TurtRoseWrites

Welcome to my carrd on which I write about topics
very important to me.
A big focus are queer topics - be it my own identity,
queerphobia or miscellanious stuff.

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Why you don’t have to understand my identity

TW // exclusionism, transmisia

Again and again I’ve met with people confused about, upset with, and hateful towards my identity.

Queerphobes who try to put limits to what my identity can and can’t be – and no matter which part it is about, it’s all the same nonsense.

“You can’t be nonbinary, there are only two genders”, they cry.
“You can’t be both nonbinary and male”, they shout.
“You can’t be male AND female”, they complain.
“You can’t use he/him pronouns as a nonbinary person”, they say.
“You can’t be lesbian and a boy”, they whine.

And you know what? I am tired of being told by random people what my identity can or cannot be. People who think they know my very complex identity and relation to both gender and attraction better than I do. People who defeat the purpose of queerness by trying to make people adhere to strict definitions instead of letting them express themselves the way they can do best.

Self-identification is what this is all about. Queer identities are self-identification, something no one else but you can limit for your own personal identity. Labels are tools you use in order to express your identity.

So much more irritating is the latest trend of this bullshit: people complaining that they don’t understand my identity. Now, I won’t mind explaining my identity if given the time, if I have the energy and if people ask nicely; but your inability to understand my identity is not an argument against it. You do not need to understand what my identity encompasses, what it consists of. It is my personal way of viewing and expressing what and who I am. How my identity relates to queerness in attraction and gender.

Identities can be very complex. Very personal. Very hard to understand, very hard to explain. If you complain about not understanding someone’s identity and view it as a bad thing, you are not being respectful. You both…

A) show that you feel entitled to everyone’s personal identities in detail, and

B) show that your respect for an identity is conditional on whether your grasp it or not.

So, instead of complaining about the complexity of something that makes up what someone else is, please be respectful, don’t try to limit what the person can be in good faith, and accept that you might leave without ever understanding it. Because that is not the end of the world either.

@TurtRose, 18.07.2021

Bigotry in exclusionism - a list

TW // exclusionism, transmisia, ableism, homomisia, general queermisia

A recurring theme in lesbian exclusionism (or lesbian separatism) is the perpetuation of several forms of bigotry that the queer community usually tries to combat in society. There are many ways of how the people responsible for reproducing these forms of discrimination react to being called out: ranging from denial over downplaying to plainly shocking pride in being discriminatory. This is a list aiming to enumerate several different kinds of bigotry that many statements, made in the exclusion of lesbians from their own community, consist of. It further is supposed to catalogue the sheer amount of ableism and other related forms of discrimination lesbian separatism is full of.

Ciscentrism in Lesbian Separatism

TW // transmisia, mention of misgendering

With lesbian separatist arguments persevering, the major flaws in its logic can increasingly more obviously be linked to one concept: the notion of ‘ciscentrism’. Lesbian separatism and queer separatism in general is largely based on this structure. But before I continue, what exactly can be described as ‘ciscentrism’?
In most basic definitions found online, ciscentrism describes the structure of society being catered towards cisgender individuals, disadvantaging trans people by othering them and an ignorance towards trans people’s needs (cf. Qmunity, LGBTQ Classroom Resource, Wiktionary). This can reach from the genderedness of public places (e.g. toilets) to the legislations made which reduce trans people’s rights. In the context of this article, however, ciscentrism will find a more specific and inner-queer usage and meaning. The term itself has already found its use in discussions of transinclusivity in feminism (cf. Jónsson 2012).

Throughout the slowly growing lesbian separatism online, in many parts emerging from the lesbian community itself, lesbianism has been narrowed down into many different definitions. Be it the most basic exclusionary “women loving women”, or the very new “non-men loving non-men”. Especially the latter proves to be very ciscentric. But how exactly?

Being trans encompasses different experiences which can vary vastly. A trans man is different from a catgender person, and a catgender person is different from a bigender girl who is a demiboy, and a bigender girl who is a demiboy is different from a genderfluid neutrois person. One aspect that strongly goes against ciscentrism more than others, however, is multigenderedness. While ciscentrism is focused on enforcing a gender binary based on body traits, multigendered people show themselves with many different genders at once, sometimes or partly. Ciscentrism can be described as the idea of no nuance and/or complexity in gender and gender expression.

