~a phenomena that keeps happening~

Enby people: This thread is enby-phobic.

Non-enby people: No, you just don't understand the nuances of trans theory and what OP is saying.

Enby people: Here are replies and side-threads in which OP mocks enby people.

Non-enby people: Oh.

Most recently I saw a thread defending that an OP wasn't enby-phobic and when people brought receipts the response was "well, I'm not a fan of them saying THAT" but keeping the rest of the defense up. Which...sigh.

Inasmuch as we understand that trans people are more sensitive to transphobic dogwhistles than cis people are, can we agree that nonbinary people are more sensitive to nonbinary-phobic dogwhistles than non-nonbinary people are?

This is all very nuanced and complicated because most of these takes are coming from inside the community and it's hard to call out without feeling like we're "eating our own" or throwing people out, and I hate it and don't really know how to fix it.

Because the LAST thing that trans people need online is Moar Harassment, but we also really DO have a huge community problem with people who say shit about nonbinaryness either because they just plain Don't Get It or think we're Hurting The Cause.

Most of all, I really feel that a lot of folks need to stop talking like there is One True Experience of gender, because there's not and attempts to generalize are always going to leave people out and make them feel invalidated.

This is why the word "might" is so helpful! If your experience of gender is X, you MIGHT be trans! If your experience of gender is Y, you MIGHT by cis!

But I digress.

There needs to be room for nonbinary people to say "this hurts us" without people rushing in to tell them that they're wrong for feeling that way.

Thread Note: I know that not all nonbinary people embrace the term "enby". (I do, but it's a very personal choice.) I used it in the first tweet for reasons of character limits but do not seek to imply that this term applies to nonbinary people who do not claim it for themselves.

I am highly distressed at how many people on Twitter seem to think that a simple "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to invalidate your experience" apology is something that inherently takes something away from the apologizer.

Hell, *I've* written nonbinary-phobic threads in the past--and apologized for them and taken them down--because even though I'm enby myself that doesn't mean I magically have insight into all the many, MANY ways of being nonbinary.

Right now, it's very important to hate groups that we be convinced to throw nonbinary people under the hate bus because it's part of their whole divide-and-conquer thing where they then go after the trans folk who are left.

See also: Hate groups who try to convince cis queers to throw trans people under the bus and who will absolutely go after the cis queers once the trans folk are all gone. Same strategy.

So there are a lot of reasons why we need to push back on nonbinary-phobic takes (which really seem to be out in full force this month for some reason) even as we take care how to address them in ways that won't increase harassment across an already harassed group.

Anyway, I really urge people to listen when a lot of nonbinary people are pointing out that a thread erases or invalidates them.

There is a thing where a lot of the community treats nonbinaryness like a tumblr phenomena and that we're all 16 year olds with a penchant for outrage and a dearth of historical perspective and that's not true or accurate.

If a lot of nonbinary people are upset about a take, it's worth listening to them and not assuming they're all just Outrage Ophelias addicted to adrenaline.

Remember: That's what cis people say/think about us when we say a take is transphobic.