More celebrities coming out as non-binary

The only pronoun relevant to most of these tedious people is 'me', as in me, me, me. MEGAPHONE ANNOUNCEMENT: I'm changing my pronouns so that everyone can tie themselves in knots trying to form sentences about me when I'm not even in their presence.

Sigh. I am old. Wake me up when this ridiculous fad is over.

I'm trying to get my head round all of this. My 19 yo dd has a few friends who are nonbinary. I respect their choices, obviously, but I look at them and can't help feeling a bit emperor's new clothesy, because they are just what I am, only younger: women dressed in jeans, hoodies and doc martens, not wanting to buy into the whole 'femininity' crap of make up, endless 'grooming', sexualised clothing, simpering, pouting, etc, not to mention the way this makes other people (mostly men) behave towards you.

I have tried, tentatively, to say that this has always been perfectly normal, maybe not always accepted, but it's not unusual to be a woman and not to be 'feminine'. DD & friends celebrate people like Demi Lovato 'being themselves'. I'd be celebrating a woman refusing to conform to stereotypes, but I don't see what pronouns have to do with it. @IvyTwines2 your explanation makes perfect sense, especially in an era where we're all about individuality and so many just don't want to know that their personal choices are always political.

I'm really struggling to explain why having a special identity is actually conveniently divisive. It is, isn't it? If we can't feel like a she because we're not into wearing skirts or nail varnish or whatever, isn't it giving the message that not all women meet the appearance and 'girliness' qualifications for being women, even if that's a choice, which then makes it easier to define 'woman' as something other than biology. And it makes being a woman the problem (which can be opted out of) rather than addressing the wider cultural issues that make so many people uncomfortable in their own skins.

Demi Lovato is trying to distract from her recent froyo incident.

Demi Lovato Addresses Backlash to Her Comments About 'Triggering' Visit to Frozen Yogurt Shop

https://people.com/health/demi-lovato-addresses-backlash-about-triggering-visit-frozen-yogurt-shop/

AND it has the added bonus of kicking other women down at the same time by implying that those of us who want to continue being called women and 'she' accept the abuse and objectification and regressive gender stereotypes as part of the package of femaleness

This is so depressingly true. Do it to Julia.

I wonder if there is a correlation between flagging careers and coming out as special to get people talking about them again

It is an extreme way of dealing with and managing trauma. If it all happened to a different person altogether and not me, I will be OK, and I am a clean and pure person who needs to feel no guilt or shame or distress.

Agree this is going to cause all sorts of unpredictable problems in the future.

who remembers the teen magazines of the 80s and 90s with slim, blonde busty archetypes being pushed as the 'norm' fast forward to spates of eating disorders.

I don't mind people identifying as whatever they want, but the media obsession with pushing it front and centre is going to create an abnormal frame of reference for youngsters who will assume that half the population is non conforming to traditional genders, when in fact the truth is much less.

A also hate the pronoun them/they it's inherently plural and smacks of somebody who doesn't know their own mind, the gender neutral singular alternative of it/that isn't great though as it implies a dehumanised object....

I think it goes beyond merely shrugging off the baggage of being female. It goes beyond that. It is the reinvention of self as a wholly new person. Like the other person never existed at all. It's a re-birth. So with all their life achievements to date, which they want to hold on to, they have to gaslight like crazy to make people accept that it was never their previous self doing those things in the first place. That's why dead naming, incorrect pronoun use etc is literal violence.

Agree it will no doubt have an influence on young people. Some teenagers at DC's school called themselves a different this, that and the other every week to keep relevant

I'm not sure it's just to keep relevant, though that may be part of it. The they/them girls in my daughters' peer groups are notably those who have a troubled history in some way - one of them had nudes shared by an ex bf, one of them was very sexually precocious in her early teens and got "a reputation", one of them is totally infantilised by her parents and denied the freedom and autonomy her older brothers had (not allowed a door key of her own, not allowed to go to parties etc.) It seems to me to be a very obvious way of shrugging off all the negative, restrictive baggage of being female.

