Non-binary - what's that all about?

exactly this. One of my aunts (aged 75) announced at Christmas that she was now non- binary and wished to be known as they/them. This from a woman at the coal face of 70s feminist activism. My father just said ‘ffs Gillian. You’ve had two kids. If you are confused about what sex that makes you then there is no hope.’ . They are still
not talking.

in some report correspondence I have been referred to as “they” (it’s a report from the DWP) prior to the conversation I was not asked how I like to be addressed in person or statements… for the record it would be by name or my relationship status as Mrs… I am older so may be out touch… no hate I am just interested in thoughts on this 😊

As for NB, well ok, but you are sexed. It’s disingenuous to try and pretend it doesn’t matter.

When you play that game with the flaps and pictures where you guess who’s on the opponent’s cards, or who am I, with the name on the headband, you can halve the options by working out male or female.

If I need to point someone out, using their sex is massively helpful and almost always unmistakable.

If I were referred to as a man I’d be irritated and eye rolling not because I’m offended at the mistake, but because I am glaringly obviously female with boobs and bum and averagely female in every way. Totally unmistakable. Anyone misgendering me simply hasn’t actually looked, which is rude.

There are no female coded activities, that’s just fashion and society. Knitting, sewing, cooking- all seen as female yet the best known proponents are male. So they really aren’t female activities at all.

There is nothing more to it than the body you arrived in and fashion.

Being female is a factual part of your existence, not an "identity".

You can't opt out of being female if that's what you are.

I don't understand why you feel the need to proclaim an "identity" of enby rather than just be a woman (biological fact) without a gender identity, like most women posting here.

Right, but you know who you’re talking about! The person listening doesn’t.

I have a they relative and find hearing about them really hard. Grammatically it is no longer clear who we’re talking about because they is often used as non specific someone else.

How is Johnny getting on with orchestra these days? Oh they don’t have orchestra after school anymore, they are hoping they can have piano lessons instead.
^^ That could refer to Johnny not bothering to do orchestra and wanting piano lessons, or it could mean ‘they’ no longer run orchestra and ‘they’ are trying to offer piano instead- so Johnny may be disappointed and have no interest in piano!

I don’t see being female as an important part of my identity, the end. I don’t want to be addressed as White person Smith, AB+ Smith of Ms Smith. I’m not a girl friend, i don’t do white person’s night out or girl’s night out. etc
I have a body with specific organs. I look aftef it. Still not part of my identity.

So in what way do you believe that you're different from women who don't believe in the concept of gender identity?

You seem to believe in gender just so that you can reject it. Why not join all the women who think that the concept of gender is regressive bollocks?

I am biological female, but see myself as enby/agender. i’m also barely 5ft . I work in a male dominated environment. I’m smaller than most of my colleagues (not all), and made that my strength. Yes, the world is made for tall people, but that goes across sex (average woman in the uk is 5ft 3, i’m quite a bit shorter than that!).
But i’m very comfy in economy class when travelling:)
i am not reminded of my sex daily. I’ve been perved on a handful of times in almost 50 years. Some of the aggressors were women, some men.
I have had smear tests (every few years) , not fun but also not a life changing experience.
I had periods in the past (monthly, obviously), didn’t like them, so menopause is amazing.
I am a parent - having a uterus was handy, but again not something that defines me. Being a parent does define me, giving birth was an inconvenience but not something that defines me.
I look after my body in a very factual way, and advocate for it, same as I do for my hereditary medical condition. It works for me.
With all of that i seem to have a better relationship with my body than most women - which i find interesting

Sex is relevant wherever we exist physically.

@PermanentTemporary my sex is in my medical records, just like my blood type, a hereditary medical condition and my ethnicity. I don’t mind a medical professional knowing or asking any of these if relevant.
I do mind people making it into something relevant outside of the medical context, because to me it isn’t.
My file says Dr Smith or Mx Smith. it also states my sex. Its all there for medical purposes.

