groups based on interest/activity vs groups based on identity?

[gender_euphoric]

Do you think the future of trans and nb community will have more to do with actions/interests/activities vs groups based around identity words? I noticed on the soon-to-be gone Imzy.com a community based on binding was more successful than most of the trans groups I could find. And while it was definitely trans inclusive/friendly, it didn't assume anything about the ppl posting's identities. It was purely based around the activity of binding.

On facebook there's a particular top surgery group I'm in and they've become more committed to being inclusive of nonbinary, nonconforming, and similar people. There are also people out there who are or live as binary women who want top surgery. There's been minor controversy about whether those folks should be in the group.

Also, sometimes trans women ask about binding in trans male-leaning communities--usually they are needing to hide breast growth for various reasons. I also assume some section of trans women and amab NBs might want to take hrt but might not actually want breast growth, so for them, top surgery and/or binding could be a solution.

I also wonder about the future of trans X, exclusive community/support spaces. Does birth sex assignment matter as much as previously thought?
anyway, just opening a discussion topic
-jay

Comments

[kindkit]

I only have a tiny amount of experience with trans* communities in meatspace or online, and that's partly because of some of the identity issues you touched on. The one time I went to a trans* support group, I felt kind of excluded because most of the other men there seemed to be living the dominant narrative of True Transness: they knew from childhood that they were trans*, they were straight, their behavior/personalities fitted pretty well into conventional masculinity, they looked conventionally male thanks to hormones and/or surgery and weren't at risk of being misgendered. None of that is true for me. I could see something like a binding community being less intimidating, more open to people who, for example, are still in the process of working out their identity, or people who are trans* but don't necessarily want to adopt conventional gender roles the way trans* people are still pressured to do, or who (like me) have body shapes that are hard to reshape into what would feel right. All this in addition to being welcoming of nonbinary etc. people, as you mention.

There's still a role for communities based on gender identity, I think--for instance I can absolutely see why trans* women would want to be able to have communities without men in them. Trans* women's and trans* men's issues aren't identical, and sometimes we need to focus on particularities. I guess ideally there would be a lot of different kinds of trans* communities, so that we can support each other without any pressure to fit into some One True Way.

[maunzikation]

With Imzy shutting down, /binding has moved to dreamwidth as diybinder, come join if you want :)

But more on topic…

In my experience, interest-based and identity-based groups have very similar issues: Assumptions are being made about the people who want to join them, which may result in dynamics that drive people away from community and information that they need, or sometimes even result in rules that explicitly exclude people who do not fit a certain narrative.

In a thematic group that is theoretically open to everyone who needs the information, that could present as repeated assumptions about who will want to take which kind of hormones. In an identity-based group, that could be a "your look is feminine, are you sure you're nonbinary"-type mindset.

I think that it's more about how these issues are handled than about the focus of the group.

For example, I know a meatspace nonbinary group in which these fuckups are not unheard of, but are usually confronted in some way, often by the person who said it themself because it is really just internalised transmisia directed against themself or something, and the people that I worry about being put off usually return and the issues don't get repeated and the group keeps getting more ~diverse~, not less.

And while I sometimes like the focus on a certain topic (binders are fun! Pretty colorful patterned binders are fun!), I'm usually too shy to actually join a group that is for example about top surgery, even though that is something that I want, and instead enjoy being in a group that doesn't have this focus, but still lets me gather some information about it.

The question about transmaculine/transfeminine issues is always a bit complicated because it tends to ignore both intersex trans people, and non-intersex trans (often nonbinary) people that are, for example, usually assumed to be transfeminine but are really afab. I mean… these things tend to assume a continuity of experiences that just isn't there for some people.

Both trans groups with a broader focus and lots of different people and topics could be a solution in that case, and thematic groups that don't assume that the participants have anything in common except that one topic of the group.

I guess ideally there would be a lot of different kinds of trans* communities, so that we can support each other without any pressure to fit into some One True Way.

Yes, this. I really don't think it's one or the other. Both can work in different situations and for different people, and both need some commitment to make them as inclusive as possible.

[kindkit]

Thanks for the link to the binding community--I have joined.

some commitment to make them as inclusive as possible

Yeah, it sounds like that's the key thing. A big commitment and a willingness to adapt.

[pauraque]

I do think there is potential for an activity-based group to be more inclusive and less intimidating than an identity-based group. Sometimes it is easier to say "I do this" rather than "I am this".

There is value in identity-based support spaces, but if they define themselves too narrowly they can inadvertently become identity-policing, as kindkit alluded to. In my experience the most successful identity-based groups I've seen leaned more on the inclusive side as well. I was in a trans/gender questioning peer support group IRL and I benefited enormously from being around people whose identities differed from my own. We spent a lot of time discussing areas where our experiences were different and where they were parallel even if not the same.