If you read the interactions in this thread it’s heavily implied that comrades who think speculating about the gender identity of a dead person is disrespectful are engaging in transphobia. I didn’t mean to come across “aggro”.

[–] mathemachristian@hexbear.net 5 points 7 hours ago

"I'm just calmly reinforcing cisnormativity here, why are all these women getting so upset at me?"

[–] SerialExperimentsGay@hexbear.net 8 points 18 hours ago

Your line of argument here is "saying somebody may have been a trans woman is disrespectful". At the same time, you seriously claim to not be transphobic. And no, you do not come across as aggro, you come off as somebody engaging in transmisogyny with all the calm, self-confidence and absolute belief to be in the right that is typical for transmisogynists in a society hell-bent on exterminating us.

[–] 389aaa@hexbear.net 10 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago) (1 children)

One can engage in transphobic behavior without being transphobic as a person. As I said, internalized transmisogyny is not uncommon.

For the record, every single trans woman I've ever told about Lilly's accounts and situation immediately identified her as a trans woman that was partially in the closet, as is very common for us especially when we're in situations where we cannot feasibly transition.

[–] moss_icon@hexbear.net 7 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

I am bigender, not a transgender woman, but only using a certain name and pronouns on certain websites is something I do.

As mentioned elsewhere in this thread, I go by Alice on some websites (e.g. Tumblr, BlueSky) but not all (my Instagram, WhatsApp etc are still under my legal name)

I think it’s fairly obvious that Bushnell was genderqueer if not a transgender woman. I don’t see what other evidence one could need other than her explicitly listing her pronouns as she/her on multiple platforms.

[–] 389aaa@hexbear.net 10 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago) (1 children)

Yes, at bare minimum I agree with you - I am bigender myself, by the way, though definitely a trans woman first - but overall when picturing the whole situation it really seems to me like she was partially in the closet, the fact that she was in the military and was raised in a weird christian cult makes that idea, at least to all the trans women I've personally told about this, even more clear and obvious.

Obviously there's no smoking gun, but I think there is more than enough reason to come to that conclusion on her. Some of the strong pushback here is probably because, even if she was just genderqueer or non-physically-transitioning bigender or whatever, it seems very clear to me that most of the people (not you) arguing strongly against this in this thread are never calling to call her a her or call her Lilly and are arguing this point as an excuse to continue using he/him and 'Aaron' exclusively. Whether they know that or not, as internalized transmisogyny is quite rampant.

[–] moss_icon@hexbear.net 5 points 19 hours ago

Definitely. I wasn’t arguing she was more likely to be bigender, I think I probably could have worded my post better (I’m running on fuck all sleep today). Was just saying that she was almost certainly not cis either way.

The fact that she only used her legal name on LinkedIn and Facebook (which are much less anonymous platforms than say Tumblr) would suggest she was closeted in her personal life, it is not an argument to suggest that she had changed her mind or, as that one Reddit thread seemed to be suggesting, was just taking the piss for whatever reason.