ON XENOGENDERS AND ASSIMILATIONISM
as of the week of writing this the discourse on trans twitter is targeting xenogenders after a post by @lesboytism, featuring a screenshot of its pronouns.cc page, blew up. and because of the sheer amount of 'made up' genders in the screenshot, a bunch of the most annoying people you know quote tweeted this saying shit like "ts is actually harmful to the lgbtq community btw".
the very first point i need to make to unpack all of this is that gender is a social construct. this is a phrase that gets thrown around a lot but i dont think most people saying it actually *understand* what it means. 'social construct' is just a fancy way of saying 'made up', gender isn't a real thing in the way frogs, or the peugeot 106 are real, it's not a tangible or measurable thing, it's a human made *idea*.
this means gender is an entirely malleable concept, in recent-ish years the existence of genders outside the conventional gender binary has become more well known, making people a bit more open to the whole "gender is a social construct" thing. but the socially imposed bias remains, so the tendency among most is to treat 'non binary' as something that is added on top of the existing system and not what it is, a fundamental deconstruction of it.
to me the idea of 'binary' and 'non binary' genders (as categories of self ascribed internal gender and not social classes) is kind of silly because it's just like, a different gender binary! you have two categories where one consists of boys and girls and the other is literally everything else... my point is that if gender is a spectrum (which it is, tho the specific shape of the spectrum is widely debated) how are there binary genders at all??? the easy answer to that is that in a linear spectrum the binary are the extremes but a simple linear spectrum is a comically oversimplified model that is pretty much only useful to introduce the concept of non-binarity to like, your parents.
moving past that tangent before i write 3 more paragraphs about it, my whole point in this section is that since gender is some made up shit, how is 'catgender' or 'puppycat therian' any less real than 'agender' or 'woman'?
every gender is made up dipshit, it came free with your fucking social construct
now, the main point of this uhh.. written thing: why do some queer people people seem to have a problem with xenogenders and stuff?
our current society puts a lot of emphasis on normalcy, it conditions us to ascribe a positive moral value to the normal, the conventional and as a result it conditions us to perceive the abnormal, the weird in a negative light, something to be corrected. this is so deeply engrained in our way of thinking that the only reasonably effective way for civil rights to progress is to assure the masses that "gay people are normal just like straight people" and "trans people are normal just like cis people".
this is a constant uphill battle to get x thing to be considered 'normal' where the problem of discrimination is never resolved and just keeps getting passed down to the next group over. which leads to epic debates in the #free marketplace of ideas where on one side you have a ghoul who hates trans people for not being normal and on the other some guy repeatedly going "no they're totally normal man"
a lot of right wing media (i.e. the daily wire, fox news) preys on the weirdness rhetoric and pushes stories saying shit like "can you believe these people are identifying as cats now? the woke left has truly gotten out of control!!" and the retort to these things is always "nobody is actually weird like that you just made it up!! trans people are normal and never bark and meow!!". to be fair the right wing media absolutely makes these stories up and that kind of response is definitely appropriate in cases like this where appealing to people's affection towards the normal is effective in securing their support of trans and queer rights.
however, this sort of rhetoric seeps its way into queer spaces and becomes the way of thinking even amongst ourselves which replicates the larger societal pressure to be 'normal' inside a group of 'non normals'. around 10 years ago the target of this idea was non binary people, but since then in a lot of trans spaces they have been promoted to 'normals' so the target once again changes. it becomes xenogenders, or therians or 'porn addicts' (sometimes all 3 at the same time!!) and we revive the discourse once again.
accusations like "making the community look bad" and "x group aren't real trans people" are thrown around and sometimes you end up with real gems like this tweet by @blizzy_mcguire where she implies that she's fine with enbies but only if they abide by the conventional boundaries of gender.
i think this tweet and the replies to it show how harmful this shit actually is, a trans woman says "nb people are fine but these specific ones make the community look bad" and many people in the replies are using this as a vehicle to openly discredit all non binary people. theres nothing new about this, this is just how assimilationist ideals are meant to work.
assimilationism is only ever useful as a tool of oppression, for those in power to justify violence against the nonconformists. it demands that people give up their identity, their culture, their individuality, in the name of creating a normal homogenous society, where everyone is required to repress their desires and identities in some way. you can be gay but just dont talk about it, you can be trans but dont be weird about it. true queer liberation will never be achieved if our activism doesnt go past pandering to the straights, pandering to the status quo.
again, its important to highlight that this way of thinking isnt just harmful to someone with a 'wacky' gender identity or whatever. this rhetoric is repeatedly used to deny all trans people, all queer people, access to basic human rights. and its at best irresponsible for a queer person to leverage this against someone they perceive as a 'lesser queer'
its the duty of everyone who claims to be in favor of a given group's liberation to recognize that this 'bias towards the normal' exists in everyone in some capacity, and to approach the people who we find kinda weird at first with compassion and an open mind, and not the vitriol and disgust we are expected to.
it makes us uncomfortable to accept that the systems in place, especially when we benefit from them, are harmful. to a lot of people it's scary to confront this, "i mean i never had any problems with the current way gender is viewed so it cant be harmful right?"; "my whole life is shaped around this in one way or another" so they just dont address it, so the problem becomes those fussy queers wanting to tear down these concepts at the core of our society. most people are comfortable with the way things are, so when those who arent demand change, it is perceived as a threat. but i think its worth it to ask "why arent they comfortable?"