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after making a nonbinary inclusive tweet yesterday some people said things like ânonbinary people arenât trans because trans people go through worse.â thinking like this is based on a lot of wrong assumptions so as a nonbinary trans man, I wanna address why itâs wrong (thread)
the first wrong assumption this idea is based on is that trans and nonbinary are two inherently different identities tied to different experiences & struggles, so letâs first talk about what the labels âtransgenderâ and ânonbinaryâ actually mean.
trans(gender): having another gender identity than the one you were assigned at birth
nonbinary: having a gender identity thatâs not exclusively 100% a binary gender, meaning male or female
nonbinary: having a gender identity thatâs not exclusively 100% a binary gender, meaning male or female
Iâm sure you can already tell that these two identities overlap, because no one is assigned nonbinary at birth. being nonbinary means the person realised their assigned gender doesnât fit them or that thereâs more to their gender identity.
people falsely assume thereâs 1 unified nonbinary experience, which there isnât. nonbinary is a spectrum with many identities, some of which include one or both binary genders in whole or in part, or donât relate to the binary genders at all. there are many ways to be nonbinary.
Iâm a nonbinary trans man which means for me 1. Iâm nonbinary 2. I partly relate to the male gender 3. I wasnât assigned male at birth. Iâm transitioning, I go through the same medical treatments many binary trans men go through. I face the same oppression binary trans men face.
but thereâs also not 1 unified way to be a nonbinary trans man. Iâm sure there are many people who share that label with me but not all my experiences and THATâS OKAY. labels are just meant to give you a general idea, theyâre not inherent to a person. hereâs a thread about that: https://twitter.com/workingdog_/status/1029953803494277121
some nonbinary people transition medically and/or socially, some nonbinary people donât. but guess what: thatâs also true about binary trans people. transition is not a requirement to be trans, struggling isnât either. but believe me, nonbinary people struggle too.
get rid of your ideas what a trans or nonbinary person ought to be, we will never all have the same experiences. if you take oppression as the defining feature, Iâll have to tell you that as a white trans person I just donât face the same oppression as BIPOC trans people.
trans is an umbrella term just as nonbinary is. there are many different people in the trans community and honestly thatâs the point. if you want all trans people to fit a uniform mould, youâre no different from the people pressuring us to be cis.
hereâs something that might confuse you: some nonbinary people are not trans. and thatâs okay too. as I said, the nonbinary label is a big umbrella with lots of different experiences and some nonbinary peopleâs experience of their own gender doesnât relate to being trans.
unfortunately the reason why some nonbinary people arenât part of the trans community is not because they wouldnât identify with the trans label given the chance, itâs because theyâve internalised all the ânonbinary people canât be transâ talk. I know I did when I first came out.
nonbinary people are part of the trans community and we deserve to feel welcome. nonbinary trans people arenât intruders overrunning the trans community, we inherently belong. inclusion & solidarity are the key. Iâll refer you back to the tweet that made this thread happen: https://twitter.com/confusedophan/status/1317857810391191555
