[thread] I'm going to identify something, let's call it... Sexual Taxonomy... i guess... it's bad and I hate it and here's why

Sexual Taxonomy is this idea that sexual orientation and gender are material things that just kinda Exist independent of people, and they can be arranged in a sort of grid or hierarchy or flowchart or something describing their relationships to each other.

and that everyone fits into this system somehow and their identity must be fit into it. Perhaps everyone is a man or a woman, and everyone is attracted to men, women, or both

and then bam you've been assigned Bisexual Man or Straight Woman or Lesbian based on this little alignment grid

and then when people show up that complicate this the sexual taxonomy is expanded. we end up with stuff like the split attraction model. Heterosexual Heteromantic Trans Man. and this is fixed. this is static. this is consistent

Sometimes the sexual taxonomy even comes with a dictionary of special words to describe sub-classes of hyperspecific genders and sexualities along our grid, our flowchart of sexuality. You got your N.b. Genderfluids versus N.b. Demigenders

and nothing is wrong with these words pe se but the Sexual Taxonomer is creating a system wherein you must be these things. There is a proper way to categorize you and if we follow this chart we will determine what you properly should be called

You know when someone tells you that, um, technically the red panda isn't a bear? The sexual taxonomer will tell you this about your identity.

And this is how you get stuff like "You're not a lesbian if you're dating a non-binary person" or "You're not gay anymore cuz you hooked up with your faghag"

"You're actually not genderfluid you sound more like a demigirl"

and yeah, shit like "bisexuals can't call themselves gay" is SUCH an example of this shit

There's a LOT wrong with this
1. This shit isn't material. Gender is completely made up and not encoded in our brains as a static thing. The very existence of non-binary people will break your taxonomy

Your brain is not wired to see someone and go, ah, yes, this person is a demiboy, and then process through your sex chart to decide if they're in your dating pool.

You see them and based on arbitrary minute details you will feel however you feel we don't even know why

Likewise, manhood and womanhood are total bullshit that is not rooted in our brains either. You're inclined to do whatever you're inclined to do for millions of reasons and gender is superimposed on top of all that

There is no such thing as a man or as a bisexual or as a lesbian; in the same sense that there is such a thing as the sun or moon. These are categories we superimpose over human behavior; over communities; over identities

and the superimposition is NOT what dictates how we behave.

The friggin' Kinsey Scale is already inadequate to describe the full complex breadth of human behavior and even that doesn't fit into the Sexual Taxonomy System

When everyone is either heterosexual, bisexual, or homosexual; cisgender or transgender; man or woman (or a single static "non-binary" as a third gender); we don't even have room for the Kinsey 1 or Kinsey 5.

It's harmful. It makes us feel fake and ashamed for the natural fluctuations in our behavior which doesn't align with the identity labels we've chosen.

I know so many people who have identity crises about not being a real lesbian because they find this one male celebrity hot; or not really bi because they don't actually date men; or not really non-binary because they present a certain way

Not to mention of course the straight people who have a same-sex hookup and feel the need to never admit it ever happened for fear of losing their straightness; though of course we don't care as much about those people lol

It's needlessly stressful and harmful. You know how many young trans people I've had to consul and reassure they don't need to find out what word they're supposed to use for themselves from some long list of hyperspecific neogenders? It's A Lot

and then we get to the matter of the words "gay" "queer" and "lesbian"

which historically and traditionally described communities. You were gay because you went to the gay bar, had gay friends, and dated within the community

The sexual taxonomers have since decided, as part of either assimilationist efforts to make us more simple and digestible to society; or as part of separatist efforts to exclude others; that these words now mean something more specific

There are heterosexuals, bisexuals, and homosexuals aka Gays or Lesbians; and they never overlap and if you behave outside your category you're using the Wrong Word and Need To Stop.

but our community is OF people who didn't fit into the original taxonomy of man and woman!!

simply re-making the taxonomy will consistently leave out that lesbian who suddenly falls in love with a trans man and what now she's not allowed to identify as a lesbian anymore? even though this is a rare exception?
What about non-binary people? What sexual orientations r 4 us

I've had sexual taxonomers tell me "even a spectrum can be bifurcated" so like thanks for re-gendering me as a binary gender. this still doesn't work though sorry

And when you point at how historically lesbian has included bisexual women, or "gay" referred to more people, etc. etc. the taxonomer panics

because now what do they call themselves?

