Weird Route Thoughts

[bedes]

Honestly, I don't think that Kris being nonbinary invalidates the idea of the Weird Route being a metaphor for compulsory heterosexuality. Nonbinary people can play the part of binary genders, socially speaking, even if that doesn't match with their internal sense of gender.

Even aside from that, I also don't think that the genders have to line up with what you're commentating on in order to be effective commentary, either. Het couples can be queer-coded within their story.

Also the majority of people I see getting angry at people who interpret this NB/F relationship as a commentary on male/female relationships are the exact same people who call that same NB/F relationship "yuri" so, like. You can't have it both ways, you know? Either it's erasure to see Kris as a gendered figure for the sake of viewing their relationship with Noelle in a certain way, or it's not. (And saying that it's a comphet metaphor doesn't even imply that Kris fully is a boy, just a metaphorical stand-in for a boy.)

Comments

[zavodilaterrarium]

People are SO weird about NB/genderqueer people in relationships. I sometimes joke that I'm "lesbian" (kinda, more accurately a "god of lesbians", which is not the same thing imo), as I'm a genderfluid person who has a more consistent attraction to women, but that doesn't mean that I see myself as a feminine gender most of the time. I don't think of my theoretical romantic relationships with women as being specifically sapphic — it would just be Me and My Partner/s. Yet, people, even friends, very often remember me as simply a lesbian, which genuinely does make me kinda uncomfortable.

[bedes]

A lot of genderqueer people's relationship to... well, relationships, and attraction generally, is unique to them. I'm multigender (like you!), and I see my attraction to women as sapphic, and my attraction to men as achillean (MLM). Someone could have an almost identical experience with their gender to me, and decide to disregard labels like "straight" or "gay" entirely, or decide that it is straight and gay at the same time, etc, etc.

It's easy for people to put nonbinaries in a box of "boy non-binary" and "girl non-binary", and the whole thing about expecting them to label their attraction in a way that aligns with cisgender norms is a form of that. Genderqueer people have a whole array of different experiences, so I find it strange when people try to police how nonbinary characters' relationships are viewed.