Taking these aspects into account, and the fact that multigenderedness is a possibility for many queer people, “non-men loving non-men” as a definition for lesbianism starts becoming ill-fitting. What exactly would a “non-man” be? It seems relatively easy when thinking about examples such as a woman probably not being a man; or a voidgender person not being a man, while a man is… well, a man. However, what about bigender, pangender and omnigender people? A person who is a man AND a woman wouldn’t fit either category. If you considered that person a man, but not a “non-man”, then you would erase part of their gender. If you considered that person a woman, but not a man, then you would again erase part of their gender. It would be similar with nonbinary men, etc.

However, there are additional difficulties: Xenogenders exist, too. While many lesbian separatists would perhaps dismiss them as generally “non-men” as they are nonbinary (in most cases), there are xenogenders which relate to masculinity and men in parts. One proposed solution to the dilemma was to decide whether a person is “fem-aligned” or “masc-aligned”. Yet again, however, this categorization would not work well. Alignments can be (and not rarely are) separate from the gender itself. Fem-aligned men can exist. And secondly, forcing people into these alignments would push them into a binary they might not want. Not every person has alignments, and not every man is masc-aligned, just like not every woman is fem-aligned. Even if you add “no alignment” as a third category, it merely turns the binary into a trinary.

Another phenomenon of lesbian separatism that has arisen over the past months is the view of multigenderedness as its own gender purely. While indeed, “demimale” is a gender on its own and stays nothing but that for several people, for many people it describes the simultaneousness of two (or even more) genders. Dismissing multigenderedness as a single gender is basically misgendering of a considerable amount of the multigendered community.

Ciscentrism plays a significant role in lesbian separatism, as it supports the movement’s dismissiveness of complexity in identity. With every definition that attempts to police and narrow down queer labels such as ‘lesbian’, ciscentrism is made use of, as it renders the inclusion of nonbinary people and the exclusion of manhood at the same time impossible.

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Bibilography
2012, Amanda Chappel, "Handling Homophobia", UWeekly Austin, Volume 4, Issue 1, 1 February 2012, page 20.

LGBTQ Classroom Resource: https://wordpress.psy.sunysb.edu/lgbtq/?pageid=11#Ciscentrism.

Qmunity: http://qmunity.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/QueerTerminologyWebVersion_Sept2013_Coverandpages.pdf, page 20.

Wiktionary: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ciscentric.

@TurtRose, 22.07.2021

Intersectionality and Tokenization in BLERF discourse

TW // transmisia, homomisia, ableism, homomisic slur, mention of misgendering

One thing that in many ways stands out in the various different interactions between lesbian separatists and other people is the way in which BLERFs tend to tokenize their own oppression and view themselves as the pinnacle of oppression. Further, they make use of this concept to justify their own discriminatory and harassing actions.
A very peculiarly hypocritical sight in this matter though, is the claim of many BLERFs that their conversation partners lack the knowledge and/or understanding of intersectionality. Intersectionality is not just about queer and racist oppression. It is about the different kinds of oppression that can drastically change the way you are affected by oppression. And this includes racism, homomisia, ableism, saneism, bimisia/mspec-misia, amisia, classism as well as transmisia (and more).

Being a black monosexual lesbian strongly changes the intensity and the kind of oppression you are affected by. However, it doesn’t automatically mean you are the pinnacle of oppression and don’t hold any kind of privileges yourself still. And pointing out your privileges does not mean ‘framing lesbians as the oppressors’. It means demonstrating that oppressed people can hold privileges, and that being oppressed in one or multiple ways does not make you exempt from being discriminatory against other people.

You cannot defend the -isms you reproduce by tokenizing your oppression. Good thing that you are gay, but it doesn’t mean your actions cannot be homomisia. Awesome that you are disabled, but it doesn’t mean your words can’t be ableist. Nice that you are bi, but you can still be bimisia.

