Dowsing for Divinity

I just saw this post on Threads and it is something that I have been noticing a lot as well. And it does make me feel excluded, as a nonbinary person. It also makes older cis women feel excluded (because “girls” implies younger women).

There’s an assumption in many witch spaces that all witches are women. This often gets perpetuated in witch books as well. This bugs me. There are male witches, nonbinary witches. Witchcraft is not restricted to one gender, nor to any other social category.

Men and gender-nonconforming people were also executed for witchcraft during the witch persecutions.

I’m still a feminist but I find that a lot of feminist spaces are completely clueless about including nonbinary people. So I find myself being much more comfortable in queer spaces.

I was asked by someone “why do you care about feminist issues if you don’t identify as a woman?”

1. Everyone should care about “feminist” issues. Misogyny affects nonbinary people, trans men, trans women (even cis men to some extent).
2. I still get read as a woman 99.99% of the time. Being nonbinary doesn’t give me a magic card to escape misogyny.
3. I don’t “identify as” — I am nonbinary.

People have been saying that gender is a construct and the qualities attributed to specific genders are arbitrary since at least the 1960s, possibly earlier. I recently reread Dreaming the Dark by Starhawk (written in 1982) and she says this in the book.

If you’re creating a gendered space, please ask yourself if it needs to be gendered, and why? What behaviours are you trying to avoid by creating a space that is only for one gender? If the problem is that cis men take up too much space, maybe create a space with clear boundaries that prevent mansplaining or other unwanted behaviours.

If you’re creating a group around a topic that genuinely only interests people with wombs, at least take the time to include everyone who has a womb — cis women, trans men, AFAB nonbinary people. But also consider that people who don’t have wombs (cis men, trans women, AMAB nonbinary people) might also be interested in the topic because of solidarity.

So instead of asking “where are my girlies interested in [topic]?” Why not ask “where are my people interested in [topic]?” Or “where are the people who like to share ideas about [topic] without grandstanding, mansplaining, or whitesplaining?”

---

Previous posts on this topic

• Repost: How to use gender-inclusive language
• People who menstruate
• Including trans people
• Let’s Talk About Gender