Non binary

My neighbour has had blue hair, she's a dog trainer. She's a mother, a grandmother, she's nearly 80. She's fit as a fiddle. Quite average in her views. Her hair colours over the years have made no difference to her life. Why does hair colour bother you? We know people with low intelligence are bothered by it, also preditors are confused by it, which are you?

I remember when "if you don't have long hair you're not a real girl" etc was the kind of thing said by particularly thick and nasty six-year-olds

You must be either old enough to be my mother, or young enough to be my daughter. At least half the girls in my class when I was 6 had either a pixie cut, or the same bowl cut as their brothers. I only remeber 1 with hair below her shoulders. Most of our mothers had short hair, and every single one of our grandmothers.

It's so depressing that we've regressed this far.

Some of us feel particularly distant from typical behaviour for our sex, without necessarily strongly identifying with the opposite sex either.

This is hardly a new thing but what is new is the idea that you can opt out of all sex-specific linguistic descriptors and make a big thing out of how different you are and apparently this will somehow make everything better.

If you're extra keen to be different you can show it by dressing in exactly the same way as the other non-binary people.

I remember when "if you don't have long hair you're not a real girl" etc was the kind of thing said by particularly thick and nasty six-year-olds, but now apparently it's considered right on.

I'm a woman married to a man. Our marriage was conducted by registrars in a hotel; I presume our "marriage" is just a bit of paper too?

Does that mean that you'd only recognise marriages by "your" God? So if you're a Muslim then you don't recognise Christian marriage? Or vice-versa?

@WaitingfordoggoI assume not as it would be their sperm and womb, but a donated egg.
I doubt the person exists anyway.

Does that mean you think people that aren't religious that marry in a registry office aren't really married?

Marriage is literally a piece of paper. That is what it is. Marriage pre-dates Christianity. Its a contract with the government for the purposes of taxation and property. Churches jumped on the bandwagon to make money - as usual. But marriage is a government construct. Nothing to do with any God.

So as marriage has nothing to do with any God, and as it is a government construct and contract, and gay marriage is legal, they are legally married.

Not if I believe only true marriages are ordained by God. They are only 'married' because a piece of paper says so. And with a GRC a piece of paper can declare a man now becomes a woman and some countries allow people to get a piece of paper stating they are neither men nor women.

But if your gay colleague is married then his husband is his husband.
A man cannot become a woman and vice versa. And no one is non-binary. Everyone is male or female.

We have to modify our speech for gay people all the time. If I don't believe that gay marriage is a real marriage I'm still forced to call my gay colleagues partner his husband or else be shamed and called homophobic. Gays already compel speech.

One of my DC identifies as NB. It is the only thing that they have changed that has significantly helped their very poor mental health in the last 4 years and it's made a huge, huge difference.
The only people who have a problem with it are over the age of 40, as no-one under that age seems to care frankly. They take care to be respectful of older people who may not understand (e.g. GParents) and always go in the appropriate loo/changing area, matched to their sex. It can be done if there is respect from both sides of the aisle, for those who don't feel as they do.

Lol special club indeed! Well hopefully it won't be a thing for long, thanks to trailblazers like J K Rowling :-)

No you absolutely do not need to be respectful.

Non binary is tosh to many and it's fine to express that opinion.

We are currently in a destabilising world swinging to the right politically. Part of the reason that is happening is because people got sick to death of their thoughts and speech being compelled over shit like this. The right has successfully swept up many that were disaffected.

I absolutely do not respect people who try to pretend they don't have a biological sex but exist in some ethereal hinterland. Rather just being a woman that likes cricket or a man that's keen into baking.

One old acquaintance told me she's non binary because she's very feminine in her dress but assertive like a man in the workplace.

She considers herself a feminist but is actually practically an MRA. She clearly hadn't clocked that considering the trait of assertiveness to be naturally male is playing into the gender stereotypes she claims she has left behind with her special new status.

Respect is earned and declaring yourself non binary ain't the way to get it. Quite the opposite.

Sadly it is - particularly among girls and young women, many of whom are using it as a way to cope with sexualised expectations of being female, or worse as means of coping with or trying to escape the pain of abuse.

Others are still just adopting it an identity because their friends are, or perhaps they are gay or lesbian or they think it somehow gains them something (in the oppression competition or the I’m Special club)

I don't think it's a thing anymore.

This!

And in terms of there being more to it than clothes @AgnesX, I think that it part of the problem - there is no point at which being non-binary starts or ends (other than perhaps declaring yourself so) because it’s a nonsense concept - in addition to being harmful for the reasons above that it perpetuates regressive stereotypes.

There's a bit more to it than the clothes that you wear or am I missing something.

Since when was it controversial to be a short haired, non dress wearing female, who thinks this is so unusual it deems then a non female. What a load of sex stereotyping pish!!! Just makes it even more clear that the last 25 years have been regressive in term of identity politics replacing the acceptance of gay, lesbian & bisexual people as a valid naturally occurring variation in sexuality. I can't believe that in 2025 in the UK a female engineer wearing a crew cut and dungarees might be viewed or even identify as non binary. Laughable, sexist and so mysoginist.

We’re women, female, irrevocably.

We wear all sorts- trousers, frills, beanies and dungarees and skirts. make up or no make up, hair long or not. What’s different about the non binaries? In today’s language I reckon we’re all NB. We just didn’t feel the need for a special name.

As I said earlier, the word only has a function as a result of including men in the category of women.

Go back to original definitions of men and women, everything becomes much clearer and we don't need any of this garbage.

It might not be useful most of the time. However, this is a discussion about non-binary gender.

"Saltation" is a word that most people don't know. It's hardly ever useful, but is invaluable when discussing the way sand moves across the desert to form dunes.

Just because you personally don't have use for a word, doesn't mean it ceases to exist.

And you talking about which words you do or don't like, doesn't answer the OP either, does it?

How do you arrive at that conclusion? The one about women being gender fluid?? That one's news to me.

It means nothing - is just a load of navel gazing. I am female, I like wearing make up and having my hair nice. I also wear jeans 95% of the time.

I am nothing special.

Yep.
That post is nonsense.