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howldean · 3 years

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stfu just say you're a snowflake. they them isn't singular and your "identity" labels aren't even real, like seriously you're gay or straight or a girl a boy or a tranny stop lying to yourself and see a fucking therapist you dumb faggot

Hello there, anon!

See, usually, I’d simply discard your message and laugh about how pathetic you are to my friends over discord (some can confirm that I’m doing this there too <3) but fuck it! I’m feeling combative tonight and I’m procrastinating, so I might as well waste my time making you feel special like a snowflake

Let’s break this down in order of appearance:

1. Pronouns!

Singular they IS in fact proper grammatically. Singular they is used for some nonbinary individuals, *like myself* as well as in context to an unknown person (i.e. someone left their phone here, if anyone saw who they were, please give it to them)

(official Merriam-Webster dictionary def)

so yeah, fuck off about that <3

2. Identity

I... *inhales* YOU DON’T HAVE TO UNDERSTAND LABELS FOR THEM TO BE VALID! ADDITIONALLY you say it’s boy/girl/trans-spec but then what about intersex people? Intersex individuals have biological factors that aren’t catergorized as male or female sexes. (XXY, XXX, XXYY chromosome anomalies, as well as hormone imbalances, and discrepancies in genital development) //for the lovely humans reading this, please look into intersex youth rights and protections, as some can undergo forced genital mutilation surgeries at a young age to “better align” with M/F sexes. InterACT is a great advocacy resource btw//

✨Biological sex isn’t binary either✨

Also, fun fact! Attempting to invalidate my identity isn’t going to change anything. Why?

This is the happiest I’ve ever been about who I am

Gender and sexuality are fluid, and one packet of gelatin isn’t going to harden the Thames

my partners and I will happily engage in a swordfight with you and your partner (if one is present) mind you, there’s three of us and at most two of you, and two of my team are skilled with the blade. And we’re all highly motivated

dude, I’m just as confused as you are, I’m just vibing with what’s comfortable

oh... and also?

That shit’s fucking legal. Feel free to look at my State ID, my gender is legally marked ‘X’

soooooo yeah have fun with that

3. Lying to myself

Honey, of the pair of us, I’m the one that’s speaking publicly. Did I have to post this? Nope. Am I doing it anyway? Yep.

I lie to myself about a lot of things, this ain’t one of them, babe.

4. Therapy

I am actually seeing a therapist! She’s awesome, and I’ve been going for about a month and a half now. She specializes in working with LGBTQIA+ youth, and has a really compatible mindset with how I process trauma and things that I’ve held onto.

Moral of the story, therapy is absolutely amazing, especially with someone that can understand you. 11/10 would recommend.

Thanks for the advice there, though.

5. Dumb f*ggot

*rubs my grubby lil hands together with enough force to generate static electricity*

Welcome to tonight’s Everything Was Fine But You Just Fucked Around... Time To Find Out segment

Intelligence is entirely circumstantial, so honestly not sure how to reply to that. But if I’m dumb, and you’re the one that doesn’t comprehend basic usage of common words and phrases... what does that make you?

As for your tasteless and unoriginal phrasing, all I can say is I’m disappointed. I’m disappointed in you. There are SO MANY big and beautiful monsterous phrases for you to call me! Hell, make your own.

You might actively GAIN respect from me for some. SO MANY OPTIONS. There’s a whole bank of potential for you, I mean Niobium? The element for one of my names, it’s a transition metal you’ve got so many fucking choices there, and each is as epically transphobic as you could possibly dream of. Talk shit about bees, idk. Hell, call me a cuckolding bleach-drenched shitstain!

Finally, to my followers and mutuals

Hey loves! Sorry you had to read all of that, people suck, huh? But hey, I was honestly looking for a good chance to word-vomit about a couple things, so this worked out nicely. I’m fine. This genuinely had me laughing and giggling at the sheer dumbassery exhibited by that anon! Btw, drink some water for me! If you want to show me support, or make me feel better, get a good night’s rest soon, or send me opossum photos. If a Pity Party means I get opossums, then I might pretend like these words affected me in any way that didn’t make me cackle maniacally

P.S.

I’m gonna have to go digging through my archive for a lil post because ummm

Sorry anon, I really am, because JJ is going to fucking murder you, Ash is going to damn you to hell, and every single one of my mutuals will lunge to harm you in their own special lil ways.