What a false promise they've been sold. What a lie this 'I'm so happy to announce that I wasn't actually female at all!' is. In a time when there are many, many things that make me baffled, speechless and incandescent with rage, the bullshit of 'non-binary' is actually right up there at the top of my list. That it's actually seen as cool and progressive is just mind boggling. We have never needed feminism more.

Agree it will no doubt have an influence on young people. Some teenagers at DC's school called themselves a different this, that and the other every week to keep relevant .

Usually I'm very tolerant and think live and let live... But this phrase gets me from the article - non binary people "tend not to conform to gender norms of either male or female."

SO?!? That just means that gender stereotypes are a real thing... and everybody exists on a spectrum and it's not a big deal? I don't conform to most gender norms either - I was the most ungirly girl when I was a child and I don't fit many of the 'female' stereotypes now I'm an adult.

....does not mean anything. I'm a woman ffs. This just all seems so attention seeking.

@WinterTrees 'The crying shame is that they make a sunshiney announcement about removing themself from the system, rather than speaking out against the whole toxic, misogynistic, damaging bollocks that is 'gender norms.'

Yes - they're so steeped in the bollocks that they can't imagine actually stepping out of it and calling it out - instead the Patriarchy has created this clever way for young women who are upset by it all to appear to shift sideways within the system, AND it has the added bonus of kicking other women down at the same time by implying that those of us who want to continue being called women and 'she' accept the abuse and objectification and regressive gender stereotypes as part of the package of femaleness.

I had never heard of them until an article in The Times Magazine a little while ago. I felt so sorry for all they have gone through. I agree with WinterTrees' analysis.

Non-binary people [...] tend not to conform to gender norms of either.

Citation needed.

Recovery from bulimia, anorexia, addiction to cocaine and heroin or fentanyl. Multiple short term but high profile relationships that are then scrutinized when they end (all with men I think). Raped age 15 whilst working for Disney.Has been famous since the age of 10. What a huge burden on a young person. Who wouldn't want to opt out of being a famous woman but keep the fame?

Yawn🙄 I know I'm preaching to the converted here but the article explains "Non-binary people don't identify as male or female, and tend not to conform to gender norms of either."... Anyone can not conform to gender norms ffs, you don't have to adopt nonsensical pronouns!

Normally i'd be 'yeah ok' as i'm fine with pronoun changes, but in their case.. i'm a little dubious that it isn't another symptom of their ongoing difficulties with mental health problems.

I mean, of course not being able to 'come out' could be part of WHY they're suffering with long term poor MH of course, but they seem one of the most unlikely to make such a change.

*A quick google image search shows a person who was extremely conforming to sexualised stereotypes of femininity. I also noticed that they have spoken out about suffering from a severe eating disorder and having been raped. They seem to have recently cut their long hair very short.

When a young woman in the public eye has been hyper-sexualised, controlled by her management, felt driven to punish her body by starving it and survived rape I don't think you need to look too far to wonder why she would want to disassociate herself from female 'gender norms.'*

YY

Another one with a history of mental health and drugs issues. But as OP said, there's always a celebrity cult-like craze. Yoga, yogis, tantric sex, starving to size zero. Always some harmful bullshit they are pushing onto their young and impressionable female fans.

That's nice for them.

It was much easier to spell 'punk' though.

"I will officially be changing my pronouns" - good for, er, them, but that's absolutely meaningless isn't it?

An armchair psychologist would had a field day with this - Demi's had a lot of horrible experiences in life and from a mile away this looks like some sort of 'opt out'. If this beings her some peace then fair enough but what difference it makes to anything is hard to fathom.

Actually, I might go for "fluid" instead. Is that still one?

From the BBC article: Non-binary people don't identify as male or female, and tend not to conform to gender norms of either

A quick google image search shows a person who was extremely conforming to sexualised stereotypes of femininity. I also noticed that they have spoken out about suffering from a severe eating disorder and having been raped. They seem to have recently cut their long hair very short.

When a young woman in the public eye has been hyper-sexualised, controlled by her management, felt driven to punish her body by starving it and survived rape I don't think you need to look too far to wonder why she would want to disassociate herself from female 'gender norms.'

The crying shame is that they make a sunshiney announcement about removing themself from the system, rather than speaking out against the whole toxic, misogynistic, damaging bollocks that is 'gender norms.'