Non binary

Thanks, yes, that’s a nice example. I’ll steal borrow it.

[Charles VI of France (also known as Charles le Bien Aimé but also as Charles le Fou (“Well-beloved”; “Mad”)) was perhaps the best-known sufferer from this ‘Glass Delusion’. (See, e.g., "El licenciado Vidriera" and the Glass Men of Early Modern Europe, Gill Speak, The Modern Language Review, Vol. 85, No. 4 (Oct., 1990), pp. 850-865.)]

The analogy with non-binary (and trans) delusions is particularly apt, I think @NoBinturongsHereMate (and @JHound if you're still about).

One person who identifies as non binary person and another person who ID as non binary don't actually know exactly how each other feels because it's based upon what it means to them.
In the same way there are lots of religions and religious materials and different places to go and foods to eat. Beliefs are ultimately all up to the individual.
The issue isn't with people having their own beliefs, it's when they're imposed on others.
Actual physical being is separate from beliefs. We are all what we physically are and we cannot think ourselves out of having a physical body.

There are people who are absolutely certain they're made of glass. I'm sure they know how they feel too. But they're not made of glass, and don't actually know how it would feel to be so.

Thanks for the response.

I think you may be confusing someone knowing how he or she feels with someone understanding what something is like.

Of course there's an important sense in which a person knows how he or she feels. That's clear. But, well, understanding what something is like is different, isn't it?

I may well know how I feel, whilst not understanding what it's like to be something-or-other.

And it's not possible for me to understand what it's like to be something it's not possible to be, is it?

So, for all that the non-binary person knows how he or she feels, he or she cannot at all understand what it's like for a human to be neither a man nor a woman (since this is impossible).

Hmm?

It matters because the whole belief system that underpins ‘non-binary’ is unscientific and based on regressive sex stereotypes. It harms women and children especially.

People can hold whatever beliefs they like about themselves but non-binary and trans people tend to seek to impose these beliefs on others and some are very nasty if you do not capitulate.

Most other people who hold beliefs that are not founded in science or reality are reasonable and mature enough to accept that others do not share their belief. The gender believers don’t seem to appreciate that others are not required to recognise or acknowledge their made up identities.

But they do need you to play along with their demands that you pretend that they are neither male or female because of their haircut.

I am sure the Schizophrenic knows exactly how they feel, too.

It doesn't make the delusion less of a delusion.

How does it matter? OP is not on a date with this person.

I think the non-binary person knows exactly how they feel.

They don’t need you to think for them.

No, the non-binary person only thinks he or she understands.

There's no such thing as a human who is neither man nor woman. So there's nothing it can feel like for a human to be that. You might think you understand how it feels to be something impossible, but actually you don't (because you can't).

People often think they understand things they don't. Hmm, @JHound?

Your right not to be assaulted do trump his right to be employed by the hospital

Any doctor who says that is saying she/he would commit an assault and that she/he expected other staff to assist.

The NHS have a problem in that they are now allowing the doctor to work in an environment which is hostile to staff whistleblowing should such a situation arise.

On the language bit. One of the other UK hospitals had instructions for staff to imagine you were a White woman objecting to a Black woman. So the space between trans and woman carries a whole lot of socialisation as it attempts to fundementally change society's understanding of sex.

And he is likely hetero/bi as he is married to a woman (or claims to be).

It does matter - for the reasons stated by @TheKeatingFive but also because I would like to discourage (being polite) a belief system that perpetuates regressive sex stereotypes.

Very few people conform completely to gender roles or sex-based stereotypes.

Well it wouldn't matter at all if we weren't being asked to change our speech. But as we're being asked for special pronouns, I think we're entitled to a smidge more explanation than 'it's my feeling'.

Does it matter if you don’t understand what it feels like?

The non-binary person understands and that’s all that matters.

and stuff like this would prevent me from getting medical care as i would walk out if i saw a male dressing as a female

I want a female dr due to my past, not a male dressing as a female

My right to healthcare should trump his right to advertise who he is between the sheets

A scottish A&E doctor stated in open court that he would expect you (be you male or female) to submit to him carrying out a medical exam when you made it clear that you wanted and only gave permission to a female doctor.

He expected that all of the medical team involved in your care would pretend that he was female and so had your permission to carry put the exam.

His A&E supervisor basicly agreed as she was willing to sack a nurse who refused to comply and see him as a woman.

If it was "the weird and oddballs" most people would not care. But its gotten to the stage where people need to go to court to get a legal ruling on if they and others have to participate /support the ideology that man is a woman or a woman is a man

Well if men are insisting on entering women's spaces on the grounds of their 'gender identity' - isn't that men making it a battle ground? Don't women have the right to defend their spaces? Their boundaries?

Or do you support men in women's prisons, rape crisis centres, domestic violence refuges, lesbian dating spaces, sports?

Oh, I am thinking through, more than you might imagine. I don’t insist on calling anyone anything, btw.

‘Sex-based rights’, ‘women have to tolerate men in those spaces’ - yes, indeed, so what? Make anything a battleground and it gets bloody.

my tactic is always to be polite, act reasonably and not use wrong sex pronouns. If i have to repeat their name 6 times and it sounds stupid to everyone, they can feel free to think why that might be.

I can't misgender as there are massive fines where i live for doing that. unless the probably incoming right-wing government repeal SelfID

Always worth posting this for the uninitiated

fairplayforwomen.com/pronouns/

Even if by humouring the weird and being kind to the oddballs we are complicit in the erosion of language and nuanced debate? There is a need for discussion of new terms that become mainstream. What do they mean, how do they fit in to existing language, do they replace another word or do they fit between words?

Non-binary is a term that defines what a person doesn't identify as rather than what they do. If I describe my pets as 'non-equine' you would have follow up questions due to the nature of my statement.

But you aren't thinking through the consequences of 'humouring the weird'.

By prioritising 'gender' over sex, you make it harder for women to assert their sex based rights.

If you insist on calling a man 'she' you make is harder to say that 'she' shouldn't be in women's changing rooms, rape counselling sessions and prisons. And when we get to the point where women have to tolerate men inthose spaces - that's big stuff, but small stuff.

Facts matter, reality matters, language is fundamental

If i am addressed by, say, the doctor's receptionist as "miss" and i say "actually it's Mrs" and they persist with Miss to ... who knows, annoy me? then i will be annoyed and probably address them by a slightly different version of their name to annoy them back. Because i am petty.

I have been addressed in letters and emall as "mr Brefugee" countless times because i a) work in a hugely male dominated industry and b) always sign off with initial + surname so that they don't ignore me (happens a lot) because I'm a woman. Misgendering me doesn't bother me, but if they have met me, done the usual "oh, i thought you were a man" (or version thereof) and persist in addressing me as "mr" i assume they do it for some petty reason of their own. I adjust my response times to their requests where it doesn't impact anyone else. etc etc.

And - sign - yes i KNOW whoever it was didn't mean "all over 40s" but the casual ageism on this site is fucking tedious and i will mention it whenever i feel like it, thanks.

Oddly enough, I don’t sweat the small stuff. If people want to call me ‘Granny’ or ‘unsaved Elspeth’, that’s not a big deal, even if I think it’s daft.

What bugs me about this whole thing is that people are totally hung up on their own definitions of what is or is not ‘fact’, and then are as demanding and dogmatic about these things as those they are loudly objecting to. Get a life, people! Humour the weird and be kind to the oddballs.