And I can’t save you from that ❤️

tl;dr singular they exists, attacking my identity won’t change that - also I can fence, and I’m legally nonbinary, intersex people deserve love, I’m genuinely happy with who I am, THERAPY IS FUCKING WONDERFUL, anon is an unimaginative doofus, and all of my followers and mutuals deserve the world... and the anon fucked with the wrong people

#baby's first anon hate?#tw homophobia #tw transphobia #answering anons #tw slurs #fuck around and find out

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liathgray · 3 years

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yes hi its me 💜💜💜 writnon 💜💜💜 which is still the cutest nickname and im glad you gave it to mee akdhsgsh

im never gonna say no if you ask if i want an example i love you and trust you and admire you So Much pls lemme see the Illegal Planning Spreadsheet

also a bitch is nonbinary (agender or voidgender but im still ??? about which cuz 🌟 voidgender 🌟 but also 🎊 agender 🎊 yknow???? i think voi/void pronouns are The Shit which honestly makes me feel like im leaning towards voidgender but who knows ill figure it out eventually qkdhdgk) anyway the point is im currently going by they/them pronouns if you dont mind!!!

p sure thats everything i wanted to say? im still: chugging along with that spreadsheet outline but its really helped me keep track of everything yhat goes everywhere!!! 🤩🤩🤩 so thats good

as always theres no pressure to qmswer i hope youre doing well oMG i just remembered: i got accepted into the uni i applied to!!!! so ill hopefully be transferring there in the fall if all goes well 😃😃😃😃

qldjdhsk alright Now i think its everything akdhdjdld

stay safe i love you

- writing anon

ik i said voi/void but also like(its writnon again hi),,,,,, the idea of being referred to as galaxyself or starself is making me *vibrates at a speed unknown to man* wish there was a non clunky way to use black holes as a neopronoun but its chill ig

no one:

not anyone:

not a single person:

me: ik im writnon but im gonna be So Goddamn Nonbinary in ceces inbox today akdbdbdk

(its writnon again sorry) but then again pronouns arent indicative of gender identity and i am p comfy in the agender, yknow? its nice every time i say it to myself any and all dysphoria gets thanos snapped, i think i just think void pronouns are v v pretty like galaxy pronouns are,,,, like bruh,,,, imagine being referred to as a galaxy like,,,, multitudes??? bro i contain a universe inside me how about that nebulas, black holes, stars thatre born and grow and die only to be pulled back together like arent we all made of stardust??? the iron in my veins is the same iron that burns in the heart of stars and holds them together like its so pretty and powerful

akdhsks sorry its just someone asked me during class yesterday about my pronouns (i have them set to they/them on the website i use for college) qnd they wanted to know if they were using my preferred name i 🥺🥺🥺🥺 im still on the gender high yknow????? -writnon

LMAO dude its chill I’m also mega superhell nb so I don’t mind the rambles!

So.. okay should I go with they/void? I mean I’m probably not gonna be referring to y'all too often with pronouns BUT you did give me a lot go options! I just wanna be sure on which are chill to use!

Sidebar wow I... don’t think I’ve ever really viewed it like that. I’m glad you’re able to find some part of yourself in this idea of galaxies and something universal.. something with multitudes.... something thats still in and a part of you. That’s just. I’ve never framed it like that to myself before! And I just love that for you sm! It makes me so happy and excited to see the ways people connect with gender cause its so abstract and personal... wow..

Also I TOTALLY get the Gender Euphoria!! Like, okay recently I decided fuck it im bored and wanna take a class. First day the TA asked for names and pronouns and everyone has been using they/them for me since!! hearing people say it out loud really just Hits Different and im not out to ppl I see irl so... I maybe had to turn off my cam and cry lmao.

gender euphoria pt 2 electric boogaloo: I got my first binder recently!!! I put it on and Oh My God the?? the FEELING??? I was smiling so hard all day and jumping around cause I didn't know this is what being in your own body was supposed to feel like!!!! aaannddd now im rambling too lmao

tl;dr: I love that for u and 100000% get the gender high MWAH

#oh no is this... a long post?#nah its fine #its so cool that people get to experiment more with gender and what it means to them #very cool very sexy #anon #I need a tag for asks so bam #writing anon

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andersfels · 4 years

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what i dont understand re the lesbian flag is--why is the rainbow one insufficient? bi people of all genders share a flag, same for trans folk and ace folk. im not saying that lesbians shouldn't have one, good for you, but it's so recent (and still unknown for the vast majority of lesbians worldwide), and yet when it's not automatically included people scream at OPs for not knowing about it or being confused that lesbians and gay men don't share a flag, like literally every other lgbtqia group.

actually, no. the rainbow isn't even the gay flag. it's the LGBT community flag - so unlike everybody else, we don't have a unifying symbol. or, well, we didn't before.

but the rainbow covers everybody. you can be bi or trans or etc. and wave the rainbow as your flag too. why aren't we asking everybody why they need a flag? why the rainbow isn't good enough for them?

