BBC "top story": How I came out as non-binary to my parents

Justhadathought That's a possible cause but is it something you would even be aware of at the start of puberty (assuming your puberty happended before you had internet access)? Your name is great by the way

"So you want you being gay to mean something to me? Why? The way non-binary people feel evidently means nothing to you."

There are (still) solid, practical aspects to being out for gay people that you don't seem to want to acknowledge. Not feelings or hurts, but real, practical consequences. I don't give a tinkers if you don't care how I feel about that, but I would expect you to care about the fact that until very very recently, I might have lost my job, or was not able to marry, or if I went to certain countries for a holiday, not be able to decide what happens to the body of my partner if they tragically died overseas. These things happened.

Subjective versus the objective.

The way non-binary people feel evidently means nothing to you.

It makes no sense to me as a concept, I don't think it is a useful or healthy way in general to understand the relations between yourself and your body, or yourself and society. I understand you feel like that, and that the concept may be useful to you and others, but I still can't agree that it is a graspable concept that the rest of us need to deal with. Rather than the alternative view, which is perhaps the problem is having the concept of 'feel like X' in the first place. Or even just putting it in a broader concept of what lesbians have done over the years (since they were likely to have dealt with such issues in the past in various ways) -- rather than, as some have done, insultingly transing gender-non-conforming lesbians from history.

I want them better because of gendered expectations and wanting to appear "attractive". I want them gone for who knows why.

Maybe because you just want 'out' of the whole business around sex and sexuality and how that constrains & oppresses you as a person?
I know the feeling.

If you want to create legislation that accommodates it or force non-sex based pronoun use or use it to claim sex based rights, it’d definitely be more helpful if it was a graspable concept.
Good point there!

"cool story bro" would be my reply

It doesn't need to be a graspable useful concept to you for it to be one for other people.
If you want to create legislation that accommodates it or force non-sex based pronoun use or use it to claim sex based rights, it’d definitely be more helpful if it was a graspable concept.

Yes, blueskies, it does remain quite opaque, even after watching a lot of Ash's careful explanations. I think that's probably because, consciously or unconsciously, they don't really want to dig into their identity and reasonings, and they don't want to make things clearer.

We aren't talking about anything which can be scientifically assessed, this is absolutely part and parcel of the emotional/religious response part of the Genderist stuff. Finding a label is designed to ease the sense of discomfort you may have about yourself - it's a sticking plaster to hold off any urgent need to investigate the causes of that discomfort.

I talk a lot here about cultic/religious behaviour, and sometimes I am quite searing in my criticism, particularly of people like Ash who are influential. But this aspect of it is something that really triggers a compassion response, because I recognize the power of these kinds of labels and ideas to provide comfort when you don't want to address the really painful stuff beneath.

SomeDyke So you want you being gay to mean something to me? Why? The way non-binary people feel evidently means nothing to you. Yes, society makes it an issue for you and I do care about that. What I said was purely in response to someone suggesting that non-binary doesn't matter. I was bullied at school for "being a boy" and even had rocks thrown at me even though I never spoke to anyone about how I felt.

I don't think I used the term "coming out" other than to say I can't see a problem with using it. If you do genuinely feel that it's a term with such special meaning to gay people that you're upset when people use it in another context then I will make an effort to not use it in the future.

Yes gender, sex and orientation are related and have a long history but a lot of people in this thread were saying non-binary people were just gay and wanting to use a different word. I'm pointing out that they don't always correlate. Perhaps "nothing to do with it" was too strong a phrase though.

do you think you'd have been better off/happier if you had instead been born female/male
Ask me that question one day and it'd be a definite "yes" others a definite "no" and sometimes "I'm not sure".

Except bodily norms aren't social, just biological!
I mean how society expects a female body to be. I feel pressure from society to be thin. However, I don't feel pressure from society to have a beard.

SomeDyke and VickyEadie: NB still makes no sense whatsoever to me, as a graspable useful concept. ... My feelings exactly.
It doesn't need to be a graspable useful concept to you for it to be one for other people.

OldCrone You're welcome. Yes, in my situation some form of counselling would be preferable and I have no intention of changing my body. Although it seems for other people surgery or hormones are what's needed.

In what way is it different? What do you mean by 'moving away from social norms'? Is it a desire to stand out rather than fit in?
I don't want to stand out, just that if I did make the changes that I often feel I need to a lot of people would likely think I'm weird. Rather than, for example, getting liposuction where lots of people would probably think I look better.

"I had not heard the specific term "stone butch" as part of lesbian culture before so looked it up. Second result was this book on amazon, but it is described as a book about transgenderism?:"
In later life, I believe the late Leslie Feinberg identified as a lesbian.

From my reading about stone butches, part of the issue was lesbians who don't want to be touched, or whose sexuality was that they were supposed to give their partner pleasure, but not have that reciprocated. Some had bodily dysphoria issues, and bound their breasts, and felt shame over their periods and femaleness of their bodies. Some have later transitioned.

