A short thread about identification.

I have said before and I will say until the end of time:
No one gets a vote in your identity but you. You are the final arbiter of your identity. If non-binary woman resonates for you? Fantastic! That's who you are.

1/

If demigirl or demiboy or a micro identity resonate for you and help you feel comfortable with your gender? If 'bi lesbian' or 'aro queer' make you ecstatic with understanding of how you view the world? That's what you are. I don't get a vote.

2/

"The community" doesn't get a vote.

Let me say that again. Cishets don't get a vote. The community doesn't get a vote. No one gets to tell you who YOU are and how YOU view the world and who YOU love.
ONLY YOU get a vote.

3/

ONLY YOU determine your gender, your sexuality, your romantic orientation. ONLY YOU.

And that means that you can't turn to someone else and say 'your identity is wrong and made up.' Guess what? All of our words are made up. That's how words WORK.

4/

Each one of us is the single vote in the sovereign nation of our own identity, now and forever.

Anyone who would try to take away your rights to be the Sovereign over your identity isn't doing you any favors and you're not required to give them a second's thought.

5/

Our words are constantly evolving and changing. Fifteen years ago, we didn't use 'non-binary,' and 'transgender' meant what non-binary does now. Back then, some people used transsexual for binary trans people, and transgender for those outside binary gender.

6/

Language moves and changes, and it moves and changes because people need it to move and change. If the language doesn't suit the people, you don't change the people to suit the language.

You change the language to suit the people.

Full stop, end of.

7/

This is why our community went from being 'the gay community' to 'gay and lesbian' to 'GLB' to 'GLBT' to 'LGBT' and then LGBTQ and all of the longer versions thereof... and all of those changes have been within my lifetime.

There have been many changes. There will be more.

8/

You cannot change the people to suit the language. Telling people 'your identity must conform to my expectations' is what the cishet community does to us.

It is the opposite of a healthy queer community.

You must not ever even try to change the people to suit the words.

9/

The words are there for the people. The language is created, crafted, to help people understand who they are and to express who they are to other people. If the language doesn't work, it must evolve.

Standing in the way of the evolution only makes you the asshole.

10/

You get the only vote in who you are.

Don't let anyone say differently.

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