I'll tell you one thing. the reason lesbians need one is part of why the L is seperate from the G: we don't have just one gay community. lesbians not only have different experiences and needs and activism than gay men, lesbians also require spaces away from men specifically. we are our own community.

people of all genders of any select orientation share a flag - but just because we share the label "gay" doesn't mean our orientations are actually the same. lesbians and gay men are literally attracted to exclusive genders. that's not the same thing as being a man or woman or nonbinary and sharing a flag with people who are attracted to the same exact genders as you - it's completely polarizing at times. other than a shared label and similar oppressions, we have almost nothing in common as communities! we don't like the same people!

and we (the LGBT) as a community have always relied on imagery and symbols, and rallied around them - lesbians are no different in our desire to do that, nor our we unique in our ability to code with our colors and have pride in them. but whatever your identity may be, I'm sure you are well aware of the benefits of having a community flag.

i guess my question for you is: why must lesbians be different from every other community? why are we the only ones questioned? why are we the only ones told to settle for the flag that everybody else can use?

frankly, I've stopped giving a damn about these kinds of inquiries because they come off condescending and rude. lesbians face quite a lot of fucking erasure, and it comes off like another attempt to bury us from view when we get this constant questioning over us having something as simple as an individual flag: the same thing other individual communities have.

when we can't even get people to say the fucking word "lesbian" i do not give a shit on anyone else's opinion or questioning over us having a flag. we WILL be seen, and everyone will have to deal with it. people aren't afraid of saying "gay" the same way, and you see the rainbow everywhere. there is a reason we feel the need to be specific, and part of it does have to do with feeling obscured by the broadness of the rainbow. our flag puts us directly in people's line of sight where they can't ignore us, or act like we're anything but what we are. isn't that the whole point of flags, of pride?

(on the non inclusion thing - yes, it did bother me before how mad people got, but that doesn't have much to do with the topic of us just having a flag. but frankly, our flag is better spread now than even the pink one was and not even near as controversial, so if people can't be assed to make a simple google to find our flag, then there is definitely a problem there, and it goes hand in hand with the erasure problem.)

TL;DR: we want a flag that shows specific pride in loving women and being gay, and the rainbow does not express specifically that. the rainbow covers the whole community, not just ours, and not just our pride. there should not be controversy or even confusion on us wanting to express that.

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gendercensus · 7 years

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NBGQ 2017 - the worldwide TL;DR

Who? Everyone whose gender doesn’t tidily fit into the female/male binary.

What? An online survey asking participants how they describe themselves and how they would like other people to refer to them.

When? February to May 2017.

Participants: 9,932

The full report: click here

Raw data and summary tables: Excel spreadsheet download (58.8 MB)

Q1: Identity words

Top 5:

nonbinary - 66%

genderqueer - 34%

agender - 33%

trans - 30%

fluid gender/genderfluid - 30%

Q2: Titles

Top 5:

No title at all - 31%

Mx - 30%

Non-gendered professional or academic (eg: Dr) - 16%

Mr - 5%

Unknown - 4%

Q3: Pronouns

Top 5:

Singular they/them - 81%

She/her - 29%

He/him - 28%

Mix it up - 14%

None/avoid pronouns - 11%

Say thanks / Mailing list for next year’s survey / Join a nice inclusive social network

#TL;DR #NBGQ2017 #results

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dahniwitchoflight · 7 years

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What are your thoughts on the gender alignments of the classes? I mean, that Bard, Prince and Lord have been confirmed in canon to be exclusively male, and Muse along with at least two other classes (much debated) are confirmed for female, with the others being gender inclusive. I'm mostly asking because two of my female characters are mostly the personality types of a Prince compared to the others. Not to mention for trans and nonbinary characters/people.

talked about this before en length in other posts, but i think you can find the original here: http://dahniwitchoflight.tumblr.com/post/82599597683

basically tl;dr the only person who ever really “confirms” gender alignments for classes is Calliope, a Cherub with an alien understanding of human sexuality and gender and views it through the lens of what gender means to cherubs, which is unknown but almost certainly tied into their other cultural black and white yin/yang ideals of creation/destruction and good/evil where in her culture to be “male” and to be “destructive” might as well be the exact same thing

and also hussie tweeted that you can in fact make a female prince character if you wanted so my guess is the gender alignments aren’t so much “actual canon” as they are one of Calliope’s personal headcanons, there not 100% wrong, but theyre not 100% correct either, so you can either choose to view it like she does or not

#Class #SBURB #Active or Passive

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queerascat · 7 years

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HI! I like your blog. I'm pretty new around here though. Still trying to understand gender stuff. I was wondering when/how did you figure out you weren't a woman?

hi, anon, and thanks. :)

i’m not sure that my own personal experience will be of any help to you, but…

the short answer: i never felt like i was a girl / woman to begin with, but at the same time i knew that i wasn’t a boy / man. i defaulted to society’s gender assignment because of not knowing that i could do or be anything else. i told myself, “well, i’m not a boy / man, so i guess that makes me the tomboy that people say i am.” however, the second i became aware of the fact that a person could be neither a boy / man nor a girl / woman, that being genderqueer (at the time “non-binary” wasn’t commonly used) was a thing, i knew that that was what i was / am.

