Genders and Tumblr

I get what you mean! I've been told I spend "way too much time on Tumblr" in response to merely stating my identity. I understand that not everyone will respect my identity, but just being discredited in that way is particularly annoying.

 

Tumble sometimes goes overboard, especially with the kin shit

 

Honestly the whole tumblr thing added greatly to my confusion when I first began to recognize my issues with gender (for lack of a better term).

I did a lot of research because I wanted to be sure I wasn't disillusioned or experiencing something entirely separate from gender dysphoria. I knew very very little about being transgender prior to my research starting about 2 years ago, I knew transgender people existed, and that I felt wrong in a female body, and that was it. That was when I realized that a group of people who identified as completely absurd things existed. And I, being very confused and wanting to be as respectful of the trans indentity is possible, feared I might have been one of them. Believing I was trans because I wanted to be special. Thus began a long period of denial and self loathing. I didn't want to be like that, and so I thought I was cis. I had gender dysphoria, and that fact is obvious to me now, that I've had it in varying levels of intensity since I was very young. But because my dysphoria wasn't terrible all the time (sometimes its stabbing and awful, and sometimes its just kinda like a dull nag that I can shake off if I occupy myself and don't think about it too much) I thought I was cis-female. I was so reluctant to take up the lable of transgender and start indetifying as a man because I was afraid that my dysphoria wasn't bad enough, that I'd be one of those "crazy tumblr people". My dysphoria has only gotten worse since I recognized what was going on. I know that I am male inside, but part of me is still doubtful and confused.

After all, if all these hundreds of people can seriously believe they are these crazy nonexistent genders, then surely I can be disillusioned too.

I don't even use tumblr, and I've been avoiding it for this reason.

(That said, I definitely believe that genderfluid, agender and nb people exist, and are even more misunderstood because of all this tumblr shit)

 

I'll admit that I spend a lot of time on tumblr but...Hhhhhholy geez. Yea, some of the people on there...incredibly toxic. And it definitely...definitely doesn't help with trying to get others to be at least tolerant or understanding of my gender identity, and I bet that is the same for many a person.

Tumblr kills many things.

 

Tumblr can be a blessing or curse. There will be people who talk complete sense and will actually help you to come to a better understanding of who you are. Then there are people who think that bunsexual is a thing. I do think some people (online or otherwise) use tumblr politics as an excuse not to listen to anyone speaking about their gender or sexuality, but then again there are people on tumblr who make a mockery of being LGBT, frankly. I suppose it's up to the individual.

 

Agreed. I use Tumblr just whenever there's nothing else to do and it grosses me out seeing someone with a gender like angligender like omg please just no.

 

Articles like these are stupid. Literally so: they make no effort to understand what they contain, and then they mock it. Moreover, this primarily mocks children and minorities, and is thus cruel. Take the time to reflect on and understand what is going on here, and you might see it differently.

Some of the items listed are ways of perceiving your own gender. A strongly feminist AFAB woman might find it deep and profound to be female, and thus could identify with being abimegender. Other items personify gender, perhaps as a descriptive tool without necessarily saying that gender has its own will. Someone unable to categorise their gender any other way might say their gender refuses to be categorised and they are adamasgender. More items are about the development of your gender identity. A man raised by a single father might identify with being cennedgender if he feels his father influenced his gender identity. There may be a couple other useful headings to sort things under too.

All of these could be reasonable labels for a great number of cis and trans people. Tumblr simply has a community which has made a hobby out of identifying and labelling small variations on many axes. Is it useful? I don't think so, but if they find it useful, that's fine. Does it help people communicate? Well, it isn't helpful for communicating outside the community but that's not really their goal anyway, I don't think.

Then we come to items which link gender with otherkin ideas, such as lichtgender (being a non-animal is an even smaller identity often overlapping with otherkin) and angeligender. These are different, and here is where I would say people are mistaken in what they call gender. But if one first assumes people can be otherkin, understanding why people identify with these terms becomes possible too even though I do not believe people can be otherkin.

To sum up: tumblr genders are somewhat more reasonable than they might first seem, and they come from a community which celebrates diversity, acceptance (of characteristics; they are infamously harsh on calling people out for going against community standards), introspection, and understanding. There are worse ways to be wrong, as a child. I don't think they are very useful but I still consider them worth defending.

 

I hate tumblr. I have an account there, but it's primarily to reblog things from my favourite series (gifts/art/etc) or some silly videos. I've tried to make contact with the LGBT+ community on there, but honestly, I hate it. I actually pretend to be a cis guy on there if only because I want nothing to do with the trans community. The whole "down with cis" thing still sickens me to this day. The fact that the community on there could act so accepting, and yet be so hateful towards cis-gendered people and straights is downright horrific. Not to mention a lot of the gays/lesbians on there seem to attack bisexuals as well. It's just a huge mess, and one I try desperately to avoid.

