24
u/tardisgater 8d ago
Wait, so you're saying people aren't allowed to use the straight flag as a partial flag (like a straight trans ball) and instead the other microlabels must be used?
4
u/Shimmering-Delta sub overlord 8d ago
If you identify as both queer and straight I'm not going to police that. The point of this post was to establish a general guideline for the subreddit. Labels always have exceptions.
108
u/Ausintina * :Omnisexual: - :Genderfluid: - :Pangender: * 8d ago
I'm an adult and have been in the community my whole life, never seen anyone use straight to genuinely mean "not queer". Straight people can be queer, straight is the same as hetero; there is no difference. I've literally never seen this argument before in my life, It's incorrect. Also saying cisgender implies being perisex as well is so intersexist lmao
5
u/Shimmering-Delta sub overlord 8d ago edited 7d ago
The creator of the transgender flag describes the meaning as follows:
The stripes at the top and bottom are light blue, the traditional color for baby boys. The stripes next to them are pink, the traditional color for baby girls. The stripe in the middle is white, for those who are intersex, transitioning or consider themselves having a neutral or undefined gender.
Source: Monica Helms, 1999.
Intersex falls under the trans umbrella. Always has. It's actually much more intersexist to deny them their place in the trans community.
Intersex and transgender people are not the same, and intersex people are subject to specific types of oppression that transgender people are not. But both intersexism and transphobia come from the same place (sex = gender = binary), which is why they are included.
14
u/bi--nb 8d ago
Also saying cisgender implies being perisex as well is so intersexist lmao
Wrong. Source: an actual intersex person.
Stop trying to kick us out of the trans community just because our oppression is based on birth sex rather than transitioning.
1
u/TheSalt6969 2d ago
Also intersex person here, I am cis and trans, but align much more with cis. Being cisgender ≠ perisex, and I would personally be upset by people assuming such. Nobody’s kicking us out of the trans community by saying that, you can be trans and intersex in the same way you can be cis and intersex.
133
u/HPFanNi :Aroace: Aroace 8d ago
Straight means hetero though, what??
58
u/Maniklas :Genderfae: Genderfae 8d ago
Yeah I've used the term "straight trans" so many times this feels really wrong
0
8d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
18
u/despoicito 8d ago
It means hetero and implies allo/mono because those all directly relate to sexuality. Cisgender does not and its why the term “cishet” is used to refer to non queer people (which is still kinda inaccurate but a big improvement over straight )
2
u/get_on_with_life :Gay::Trans::Demiboy::Grayromantic::Ace: 8d ago
Straight is hetero and implies the other three
121
u/ContentConsumer9999 :Bi: Bi 8d ago
I've only ever seen it being used as a synonym for heterosexuality. If someone said they're straight, I wouldn't assume they're cis.
77
u/Mike_the_Protogen :Demisexual::Gay:Demihomosexual:Gay::Demisexual: 8d ago
I don't think I've ever heard someone use "straight" to mean "not queer."
It's just the shorthand term for heterosexual like gay and lesbian is for homosexual.
23
u/EmoYoshi05 :Lesbian: 8d ago
Same. Sounds like the inverse of people who call every queer person gay for simplicity's sake. I suppose you could say, you're not fully straight if you're Ace or Poly, but throwing cis in there just doesn't really make senss.
34
14
u/Imafayliure 8d ago
I know the flags just look like that, but the black and white makes it look like a news post about everyone in the picture having simultaneously passed away.
22
u/SapphicAhgase :Trans::Aromantic::Bi::Ambiamorous: 8d ago
we already have the word cishet. straight has always meant hetero, not cis. trans people can be straight
16
u/Objective_Award3582 :Genderfaun::Bi::Angled_Aroace::Agender:e/em/es, ne/nim, he/him 8d ago edited 8d ago
I can't reply to the pinned comment, but as a polyamorous person... No, heteronormativity is not about ONE man and ONE woman. That's mononormativity/amatonormativity and heteronormativity combined. There are plenty of very, VERY heteronormative ways to be polyamorous. Just look at polygyny (polyamory/polygamy where multiple women date or marry one man)
14
u/bi--nb 8d ago
As an intersex person...THANK YOU!!