The point I was trying to make was that the way such women thought about themselves, their sexuality, their gender 'identity' and their gender presentation has changed over the years. Radclyffe Hall and the congenital inverts of Havelock Ellis is different to how people think today. Why should we be so arrogant to think that current gender ideology (in terms of some semi-hidden innate gender identity) is any more correct that previous ways of thinking about these issues? Lesbians have been dealing with such issues for many years, which is often forgotten nowadays, when even calling yourself a lesbian, or knowledge about previous ways lesbians dealt with gender and sexuality is not known by the new blue-haired woke generation.........

"breast binding was sometimes a thing for butch lesbians"
I have to say, I somewhat relished it when I was younger and got mistaken for a boy. When I was older and came out, I came close to binding, in that I could certainly feel the lure of it -- but practical considerations, plus lack of binders, plus a remaining stubborness that my body was my body and was fine and shouldn't be hidden or required to be restrained for me to be socially acceptable, stopped me. Not that I didn't very often wish I never had developed breasts and all that, I guess my response to those feelings was that hating my body was wrong and that women and lesbian hating society was to blame, rather than turning it back on myself and trying to restrain myself to address the issue. Alter the mind and society not my body, it deserved better!

FloralBunting I watched one of the Ash Hardell YouTube videos. Ash says a lot but also not much specific and self consciously talks to a cat a lot

The video I watched was about assumptions and tried to explain the difference between not liking how you look and disphoria. Essentially the message was that things an individual doesn't recognise as being them are disphoria. This caused my mind to leap to anorexia, most obviously, but also to my own experience of dementia patients not recognising themselves in the mirror because in their heads they are a 30 year old mother of 4 panicking about their preschoolers who must be somewhere alone... Yet that's not dysphoria.

It's still quite wooly.
The surgical aspect is terrifying though.

SomeDyke, thanks for that post - I was going to mention Stone Butches, but they aren't something I have much experience of. I recall Memoree Joelle writing on Facebook a few weeks ago about how breast binding was sometimes a thing for butch lesbians, and that this was being totally misunderstood and twisted by the Trans movement.

BBC had male pilot becomes female shocker yesterday.

I read daily they are the most oppressed EVER and yet no real news stories.

Claiming that NB or 'gender issues' has nothing to do with sexuality or sexual attraction is nonsense. If you knew anything about lesbian and gay history, and looked, for example, at accounts by stone butches, you would soon see that bodily dysmorphia, identity, and sexual attraction was all linked for them.

I had not heard the specific term "stone butch" as part of lesbian culture before so looked it up. Second result was this book on amazon, but it is described as a book about transgenderism?:

"Published in 1993, this brave, original novel is considered to be the finest account ever written of the complexities of a transgendered existence. Woman or man? Thats the question that rages like a storm around Jess Goldberg, clouding her life and her identity. Growing up differently gendered in a blue--collar town in the 1950s, coming out as a butch in the bars and factories of the prefeminist 60s, deciding to pass as a man in order to survive when she is left without work or a community in the early 70s. This powerful, provocative and deeply moving novel sees Jess coming full circle, she learns to accept the complexities of being a transgendered person in a world demanding simple explanations: a he-she emerging whole, weathering the turbulence."

www.amazon.com/Stone-Butch-Blues-Leslie-Feinberg/dp/1459608453?tag=mumsnetforu03-21

Oops realised this is on page 6 - a glitch made it look like it was only one.

What a self-absorbed 1st World twat.

I'm trying to point out that desire to alter your body in a non-binary kind of way (moving away from social norms) is a slightly different thing to wanting to be younger or thinner.

In what way is it different? What do you mean by 'moving away from social norms'? Is it a desire to stand out rather than fit in?

Having been around many people of different sexualities and 'gender presentations' for many years, NB still makes no sense whatsoever to me, as a graspable useful concept.

My feelings exactly.

First of all, BillyBadBreaks, thanks for coming back and answering some of our questions. For me, though, every time you answer a question, it raises another.

I've felt this way for as long as I can remember (since before I even knew the internet existed). I have just got on with it, unfortunately the feelings have never gone away.

Sorry to hear that you still have so many issues with your body, especially as you say you're not that young. But do you not agree that counselling would be a better way forward, to try to come to terms with the body you have, rather than fight the way it is? I have no idea if you have tried this and it has failed, and I wouldn't expect you to discuss it on here, but would you agree with this as a possible way forward for other young women who are suffering with issues around their bodies and rejecting womanhood?

Our sex is simply something we are born with, in the same way as any other attribute that we are born with. If someone is born with a disability that can't be fixed, isn't it better to come to terms with it and find a way to live despite that disability? Since sex can't be changed, wouldn't it be better to come to terms with your sex rather than insist you're not that sex?

I still think the phrase "come out" is fine to use. What does someone being gay actually affect at all? To me absolutely nothing, to them, probably a whole lot.
This shows, as well as appropriation of lesbian and gay terms, a truely massive amount of ignorance (and of current news given circumstances for lesbian and gay muslims and the schools issue). Not to mention Brunei........

Claiming that NB or 'gender issues' has nothing to do with sexuality or sexual attraction is nonsense. If you knew anything about lesbian and gay history, and looked, for example, at accounts by stone butches, you would soon see that bodily dysmorphia, identity, and sexual attraction was all linked for them.