I know that the comparison is not being taken seriously anymore by lesbian separatists, but it still doesn’t fail to be accurate: Which other group of people also makes use of different kinds of discriminatory means, justifying it by saying they want to protect themselves, and view themselves as the pinnacle of oppression? Exactly, TERFs.

In conclusion, no – you don’t get to weaponize kinds of bigotry against others because you feel like you are right, you don’t get to excuse your bigotry by stating your own oppression, and no, pointing out your bigoted behaviour and your privileges does not equal “grouping you with our oppressors”. In the following are a few examples of the discrimination I’ve personally faced in this ‘discourse’ which have been used against me with the justification of them “not actually being discriminatory” or with the justifications mentioned priorly in this article.

-

Example ableism:
“Go shower friend I assure you it’ll make you feel better”, in the context of someone accusing me of a lack of hygiene. Shaming the hygiene of a disabled person. (For more context: In an earlier discussion weeks prior, I explained how many disabled people may have trouble keeping up good hygiene due to their disabilities, may they bring difficulties in movement or in gathering enough energy to enforce hygiene).

Example homomisia:
Calling gay people “faggots”. I didn’t think it would be necessary to explain that no, being oppressed and gay does not give you the permission to weaponize slurs against other people. Feel free to reclaim the slur for yourself, but don’t use it against others if they’re not absolutely okay with it.

Example transmisia:
Misgendering trans people in several ways: trying to force them into a binary of “men vs. non-men”, dismissing part of multigendered people’s gender(s), and calling people gendered terms without asking (and getting upset over being called out for it).

@TurtRose, 24.07.2021

Duplisexuality

When engaging with queer genders and attraction, one thing has always been very striking to me – the way in which the complexity of gender has by now been developed in great amounts, but gender hasn’t been. Despite the occurrence of new labels for sexuality all throughout the queer community and the LGBTQIA+ community, to me personally, it still seems like there is far more exploration possible in the realms of our own sexualities.

One of those would be the way that for several queer people, me included, their attraction and gender are strongly linked. Of course, gender labels and attraction labels are to be viewed as different things, but they can form one queer identity. This, for example, leads to the creation of genders like “lesbiangender” (though it doesn’t necessarily have to refer to one’s queer identity being connected as described priorly).

In this writing, however, I want to explore the way my sexuality interacts with my genders and my queer identity in a different way. When a queer person has not only one, but sever-al genders, there is a term to describe this: “multigender”. And even then, there are various kinds of sub-labels which more precisely describe one’s multigenderedness (“pangender”, “bigender”, “omnigender”…). When looking at sexuality, however, overlaps of labels are still strictly unwanted in many parts. And oddly enough, I have struggled to find a label that describes an individual having more than one sexuality at the same time.

While yes, certainly, abrosexuality is a thing, it primarily refers to a fluidity of sexuality; it not being stable and being able to change over time. The label I was seeking for refers to multiple sexualities at the same time, though. There may be a label that I have missed, but so far I had no luck finding it, if it already exists. Which is why I decided to coin a term which describes just that – the parallel existence of sexualities within a single person.

Duplisexuality! This term is derived from the Latin word “duplus”, meaning “two-fold” (but also the Latin word “duplum”, meaning “double”). Despite the binary nature of the word origin, it is not limited to two sexualities at once.

Duplisexuality describes the state of having more than one sexuality at the same time. The sexualities may or may not affect each other and/or belong together as one sexuality of its own.

In order to further explain the last part of the definition, I will once again refer back to gender:

A person might be a demiboy catboy. In this example, these two genders are the two differ-ent genders this person has, but they aren’t one combined gender.
Another person might be a demicatboy. In this example, these two genders are one gender that belongs together, while also not dismissing that it is made up of different genders.

In duplisexuality, both cases are possible! You may be a bi gay person, who is bi and gay, but you also may be a bi gay person who is just bi gay as a whole.

More examples of duplisexuality:

A polysexual pansexual personA straight gay personAn omnisexual lesbian personAn achillean bisexual person
Everyone who views this label as fitting to their own experience with attraction (all kinds of attraction; dupliromantic, dupliplatonic etc. are possible as well!) may use this label to describe their attraction.

