First post on gopher mirror of AotA blog

gophertag

@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Androgyne of the Archeart, phlog edition

queer_etymology_enby/gophertag

@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Queer Etymology: Enby

queer_etymology_enby/queer_etymology_enby.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,70 @@
+This post was initially published on Androgyne of the Archeart on
+16 December 2019 and republished on 20 September 2020. It can be found on the
+web at https://blog.sixy.name/2020/09/20/queer-etymology-enby/
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+There's a lot of misinformation about various LGBT/Queer terms, especially when
+it comes to neologisms coined on social media where the origin may not be well-
+documented. For this post, I'm going to address the etymology of the word 'enby'
+and the misconceptions around it.
+
+The context of this post is that within the last few months I have become aware
+of discussions around the term 'enby' and the initialism it is derived from: NB.
+Due to NB being an initialism also used in discussions of race to mean non-
+Black, some people of color have asked that people not use the initialism to
+mean nonbinary. A lot of people in these discussions have made the claim that
+the word 'enby' was coined by nonbinary people of color as an alternative to the
+initialism. This claim is false in all respects.
+
+This September 2013 post[1], originally from Tumblr user revolutionator[note] is
+the origin of the term
+
+> i wish there was an nb equivalent to words like boys and girls
+> 
+> nb
+> 
+> enby
+> 
+> enbies
+
+'Enby' is literally just intended as a nonbinary equivalent to 'boy' and 'girl',
+and the discussion of initialism collision with 'non-Black' came years later as
+far as I can tell. And as many nonbinary people have brought up, the term can be
+quite infantilizing [see 2021 addendum] and should not be used for people who
+don't use it for themself.
+
+As for the other part of the false claim, that it was coined by a person of
+color, I'll let this (partially redacted for privacy on a locked account)
+screenshot of the coiner's Twitter profile say all that needs to be said about
+that:
+
+[twitter.png]
+[Image description]
+Screenshot of someone's Twitter bio that says:
+vector/nonbin/29/white. coined "enby" lol. love ghosts and my friends.
+[japanese text not able to be copypasted from image]. nb lesbian married2cat.
+im british i just live in america
+[End image description]
+
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+Note: The link is to a Wayback archive of a reblog by Tumblr user faunmoss from
+6 years ago as of this writing in 2019. The original post itself is on a blog
+that Vector last posted to in 2015, with a large string of numbers as the
+current username and behind the post-2018 NSFW filter, which breaks links to
+direct posts outside the mobile app. Reblogging to drafts from mobile and
+checking the timestamp with Xkit shows the OP was posted on 10 September 2013:
+
+[tumblr.png]
+[Image description]
+Screenshot of the quoted revolutionator post. The displayed username is
+02348294832908091 and the timestamp says it was posted on September 10th 2013
+[End image description]
+
+[1]: https://web.archive.org/web/20191201064221/https://faunmoss.tumblr.com/post/61760779664/revolutionator-i-wish-there-was-an-nb
+
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+2021 Addendum: A couple years later, I'm not really happy with how I phrased
+this. While 'enby' can be infantilizing, it's no more so than the words it was
+coined as an analogue of (i.e. 'boy' and 'girl').