Inside the mind of a non-binary woman

I'm entirely comfortable to accept their is a difference between "cis" girls and trans girls. This seems bloody obvious.

What I'm not so clear on is why this is apparently less different than the difference between "cis" girls and any other male child, nor indeed what the difference between a "cis" girl and any other female child is.

Accepting difference isn't the issue here. It's being forced to accept and accomodate the sameness of gender that apparently applies across sexes, is never explained or demonstrated but simply asserted and enforced, and that rejects so many women's own self knowledge that flies in the face of so many women's own life experiences, that is the problem!

Genuinely, there is a difference between sex and gender.
Yes, we all know that.
Sex is unarguable and binary.
Gender is a social construct and (currently, in a Western context) has us thinking (I'm being v broad here) that girls and women like pink and should have long hair and be interested in ballet, and boys and men like blue and should have short hair and be interested in men's football/diggers/beer.

Accepting difference is an option.
Indeed.
It is perfectly possible to accept that a boy can wear a dress and not want to be trans or NB. Or that a girl can be into engineering or fast cars and also still be a girl.

Sigh. The point is if you really didn't buy into the stereotypes you'd have no concept of "raised as a cis girl" at all.

To name it, even to reject it, means you did build it into your framework for the world. You identify as gnc. That's still labelling yourself relative to gender norms.

Truly going beyond gender means not even noticing what a "cis girl" is supposed to be in the first place. She's just a girl, however she shows up.

Thank you for your reply.

You haven't actually answered though.

You've said people are different, but not what the difference is between girls and boys that means we need, or can even apply, different words, nor what it is that is the same enough between girls and girls or boys and boys that it makes sense to share a word.

So I'll try again.

Genuinely, what does "boy" or "man" even mean to you?

Why in your view do these words even need to exist at all? What's the actual, meaningful difference between the people who are "boys and men" and the people who are "girls and women"?

What do you consider that your child has in common with male bodied people that makes the word "boy" or "man" appropriate for both the majority of those people and your child?

When you agree that your child is a "boy" what are you saying about all the other people in the world who are also "boys"?
When you agree that your child is not a "girl", what are you saying about all the other people in the world who are "girls"?

If "people are all different" why can some be grouped as "boys and men" while others are "girls and women"? Are there actually no differences between them? And if so, why does it matter so much to "come out" or "use the right pronouns" or "just get to pee (under exactly the right label?)"

If sex and gender are different (and I certainly do agree with that) why does gender take the names, and with it the resources and the history, of the sexes at all? Surely that sinple choice is saying that the people who name themselves "trans girl", "trans boy" see themselves as having something in common with the sex whose name they take?

What is the connection between the sex of a, to use the language of your faith, "cis" boy and the gender of a "trans" boy such that Genderists like yourself consider both to be types of "boy"?

Why does this connection somehow determine how the body should be treated in sports, privacy etc even though the body sex is different?

Because despite your prejudices about the people who question you, I do not dismiss trans and non binary people's experiences at all. What I dismiss the language they use to describe it.

I do not believe a trans "boy" is in reality any sort of a "boy" at all. I do not believe she is any more like a "boy" than any person of her sex. I believe she is describing a genuine feeling but has got the wrong end of the stick about what that feeling means, projecting her own ideas of "boyhood" onto herself and others as if they were an objective truth when the reality is they are just her own projections echoing back at her in her own head.

I believe trans people have unconsciously projected onto sex - yes, sex - a whole load of their own prejudices about who belongs in which body.

And while these prejudices are usually along sexist lines because that's the culture we all grow up in, they don't have to align with traditional sexism at all, because they are the personal prejudices of the individual based on their own experiences and triggers).

What links them is not the exact shape but the act of using the binary fact sex differences as a metaphor for the mind's self expression and calling it "gender".

That is why "gender" can mean anything and nothing, because it's as individual as the person projecting it. And that is why travs women are not women in any meaningful sense, nor trans boys boys. Certainly not in any sense that matters when it comes to our common language, rights, history or. political voice

So if you think it's more than that, if your assertion is that trans people are not just describing their genuine personal belief that they are a "boy" or "girl" but that there is an actual empirical quality that makes them so, a genuine attribute shared by most male people and also found in trans men and boys, then you need to name and describe it. Because until then, trans "son" notwithstanding, my hypothesis fits the facts better than yours

We may not agree exactly when blonde becomes brunette but we all know the difference between very blonde and very dark. We have stable meanings with fuzzy edges, not no meaning at all.

So while you do not have to answer me, wthout answers it is very hard to believe there is anything real here at all, simply the prejudices of trans people about others accepted too readily, then a lot of waffle to try and justify it retrospectively.

Some people think they are clever to say "just because you can't understand something doesn't mean it isn't real".

But really clever people can say "I know there's something here I can't see, something I don't understand, but I can still learn about it by observing what it effects and how. And I can still test whether the claims made about it are consistent and logical.

I do not need to know what something is to know what something is to know what it is not.

So far I see nothing in what you have said to support what you claim to be true.

🎯

I'm beginning to suspect that TransParent gets more validation from identifying as a trans parent than her child gets from identifying as a trans man.

Probably. So 99% of people are non-binary, and the remaining 1% splits 4 ways, the ones who obsessively model the stereotypes of the sex they were born into and the ones who obsessively model the stereotypes of the sex opposite the one they were born into.

And yes, I agree, there's a strong mental health element to wanting to conform to stereotypes, whichever way it goes. And it emerges as hard to like, again, whichever way it goes

I wish they'd identify as something interesting - ornithologists or cooks or train spotters or sudoku fans or gardeners. Something outside themselves.