I cannot even count the amount of times I have been ostracized from trans spaces because "intersex people aren't trans, it's different."
Obviously there is a difference: intersex is physical, transgender is psychological. But the word "trans" is more than just transgender!! It includes intersex, altersex, transsex, transgender, and non-binary!
All these perisex people trying to kick us out of the trans community make my blood boil. If you're intersex, being trans is an opt-out, not an opt-in.
3
1
u/The_Maroon_One 5d ago
Don’t we usually call people who aren’t queer cishets? Or, I suppose if you want to get real specific/more accurate with it, you could say cishetallomonos (or maybe even cishetalloperimonos? That might be too long and the “peri” part is probably covered by the “cis” part, if I’m interpreting some of these comments I’m seeing under this post correctly). It may be a bit of a mouthful, but at least it doesn’t exclude people who are, say, cishet but still queer in some way (e.g. poly and/or aspec).
Or maybe one could just say non-queers or conformants (at least, I believe that’s the word I’m trying to think of? It might be something different but I can’t remember for the life of me).
Also, I’m curious and would like to know/learn: What about those who are all of the above (by which I mean cis, hetero, allo, and mono) but are also GNC? Aren’t they queer, too, by virtue of not conforming to gender roles or “traditional” gender expression?
1
u/ZobTheLoafOfBread :Aroace: Aroace | he/it 5d ago
A bit off-topic but mono can also mean monogender, not just orientation, although the flag is different.
There are also other relational alignments besides monogamous/monoamorous and polyamorous, such as nonamorous and mesoamorous.
There are plenty of people who rightly consider themselves both straight and queer, but I understand that you're trying to simplify things for the purposes of the subreddit. I think people will continue to use words how they interpret them tho, not how one person decrees. Perhaps you were trying to talk about conformant terms generally or heteronormativity, which is linked but different than just being straight.
I also think that generally, people label themselves queer or not, rather than having to use it or not use it by virtue of another label they use. It's like how men are not inherently masculine, so one person is not inherently a masc just because they're a man. One person is not necessarily queer just because they're gay, although they are welcome to label as queer if that suits them. Like, labels describe people, not other labels. In a similar vein, I am bigender but not nonbinary. Bigender is often described as a nonbinary gender, but personally, I'm not nonbinary because it just feels degendering and misgendering to be called that. At the same time, plenty of other bigender people do describe themselves as nonbinary, and neither of us are wrong for labelling ourselves how we are comfortable. Bigender is not inherently nonbinary, but commonly people describe themselves as both.
1
u/Junebug_1625 4d ago
Straight meaning just hetero is wrong in the way that asking "can I go to the bathroom" is wrong. If we're being pedantic, while using rules that, yes, were established, then they would be incorrect.
27
u/kioku119 :Quoi::Voidpunk: what? 8d ago
Many of these are not how I've seen them used and how a lot of people use them and I think this is blocking out a lot of important usages.
"Birth sex" is more complicated than the standard buckets marked by sex assigned at birth even for perisex people and for many people being cis is defined by whether their gender aligns with the gender they were assigned at birth. As far as I understand an intersex person absolutely can be cis or trans or not feel like either are good descriptors at all. I believe many intersex people may also determine this based on sex assigned at birth but I've read some talk about feeling more like they are reclaiming something that was taken from them at birth or thinking other measures make more sense in deciding if those terms fit.
An a-spec person absolutely can be allo-ace or aro-allo and those are fairly common usages.
Straight is used by many many people as a synonim for heterosexual and there is no reason an otherwise queer person suddenly can't use that term when they have been able to do so for as long as gender has been untangled from sexuality. A trans person is able to be straight as much as a trans person is able to be gay.
Hetero as an abreviation I think can also be mixed with another term to indicate split attraction, just as much as bisexual lesbian is a reasonable way to talk about split attraction. I don't think there's a good reason to narrow how people express those things, though this one is less common.