Totally!

I just dont get how you can live in this world as a female (ie be a woman), and not be reminded of your sex all the bloody time whether you want to or not.

Periods. Uncomfortable bras. Smear tests. The male gaze. Being talked over. Phones being just a bit too big to use comfortably (ditto most tools). Car seats not fitting right. Life jackets or other PPE not fitting right. Etc etc. The excellent book Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez details all the ways the world is designed around the physicality of men, not women.

If you are very tall, big woman, these things may not be immediately apparent, but you still are likely to (or will have had at some point) have periods, be perved on by men, etc. Announcing your enby status will not change any of these things one iota. Material reality doesnt care how you label it, it remains reality.

I do think sex is more than medically relevant, it is physically relevant and we are physical beings. I also think that medical issues aren’t something that is barely ever an issue. That’s partly because I’m in my 50s, but even as a youngster I had some physical issues which were sex-related - tbh very few people don’t. I also work in stroke care so am particularly used to working with people who were apparently fit and well one day and then their physical and medical needs become overwhelmingly important the next.

That doesn’t mean I’m going to address a non-binary patient in a way they don’t want. It means I fear for people, particularly women, who have physical needs they are deliberately avoiding being addressed. The one that bothers me most is the smaller larynxes of women, ie the narrower airway, which is important in any surgical procedure or respiratory event. Unless your anaesthetist knows you are female, you are at significantly greater risk of really serious complications. And as I am not one of those who believes you can always tell, I wish we were in a world where your sex was allowed to be a known fact about you without apparently triggering some huge issue.

It all just seems to be some seriously muddled thinking.

I get how someone doesn't think their sex is important in everyday life (it generally isnt, apart from a few specific exceptions) and doesnt want to be defined by it.

But that doesnt mean that you dont actually have a sex! Having a sex, and being defined by it are two totally different things.

Everyone has a sex, even enbies.

Most people dont want to be defined by their sex either. Not wanting to be defined by your sex seems just so boringly normal.

@OldCrone on average - yes. But not everyone is average.
Women can have broad shoulders and small cup size. Men can have boobs (not that rare actually, but most try to hide them).
Not everyone with a bigger cup size wants to advertise them.
So yes, body types work - broad shoulders are different to cup size. There is a loose correlation to sex, but there are more differences within one sex than similarities

See, working in higher education, it now feels really unnatural to say he/she now. I always use them/they/their etc - it doesn't even take any effort anymore.

how often are you "addressed by your gender?" in daily life though?

It's not like the 1950s, people rarely use gendered titles these days, at least in actual speech. I honestly can't remember the last time I was called 'Mrs/Ms myname,' - not by customers/colleagues/at the doctors, when I engage with a professional (estate agent), etc. It's always just 'Hi, First name?'

It's the same as the whole pronoun thing - in reality, most occasions where someone refers to you in the third person you're not around to hear and be offended by it.

The bodies of male and female infants are not obviously different in appearance apart from the genitalia, which is why this is used to identify the sex of a baby at birth (I'm sure you know this really).

The bodies of male and female adults are quite different in appearance in many ways other than genitalia (I'm sure you know this really as well).

The "body types" you describe aren't actually body types. A woman with a "bigger chest" because she has large breasts is a completely different shape from a man with a "bigger chest" because he is a bodybuilder.

Female body types are different from male body types (I'm sure you know this really as well).

Yeh I totally get what you are saying. My post was just saying that is the only way I can try to understand it. The "feelings" part of being misgendered would be similar to how I feel if someone thinks I am a man.
Non binary is an odd concept I'm just trying to understand the feelings bit of it.
The difference between me not wanting to be called a man, and a non binary person not wanting to be called a man or a woman is, I guess, where dysphoria comes in. Which is not something I have experienced and therefore is difficult for me to really understand. Just trying to have some empathy and frame it in terms I can get my head round 😊

I’m happy to sit under the trans umbrella. I don’t identify with the gender assigned to me (or any other gender ).
Sex is about your body, is medically relevant, but that’s it. Just like a parent’s cancer diagnosis can medically relevant, or having loads of twins in the family can be medically relevant. But not something i see as relevant in day to day life.
I get that for some people gender is relevant, so i’m trying to acknowledge that

I should imagine if they work for NHS Fife they’ll do very well

I have no idea! How can someone genuinely believe they are 'no sex'. Unless somehow they've a genetic disorder that gives them the physiognomy of a Barbie or ken doll?