the longer answer: i never felt like i was a girl / woman to begin with, but spent much of my life trying my damnedest to embrace my supposed “womanhood”. growing up in the late 80s ~ 90s in the height of the modern feminist movement (and the uprising of black women in particular– oh god, could write a novel on how that messed me up) was really hard because while society tried its damnest to get me to embrace what they decided was my “womanhood” and i tried my damnedest to do just that, i kept failing at it without knowing why. eventually i became apathetic about gender (among other things) and avoided the topic with myself and others. it wasn’t until i had an epiphany regarding my sexuality that i came across the term “genderqueer” while researching LGBTQIA-related things. before i even came across the word “genderqueer” (because even genderqueer was relatively unknown) i came across information about being (binary) trans, once again running into that mental deadend of “well, i know i’m not a man, so….” when i discovered “genderqueer”– that not everyone is either a boy / man or a girl / woman– i immediately knew that genderqueer was what i was / am, although i prefer “non-binary” now.

you may also be interested in [ this post ] where i kind of elaborate on the above, explaining how i know for sure that i’m not a woman.

as always, i want to reiterate that the above is just my personal experience. not everyone has or ever will “figure out” their gender. even those who do have some sense of what their gender is (or even only what it is not) may never have the confidence or conviction about it that i happen to have about my gender.

and that’s perfectly okay.

hell, even after knowing for certain that i’m not a woman, that i am in fact genderqueer / nonbinary, figuring out the specific gender that i am was a whole other journey that was even less straight forward. *shrugs*

anyway, sorry for the tl;dr response. all the best with the gender stuff, anon.

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idkmanitstesting · 4 years

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VERSES

quick explanation of my verses!

┆ᶤ ˢᵗᵃʳᵗ ᵗᵒ ᶠᵉᵉˡ ᵃˡᶤᵛᵉ┆ ┈ vol 2

neo doesn’t quite know much, if anything, about RWBY, she doesn’t even know JNPR, she’s pretty much completely unknown. lot happier now than in later verses, probably the easiest one for me to ship neo with people.

¦ᶤ ˢᵃᵗ ᵗʰᵉʳᵉ ᶜˡᶤᶰᵍᶤᶰᵍ ᵒᶰᵗᵒ ᵐʸ ᵏᶰᵉᵉˢ ᶤᶰ ᵈᵉᶰᶤᵃˡ¦ ┈ vol 3

this is BEFORE neo & roman vs ruby. she’s largely in disguise at this time, and seeing as i lack the icons for disguises you’ll just have to accept that the icons are neo. a lot of school life kind of things here, and if its ships its a sort of ‘forbidden romance’ kinda thing.

¦ʷʰᵃᵗ ᵃ ᶠᵒᵒˡ ᶤ ʷᵃˢ ᶠᵒʳ ᵗʰᶤᶰᵏᶤᶰᵍ ᶤ ᶜᵒᵘˡᵈ ᵏᵉᵉᵖ ʸᵒᵘ¦ ┈ vol 4

this is right after neo loses roman. she’s lost in vale, and is just breaking down 24/7. don’t really know what to do in this verse so uh.

¦ᵗʰᵉ ʰᵃᵗᵉ ˢᵒ ᵖᵘʳᵉ ᶤˢ ᵗʰᵉ ˡᶤᶠᵉ ᵒᶠ ᵐᵉ¦ ┈ vol 5

she’s making her way towards mistral, her actual home in her opinion, and she is pissed. also don’t really know what to do in this.

┆ʸᵒᵘ ᵏᶰᵒʷ ᶤ'ᵐ ᵒᶰ ʸᵒᵘʳ ˢᶤᵈᵉ┆ ┈ vol 6

this is where neo is introduced to ruby n co. largely based around her adjusting in the life of being a protagonist, she is largely uncooperative with people, and pretty much 5 seconds away from hitting people with hush. shipping with neo here is a massive pain in the ass b/c of it

¦ᶤ ᵗʳᶤᵉᵈ; ᶤ ᵐᵉᵃᶰᵗ ᵗᵒ ᵐᵃᵏᵉ ᶤᵗ ʳᶤᵍʰᵗ¦ ┈ vol 7

neo ‘fuck da police’ politan is introduced to the ace-ops. she’s mellowed out a bit more now, and is willing to at least have semi positive relationships with people, but she’s still pretty damn distant from everyone.

¦ᵇʳᶤᶰᵍ ᵐᵉ ᵗʰᵉ ʷᵃʳ¦ ┈ vol 8

i honestly don’t know. this is just a verse tag for volume 8 whenever it happens, mainly because i have to at least figure out what they’re gonna do during volume 8 and put neo in there somehow. probably be going to vacuo, which neo despises bc its too damn hot and sandy there.