 

Yeah, I agree. Tumblr is a hit or mess for me, I use it but only to like reblog photos and what not. But, I've met some people who are like "You're trans? You must use Tumblr". It's very annoying to say the least, because a majority of people on Tumblr has actually caused it.

 

God, I hate this shit. Genderfluid, bigender, I'm sceptic, but okay. Maybe science isn't that far. But angelgender and kinship and shit is biologically simply not possible. And I'd like to slap these special snowflake kids in their wannabe furry face with a biology book.

Note: I'm a rather conservative dude.

 

A couple make sense to me. Tbh, maybe it's because being gay is the least questioned sexuality, but I find myself just not caring. I don't care about it, so I don't go to that part of Tumblr.

 

So much bullshit! It's just a bunch of cis and/or straight kids trying to make themselves "special".

Honestly, things like genderfluid and agender, I get. But all of this "kin" nonsense makes me want to smash my head against something.

 

Some of these genders are utter bullshit and have no science behind them. Others even mock disabilities. I've seen "autisticgender" and "BPDgender" on there before. The users were 100% serious.

 

Pretty much this in terms of furries, I've only ever encountered one furry where they genuinely believed they were a fox born in a human body. The vast majority of furries are way more reasonable than that and have nothing to do with the otherkin stuff.

Moving on to tumblr, the only reason I have a tumblr account is to view NSFW stuff and that's it. I have never interacted with the LGBT community on tumblr and have no interest in ever interacting with the LGBT group (beyond viewing NSFW stuff). I've heard way too many horror stories of the community on Tumblr and how toxic a lot of them get so I don't even want to try it.

 

Memory citation from tumblr: " so i feel like my gender is this, but I haven't seen anyone use it yet, so there isn't a name for it, so I just made up this name for the way I feel about my gender" ->weeks later everyone treats this gender like a scientific fact.....and THIS is precisely how to confuse questioning people *sigh*

Though seriously:
-If the gender is logically understandable and has something to do with actual gender topics (ie. Not cold gender etc.) -> I'll respect it as a gender
-if someone uses labels like agender or something similar but proceeds to use only their birthpronouns, dresses like their birth sex and generally doesn't behave or otherwise differs from cispeople of their birthsex and doesn't plan to transition-> I'll probs respect it but will eventually call bullshit if they start talking about dysphoria etc.
-if someone uses bullshit-genders -> I'll probably state that I think their gender is bullshit, especially if it's in a setting for questioning people (like here) because it's harmful to those questioning people. Otherwise I'd probably still use their preferred pronouns and treat them like everyone else (although they probs wouldn't wanna talk with me) because having a shitty view on trans-issues doesn't have to mean they are shitty people overall.


General issues I have with tumblr in regards to gender( apart from making genders up)

-gender is the way a person interacts and works within society, sex is biologically determined, which only concludes: There is no such thing as make or female energy or other crazy stuff.

-when a doctor"assigns" you a sex at birth he takes a look at your genitals and writes down which ones are there. He does not say" this kid has to love dresses and the color pink for all her life because I'm the evil incarnation of a cisgender society! Muhahahahahaha!". It also happens for mostly medical reasons, not to actively oppress someone.

- I won't ask everyone I meet for their pronouns and gender ( and no it's not because I'm a cisgendered oppressor it's because in the environment I live in people would think I'm weird and if I did that at work I'd probably even lose my job for weirding the clients out)
Should I due to this ever misgender a trans person just:
Calmly say "I'm x and I'd like you to use y pronouns" -> I'll use your pronouns and will proceed treating you like any normal person of that gender
Don't: Begin yelling at me for being"a transphobic cis oppressor that just dared to assume your gender" -> trust me, people won't really find you likable after acting like that.

Also: I expect people to have a life outside of being trans and feeling oppressed. Being trans is a huge part of someone's life and if they talk about it often and need a lot of support that's fine with me and I'll easily give it. But it shouldn't be all there is to a person, and for some people on tumblr it seems to be just that. Sadly being trans and having problems because of that doesn't replace having a personality.


Ok ..i ranted a bit...but sometimes I just feel like the people living only on tumblr have no idea of how the real world works. Worse they expect the real world to change to fit their needs instead of actually going out and changing the world themselves.
It's also funny how you sometimes can't distinguish trolls from people who are serious from how absolutely crazy it's been getting...