The entirety of queer self-determination is centered around you making a good-faith declaration of your own gender and sexuality, in terms that you choose.

The entirety of queer community is accepting others' similar declarations, just as they accept yours.

Gatekeeping, exclusionism, language prescriptivism, assimilationism -- these are all antithetical to queer liberation.

They are queerphobic practices that strike the heart of queerness: self-identification.

Any LGBTQIA+ person who attacks the principle of good-faith self-identification is not only going after whichever individual they've chosen as a target.

It's not just that they're attacking the concept of queerness and all queer people.

They're tearing down the entire foundation on which their own identity is built.

The only way we know someone is gay is if they tell us. They only way we know they're trans is if they tell us.

In return, we believe them, because we believe in self-determination.

But once you've declared that other peoples' identities are yours to judge, once you've decided that it's up to a popular vote or a raging mob how someone can identify, once you've demanded their identity conform to your expectations and not theirs ...

... you've eroded away your own self-determination as well.

You're establishing a principle that says other people, not the individual themselves, have the ultimate say in your identity.

If you're gay, there are plenty of ex-gays and conversion-therapist devotees who will tell you that you're not gay, you're a confused straight person.

CW: mention of transphobia

If you're trans, there are plenty of TERFs and transphobes who will tell you that you're not trans, you're a predatory man or a lesbian who has been tricked.

How will you respond to them?

"Fuck you, I know who I am and you're wrong. I don't need your approval to be who I know I am! It's my life, not yours!"

But ...

... you've already discarded that argument entirely. You've ruled out good-faith self-identification of gender and sexuality ... so what have you got?

How can you make a self-declaration if you reject autonomy of identity?

Fellow LGBTQIA+ people, old and new, please don't fall into the trap of deciding that you can judge someone's identity better than they can.

You hurt them, you hurt us, you hurt yourself.

Only by standing together in mutual acceptance, support, and love, will we be able to survive those who work against us.

Will you join us and build communities of solidarity?