Confused about Trans and NonBinary

[CactusMactus]

I am going to get terminologies wrong here... soz in advance.
Friends gown up daughter-at-birth has recently had top surgery to become trans. She has used pronouns 'they/them' for a while and continues to consider themselves non-binary.
I don't understand how that works. Surely if you are trans you have changed from she/her to he/him not she/her to they/them.
Does one transition to non-binary?
Genuin question...

Non binary males are not chopping their cocks off are they, funny that!

nor are they getting breast implants. They are just changing their pronouns and claiming to be oppressed.

How do they matter? And to whom?

Because ’top surgery’ is a terrible euphemism for destruction of perfectly healthy tissue.

The thinking behind it is so muddled that it’s impossible for rational people to understand why anyone would cut off their breasts in order to make a statement about their immutable sex. It’s absolutely the new anorexia and the people supporting this should be banned from practicing medicine. In no other form of treatment in psychiatric or mental health services are patients not steered away from cutting off healthy body parts on the basis of feelings.

Cutting off perfectly heathly breasts because of a mental health issue is the equivalent of giving someone anorexic a gastric band.

It also won't cure any underlying issues that caused them to dissociate from their body in the first place.

With 'gender identity', rather than deal with the causes of their dysphoria, it is actively encouraged, applauded and 'affirmed'. Why?

There is nothing innate about 'trans'.
It can be anything from a maladaptive trauma response to a sexual paraphilia.
Someone with dysphoria or just anyone who says they are.

Don't worry, the majority of people won't think you're 'stirring' at all. None of it makes any linguistic, logical or biological sense, so it's understandable not to understand!
I guess if I tried to rationalise it objectively, I'd say that being non-binary is different from trans in that many of us who don't adhere to gender 'norms' (or gender obsession?!) could call ourselves non-binary if we wanted to use a very politicised term. Whereas 'trans', although always talked about in terms of 'gender', is actually about sex. It's obviously impossible to change sex, but you can, for instance, cut off the parts of your body that are most telling of your sex.
So I guess you could be both (??) but it doesn't make a lot of sense, as if you're 'non-binary', your outward physical characteristics shouldn't matter at all as you can simply play around with gender roles irrespective of your body. That's kind of the whole point of not accepting binary gender. Whereas to 'transition' boy to girl or girl to boy (albeit impossible) you do have to pretend that you're actually changing sex.
I'm sure there are all sorts of things wrong with that analysis but it's the best I can come up with 😂
In this instance, I guess you have to just nod neutrally or give sympathy as appropriate.

Transphobia is a meaningless word that just means refusal to believe in the trans neo-religion.

Oh so it matters to the people who don't agree with it. Gotcha.

It’s a waste of time trying to have a reasoned discussion here.

On the contrary, this is one of a very few places where you can have a reasoned discussion. And that's why WaitingForMojo is raging, because people pointing out the harm caused by this insane ideology can't be silenced here.

Is there a link you could share? That would be a massive relief if true. I’m concerned about a young friend heading this way.

I know ‘top surgery’ used to leave women unable to breast feed.

So you agree with it?

You think that elective surgeries to remove healthy breast tissue is a good thing for a young woman to do ?

Care to explain why?

What the positives are?

No point trying to make sense of it, it's such a ridiculous social contagion. I just made sure my kids were well educated and very clear that sex is binary, they can dress and present and do whatever they want within their unmutilated healthy bodies. But that no-one changes sex.

They are out there. I'm FB friends with two such men. I doubt photos of them post op would be published in msm on or offline tbh.
But there is certainly a huge wave of girls and young women trying to identify out of their biological sex lately. Teenage girls are far more vulnerable to peer pressure of course.

OP genuine question - is your friend's daughter happy with the results of the surgery ? How does her mum feel about it ?

My concern would be massive regret in the future.

We only have one body, to be messing about with it unnecessarily at a young age seems such a waste, I feel the same about breast implants, botox, fillers etc.

It also seems such a waste that non binary people who reject social gender norms aren't pushing to get rid of the stereotypes society has put on them, but are instead turning on themselves in an attempt to escape it.

So I think soupycustard kind of got my garbled question.

I didn't think a person could be non-binary AND trans. Like non binary is no gender / sex. Trans is one sex/gender "CHANGED" into the other.

I wasn't aware you could pick 'n' mix but I live and learn.

Going back to the anorexia thing. Part of the goal can sometimes to be make the body sexless and childlike. Prepubescent. Similar to non-binary.

Whatsnewpussyhat · Today 13:03

Cutting off perfectly heathly breasts because of a mental health issue is the equivalent of giving someone anorexic a gastric band.

I'd say it's more the equivalent of giving a gastric band, and having sections of their stomach and digestive tract removed, radical liposuction and maybe having muscle tissue removed to make them thinner.

OP genuine question - is your friend's daughter happy with the results of the surgery ? How does her mum feel about it ?

The mum says child is very happy. The mum is being supportive. Mum tends to pop a positive spin on most things in life...bit of a grin and bear it kind of person. Doesn't ever want to upset people.

Of course the child is happy - just as a child who has anorexia or bulimia is happy when they vomit or lose weight, and who would no doubt be delighted if they had the sort of intervention that @MagpiePi describes.

Does that mean that their parents and the medical profession should enable that? Of course it bloody doesn't. The people who support this are the sort who hang about chat rooms encouraging young girls with anorexia to starve themselves or young people with mental ill health to take their own lives.

How old is this 'child'?

The mum is 62. Child is mid 20s

I think it's unhelpful to think of trans as short for transition any more. It's both a more encompassing and also more nebulous term.
I get the impression for many people it's a state of mind and a position they have taken in terms of both how they see themselves and how they want others to see them.
Being non- binary both makes complete sense and no sense at all to me. I can really empathise with the wish to be outside of the sex binary and the shackles that comes with gender, but as a middle aged woman I am at peace with both my sex and what I make of gender roles. Would I be NB if young now? I think I would find it very appealing.
It's very hard to watch healthy young women opting for radical body modifications in the pursuit of self realisation. But, if they are adults we should respect their choices. They may never regret those choices and if they do, they will be the voices that influence the direction of travel of this type of intervention. I know this view is not unilaterally shared but very few opinions on this matter are.

It's not just sad,it's fucking tragic.

At least she's not a 'child-child' I guess. Thank goodness.
I sort of feel that although it's a massive fail of society that women could do this and that there's such a huge mental health crisis, it's a bit easier to deal with when it's an adult. Just hope she doesn't try to bring other vulnerable people along with her.

This. You don't agree with someone suffering from anorexia that they are fat, and celebrate them when they harm themselves.

Sorry , I don't have a link , but you could Google. It's like top surgery is an form of minimising, where as a a mastectomy removes the all tissue .
There will still be a lot of breast tissue left after top surgery, as it isn't dependent on size.