Lots of people grow up trans/nb and tell almost no one. But coming out , living as themselves, is profoundly healing of that disconnect.

@TransParentlyAnnoyed you said living as themselves earlier, but it’s been puzzling me and I’m hoping you can explain what you mean, particularly in terms of NB (as per the thread) as you’ve been quite responsive.

I genuinely don’t know what it means to live as a NB individual. How does it meaningfully differ from living as any other woman (like the ones you call ‘cis’)? I mean the literal only difference in my mind is that you expect people to change how they interact with you (or about you?) but I’m not sure I’m missing something here?

This is excellently put and I'd be very interested to hear @TransParentlyAnnoyed response to it.

Labels, we never liked them we used to cut them out of our jeans - to label someone was a nasty move now the young they love labels - they don’t exist unless they have a label. I don’t understand it. I hope they do.

There are 2 sexes. So no one is 'non-binary' in terms of their sex, because human beings are male or female.
And as to gender, are genderists actually saying that there are 3? Basically, Barbie/trad-wife 'feminine', Ken/hardman 'masculine', and non-binary (so much more interesting and rounded and modern than all the binary people)?
Because it feels that all the claims that, 'you have to listen to what trans/nbies are saying' show that those categories are what it boils down to.
It would make more sense to argue for anything between 0 genders and 8 billion (or however many humans there now are) genders. Though what that would add to 'individuals are all ...individual' is anybody's guess. It's all really self-referential nonsense.

Oh my god, you've also said "...he was assigned female at birth..."

You have to be a spoof account, please god

Your tedious and insistent use of the "cis" makes it clear that you're not a serious person by any standard

I think this is the thing, as a fairly non typical female, that bugs me personally most about the trans issue.

It's that the whole thing is predicated on absolutely entrenched gender stereotypes.

I'm afraid human beings have only begun to understand this, and far more categories of people will emerge

Ooh, I look forward to finding out what exciting new gender category I belong to. Meanwhile, I'll just carry on being me. 🙄

If being a transman says exactly nothing about how a person looks, feels or interacts with the world except that they feel an attachment to the three letters m-a-n, then it's an entirely pointless classification which we're all right to ignore.

In reality the word man mens something to these people based on their observation of the world. It clearly does not carry the meaning we would give it of male adult. So it carries some other meaning based on what that person observes of men and women and how they generalise that in their minds. That can only be stereotypes whether overt activity/style based ones like in the article or more internalised.

He wasn't assigned female at birth.

He was female at birth with xx chromosomes and no Y

He remains female now.

He can present and behave how he likes but you cannot change his biology.

I am using "he" here only out of respect for your wishes.

Genuinely, there is a difference between sex and gender.

Of course there is, that's the whole point.

That's why its impossible for somebody to accurately describe themselves as feeling like a man when they were born female, or vice versa, because they cannot possibly know what it is to feel "like a man" when they were born as a female.

We all, trans people included, need to understand that the sex you were born does not dictate how you have to behave and present. And that it is perfectly possible to be a female and present entirely at the masculine end of the gender spectrum, and vice versa, without actually being the opposite sex or "knowing" what being the opposite sex feels like. With some obvious physical limitations around reproduction.

So without using sexist, outdated stereotypes, and gubbins like feelings, what is the difference between a “ cis girl” and a “trans boy”?

🤦I was explaining that he was assigned female at birth.

Right before describing how I raised him within my own gnc frame of reference, determined he wouldn't be subject to gender stereotypes. He had exactly the same upbringing as his brothers, and (I used to joke) forced a world of pink glitter on me.

I wanted him to have what I'd been denied - train sets, adventure, being allowed to get muddy and challenge stereotypes. When he turned out to live make-up and tutus, I had to challenge my own thinking about pink, and accept it's just what some girls want. That pink isn't always a tyranny and I should let him be as he wanted.

I accepted that I had quite rigid thinking about gender stereotyping and should've been nicer to friends who liked trad girly things. Learning experience all round.

This is literally my life experience, and his. We are both gnc. Being a trans boy isn't about anything other than knowing you're a trans boy.

Neurodivergent people don't see or experience the world in the same way neurotypical people do, either.

Read what trans and nb people say about how they feel, and don't dismiss it just because it's not your own experience, is my answer here. Accepting difference is an option.

Nobody is disputing that we all experience the world in different ways and 'feel' different things about ourselves. Doesn't mean it is a reality or that anyone else has to act as though your feelings are reality.

One example…

When is saw you crossing the road I thought 'Where's she going?'

Another example is talking about someone in their presence

"Janet is here to talk to us about hang gliding, she's a world champion."

Well, there are cis boys and girls in the world.

And there are trans boys and girls. And non-binary people. They are not cis, they're different.

Genuinely, there is a difference between sex and gender. People are all different.

Being trans is not cosplay, or really a choice. It's just who someone is, and they remain a tiny minority.

I'm afraid human beings have only begun to understand this, and far more categories of people will emerge.

As for hair colours - well, as the internet has shown, people.don't always agree on what a colour is when looking at it. People who are colour blind see the world differently, for example.

Neurodivergent people don't see or experience the world in the same way neurotypical people do, either.

Read what trans and nb people say about how they feel, and don't dismiss it just because it's not your own experience, is my answer here. Accepting difference is an option.

I think you confirm that I'm not wrong at all by using the words "was raised as a cis girl".

To raise someone as a cis girl you first have to buy into the gender stereotype that the term cis girl even means.

My friend and I took turns to be pony and rider, the rider using the pony's school cardigan as reins. I enjoyed being both pony and rider and we were quite egalitarian with turn-taking

A lot of ponies quite enjoy breadcrusts; my equestrian identification didn't stretch as far as eating them though. I still don't.