To think “non-binary” is becoming a fashion statement for some people rather than a true identity?

@Helleofabore

While she is ‘doing what she wants’, she is also rejecting everything about her that is female, including demanding that people even remove the language needed for female people to describe themselves which is harmful
to women and girls, and removing any achievements of female people. Worse it adds another layer of oppression onto female people. Rejecting being female doesn’t help anyone in the long run, not the person doing this and certainly not female people collectively.

As I noted, she clearly isn’t rejecting everything about being female - she uses makeup, dresses quite feminine, wear heels etc. She also doesn’t “demand” others use pronouns. You did read that, right?

My friend is defining what womanhood means for her. At the moment, for complex reasons, including trauma, she doesn’t want to be described by the stereotypical boundaries of ‘woman’. That’s entirely up to her, and quite a feminist action.

Women can't really wear 'men's clothes' as such, because trousers and flat shoes are universal. To signal their non binaryness, they have to wear bow ties, suits and waistcoats. Which men either never wear, or wear for special occasions. If they don't do the suits and bow ties then they just look like boring normies, and if they do wear the suits and bow ties they look like miniature experts from Bargain Hunt.

Regressive stereotypes, and any for that matter, are part of a cultural experience – so cultural experience.

If people stopped pandering to this shit they’d have to give it up and realise they’re being ridiculous 🤷

Maybe I'm just too old or uncool or whatever, but I always just think it looks rubbish. I can really empathise, very strongly, with not wanting to present as either male or female. But there's a thousand ways to do this, why always go for the stupid hair dye and ugly piercings?

Its as true an identity as being a Leo or a Scorpio etc. Always was, always will be.

Teens used to become goths or whatever , now they become non binary. It's massively fashionable amongst teens.

It's also really fashionable at my child's school to say you are a lesbian around year 8 or 9. Then around year 10/11 most change their minds and get boyfriends.

That sounds like Philip/Pips Bunce:

https://www.whatisawoman.uk/PippaBunce/

Not trousers the rebel !

He sounds like he is a control freak rather than struggling with his internal self.
🙄

No, that's rubbish. You're a woman ONLY because you were born female. And are an adult.

Nobody is a woman because "that's how they identify". Sorry to be blunt but if you weren't born female, then you aren't, and never will be, a woman.

"If the chromosome's XY
He will always be a guy" 🎵🎶🎵

Non binary always makes me laugh.

At a friends place of work (in finance!) there is one guy who turns up on alternate days dressed in a suit and in a dress. And he has men’s and women’s versions of the names he likes to be called depending on whether it is a suit day or dress day.

He is married with children.

To me, this is just dress up and should be left behind pre adolescence.

@porridgecake ,

‘The handmaids, teachers, hcps and idiot politicians that have supported this ideology are beneath contempt and I hope they eventually get what they deserve.’

Teachers have no choice in teaching this stuff (might have changed since Supreme Court judgment). I heavily caveated the prepared materials I had to teach in form time, but then it was my second career and getting sacked wouldn’t have mattered financially. Most teachers can’t afford to risk their careers over it.

@Helleofabore rather similar to neuro divergent vs neuro typical debate. If there is no test for neuro typical how do you know you are?

My non binary friend (woman) goes into girl mode or boy mode. Boy mode normally means wearing a hat and trousers. It’s quite ridiculous.

For anyone to be non-binary, the rest of us have to exist in a binary unless we too declare that we are non-binary. And when it is realised that everyone is non-binary because no one fits exactly the enforced binary, what then?

In effect it artificially pushes people into a binary.

It is the opposite of ‘feminist’.

While she is ‘doing what she wants’, she is also rejecting everything about her that is female, including demanding that people even remove the language needed for female people to describe themselves which is harmful
to women and girls, and removing any achievements of female people. Worse it adds another layer of oppression onto female people. Rejecting being female doesn’t help anyone in the long run, not the person doing this and certainly not female people collectively.

And liberating female people from oppression collectively is what feminism is about.

What she is doing is purely focused on herself as an individual. It is individualism not collectivism. Feminism is focusing on the collective.

By rejecting that she is female, she is also adding to the social and professional burden of many people by demanding they act as if her belief is based in reality. When it is the opposite but now anyone who doesn’t act in compliance to that belief can be censured, even to the point of losing their job. When people talk about the narcissism of these gender identities, this is what they refer too.

So now you have an individual who rather than working to progress female people is working at erasing the very language needed to protect female people after all, if you cannot use the word women, female, mother or girl with precision and clarity, it is harder to protect that group of people.

Feminists didn’t deny they were women, they also didn’t fight to be treated as if they were male people. Feminists fought for equal opportunity. They fought so that female people had the opportunities that a male person had while acknowledging that they had a female body.

A great example of this is Quinn. Now you have female sporting great such as Quinn who isn’t discussed as being a great female footballer. Quinn is a great non-binary footballer. One who happens to qualify for playing female football but cannot be described as ‘female’.

