(no subject)

i see so much about embracing history and going back to the roots in queer and especially trans communities at the moment, when some people are gatekeeping and excluding people based on the weirdest things. historical transness and trans language is seen as this universally applicable thing, and "back in the olden days" everything was better.

but this ignores so many of us whose identities did not have words back in the day, who use new terms, whose experience has always existed, but the language hasn't. because let's be real, even a lot of old language to refer to nonbinary people usually refers to the binary in some way.

my gender is ancient, but the word for it is barely 10 years old. i identify with quite a few terms that explicitly decantre binary genders. a lot of these terms are 10 years old or less, because we had to create our own language. old trans language barely accounts for our experiences. it feels like being alienated from what should be my history as a nonbinary, trans, bi, ace person. it feels like many of us don't really have the possibility to "go back to the roots", and the romanticisation of old queer terms has us alienated even now.

we can and should honour queer history, but not by framing older language as inherently better, inherently more inclusive, inherently more radical, inherently more right.

having to build language from scratch to describe concepts that we previously didn't have words for is actually just as radical. it's not worse because it's newer and it's not boring because it decentres proximity to the binary altogether rather than blending the binary genders. being a bi lesbian transsexual girlboy isn't more radical than being a bi trixic toric enbian maverique enby. i don't have to use "contradictory" terms to a) be seen as contradictory by society anyway and b) have a complex identity and radical ideas.