I wish I'd always just felt like a woman. There is no such thing! I'm just me. Wanting to feel like a woman because other females seem to do so, and I don't somehow fit is a slightly different matter.

At least with 'gender identity' not 'matching' sex, you can at least ask the question -- do you think you'd have been better off/happier if you had instead been born female/male? But for NB, what can you ask (apart from purely subjective internal identity) that makes sense? Do you wish you had been born a neuter makes no sense because humans (apart from on various science-fictional worlds) just are sexed.

I'm trying to point out that desire to alter your body in a non-binary kind of way (moving away from social norms).. Except bodily norms aren't social, just biological!

The lesbian community, as long as there has been such a thing, has had many women who weren't happy with the social expectations around females, and many who weren't always happy with female bodies. A variety of explanations (think Radclyffe Hall and congenital inverts according to early sexologists, where 'gender identity' and homosexuality were inextricably linked) were tried by people to explain themselves to themselves and others.

Having been around many people of different sexualities and 'gender presentations' for many years, NB still makes no sense whatsoever to me, as a graspable useful concept.

OldCrone: Is non-binary, which includes body modifications only a female thing? Are there male non-binaries? Do they modify their bodies?
There are definitely male-bodied (for want of a better term) non-binary people. I've no idea what they do with their bodies because I don't know any.

Blueblueyellow: Does a non binary person have to be dysphoric?
Sorry but I'm really not sure about that one. Trans people argue amongst themselves about it.

FloralBunting: And in my case, it was because I was sexually abused as a child
Genuinely sorry to hear about that, it's no wonder you felt defensive discussing it. That's not the case for me. I thankfully haven't had any bad experience to cause my feelings and imagine they are likely less intense than yours.

HopeClearwate: Does Caitlin feel non-binary when they has their period? (has? have? I need help here)
I think most people use "when they have". Not the best solution grammatically but I do think it sounds a lot better than things like "zir".

Justhadathought: I think at certain points in their adolescence then most women have probably felt alienated from their bodies, yes!. With all that their developing womanly body implies. But in times gone by there wasn't a huge industry and social media presence around the very real possibility that you might actually attempt to subvert or attempt to change your sex. You just had to adjust and get on with it.
I've felt this way for as long as I can remember (since before I even knew the internet existed). I have just got on with it, unfortunately the feelings have never gone away.
It really does sound as if you are struggling with gendered expectations and stereotypes. Your breasts have become such a site of conflict and trauma - because of their social significance.
I want them better because of gendered expectations and wanting to appear "attractive". I want them gone for who knows why.

ByGrabtharsHammarWhatASavings: Have you seen 10 years younger? Those people get carved up and sewn back together again and end up crying with gratitude.
I'm trying to point out that desire to alter your body in a non-binary kind of way (moving away from social norms) is a slightly different thing to wanting to be younger or thinner. Not saying that other people aren't feeling just as bad or having surgery.

Fallingirl: I expect ‘nonbinary’ identified’ youngsters are people who have given up searching for this gender identitythey supposedly have and/or don’t recognise themselves in any stereotyped representations of female and male genders. Plus they get a place under the coveted ‘cool’ and ‘interesting’ trans umbrella.
I'm not a younster and this isn't making me "cool". It's inconvenient and I wish I'd always just felt like a woman.

For all the people talking about sexuality, that's got nothing to do with it. You can be non-binary and attracted to anyone or no one.

Having said all of that, I do agree that there are probably loads of folk saying they are non-binary to be cool or different or trying to avoid saying they're gay or escape from stereotypes. Just not all of them.

I've read the article twice and I still have no idea what they are on about.

Exactly. Which is why we acceded to the aspect of her identity which is self-referencing and can be changed by the individual - her name - but not the aspects which are not self-referencing - the pronouns which are used by others to refer to that individual.

You're probably doing the right thing. Perhaps sharing stories of your own youthful struggles around identity would be good too. The clothes you wore; the music you listened to.

The pressure on young people in today's social media age is immense; and open to manipulation by those with covert motivations.

Exactly. Which is why we acceded to the aspect of her identity which is self-referencing and can be changed by the individual - her name - but not the aspects which are not self-referencing - the pronouns which are used by others to refer to that individual.

I think in my dd's case, it is more that she is a slow developer and not yet sexually interested in anyone, yet feeling societal pressure to take on a label. She is not 'allowed' to just be herself.

This is the issue. formerly she may have become an EMO and hung around public spaces with her friends, feeling unique and a bit 'different' - but now she is expecting you to use incorrect pronouns when referring to her. The danger of that is that she might develop an expectation that the world revolves around, and changes as a result, of her emerging identity, and that this is normal.

Is it possible that when people "come out" as non binary it is code for "I am gay but knowing how my family would react to THAT I'm just saying this for now to see how that pans out..."

I think in my dd's case, it is more that she is a slow developer and not yet sexually interested in anyone, yet feeling societal pressure to take on a label. She is not 'allowed' to just be herself.