The taxonomer requires words which are unique and exclusive to people exactly like each group. but it's futile

any actual anthropologist will tell you this is deeply inaccurate to how people behave

Any gay man will tell you there is a BIG DIFFERENCE between a bi man, and a str8 man on grindr.

People fall through the cracks and get attacked for using the "wrong words"; they get excluded from already very small communities, we are hyper-fragmented, and it gets us nothing of value. It hurts us as a collective. it makes us all stressed out for no fucking reason

I'm falling asleep and can't finish this thread haha whoops but I think you get the idea.

None of these identities are of substance. they're just about self-description of ourselves as individuals and the communities we affiliate ourselves with

and don't even get me started on how The Ace Discourse plays into this, but i bet you can think about that on your own right? If we're arguing about if this other group Is Queer or whatever like... are we applying a taxonomy to decide this? or how else can we answer it?

I just don't think the taxonomies are useful. The bisexual lesbians discourse, the ace discourse, the queer discourse, it's all because of Sexual Taxonomies. That's all taxonomies bring us. endless discourse and the futile tasks of making everyone comprehensible

I am incomprehensible in your taxonomies. I have never ever fit into these. The material behavior of me as a gender non-conforming nb whose dating and fucking habits do not align consistently with particular genders as defined by taxonomies; it will never fit

Give up on sorting individuals into schemas and look at this from an anthropological rather than zoological lens.

We are communities

We are many overlapping circles and communities. We are all complex and messy beings who exist in relation to communities, cultures, societies, not in relation to cateogories or schemas. be a descriptivist not a prescriptivist

stop trying to make us simple, consistent, sortable, exclusive, and comprehensible. Embrace the incomprehensibility. Embrace being vague. Embrace ambiguity. That's gay and queer as shit. You can use fucking sentences and shit if you gotta describe that

the problem is not bisexual people calling themselves lesbians because they exist in lesbian communities; the problem is the fucking cisheteropatriarchal white supremacist imperialist capitalist system which is fucking killing us and trying to destroy our communities

The problem is neoliberalism trying to turn us into coherent markets who can be targeted with special products and cultivated into consumer identities

We are not oppressed because we are misunderstood. We are oppressed because it makes us into reserve labor to push down wages and keep everyone going back to work. give up on taxonomies it's a losing game. let people fucking live and date and love and fuck and use words

and if you *are* going to insistent on these ridiculous taxonomies where everyone gets an exclusive word then lesbians don't get to call themselves gay anymore since that word theoretically was meant to refer to gay men. sorry. that's how the world works in taxonomy-land

cuz like if lesbians are gonna call themselves gay then what word are the gay men supposed to call themselves huh?

or maybe "gay" isn't about a consistent exclusive thing is it.

oh and this: https://twitter.com/NireBryce/status/1029966433328025600

ONE LAST THING:

When I'm walking down the street with my partner the cishet assholes don't give a shit about your sexual taxonomy when they decide whether they're gonna shout fag or dyke at us.

They don't care if we're technically fags, dykes, or uhhh bi-bos... when they decide to follow these gender non-conforming queers down the alley. Whether I'm technically bi or gay or whatever they don't give a shit they don't know I'm a Kinsey 2 or whatever. Okay now good night

Good morning here is a thread of jokes about gender taxonomy: https://twitter.com/DataPup_/status/1030102310578532352

Here's an addendum addressing the situation of what happens when your partner transitions since this has been raised a few times: https://twitter.com/DataPup_/status/1030467597886803968

also in case you missed it: I'm not criticizing self-identification with labels. That's fine. I'm trynig to expand your flexibility and ability to self-identify however feels good; rather than having strict labels prescribed to you without you having a choice in the matter

protecting identity cuz this person is a teenager but just wanna give a footnote:

Lesbian is a cultural construct, like borders, money, and gender

as opposed to a material construct, like hydrogen, the sun, moon, and like, rocks.

Hope this helps!

Some QTs are framing me as saying you can't be a non-binary lesbian... which... is weird because the entire thread is against a system which would even allow such a statement to be true.

Obviously you can be a non-binary lesbian w/o taxonomies

the entire thread is basically me defending my relationship to my partner because people were saying she isn't a real lesbian because she's dating me, a non-binary person.

Unsure how this thread is being misconstrued to say the opposite of this