¦ᵉᵛᵉʳʸ ˢᵗᵉᵖ ᵗᵒʷᵃʳᵈˢ ʸᵒᵘ ᵗᵃᵏᵉˢ ᵐᵉ ᵗᵒʷᵃʳᵈˢ ᵗᵒ ᵐʸ ᵉᶰᵈ¦ ┈ canon vol 6 ¦ᵗʰᵉ ᵖᵃʳᵗ ᵒᶠ ᵗʰᵉ ᵖˡᵃʸ ʷʰᵉʳᵉ ᵗʰᵉ ʰᵉʳᵒ ᶤˢ ˢᵉᶰᵗᵉᶰᶜᵉᵈ ᵗᵒ ᵈᵉᵃᵗʰ¦ ┈ canon vol 7 ¦ᵗʰᶤˢ ᶤˢ ᵗʰᵉ ᵉᶰᵈ ᵒᶠ ᵐᵉ¦ ┈ canon vol 8

sigh. i guess i have to do a small blurb about these ones. its canon neo. you’ve all seen my dislike of these verses. note, i do not ship cinder and neo in these verses, to me their relationship is purely like, professional ig? my neo just isnt the kind of person to think of cinder in that way, and she still hates her. anyways, yeah. its canon neo. i dislike these verses a lot.

NON-RWBY VERSES

hoo boy. i have a lot of these fuckers. it’ll just be a tl;dr and a link to the writeup i have on the topic, then we’re gucci.

┆ᵗʰᵉʳᵉˢ ᵃ ʳᵉᵃˢᵒᶰ ˢʰᵉˢ ᵃˡᵒᶰᵉ; ʸᵒᵘ ᶜᵃᶰᵗ ᵖᶤᶰ ʰᵉʳ ᵈᵒʷᶰ┆ ┈ pjo

tl;dr neo is a demigoddess of hermes, she wanders around a lot, is mute due to a throat injury, write up is HERE!

┆ᵗʰᵉ ᶜˡᵒᶜᵏˢ ᶤᶰ ᵗʰᵉ ʷᵃˡˡ ᵃʳᵉ ᶰᵘᵐᵇ┆ ┈ unknown verse

tl;dr this is a verse where i honestly dont know which verse it belongs in. idk. write-up is HERE!

┆ᵇᵘᵗ ᵗʰᵉ ˡᵉᵃᵛᵉˢ ʰᵃᵛᵉ ᶠᵃˡˡᵉᶰ; ᵗʰᵉ ᵗʳᵃᶤˡ ᶤˢ ᵒᵛᵉʳᵍʳᵒʷᶰ┆ ┈ pokemon

tl;dr neo is a mafia owner who is mute due to a birth defect, she has a zoroark, a mimikyuu, and a ditto. the legendary she’d bond with would be darkrai, and her zoroark is a service pokemon. write-up is HERE!

┆ᵗʰᵉʳᵉˢ ᶰᵒ ˡᵒᵛᵉ ᶤᶰ ᵗʰᵉ ᶜᶤᵗʸ┆ ┈ modern

neo is a makeup artist/hair stylist who is mute due to a birth defect, she has mafia ties, and lives in a large-ish city to get away from her past. write-up is HERE!

┆ᶠᵉᵉᵈ ᵗʰᵉ ᵇᵉᵃˢᵗ┆ ┈ urban fantasy

same thing as modern verse, but neo is a shapeshifter/doppelganger thingy. write-up is HERE!

┆ʷᵉ ʰᵃᵛᵉ ᵇᵉᵉᶰ ᵗʰʳᵒᵘᵍʰ ˢᵒ ᵐᵘᶜʰ; ʷᵉ ᶜᵃᶰ ᵇᵉᵃᵗ ᵃˡˡ ᵗʰᵉ ᵒᵈᵈˢ┆ ┈ quadruplets

HOO BOY. JUST READ THE WRITE-UP. SPEAKING OF WHICH, ITS HERE!

┆ᶤ ᵃᵐ ʸᵒᵘʳ ᵃᵘʳᵃ; ʰᵘᶰᵍᵉʳ ᶠᵒʳ ʰᵒᶰᵒʳ; ᶤ ʰᵒˡᵈ ᵗʰᵉ ᵖᵒʷᵉʳ ʸᵒᵘ ˢᵉᵉᵏ┆ ┈ gods

tl;dr neo is a god/goddess of disguises, lies, and exiles. most noticeable change is that neo is nonbinary in this due to their disguise fuckery. write-up is HERE! and this is my favorite verse ive done.

#kekw

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gendercensus · 7 years

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NB/GQ Survey 2017 - the worldwide results

This report is very long! Click here for the TL;DR. Click here for a printable Google Doc.

Well, it’s been a wild year. Three times as many participants as usual, combined with new survey software and new spreadsheet software and health and financial difficulties, has caused some epic delay - but we made it.

The survey ran from 6th February until 1st May 2017 (84 days), with 9,932 participants. It was promoted on social networks, wherever participants were willing to share. People were invited to take part if they were not fully included in the binary of "anyone whose gender is always entirely and solely male, and anyone whose gender is always entirely and solely female.” It asked:

Which words from a list (plus a textbox) participants identified with [optional, checkboxes];

Which title from a list (plus a textbox) participants most wanted to use [optional, single answer only];

Which pronouns from a list (plus a textbox) participants were happy with [optional, checkboxes];

Whether the participant is in the UK [required];

Age [required];

How you found out about this survey [optional, checkboxes];

The spelling of nonbinary/non-binary/non binary [optional, checkboxes].