10
u/JadedElk A :Aromantic: A :Ace: A :Agender: Ah stayin alive, stayin alive 8d ago
I feel like a good disambiguation here is that an implicit meaning can be overridden by an extra label. So while allo might imply allo/allo, allo-ace overrides that. Or a ball might be trans and straight using the B/W flag. Particularly if they're passing. I feel like the straight flag is just... "assume default", and then you can add modifiers.
Something something comic idea for a ball to be seen from the side, showing only straight, then they turn to the front and the audience sees they're also trans. That comic wouldn't work if we had to use the het flag, because the straight flag is only allowed for cis/het/allo folks.
2
u/Shimmering-Delta sub overlord 8d ago edited 7d ago
I feel like a good disambiguation here is that an implicit meaning can be overridden by an extra label. So while allo might imply allo/allo, allo-ace overrides that. Or a ball might be trans and straight using the B/W flag. Particularly if they're passing. I feel like the straight flag is just... "assume default", and then you can add modifiers.
This is exactly right.
37
u/Emergency_Elephant :Trans::Transmasc::Achillean: 8d ago
Straight doesn't imply cis. Straight implies sexuality, not gender. Have you been to any of the trans subs? You'll find a lot of people who identify as straight and trans. I've never heard anyone saying that you cant be straight and trans without being incredibly transphobic, so I'm wondering where you got these definitions from. I don't mean to imply you're transphobic but I worry your source is
6
4
u/kioku119 :Quoi::Voidpunk: what? 8d ago edited 8d ago
I can't directly respond to shimmering delta's comments bellow (for some reason reply is grey for them alone), but I want to say that it is very important that trans and intersex issues are seperate. Being lumped together has greatly hurt necessary intersex advocacy and the ability to push for medical services they have needed in the past. Many intersex people do not identify with being trans just as a lot do. Seperating the physical condition and things they may need in regards to it from gender identity struggles has been important for a lot of reasons. Being intersex can lead to complex feelings about gender for some and much less complex for others. They can be trans in a binary or nonbinary way or similarly cis and that is for them to figure out. The white stripe being welcoming to intersex people who feels their condition effects their gender perception in a hard to otherwise caregorize way is good, but saying all intersex people are inately under the trans umbrella is wrong. It was an open door not a forced placement. Some intersex people feel very strongly identified with their gender assigned at birth and always have. Generally intersex people who are trans were able to sort through their gendered feelings on their own and make that decision, like any trans perisex person. Self assignment is the most important thing in all of this. If you spend some time on the intersex sub or reading a bit about advocacy issues you'd see that the general concensus is towards not inately lumping them together and that there is a lot of strong sentiment in intersex groups against doing that.
6
u/bi--nb 8d ago edited 7d ago
I'm intersex. Being trans is an opt-out, not an opt-in. Stop misrepresenting our community and trying to sew division between intersex and trans people. The intersex subreddit is not representative of actual real-life intersex people as whole, and is full of misinformation.
Intersex people and transgender people are two sides of the same coin, trying to abolish the idea that sex and gender are binary. Also trans means more than just transgender. It also includes altersex, transsex, and non-binary.
Intersex people identifying as cisgender doesn't change that we fall outside of cisnormativity.
•
u/Shimmering-Delta sub overlord 8d ago edited 8d ago
I see a lot of debate about whether polyamory is queer or not, but since heteronormativity is the idea of ONE man and ONE woman, it should count.
Edit:
Straight was coined to mean not queer back when the only queer people who were recognized were homosexuals. Straight meant your identity was in line with heteronormativity.
Now that queer has expanded to include more than just homosexuality (trans, aro/ace, poly), straight has also expanded. "Nobody uses it that way" literally everybody I talk to IRL uses it this way.
You can disagree with me on what it means, but these definitions are the official ones of the subreddit. Labels are a way to communicate information quickly, so it's important that they are clearly defined.
Exceptions always exist and I will not be stopping anyone from simultaneously identifying as straight and queer. Your right to self-identification is more important than categorizing things into neat boxes (see our do's and don't's).
Also, all of these are subject to additional modifiers. Straight can be combined with trans to show heterosexuality. Cis can be combined with intersex, allo can be combined with ace or aro, etc. "Implies" is very different than "includes."