The only person who gets a vote in someone's gender or sexual identity is the person whose identity it is.

No exceptions, no caveats.

When someone tells you what their identity is, they're the authority, not you. So stfu, because YOU DON'T GET A VOTE.

"But it hurts us if someone's faking being trans! It means the cis won't believe us!"

The cis already don't believe us. The cis aren't going to believe us more or less based on your gatekeeping. All you are doing is destroying internal solidarity. You're not defending shit.

"It invalidates me because--"

No, it doesn't. Nothing can make you LESS who you are except YOU. If you're threatened by someone else's identity, that's a You Problem. It's not a Them Problem, and trying to make your insecurity someone else's problem is Bad.

"But if we don't gatekeep then men will think they can have access to lesbians!"

1) That's victim-blaming. Blaming victims of harassment for "bringing it on" is victim-blaming.
2) Men ALREADY THINK they have access to lesbians and your gatekeeping isn't going to fix it.

I cannot say this often enough or loud enough:

THE ONLY PERSON WHO GETS A VOTE IN YOUR IDENTITY IS YOU.

That comes with the corollary:

YOU DON'T GET A VOTE IN ANYONE ELSE'S IDENTITY.

"But what about--"

Nope!

"But it's bad if--"

Mind your business.

"But I'm threatened by--"

That's a You Problem.

All of the ACTUAL problems are behavior problems, not identity problems. If someone is actually sexually predating upon people, that's a behavior problem, not an identity problem. If someone is espousing TERF rhetoric, that's a behavior problem.

And, let's be clear, this "I'm going to examine your Twitter bio and see if you're sufficiently ideologically pure, only the Right People can be considered trans, non-binary people are basically cis (and woman lite really), etc etc etc" it's 100% born out of TERF nonsense.

This idea that we have to all sit in these tiny little diced-up boxes where we have proven we are sufficiently "correct" and therefore worthy of not being harassed by cishetperiallo ppl sprung out of the forehead of TERFdom like some sort of pussy-hat gendercrit anti-Athena.

Cause there ain't no wisdom in that shit.

Anyway, whatever.

Your identity is yours and you don't need my validation. If you tell me you're a lesbian, okay. If you tell me that you're trans, okay. It's not up to me to tell you that you're not.

And for those who say that "oh this will let cis men tell us that they're lesbians and what will happen then?"

Well, for one thing, if they're doing it to harass lesbians, it's the harassment that's the problem, not the identity. They might also be pre-hatching trans people, so.

I'd rather deal with 99 cis dude trolls saying "I identify as trans!" & being ejected from community based on BEHAVIOR than gatekeeping one trans man who's comfortable with the identity or one pre-hatching transfem egg.

And you KNOW the proportions aren't like that. So.

Anyway. You get to decide who YOU are, and not who anyone else is.

So the question is, are you gonna be reaching down into the water and pulling drowning people onto your boat, or are you gonna be stomping on their fingers and yelling YOU AREN'T THE RIGHT KIND OF GAY!

Your choice, I guess.

P.S. you won't get any serotonin from me by responding with bullshit kpop videos or nonsense gatekeeping garbage. I'll never respond, just block you. So don't bother.