Delta

if i see one more binary trans person go on about how binary trans people or sometimes trans people who medically transition are "pushed out" of the trans community, i'm gonna lose it. pushed out by whom exactly? by the evil all-powerful nonbinary people? by the very people they spent so much time not even letting into the community in the first place? by the people they have binary privilege over? as if.

i have never seen a single nonbinary person tell a binary person that they're not trans and should go away, but i've seen that very thing coming from binary trans people towards nonbinary people, including myself, countless of times, often in much worse language.

and let's not forget all the more covert stuff! the trans community is incredibly centred around binary gender. and if it's not centred around binary gender, it's centred around genders related to the binary at the very least. nonbinary people are constantly erased and misgendered and reduced to yet another binary. it's also centred around medical transition, where transness is often equated to it. it's become much less acceptable to overtly exclude nonbinary and/or non-medically transitioning people, but the way the community talks about things makes it obvious that we're second-class transes.

all i've seen is more people realising they're nonbinary, nonbinary people demanding to be acknowledged, nonbinary people being visible, nonbinary people proudly and loudly claiming the trans label and participating in the community in the same ways that binary trans people have been for years. if the increased presence and visibility of nonbinary people makes you feel like you're being "pushed out" of the community, you have a binary fragility problem, and it's the exact same rhetoric as when cis people say that trans people are shoving their transness down everyone's throat because we're more visible, or that time when some monogamous queers claimed there's "pressure to be polyamorous" simply because polyamorous people are more visible now.

nonbinary and non-medically transitioning trans people have been kept out of the community for so long and all we're doing now is participate in trans community the same as you, asking for the bare minimum of being included and you feel threatened by us because you're so used to pushing us down.

it's such a clear case of people being offended that they're now only mostly centred rather than fully centred. it's kinda embarrassing, ngl.

the more we find out about Nex Benedict's murder, the more i see the similarities between their story and mine.

this could have been me a few years ago.

i was bullied by people i didn't know, which the transmisics are portraying as contradictory. they think because Nex said they didn't know the girls who killed them, it's untrue that they bullied Nex for months before, even though that's what they said. they completely interpret "i don't know them" in the most bad-faith way possible as "i have never seen them until today", because actually acknowledging the context doesn't fit their narrative.

a lot of the people who bullied me were people who weren't in my class, weren't even in my year. they were random younger people who would harass me as i walked through the school. at some point i recognised their voices and the kinds of comment they'd make, maybe even recognise what they look like. but i didn't know them. you don't have to know your bullies for the bullying to be real. especially in a society that teaches kids to "ignore their bullies" it's really not that unlikely for someone not to know who their bullies are.

Nex's story is a prime example of how teaching kids to "ignore their bullies and it will go away" is actively harmful because

a) the lack of action teaches bullies that bullying is okay, they will not stop,

b) ignoring bullies means bottling up all the feelings about being bullied until it's finally too much and the victim defends themself, which bullies use as an excuse to be more aggressive (and kids are still learning how to deal with their emotions too which makes all of this even harder) and

c) if the bullying ever escalates, you not knowing your bullies because you ignored them can be absolutely used against you by claiming the bullying wasn't actually real.

and children are inclined to take adults' bullshit advice on how to "deal with" bullies, none of this is ever the kid's fault.

and it looks like all of these points apply to Nex's case. society has utterly failed victims of bullying.

and we also need to acknowledge that bullying doesn't happen in a vacuum. bullying is a symptom of systemic oppression. most bullying victims hold some kind of marginalised identity and i don't know any marginalised people who haven't experienced any bullying. like, of course society teaching kids that marginalised people are bad will lead to bullying, and of course the anti-trans hate campaign raises kids to be violent.

looking back, it's so obvious that when i was bullied for being "ugly", they were referring to me being gnc, visibly blind and fat and they bullied me for being weird they were referring to me being gnc, ND and blind. the slurs and direct references aren't the only way that bullying is targeted at marginalised identities. and when i had too many emotions bottled up, i too would defend myself by shouting back at them or other harmless things. yes, splashing people with some water is HARMLESS, it's not assault and it's nothing compared to what these cis girls put Nex through months before, let alone literally murdering them. being both nonbinary AND indigenous, Nex was even more likely to go through this as a multiply marginalised person.

bullying is abuse. bullying is a direct result of systemic oppression and thus it is a human rights issue. and basically telling marginalised kids to suck it up ain't it.

Nex's case is terrifying because from what we know it went from being only verbal for months to immediately beating them to death as soon as they dared to defend themself. this could have been me a few years ago. i'm terrified for all our marginalised kids.

that's it.

there is NO safe way to be trans. we have to build our own safety.

but there is no safe way to BE trans, when even afab nonbinary people who don't medically transition get fucking murdered. the very group of people i've seen a lot of trans people claim have it easier, are safer, aren't really oppressed, for reasons none other than transmedicalism, exorsexism and misogyny.

i never want to hear about "afab privilege again. i never want to hear about how nonbinary people are safer because we're "basically cis". i never want to hear about how trans people who only socially transition aren't targeted for their transness again. i never want to hear the term "theyfab" again. i never want to hear about how "nothing happens" to afab nonbinary people who don't medically transition again. i never want to hear about how we're the biggest oppressors of "real trans people" ever again. i never want to hear about how the experiences of medically transitioning non medically transitioning trans people are so fundamentally different from each other that we're closer to cis than trans. i never want to hear about how us being the nonbinary stereotype somehow means we're not in danger.

i never want to hear any of this shit about how we're "the safest" again because that rhetoric emboldens people to be violent towards us, knowing we won't be believed. i never want to hear about our "privilege" again when they all see us as transes who should be fucking dead.

i don't want to hear it ever again. there is no safe way to be trans.