If you're non-binary...

I agree with others above who've commented that "NB" actually accentuates binary thinking.

I may not fit in 100% with the current "female/feminine" stereotype. But I would not call myself NB nor would I want to be called that. I'd far, far rather demonstrate, just by the way I live my life, that a woman can be a woman, and female, and feminine, without having to tick all those stereotypes.

This. Am an old gimmer, probably neurodiverse, studied physics, bit of a nerd. With that autistic sense of fairness I thought of my fellow human beings as "people" ; each was a "person," we were all equal. I also thought of myself as a woman.

And still do. Though of course over the years I have found that a large majority did not seem to share my egalitatian views. (Guess their chromosomes.)

I think it could be mild dysphoria and not feeling comfortable in your own skin, not relating to people your own sex (because you don't fit into stereotypes or with your peers).
But how many young women have gone through this and felt a sense of failure in themselves, because they don’t meet societal imposed beauty/femininity standards?

It’s a long road of feeling “good enough” as a woman, when you’re confronted by images that you can’t match up to. The answer is not to carve a whole separate category for yourself but to recognise it’s all part of growing into yourself as a real person, not a stereotype.

I’m intrigued as to how non-binary women think other women feel about ourselves, how the variations in our personalities and interests contradict (or not?) what non-binary means.

Of course not - if the bride or groom to be wanted to invite their friend, then why wouldn’t they?

I don’t know. Honestly, that’s a genuine response, not meant to sound like a snarky one. The only answer i have is that maybe gender stereotyping as a way of acting in the world is so deeply deeply ingrained that we rarely question it unprompted? But if what you are saying is that it should not be the responsibility of NB people to invoke democratic / humanist behaviours in others then I wholeheartedly agree with you.

If you had a non-binary friend would you have to leave them out of the stag do AND the hen do?

Why do we need to level ourselves to help you not make assumptions?

I think it means different things to different people.

I think it could be mild dysphoria and not feeling comfortable in your own skin, not relating to people your own sex (because you don't fit into stereotypes or with your peers).

Also it seems to be simply gender non conforming. Like the punks or goths were. So there's something of fashion and subculture about it.

Personally I'd be open to the label if it simply meant gender non conforming, it's when it means you are literally neither a man or a woman that it gets bonkers.

Not many, but here are the ones I have noticed - the NB persons are freer, they are not hiding a big part of their selves, so they are not carrying that weight with them - openly identifying as NB has a positive impact on their mental health. It impacts the way we talk to them - I make fewer assumptions about what the outcome of a discussion might be, there are more ways of understanding shared and other experiences.

Gender theory is centred around and reinforces sex based stereotypes and gender roles, most of us don’t completely fit into gender roles and stereotypes, how “feminine” and “masculine” people are is naturally a spectrum and depends upon the culture you live in.

Some women are very traditionally (in their society) feminine and others are very traditionally masculine. There is no binary, and by saying that someone who rejects or doesn’t participate in all of the gender stereotypes and expectations their society imposes on means they are not a man/woman is extremely reductive as it just reinforces and validates those stereotypes and expectations placed on men and women.

It achieves the exact opposite of what these people are trying to achieve and they can’t see it, it’s not progressive it’s regressive.

Indeed! I have thought about this point a lot myself. I don’t know the answer. But I think that while being female does by no means mean that you accept all the shit women get in this life, it is nonetheless an active alignment with the gender. NB is, I think, more like an active disalignment with the gender identity - making a space where there are options to be treated in new ways.

Most gender critical people would say the same including myself.

There's very little difference between GC and NB apart from the fact that NB need to state their lack of gender conformity to the world. I personally couldn't think of anything more cringe.

@HejLittleAppleBlossom isn't that true of nearly all women (and men)? Who does identify with all shit pushed on women by society??

By the discourses and practices I mean the way in which males and females are, very broadly speaking, conceived of and established in society - the stereotypes, the roles assigned, the ways in which people relate to them in different situations. My understanding from NB friends is that they don’t identify as the gender matching their biological sex, but neither are they trans and identify with the other biological sex. They position themselves away from the broad gender typicalities because they don’t feel that either gender reflects their experiences of how they choose to interact with the world.

Dear OP, thanks for asking a meaningful question. The thread has attracted over 60 responses around the question but, sadly, not one reply from a person who actually identifies as non-binary. Either non-binary people don't follow FWR or no non-binary person who does follow is confident in explaining it.

Maybe, sometime in the future....

Yes these people were goths back in the last millennium

"When I hear 'non binary' I just think of people who want to be in the 'in crowd' and thought a bit unique - as if nobody before has ever developed some individualistic character."

Oh the irony of being in the "in crowd" and also "a bit unique"!!

Sounds like your common or garden confused young person really.

You can't be "a bit unique" - unique can not be qualified people

Absolutely - the political vs the personal. I think most non-binary I've met are very much in the personal camp.

The bit about gender ideology that makes the least sense to me is that it implies the existence of people fully signed up to and adhering to all their applicable sex stereotypes. I've not met a single person that even comes close. I don't think we're all NB though, even if we're all 'non-conforming'. To be NB implies an acceptance of gender ideology, at odds with a GC position.

Well according to the jelly baby gender spectrum Mermaids I think I must be
non binary.

And yet, I’m not because it’s quite simply a crock of shite.

I am a political enbian but I don't ever mention it unless it comes up. So far it hasn't, at least in real life

Nope. The ones I've met are intensely attention seeking. Tediously so.

@HejLittleAppleBlossom

"we respect their wishes with regards to the way they relate to the male-female gender binary discourses and practices,"

Can you explain a little more about this? What is the male-female gender binary discourses and practice? How do people stating a non-binary identity relate to it, and how is that different to other people?

All the non-binary people I’ve met are not in the least bit attention seeking or navel gazing - they are low key matter of fact about their identity and pronouns, and we treat them the same way we always did, except we respect their wishes with regards to the way they relate to the male-female gender binary discourses and practices, and with regards to how they wish to be addressed. It seems strange that so many people on this thread appear to have encounted attention seeking non binary people - could it be that they are not actually attention seeking, just getting on with their lives?