Exclusionism - Blog Posts

Muted Square in the Zoom

They didn’t say my name in the meeting. Not once. I was there and had written half the report.

The credit went around the table like a bottle passed hand to hand. I watched it skip over me.

At lunch, I sat with them. One of them asked me, “Are you new?”

I’ve been here fourteen months.

After a while, you stop correcting people. You stop reminding them that you’re part of it. You become good at inhabiting the background. Or a muted square in the Zoom.

But I’m still here. Still opening the spreadsheet. Still writing the copy. Still dressing up and disappearing.

They didn’t see me. But I saw everything.

i think that some people in the queer community need to learn the difference between tolerance vs. acceptance/support.

a lot of the sentiment "in support" of weird queers is really just tolerant of them. idk how many times ive seen posts like "lesboys/multigender folks/people with neopronouns/whatever might be cringe, but they're better than exclusionists! let kids be cringe!" and like. you have to see that this isn't actually supportive. it's tolerant, sure, and that's better than outright exclusion but... ok.

I don't think any of those groups are cringe. i think they're wonderful and beautiful.

i think it's awesome that transmasc folks can hold on to the label of lesbian if they like. he/him lesbians have been around for a long time. historically, some lesbians have taken testosterone, used nonbinary and masculine pronouns, preferred masculine terms... that isn't gonna stop because some people decided it's specifically cringe when transmascs do it! im mostly sapphic, and I'm fucking proud to stand with my sapphic sisters, brothers, and siblings!

multigender and genderfluid people are awesome as fuck. therians are cool as fuck. i love boygirls and fagdykes and girlfags and girlboys and genderfuckery of all kinds. don't let people treat you like a kid for wanting an identity of that kind. fuck em, you're great.

neopronouns are cool as fuck too. i keep hearing people saying that everyone who uses them is a kid, and that's sinister shit. you hear it on both sides too. exclusionists say it derisively, and people who think they're being supportive say it to defend them... but it's really, genuinely cool. people want to act like being nonbinary is only one experience, and that we have gone from there being only two genders to there now being a third gender, which is called nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns. but hey, fuck that sentiment in particular. gender is a spectrum, and it makes total fucking sense for people to want to create pronouns and terms to describe their own experiences! hell yeah!

you hear a lot of "well, these people are just kids, we should give them a space to learn," or "they're not doing anything wrong i guess," but these are not genuinely supportive statements! so how's this: I fucking love all of these people, and i hope our community gets more of them. I pray for a day when they outnumber the grim, humorless exclusionists who want to gatekeep acceptance by the thousands. fuck exclusionists, pride is for everyone.

(pre-emptive note: no this post isn't for MAPs or radqueers or anyone like that, obviously, grow up. hurting and preying on defenseless people/animals is obviously not a valid identity, don't even try to compare those things.)