@TurtRose, 02.09.2021

Monosexism and purity in the queer community

TW // bimisia, transmisia, queermisia, homomisia, monosexism, mspecmisia

Happy Bi Visibility Day! Or that is what I would like to say if I could simply ignore the rampant monosexism and purist narratives running through the queer and the LGBTQIA+ community. While bimisia (and more broadly monosexism) are clear as day outside of our communities, there are several inner-queer struggles which are strongly based on monosexism, and by extension trans-exclusionary radical feminism.

When examining bimisia and monosexism outside queer spaces and realms of discussion, they commonly take very obvious shapes: be it the harmful narrative of bi attraction being a ‘phase’, or the view of attraction as a whole being binary (cf. Roberts et al. 554-555). However, even in gay and lesbian spaces, the notion of bi attraction as a transitioning phase can be found as one of the predominant examples bimisia; not to forget the claim of bi people having access to straight privilege (cf. ibid. 556). In fact, monosexuality itself does not face this specific kind of discrimination.

These anti-bi views, stereotypes and statements make it increasingly harder for mspec people to freely find their identity and queer labels which suit their experiences. Much more recently, though not much unlike in the beginnings of queer separatist movements, experimentation and liberated usage of queer labels has been viewed as a kind of ‘appropriation of struggles’. However, this again feeds the aforementioned narrative of a false sense of privilege that monosexual prescribe to mspec identities, accusing them of not being subjected to the same or even similar kinds of discrimination and exclusion. The definition of queer labels by the sharing of struggles solely and only is a worrying dismissal of all euphoria of self-identification and of all feelings of ‘safeness’ and ‘rightness’ with the chosen label(s).

These notions of labels being mere indicators of the experience of very certain struggles rather than also being self-chosen parts of one’s identity and/or the conveyance of information about one’s attraction exceed monosexist roots and are much more specifically described when using the term “mspecmisia”. ‘Bimisia’ is an unfitting term for this description, as it is limited to bi identities (which not all multi-attraction spectrum identities fall under). Mspecmisia (or m-specmisia) encompasses the action of spreading narratives which are harmful towards mspec identities, purist and binary ideas of sexuality and gender, as well as the discrimination and oppression from monosexual privilege. This includes bimisia, but also panmisia and the discrimination against other mspec identities, such as omni identities.

Regarding the aforementioned purist ideas of sexuality, they are strongly apparent in the usage of queer labels which are most commonly used in monosexual contexts, but in others as well. The majority of discourse surrounding this matter focuses on the label ‘lesbian’. However, the idea of mspec identities making use of this label are, too, based on mspecmisia and the attempted purification of monosexual queer identities. This purist notion further leans significantly into trans-exclusionary radical feminist ideology, which is partially that of removing any part of the community that is not deemed ‘female’ enough, or in the case of trans-exclusionary radical feminist lesbian ideology, any part of the community that is not deemed ‘female’ enough and also not attracted to any gender that is not deemed ‘female’ enough. Such communities demanding authority over certain labels as exclusively monosexual while ignoring monosexism perpetuated by it, and then hiding behind their own oppression without regards to their monosexual privilege demonstrates the mspecmisic roots of this rhetoric.

Lastly, I want to mention another important aspect of mspec identities: that of duplisexuality. While certainly not used by many, it refers to having multiple kinds of attraction at once (be it with or without consideration of the Split Attraction Model). The opposition of it much like that of other liberated usage of labels points out once more the strong bimisic and mspecmisic tendencies in purist parts of the queer community, rejecting experimentation with labels and defending their separatist actions with their own oppression while ignoring their privileges over mspec identities. Queer liberation includes the liberation of queer labels, and not the thought that someone may be entitled to tell you who you are (be it a non-queer person or a queer person) more than yourself.

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Bibliography
Tangela S. Roberts, Sharon G. Horne & William T. Hoyt (2015) Between
a Gay and a Straight Place: Bisexual Individuals’ Experiences with Monosexism, Journal of Bisexuality, 15:4, 554-569, DOI: 10.1080/15299716.2015.1111183

@TurtRose, 23.09.2021