment. I somewhat got that vibe because sometimes people have given that kind of energy when it comes to talking about passing for safety. Also, there are just a ton of people who flat out are unaware that some people do not want to pass, so that kind of contributed to that sense of invalidation.
Thank you for clarifying, and I don’t necessarily assume you meant bad faith. That comment and the other few that popped up just made me feel so out of place because I have zero desire to fit into a binary gender presentation, even for safety, and I felt invalid in my experiences being weird, especially with how many trans people do find themselves preferring to have some sense of “passing” as a binary gender.
I’m sorry if I misinterpreted your comment either way! It just got me thinking of some negative interpretations, and I’m just happy you made your intentions clear here, and I have nothing but respect for that.
No worries and glad to clear that up. I’m sometimes am bad at communicating intentions, so I’d rather people ask questions if its unclear. Or at least complain, so I know I’m doing something to bother them.
because it seems vaguely enbyphobic by trying to convey a certain idea of “passing as non-binary,” when non-binary experiences are just so damn diverse.
Absolutely, the very idea of this is so ridiculous. There’s no rules about how to not conform, swallowing my head.
Sorry to hear you received such invalidating responses. It’s really not fair that nonbinary people and trans people who don’t pass (deliberately or not) continue to receive the short end of the stick even sometimes in trans spaces.
You would think that trans people should, of all groups, be the most accepting of gender/sexual minorities even if they don’t fall in those categories, given how they have been isolated by the “LGB only” people, but this sadly is not the case nearly enough.
The transmedicalists are wrong. There is no single Transgender Experience, even though trans people may relate to each other from their own individual experiences with what it means for them.
