Conversation

Aella
@Aella_Girl
When someone asks me to use nonstandard pronouns and identifies as nonbinary, I do so without question. It's not hard to do! This information changes how I understand they want other people to perceive their gender, but it does not change the way I perceive their gender.
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Aella
@Aella_Girl
I have zero conscious control over the way I perceive people's gender. A woman who comes out to me as nonbinary still processes as a woman in my head; I translate it as a "woman who doesn't like being limited to standard female gender roles".
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Aella
@Aella_Girl
But again, to reiterate, to them and everyone else I do pretend they're not a woman, because it's not hard to do and they want me to and it makes them happy. But inside it always feels like I'm playing pretend, like I'm participating in a game that's obviously not real.
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Aella
@Aella_Girl
This isn't a deliberate thing. I'm not in the corner cackling like 'yes I will invalidate genderqueer experience I love being evil.' If the nonbinary person stopped seeming female to me in practical ways, then the game would start to feel real, and I'm 100% fine with that.
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Aella
@Aella_Girl
I love the idea of a glorious transhumanist future where gender isn't real and we can switch back and forth and be whatever. I'm agender myself (or something?), very pro plastic surgery and hormones and whatever it takes to make people process you into the category you want.
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Aella
@Aella_Girl
The gender they look like. I process passing trans people as their chosen gender, not as their birth gender, and if they tried to identify as their birth gender that would feel bizarre to me. Very rarely I meet androgynous people who confuse my brain into 'they're neither'
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