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joshieecs [he/him,any]
I didn’t say it was a line, I said it was a plane. I agree that genders have many different expressions. But it’s not a total free-for-all, it’s not “anything you can imagine, you can say it’s a gender, and if other people fail to respect it, they are being transphobic.”
You cannot compel people to engage with wildly fantastical notions just because you want to shoehorn it into the form of a “gender”. This is dangerously approaching the one joke territory, where “attack helicopter” must be a valid gender since there are no limits anyone may define for another person without being transphobic. If I reject “attack helicopter” could be a valid nonbinary gender for someone, then I am the one being transphobic. You have gender turned on its head to justify coercing people to identify you as some kind of fairy via the opprobrium of transphobia.
You can repeat that over and over again, but being nonbinary doesn’t mean people have to call you a fae, or they are being a transphobe. Identifying as fairy has nothing to do with gender, because fairies themselves have genders! Just like the deer. There are genders of deer i.e. doe vs. stag. So it seems to me it’s about shoehorning some non-gender-related identity into “gender” to piggyback it onto the trans issue, and to insist people call you are these other kinds of being. (And if they don’t you can accuse them of transphobia.)
I am not defining anything about you are what you believe about yourself. I am saying people should not be expected to call you by a nounself neopronoun indicating that you are a fairy.
And if someone chooses not to acknowledge your fairy nature by using such a pronoun, they are not being transphobic.
I would think that whatever gender may mean, it certainly doesn’t include other being another species or a fantasy creature. There is some collective understanding of gender that people have: masculine, femininine, and people who feel neither masculine nor feminine. But masuline and feminine are still the two poles, so whatever meaning gender could have would have least have to be at least on the same plane of meaning. The two poles are not dragon and robot. (I am not just being a smartass, there are dragon and robot nounself pronouns listed on the nonbinary wiki.)
People have the right to choose anything for any reason. But other people do not have to go along with what you want them to do. If people are misgendering you, then that is transphobic and should be condemned. If people are refusing to say you are a fairy or a deer or some other kind of being, that has nothing to do with gender. You can choose to identify that way, and choose to have pronouns that other people may agree to use. But random people should be expected to go along with the Otherkin nounself neopronouns, and if they don’t, it’s not transphobia.
You are conflating pronouns with gender when especially the nounself neopronouns are being employed beyond gender, to indicate other kinds of identities than gender identities. If you have an Otherkin identity, that is cool, maybe you have a pronoun for it – but what does it have to with trans and nonbinary? Gender is 100% valid and everyone should be expected to respect gender identity. But if we are talking about something else, like Otherkin identity, I think it’s reasonable if not everyone chooses to entertain that.
I understand nonbinary genders, and they are entirely valid, I accept them 100%. I am saying that fairy (or sidhe or angel) is not a nonbinary gender, it’s a different kind of (non-human) entity. A different (fantasy) species. I also don’t think deer is a gender, it’s a different species. I don’t see why this is controversial to say. Can you identify with or as these other kinds of beings? Sure, absolutely, knock yourself out, it’s cool. But what does it have to do with gender or transgender?