Why can't someone just have a gender neutral name, and dress/look a way which makes it not immediately obvious what sex you are?

It's literally a human body. You're staring down at a pair of tits and a vulva or a flat chest and dick/balls and your saying you're 'not ANY sex'?

I really don't get it. I wish people no ill will but it seems so unnecessary.

"Apparently ‘agender’ also comes under the nonbinary/trans umbrella so I didn’t want that label either, and I think the final straw was asking them to refrain from calling me “cis”."

Indeed, 'agender' requires someone to believe in gender identities in the first place.

Until people realise, as you did, that for gender identities to be treated as valid requires a direct belief action people don't understand the harm of it. For the philosophical belief to work, the people who seek to redefine themselves have forceably redefined all people.

It isn’t them saying ‘people with transgender identities’ and ‘people without transgender identities’. It is them declaring everyone has this thing they belief in - a gender identity. That is what this word ‘cis’ means. And 'agender' is similar.

Cis means that a person identifies their gender identity as the sex they were born. And 'agender' is an active belief that you have no gender. They were never neutral positions.

For example, religious people can call other people non-believers of their religion and this is a material fact. It is real and it is meaningful. I doubt people would reject that. It is a null option. It doesn't require the person who does not believe in the religion to do anything. It simply describes their lack of belief.

In comparison, ‘cis’ and 'agenda' are not describing the lack of belief. Because the use demands that everyone has a gender identity, even if it is the rejection of that 'gender identity' if you see what I mean. It is enforcing belief about that label on the recipient.

How is this acceptable?

I was surrounded by people like this years ago. When asked how I identified I said it wasn’t something I’d thought about and I didn’t fit into any gendered stereotypes anyway. They helpfully informed me that my lack of firm gender identity actually made me non-binary.

Initially, I didn’t see any harm in it (thought it might at least stop this group incorrectly assuming “she/her” = into stereotypically ‘female-coded’ hobbies/movies, dresses, nail polish, and gossip).

However, after somebody happily told me that my non-binary gender identity meant I was under the “trans umbrella”, I backtracked. When I clarified that I’m not trans, I am 100% female, I just don’t believe in gender for myself, and I now didn’t want or need a label to describe something that isn’t there (especially if the label meant I would be classified as something I definitely am not)…my newly assigned trans status was quickly confiscated and replaced with TERF. Apparently ‘agender’ also comes under the nonbinary/trans umbrella so I didn’t want that label either, and I think the final straw was asking them to refrain from calling me “cis”.

I understand wanting to opt out from gender, and can see how ‘gender neutral’ options can feel like a way to do that…but I don’t think it works; it just replaces one set of assumptions with another. I also suspect any adult insisting others must use they/them pronouns, or being ‘proud’ of their NB identity, is either attention-seeking, or they’re going through something that would be better addressed by therapy than it would a pair of yellow/white/purple/black earrings or a pin badge.

Asking here about non-binary people is like going onto Stormfront to ask about race or Kiwi Farms to ask about feminism.

I'm not an enby, but the best book I've read about their experiences is "Trans like me" by CN Lester. It's also very good on trans history

@NebulousSadTimes Sex assigned at birth comes down to external genitalia , and i just find it weird that this is supposed to define us so much, down to how we are addressed.
I buy my work clothes from an online retailer that just specifies body types (wide hips, or bigger chest, straight fit etc), and i find this a lot more helpful than male/female which is always an awkward proxy.