Of course, if Quinn wanted to join a team of male footballers who were also non-binary, she wouldn’t be selected because the male footballers are all quicker and more powerful with the same skill level. This is what we see in the non-binary athletics categories. It is only the male non-binary people winning. So, what has Quinn achieved collectively for female people if history cannot describe Quinn as an exceptional female athlete?

For herself as an individual, sure Quinn is being selected for teams and winning awards. She is also able to do that because other female people fought hard to get her that right. To be recognised as a great non-binary footballer, Quinn though has to be measured against the very binary she is rejecting.

How is this progressive? How is this coherent?

So no. Your acquaintance is not a feminist at all. Unless you only believe feminists are about having the freedom to do what you want.

Yes, it’s the enablers and useful idiots that I am so cross with (apart from the dodgy blokes pushing all this) - they have been told if the very real harms and issues so many times but they are so arrogant as to insist they are right and refuse to listen.

As with so many of these ‘alternative’ social groups largely populated by teens there is a bit of a uniform.

For the girls it’s brightly coloured short hair, baggy t shirts/jeans, hoodies. Maybe some aggressive face piercings. Sometimes they go as far as removing their breasts.

Boys don’t tend to commit quite as strongly, a skirt here, some interesting hair, definitely nail polish and thankfully it is rare that they remove their penis and/or testicles although it does happen sometimes. They seem more likely to expect to use women’s spaces for *reasons.

This, 100%.

Sadly there are a large number of shy, awkward, poorly socialised young people, struggling in our brutal education system, battered by the demands and expectations of social media and peer pressure more than ever before. We have been through a decade where announcing one is trans or nonbinary can be an instant fix, resulting in social acceptance, popularity, specialness.
This trend is fading out out now and a slightly younger cohort are beginning to realise they have been misled.
We are left with the older, mostly white males, cross dressers and the 3 letter types, making the most noise, furious that the public have rumbled them.
The handmaids, teachers, hcps and idiot politicians that have supported this ideology are beneath contempt and I hope they eventually get what they deserve.

Non binary is made up crap I can say I'm a cat but it doesn't mean I am one 😆

How does one dress as a non binary?

She’s rejecting, inwardly, gender norms where they suppress women and doing what feels right to her. It’s quite a feminist action, really, if a radical one

No, it’s really not. She’s reifying those stereotypes and letting them rule her life. The radical thing to do would be to say she’s a woman and doesn’t give a fuck about gender stereotypes. In reality, what’s she’s saying is she does, and that you can only be a woman if you comply with gender stereotypes.

There’s nothing feminist or radical about defining yourself by how much you align with stupid, oppressive stereotypes. She’s just handing power to those stereotypes. It’s also highly offensive to every other woman. What the AF does she think we’re doing? All complying with those stereotypes???

I’m acquainted with a lovely NB young woman. She has a long-term boyfriend, wears make-up and dresses in a conventional feminine manner. It doesn’t matter to her if we sometimes slip up and use “her” or “ she” instead of “they” and “them”.

She also has significant trauma in her past. She’s rejecting, inwardly, gender norms where they suppress women and doing what feels right to her. It’s quite a feminist action, really, if a radical one.

I've been trying REALLY hard not to express my exasperation, particularly as others are explaining stuff so well. I have failed. This, to me, sums up the internal incoherence of the 'gender identity' fallacy:

Being non-binary isn’t about rejecting femininity or not fitting a mould, it’s about not identifying as solely male or female at all. So your example actually reinforces the point: gender identity is internal. You know you’re a woman.

You can't rationally agree that gender is a set of social constructs & stereotypes - which it is, as you have demonstrated, because it's situation dependent - and then segue into the assumption that gender equals sex.

Either a 'gender identity' is a self-evaluation in relation to the cultural expectations of each sex, or it's a statement that the person doesn't accept the sex of their body. It can't be both unless you're starting from the premise that gendered conventions determine sex.

Cultural mores do not determine sex. That much is obvious, I hope.

If you feel you don't want to be defined by your culture's rules on which sex can do what, then good for you. You're normal.

If you feel that the sex of your body dictates what you may or may not do, you're a victim of gender ideology or living in a deeply oppressive society. My sympathies either way, but it doesn't mean you have a special 'gender identity'. It means you're a fully functional human being who's being unfairly hemmed in by other people's beliefs.

If you feel you don't know, or can't accept, the fundamental fact of your physical sex, you've got a distressing mental health problem and I hope you manage to come to terms with it before too long. Because nothing can change your sex.

The PP you replied to knows her body's female. You seem to be saying this means she has a gender identity (female). Yet she's just said she's a female who chooses not to be hemmed in by 'gender'. So, by the parameters you've set out, she doesn't have a gender identity? But somehow she does?

It's incoherent. And, going back to your OP, YABU to think any gender identity is anything other than performative. It's an utterly depressing validation of society's gender rules. The more vehemently a person claims they must be trans/enby to exist outside those rules, the more power they yield to the rules.