Okay y'all it's 1:30 AM and I had to read this bullying bullshit with my innocent eyes so we're gonna talk about it. Buckle up, because this is gonna be long.

(Up front let me just say that I block freely and without regret. If you bring nonsense, you won't get a response.) 1/?

The only meaningful measure of whether a label is "useful" is "does this label help a queer individual make sense of their own identity in a world which is deeply hostile to that individual's existence as a queer person?" 2/

You don't "owe" anything about your identity to other people, and the idea that we should "move past" the idea that an individual's identity is inherently personal is so so deeply harmful. Saying that people should think about how their labels are materially different ... 3/

or how they feel different or whatever is exactly the kind of mentality which says that trans people's needs are different, so they should not be part of the community, or that bisexual women are somehow "responsible" for the fact that men harass lesbians, 4/

because they "make men think that queer women can be converted."

This kinda shit is why I have conversations with young non-binary trans people on a WEEKLY FUCKING BASIS 5/

where they say things like "I feel like I'm hurting the community by identifying as genderqueer/non-binary/etc because I don't want to go on HRT/can't go on HRT/don't look androgynous," 6/

or I talk to younger bi people and they say "I feel like I'm hurting the community by being out as bi because I'm in a relationship that 'looks straight' and should I just go back in the closet?"

7/

This kind of shit, which, let's be clear, is because OP hates the label "pansexual" and thinks it's bad and that pan people should just use THEIR preferred label, is utterly destructive to a REAL sense of HEALTHY community. 8/

If you have to shoehorn who YOU are into the "correct" size and shape so that you can be tolerated, how is that different at all from "i don't mind queers, as long as they hide it/don't put it in my face/etc."? Hint: it's not.
9/

Absolutely NOTHING about a person's internal sense of identity is beholden to ANYONE else. If someone wants to call themself pansexual, bisexual, omnisexual, polysexual, stargender, foxgender, or seashellgender, if people are creating new microidentities, 10/

do you know how much that hurts me, personally, as an out bi lesbian trans butch who came out in 1990, who has seen the creation of the terms genderfluid, non-binary, pansexual, the shift from transsexual to transgender, and so much more? 11/

NOT. AT. ALL.

Quite the opposite: it is only within a community where people feel not only FREE to examine their identity and create new labels, new subcommunities, and new assessments of what it means to be queer... 12/

but SUPPORTED in that, that we see things like the emergence of a vibrant and evolving trans community that's inclusive of non-binary identity, the emergence of an a-spec community that has provided a home to so many people who really needed that community to not feel lost 13/

and broken, and indeed, the emergence of the bisexual community. This sort of mentality that says "you have to have the right identity and you 'owe' it to people to justify to us why you shouldn't be FORCED to where to the identity that WE think is right" 14/

is so unbelievably toxic to any sort of real healthy community, unbelievably toxic to young queer folx attempting to make genuine self-assessment and come to terms with their identities, and unbelievably toxic to anyone who internalizes that message. 15/

You cannot fully and genuinely belong in a community unless that community allows you to fully and truly belong in yourself. Any community which demands compliance of identity is doomed to failure. Period. Without negotiation.

16/

In fact, I will point out that I lived out as bisexual for thirty years, from 1990 to 2020, because it was the closest thing to how I Really Felt, but it never felt quite right to me, because it never fit me exactly right. 17/

And it wasn't until a little over a month ago that, after reading the writing of a vibrant community of young queers and doing my own research and a great deal of thinking and reading that I came out again as a bisexual lesbian. 18/

Doing so, and finding an identity which fit me perfectly, was like taking off shoes a half size too small and running through the grass on a cool summer morning. 19/

The relief and the joy of finding an identity which fits you precisely is a joy which is devoutly to be wished for every young queer/LGBTQIPA+ person, and I genuinely wish for every person in our community to have that feeling and that sense of belonging within yourself. 20/

Yes, even OP. I genuinely believe that this sort of defensiveness of one's own identity and demanding that people "justify" themself or change their identity to a proscribed one comes from a deep sense of insecurity in one's own mind and self. 21/

If you are whole and settled in yourself and know who you are, then the identities of others do not threaten you, because they are irrelevant to your identity, which you're sure of. 22/

This is sort of the queer version of fragile masculinity in action: if you're bi & secure, then pansexuality doesn't threaten you. It can't, bc you know who you are, the same that a cishet man secure in his own identity isn't threatened by queer people, bc he knows who he is. 23/

tl;dr: Don't make other people responsible for your mental security at the cost of their own mental health. This bullshit doesn't build good community, it ruins community.

And stop trying to cloak your hate for other members of the community in pseudo-intellectual shit. 24/

People writing shit like this are not making genuine material analyses, nor do they want you to do so, because if you do, you will realize that it is only when you conquer your own insecurity that you can build genuine community and move the community forward materially. 25/25