Q&A: “Can a maverique person consider themself man or woman-aligned?”

anonymous said:

You may have answered a similar question before, and if so I apologize, it’s possible that I missed it! I was wondering, can a maverique person consider themself man or woman-aligned? And if a person considered themself woman-aligned and maverique, could they consider themself sapphic, or would you say being sapphic is inherently at odds with being maverique? Navigating the recent alignment discourse as a maverique has been rough for me, and I’d like to hear your thoughts.

hi, anon.

no worries. i’ve answered a similar question before, but not on this blog. check out what i said [ here ] over on @maveriques​. i’m afraid that my answer to the question you’ve asked has not changed at all since responding to the linked ask.

that said, i’m really sorry to hear that recent aligned terminology (i’m not caught up at all on any related discourse) has been rough for you to navigate. i know for a fact that you are not at all alone in feeling that way.

i myself disregard such “alignment” terminology entirely when it comes to myself personally, because it feels cumbersome and superfluous for me to even try. trying to navigate such terminology comes at more cost in terms of emotional labor / mental strain than it does actual benefits for me. that said, when it comes to such terminology as “sapphic”, “diamoric”, “enbian”, etc, i am more interested in navigating that terminology, although it’s still difficult to do so.

something to take into consideration might be whether navigating “alignment” terminology is even necessary to access sapphic identity….? i personally do not feel that it is, but i know that there’s no shortage of people who would disagree. when it comes to terminology, i am all for picking and choosing what works for you and discarding all of the rest.

sorry for not being of more help, anon.