Non binary children

Are you talking about a baby? I mean that is pretty much universally true for babies.

I think non-binary is the thin end of yet another wedge to take 'woman' away from women.
If non-binary means you are neither a man or a woman then that turns 'woman' into 'performing femininity' and conforming to female sterotypes.
So in the future all of the women who don't conform to 'performing femininity' won't be considered women any more.

I was mistaken for a boy as a 10 year old, due to enforced short haircut and hand me downs from 2 older brothers

Parental desire is a strong thing......Some parents strongly desire to have a child of one sex or the other, and can be deeply disappointed when that child is not of that sex.

There's a worrying mental health condition in some parents where they fabricate illnesses in their children.There's nothing wrong with bringing your child up avoiding sexist stereotypes. But when parents of young children (as opposed to teenagers) pretend (in the face of all the evidence) that their child is not a boy or a girl then there really should be some investigation into whether the parents are using their child to push their own personal political views / niche beliefs.

Hopefully most parents will not mean to psychologically screw up their young children, but Munchausen's Syndrome by Proxy / Fabricated Illness is definitely a thing.

www.nhs.uk/mental-health/conditions/fabricated-or-induced-illness/overview/

When my daughter was 4 we got her a garage and some cars for her birthday and when she opened them she asked me why there wasn't a girl in the picture 😬 obviously I didn't go in to all the gender stuff with her then and I just said "because some people are silly and think that cars are just boys toys" lol she is 14 now and we do have a lot of discussions about all the gender stuff that is going on and she rolls her eyes at it. I could have easily made it an issue back then and sent her on some weird path where she is confused because she likes cars but she is a girl 🤨 I think it is the parents pushing this on to their kids at a young age. There are a few non binary and gender fluid kids at her school and I asked her not long ago why she hasn't declared to be non binary like some of her friends (I like to hear her views about the world lol) and she shrugged and said because it's a non issue and why should anybody even care what others think they are because we are all human and not that special lol urgh I realise that this post sounds like I'm bragging about my wonderful level headed daughter lol I'm not I just taught her what does and doesn't matter in this world, she has been kicked out of a couple of different classes over the last few years though for apparently having the wrong opinion about some stuff but she takes it in her stride and just comes to the conclusion that the teacher doesn't know what they are talking about. She gets frustrated that some fully grown adults believe things that are just not correct (can change sex) she isn't argumentative with them though but she has expressed her worry for humanity lol I think I have raised a mini me

That is what all good, non invasive parents do......they just don't have to label it in such an artificial and untruthful way. Though having your child believe they can choose their sex is not a neutral act.....it is an irresponsible act which will lead to much confusion later.

They are who they are......the trend bit is in labelling the way they are as 'non binary'.

Someone mentioned the fad there was some years ago for having what was known as "An Indigo Child". It too was fashion led, and attention seeking. though, of course, some people with unusual, obviously non conforming, autistic, or nascently gay children may well end up looking to contemporary trends and rationales to label or understand their child.

Though telling your child they have no sex is not harmless or without repercussion - either for them, or for other children around them.

😂😂 Oh yes!

I was out playing soldiers, cowboys and Indians, building dens, football, biking...all in an 70s tracksuit or jeans and character t shirt...boys and girls doing the same games.

Of course. It's very muddled and it's intriguing the way they're reinforcing stereotypes while thinking they're dismantling them.

An Irish politician, Paul Murphy, is raising his kid as non-binary. From what he's said he seems to believe that whether a child is a boy or a girl describes their likes and interests, rather than whether they're male or female.

When a lot of people ask is it a boy or a girl, really, they mean, is it male or female?”

So I would say that a non-binary child is a child who has a caregiver who believes this.

The couple will be using the pronoun ‘they’ for Juniper and want the child to “discover their own gender identity”....

"we don’t want to limit the kind of future they will foresee for themselves.
^^
“The role that they will perceive for themselves, the type of play that they will perceive for themselves by saying ‘you’re a boy or you’re a girl’. Just let them decide for themselves.

^“You want to dress in pink? Fire ahead. You want to dress in blue? Fire ahead. You want to play football? Brilliant. You want to go dancing? Amazing... it’s just not to limit. m.independent.ie/irish-news/td-paul-murphy-on-raising-new-baby-gender-neutral-were-describing-juniper-as-a-baby-but-it-is-male/42385502.html^

I wonder what a non binary child of the 70s/80s looked like. I've neve seem much variation on childhood photos, whether you were male or female, of the following:

-pudding bowl haircut, done (badly) by your mum
-dungarees (handed down from older brother/sister, or to be handed down after you)
-woolly jumper knitted by your Nan
-t-bar buckle up shoes
-playing Lego on an orange/brown hairy carpet

I don't agree.

A couple of years ago I was watching a hockey fixture for 8/9 year old girls at a private school and there was an attractive looking, slightly build child with long blonde hair on the opposing team. I immediately clocked that they were a biological boy from the way they moved and all the children could see it to.

For the record I don't think it mattered at that age that there was a boy on the other team.

At nine, all children are 'androgynous', though. You can only really tell small kids apart by their hair/clothing.

That's not necessarily true - I don't think anyone would ever have mistaken my DD for a boy or labelled her as 'nonbinary'. Not even when she was playing with knex rather than Barbies, or choosing to go to a 'pirates and princesses' party as a pirate princess etc.

Young people raised in very conservative household later coming out as trans/non-binary seems relatively common and quite explicable. If you are taught that girl=dresses, babies, housework and you don't feel any infinity for those things then you may feel that you are not therefore a girl.

It's also probably already been said, but there is a difference between raising children as 'gender neutral', i.e, without assuming their sex predicts anything more than their eventual reproductive capacity, and labelling your child non-binary.

A non binary child is a kid, maybe less gender-conforming than average, who the parents (or possibly some interfering idiot) have decided to label.

@Apollo365 why does that child's behaviour need a label or anything other than acceptance that this is their personality, as unique and individual as the next child?

Tbh, if "non-binary" defies clear definition then it's a nonsense term with no inherent meaning.

This

I didn’t understand being non binary until recently. I thought it was a lot of rubbish if I am honest.
I think unless you have spent a lot of time with someone who is and they have explained how it feels it’s not something you can easily grasp.
The person I know is too young to refer to themselves in terms of pronouns but everything about them is ambiguous, it’s not obvious if they are girl or boy. Androgynous as the poster above said.
I guess when puberty hits this might all change.
They are too young for it to be the trend.

thats totally different... this friend made a decision to be what they are.

there are children out there, born and the parents refuse to identify their gendar.. from birth! thats not a choice thats brainwashing

Non binary is a style choice. We used to call it androgenous. Children don't id as NB because no one is talking about it to them. The moment a boy chooses to wear a tutu parents of a certain type will coo 'trans!' so they hear about that. This proves how the whole thing is made up.

I've posted before about more than one of my children being quite gender non-conforming in their interests, dress sense and play at different while they were small. As a feminist raising children at that time (80s to 2000s), a non-sexist, child-centred approach to parenting children and accepting differences in personality and behaviour - without it having any impact on actual sex - seemed quite instinctive. I have tried to reflect and wonder whether I would do things differently if I were parenting small children now. Would I look for an explanation that resonated with current popular culture? Would I rush to label my child and impose on them an alternative set of stereotypes and expectations , or suggest to them that they were a different sex, or both or neither? I know that the ideology and the sense of value and belonging it gives some parents and children seems to be intoxicating; but I think the answer is still "No, I wouldn't". I would be very aware of the meaning others, including teachers and schools, would attribute to children not conforming to gendered stereotypes though.