A couple more questions were asked, the results of which I’ll not review in this report - I’ll go into more detail later.

[ LINK TO EXCEL SPREADSHEET OF RESULTS HERE ]

Question 1: Which of the following best describe(s) in English how you think of yourself?

The top five responses were:

nonbinary - 65.8% (up 1.2%)

genderqueer - 34.3% (down 6.4%)

agender - 33.1% (up 2.2%)

trans - 30.1% (down 4.7%)

fluid gender/genderfluid - 27.9% (down 2.9%)

“Transgender” used to be in the top 5, but dropped by 7% this year. This seems at first glance like a big deal, but it’s hovered between 24% and 31% since the first survey so that kind of fluctuation isn’t unusual.

Here’s the graph of identity words that got over 1%:

One identity word that wasn’t offered as a checkbox option made it over 1% this year, and will therefore be offered as a checkbox option next year: genderflux. That’s when one’s gender fluctuates in intensity without necessarily changing. (Not to be confused with genderfluid, when one’s gender changes.)

I will also be adding “binary” to the list next year - because I list cisgender alongside transgender, so it follows that I should list binary alongside nonbinary.

Some numbers I enjoyed:

22 identity words were offered in the survey.

117 identity words were typed into the “other” box more than once, and 275 identity words were typed into the “other” box only once. That’s one unlisted (under-1%) identity label per 25 people.

That’s 414 identity words total.

People chose on average 3.7 identity words each - around the same as last year.

The most common number of identity words chosen was one - 21% of participants chose one identity label, around the same as last year.

93% of people chose between 1 and 7 identity labels - a little higher than last year.

The following graph shows the data I had available for this year’s top 10 identity words over the past four surveys. Some words don’t have a full history, because they weren’t provided as checkbox options - that’s because write-ins always get much lower numbers. You can see the very scruffy spreadsheet and chart here.

(Note that there is no data for 2014!)

“Nonbinary” is increasing very gradually (up 2% over the past few years), but “genderqueer” seems to be very much a downward trend.

A note on bias

It’s been bugging me for a couple of years that the survey is probably biased. I’ve been calling it variously the “nonbinary survey”, the “nonbinary/genderqueer survey”, etc. just because those terms are the most popular and I wanted to attract as many participants as possible. Unfortunately, this means that folks who identify as these things are more likely to opt in and take the survey, and people who don’t identify as these things are less likely to realise it’s aimed at them.

I wanted to try to change things this year, but the best I could manage was changing the title to NBGQ. I couldn’t think of a title that wasn’t long and rambling, like “the survey for people whose genders are not tidily described by the binary of ‘always entirely and wholly male’ and etc etc etc.” I suspect that the small change I made didn’t make much difference, so I will keep trying to find a better name.

Question 2: In a magical world where all title fields on forms were optional and write-your-own, what would you want yours to be in English?

This question allowed only one answer, though people very occasionally sneakily used the text box to tell me about either-or situations - and those titles were counted too.

The top 5 were:

No title at all - 30.8% (down 2.1%)

Mx - 29.6% (down 4.8%)

Non-gendered professional or academic (eg: Dr) - 16.0% (up 3.4%)

Mr - 5.0% (up 2%)

Unknown - 4.4% (up 2%)

Mx and “no title” have swapped places each year since they were both included in the survey, so the fact that they’ve done so this year is not very notable. Unrelatedly, I’m wondering if the “unknown” number being higher than last year is because we had more participants this year, and perhaps more participants spoke English as a second language? (Pure speculation!)

This year I was able to include a text box to allow people who selected “a standard title that indicates my nonbinary/genderqueer identity” to write in what they use to do so. Of the 269 people who chose that option, 72% left that box blank. The most commonly entered title was Mx, by just 10 people. I’ve not looked into this thoroughly, but it looks like the majority of people using Mx are doing so in an inclusive way - meaning anyone can use it regardless of gender identity. The next most popular gender-exclusive title entered was M, by 9 people - which, if implemented in a widespread way, may be mistaken for a first initial or the masculine-gendered French title. Others entered more than once include NB, Msr, Xr and Misc.

A change I would like to make next year is to specify that participants should be currently entitled to use the title they choose. A lot of people choose “non-gendered professional or academic title” and then say “I’m going to get a doctorate so that I can use Dr”. There’s also often a smattering of people who enter military titles and nobility titles. People might be writing these in thanks to the “in an ideal world” tone of the question! So I would like to make the question more clear and specific to reduce that confusion.

Question 3: Supposing all pronouns were accepted by everyone without question and were easy to learn, which pronouns are you happy for people to use for you?

The top 5 are the same as last year:

Singular they/them - 80.5% (up 3%)

She/her - 29.2% (up 4.2%)

He/him - 27.9% (up 4.5%)

Mix it up - 13.6% (up 1.4%)

None/avoid pronouns - 10.7% (down 0.3%)

9% of people didn’t select any of he, she or they.

