So, as someone who tends to stay out of "discourse" and stick to fighting more institutional threats to the queer community, I've noticed something in the last couple of days as I've been seeing "exclusionist" discourse popping up.

For anyone who doesn't know, exclusionist discourse is referring to the idea that some identities within the queer community are harmful to the community. These identities include: he/him and they/them lesbians (and women), trans people without dysphoria, and aro/ace people.

Completely brushing aside the facts that individuals choosing labels hurts no one, gender fuckery has been part of the lesbian community since before there was a lesbian community, different people experience subjective feelings differently, and aro/ace is what the A is for,

There's something else hiding beneath the surface of this ideology: a certain prescriptivism that's hard to reconcile with really any interpretation of queerness, but will be quite familiar to anyone who deals with fundamentalist Christian homophobes or TERFs.

The idea behind ALL of these beliefs is the idea that there is a "right" way to be, and that anyone who fails to live up to this standard is harmful to the rest. Sound familiar? It's the same logic behind community enforcement of church morality and TERFs hating trans folks.

So where do we see this coming out? I trawled through a couple exclusionists to see the arguments they make. Here, they engage in the "you're enforcing gender roles" and "lesbian erasure" argument, both classic TERF attacks on trans women.

Here we have them mocking people who use neopronouns and microlabels while also insisting that non-binary people use a different set of labels forced upon them rather than chosen. This is the equivalent of an attack helicopter joke. It's old, it's unfunny, it's transphobic.

Here we have them actively advocating to limit peoples' ability to transition based on the idea that too many of the "wrong" people are trans - including autistic folks. Very popular in TERF circles.

Claiming that they're being bullied for their views (with no evidence), while claiming none of their community does anything wrong. Justifying misgendering, and then engaging in it. Finally, the good old "invading women's spaces" transphobic dogwhistle.

That last image was directed at me, and carried the obvious implication that I should be in men's spaces, since there are no non-binary spaces to speak of. That's the point I realized the connection between this group and TERFs was likely far more concrete than "useful idiots."

So here's my conclusion: it's likely, based on the language they use, that a number of exclusionist accounts are, in fact, sockpuppet accounts for TERFs. I suspect the rest have just been taken in by the rhetoric, not realizing what it is.

Exclusionary rhetoric is, always has been, and always will be, harmful to the entire community. It drives a wedge in our community that very real outside threats can use to strip us of our rights.

In the US, we literally have no right to healthcare access at all, and these accounts are talking about insurance coverage for transition. We have no spaces of our own, and they're accusing us of invading public ones. This benefits the religious right and no one else.