about the latest kerfluffle, I just gotta say--it's *serious* bullshit that "it happened" (e.g. "a person decided to spout it") THE DAY AFTER Day of Trans Day Visibility Day. it's entirely possible it was prompted by something the author saw on DTDVD (yes that's the official name now shut up), which is rather like taking the opportunity of MLK Day to be a horrible racist, which YES I KNOW PEOPLE DO THAT ALSO because PEOPLE.
WE ARE HERE. WE ARE VALID. some of us have been here all along. some of us only just now got here. some of us will stay here all our lives, some will drift away. some are Extremely Out, others are Extremely In, but WE ARE ALL VALID.
and if somebody wants to say their gender is "assault helicopter," then GRATS YOUR GENDER IS ASSAULT HELICOPTER I HOPE YOU ENJOY IT. if they're willing to commit, I'm more than willing to let them have it.
@green god though i would love to earnestly explore the experience of my gender being 'assault helicopter' but i don't even know where i'd start
@hvee tbqh claiming my gender as "dragon" comes pretty damn close, imo. :D
@green i have definitely claimed my gender as 'doge' at times :3
@green "OWNING THE LIBS BY DRINKING HELICOPTER FUEL."
@green my tabletop gaming friends and I once played a game where my character was an animate lamp, and in the gender box I just wrote "lamp". Now lamp is just sort of a recognized gender in our settings/what we say when we don't know what gender we want a new character to be. (None of us are cis/straight.)
@green gender: in-joke
@green the weirdest thing about it is she's a trans woman. I had to doublecheck that she wasn't a frigging TERF.
TERF vs. trans weirdness
@polyplacophora from what I've seen, there's a fair contingent of TERFers who are--frustrated/repressed trans folks, and they even *talk about it* sometimes, like "I was wrong about my gender and THEREFORE SO IS EVERYBODY ELSE." and I've seen several trans folks who came over out of the TERF trenches. it's almost like the virulently homophobic preachers that have lots of gay sex, you know? denial is a thing, and it can cause a lot of collateral damage. :|
that said: as an enby person myself, ENBY PEOPLE ARE VALID AND REAL. AMAB? AFAB? ATAB? (Assigned Toaster At Birth) ACAB? (wait I don't think that's) it doesn't matter where you come from, it doesn't matter where you go. GENDER IS A SPECTRUM, and there's a *big* chunk in the middle of that which is EnbyLand, not some tiny sliver that's just exactly the right shade as allowed by Some Internet Asshole.