More numbers:

9 specific pronouns were offered in the survey, along with 4 descriptions (for example, “none/avoid pronouns”).

67 pronouns were typed into the “other” box more than once.

214 pronouns were typed into the “other” box only once.

That’s 295 pronouns total.

People chose on average 2 acceptable pronouns each, the same as last year.

Most people (42%) chose only one pronoun, slightly less than last year.

About 70% of people were happy with only one or two pronouns.

Here’s how the pronouns are faring over time:

The first year had very few options available, so 2015 onward is the most reliable. Singular they keeps increasing, as do binary-gendered (he/him and she/her) pronouns, which have been consistently approximately equal and more acceptable than anything but singular they since I started running the survey.

The main change for this question is that last year I tried to combine the numbers for pronouns that were clearly intended to all be the same set, but with almost 10,000 participants that was just not possible. This year, the following hypothetical examples would have each been counted individually:

xe/xem

xe xem xirs

xe/xem/xirself

...etc. There were 28 totally unique write-in entries for pronoun sets beginning with “ne”, and 26 for “ze” - many of them entered more than once.

Next year I am determined to collect information on each of the five forms of neopronouns, even if that means a participant has to fill out a five question section for each neopronoun they’ve claimed for themself. Ideally I would like to somehow create a form that will do this elegantly, but I know already that I can do it clumsily using Google Forms, so we’ll see. It’s important to me to count the more popular neopronouns accurately.

Notably, the “co” pronoun set was a checkbox option that got under 1% this year, and so it won’t be included as a checkbox option next year.

The extra questions

There were a few one-off questions this year. Age, “how did you hear about this survey?”, preferred umbrella terms, and how to spell nonbinary.

I’ll look at the first two questions together, because they really show that this report isn’t representative of the nonbinary population. That’s age and how people were referred to the survey.

For age, around 91% of participants were aged 11 to 30. Assuming that all responses were honest, every age between 10 and 64 was represented, and then some.

There were no limits on how young you could say that you were, so it’s hard to judge how old the youngest participant was - a scattering of people chose ages between 1 and 5, for example. That could be because the question was required, and people just entered a number high on the list, something that was an obvious lie, because they didn’t want to disclose their age. I think that’s fair enough!

Heading in the other direction, we had one definitely-legit participant who was 70 years old.

As for where people came from...

That’s an incredible 73% from Tumblr! Our original promotional post on Tumblr got over 5,800 notes, 3,700 of which were reblogs.

I think it’s fair to say that these ages and referrals are not representative of the nonbinary population. The ages of participants will be influenced heavily by the sites that the survey was promoted on, and even just the fact that the survey is opt-in and hosted only online. Younger people are more likely to be internet-fluent and more likely to be members of communities like Tumblr and Twitter. We also know that younger people are more likely to identify as some kind of not straight, not cis - and we know that the world is becoming more accepting of trans and nonbinary people generally, so younger people are less likely to have experienced discrimination and more likely to feel confident in coming out and seeking community and medical treatment. As such, these statistics should not be considered to be at all representative of the nonbinary population - not just for these two questions but for the entire survey.

I desperately wish that I had the time, money, resources and good health to run a representative survey so that there were any statistics at all about gender-diverse people beyond the binary over the age of 30 and under the age of 16. I’m not aware of any research that sees and counts older and younger nonbinary people and takes into account their language preferences and practical day-to-day needs. If you’re aware of anything, please do send it along to me!

I considered putting in even more work to balance things so that Tumblr users were more fairly represented, to see if it drastically changed any of the other statistics, but in the end I decided not to. This was in part because I had already taken 2 months longer than planned to get the results sorted out, but also partly because... well, a lot of nonbinary people hang out on Tumblr, it’s very very easy to share information here, and that’s where I do most of the promotion - that’s where the Nonbinary Stats blog is hosted. Having said that, almost 3,000 people came from not-Tumblr, which is not to be sneezed at.

Perhaps people from Reddit are more likely to be genderqueer than nonbinary, or Facebook users are less likely to use binary-gendered pronouns, or whatever. But that’s work that I can’t do for this report. I am sure that something interesting can be gleaned from the raw data, so if anyone would like to use it to do the relevant calculations please feel free! Or I might do it myself in a couple of months, if I can. The link to the data download is at the top of this post, just after the introduction.

Next are umbrella terms and the spelling of “nonbinary”. Earlier I mentioned the bias that comes with calling a survey “nonbinary/genderqueer”, and that holds here too.

For the spelling of nonbinary: I spelled nonbinary without a space or a hyphen throughout the survey, including in titles and promotion. So it’s probably not surprising that this was the most popular spelling at 59% - non-binary came second with 33%. But because of that bias, I just don’t think this can be considered a reliable result. (Relatedly, I ran a Twitter poll a few months back that got a similar result with far fewer participants.)

I will ask again in a future survey, once I’ve managed to remove the unnecessary use of the word from the survey and promotional materials.

For the umbrella terms: 57% of participants were in favour of us having an umbrella term. When asked what they thought it should be and provided with a text box, the vast majority chose “nonbinary”, a much smaller proportion chose “genderqueer”, and many people said “I don’t know” or appeared to misunderstand the question, which is probably down to poor question design more than anything else.

I’m considering the results of this question completely unreliable statistically, but I will use them to inform future questions - again, hopefully with reduced bias! (I’ve used nonbinary and genderqueer as umbrella terms pretty much exclusively with this survey, so that will have skewed things a lot.)

The questions I ask

What should the third gender option on forms be called? - Still no consensus in that area. I won’t feel comfortable recommending the most popular (nonbinary) until I’ve done more work to remove bias in future surveys.

Is there a standard neutral title yet? - Not yet. Mx is looking very promising, and is consistently far more popular than all other titles, but just as many nonbinary people want no title at all. It’s really important that activists campaigning for greater acceptance of gender diversity remember to fight for titles to be optional, too.

Is there a pronoun that every nonbinary person is happy with? - As in previous years, no. The closest we have to a standard is singular they, and so I will use the data to campaign for journalists and anyone else with a style guide to allow it. But around 1 in 5 (20%) of us are not happy with singular they, and 9% of us don’t like he, she or they pronouns.

Are any of the neopronouns gaining ground in a way that competes with singular they? - No. This year the closest is “Xe - xe/xem/xyr/xyrs/xemself” (8.2% compared to singular they’s 80%). Users of these neopronouns will probably not reach consensus for many years - language and especially pronouns can be very slow to settle and gain ground. Even if one neopronoun does become very commonly used, many will continue to use other neopronouns for a long time to come.

This year in review

There have been a lot of big changes.

We tripled participation! We went from consistently ~2,000-3,000 participants to TEN THOUSAND. This still boggles me. I feel a little bit overwhelmed that you all trust me with personal information about yourself, and I am excited and honoured every year to play with all the delicious data. From a happily hyperfocused human to 9,932 participants, thank you. <3

The survey now has its own social media presence! Which means people can follow me without having to put up with wittering about the survey, and people can follow the survey without having to put up with me wittering about... well, everything else. It probably helped the survey look more legit, which may in turn explain the increase in participation.

I crowdfunded to cover costs! Originally this was just going to be the survey service, but then it ended up covering MS Excel as well. This process was fraught with hiccups and bad decisions, which is probably not surprising since I’ve never done this before. We reached the £330 target in only a few days, which was wonderful, and it helped a lot.

I used a paid survey software service! Specifically, SmartSurvey. I would recommend it. They had a pay-monthly tier, which allowed me to subscribe to that with the crowdfund money and buy MS Excel in an emergency fashion to process the results when Google Sheets couldn’t handle 9,000+ responses, the wuss. SmartSurvey processed checkbox answers more helpfully, allowing me to process write-ins more easily, among many other lovely features. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a big improvement.

I used MS Excel to process the results for the first time! This was not as much fun as Google Sheets. I had to learn a whole bunch of new techniques to count everything, and some of them didn’t even have Excel equivalents at all. It is also hella buggy and crashy on Mac. Overall, it’s pretty much been a nightmare.

The results are therefore available as a MS Excel file instead of a Google Sheet this year. I am sad about this, because it’s less accessible in a lot of ways. Not everyone has access to Excel! Folks are of course welcome to download the files and mess about with the data however they want.

In a more general sense, academics have approached me with questions about the results, even occasionally asking me for advice or telling me that they will be mentioning the survey in their [academic writings]. One person even sent me a French academic paper they’d found that referenced the 2016 survey, which was fun! I do think that anyone with relevant knowledge can probably see that my work is amateur and flawed, but nonetheless I still think it can be useful - and my experience this year is that it has been useful.

Also in a more general sense, companies and organisations are clearly using the results of the survey to become nonbinary-inclusive. For example, HSBC introduced 10 new titles for nonbinary people this year and a fair few of them are popular among participants of the 2016 survey. Similarly, Bristol Water “did some research and found that [Mx, Ind and Misc] were the most popular” - they don’t refer to the survey directly but those three titles were the three most popular in the 2016 survey. I feel that the results of this survey are making it easier for companies who want to be inclusive to make changes, because let’s be honest, if it’s a choice between ignoring nonbinary people and doing expensive specialist research they’re going to ignore nonbinary people...

What I’ll do differently next year

I will probably change the name of the survey and the associated social media URLs. This will be very disruptive, but I think it will improve the reliability of future survey results by reducing bias.

I will continue to look for better survey and statistics software. Specifically, I want to ask about neopronouns in a better way, and I want software that can handle 10,000+ responses.

Closing thoughts

You are all awesome. I love that you are all willing to trust me with this stuff, and I feel very lucky to be able to do this whole thing because I find it really fun and interesting. I learn so much every time. Thanks for another great survey experience!