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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Non Binary / Gender Neutral

952 replies

MissBax · 17/05/2017 08:21

Okay so I know this may spark some serious debate. I just want to say that I really don't want to offend ANYONE, however AIBU to say that the whole non Binary trend (for want of a better word) is getting abit out of hand??
If someone was born a man and chooses to transition to a woman or vice versa I understand that, but to say you don't identify as having a gender... I just don't understand it?! I am female but have never been girly - I didn't have dolls, I despise pink, and I always played football with the guys, climbed trees and was very sporty. But I'm still a girl. I know boys who didn't necessarily like "boyish" things but they're still boys. Any girl or boy can like anything they like.
Now we have "non binary" people who SAY they don't identify as one gender or the other, yet some of them are born female, wear make up and dresses. So following typically "girly" or "feminine" characteristics. Or those who have a sex change and THEN say they're non binary?! So then why have the sex change?!
AIBU to think this is just another way to ruffle people's feathers and possibly attention seeking?
(I wait in anticipation for being called ignorant and a biggot etc...)

OP posts:
Thread gallery
16
MissBax · 17/05/2017 18:43

Kursk absolutely. Making something out of nothing

OP posts:
SenseiWoo · 17/05/2017 18:46

Non-binary I take to be how a younger generation than me denotes opting out of stereotypes and wanting to be treated as an individual. They may not need a label for that, but their generation does labels. All well and good.

But like so many of these things, the twits have turned up and are busy undermining a fairly sensible postion with 'fairykin' and the like.

When I was young, 'transracial' did exist, though we didn't know that was what it was called. Those who laid claim to it tended to get beaten up quite promptly, to the general approval of most.

QuimJongUn · 17/05/2017 18:57

Surely the best and most sensible thing to do is eschew labels and stereotypes entirely?

Once you start talking about 'masculine' and 'feminine' ends of the spectrum, you're reinforcing the expectations and limitations socially constructed gender norms dictate.

Ffs, stop it. It's harmful. And it helps precisely nobody.

Fauchelevent · 17/05/2017 19:09

A lot of people view the opinions on these threads as the words of DM bigots, under informed and inaccurate and thus they label us bigots. The thinking is that since we're critical of a group of people, it's the same ad blind hatred/racism/homophobia - any criticism is being read as hate but if they actually took the time to read what is being said they'd realise we are in fact very informed, likely very leftist minded and many of us came through the same thought processes as them before we thought a bit more critically.

As for "non-binary", i think there's a lot of navel gazing involved in the shaping of these gender identities, combined with identity politics morphing being a sapiosexual pangender into the new emo, goth, punk, beatnik, mod. It is still very much centred around finding a place in the world through fashion, iconography and cliques but in a way that in the end has been harmful to young lesbians who are bullied for being lesbians rather than transitioning out of womanhood.

There's another side to this amongst my SJ minded same age (early-mid 20s) peers. In my circle of feminists, a lot of the women have now begun to id as non-binary. And you would read them all in the street as women - from butch women who date women, have short hair, use they/them, eschew make up and dresses, to women who love hair and beauty, dresses, use she/her date men and generally conform to society's expectations of womanhood. So you might be wondering what about the latter group is non-binary.

I have said on a number of threads what it boils down to. We have women who will tell you the definition of woman is "anyone who identifies with womanhood, and has that nebulous feeling of being a woman". The point is that is so unlikely to resonate with anyone other than men who go on to transition. Most women, adult human females do not have any sense of womanhood beyond their biology but there are women who know to express this belief would make them a terf, so they look inwards, see they do not feel like a woman and therefore conclude they aren't one.

And there's a whole aspect of personality being conflated with gender, rather than being an assertive woman who takes up all the space she wants and goes about the world in ways men have felt free and entitled to do, they assume they must be men.

There's a lot to unpick, and I do think it makes going about the world that much more complex for young women. I think rather than doing what they rhink they are doing which is smashing the patriarchy head on, they're submitting to it under a different form. That's my issue.

QuimJongUn · 17/05/2017 19:13

rather than doing what they rhink they are doing which is smashing the patriarchy head on, they're submitting to it under a different form

This.

Excellent post btw, Fauchelevent (and excellent username, too Smile)

StickThatInYourPipe · 17/05/2017 19:38

from reading all of these posts, I still think it's personality and not gender. I am a female human, I do what I like and I don't buy into all typical feminine stereotypes. There are things I do which are very feminine but then I also do things that are very masculine. I don't think that means I need to give up my gender, which is really biologically impossible anyway.

I think the issue I have with it is there isn't a a specific noun to call non-binary people. Some like zee, some like they, some like zim. Why make it all so complicated?

Fauchelevent · 17/05/2017 20:00

Thanks Quim! And i love it when people get the username reference ;)

onemorecupofcoffeefortheroad · 17/05/2017 21:40

Now we are back to square one.

CricketRuntAndRashers · 17/05/2017 21:42

Onemore

What do you mean?

Ktown · 17/05/2017 21:46

What has happened to education? Facts, not opinion are important
A female/male are a collection of biological characteristics, likewise intersex
What everything else is - well I don't know what they are on about.

squishee · 17/05/2017 21:46

My mother was offered the drug that caused thalidomide

Thalidomide is the drug name

Bambambini · 17/05/2017 21:50

to women who love hair and beauty, dresses, use she/her date men and generally conform to society's expectations of womanhood. So you might be wondering what about the latter group is non-binary.

What fo they expect other folk to make of them, random folk they encounter out and about? What makes them non binary? How eould folk know unless they tell them - or is that the point - it's an interesting conversation topic.

Bambambini · 17/05/2017 21:53

Onemore - it must be hard when the masses, the unwoke everdayfolk just don't understand.

sticklebrix · 17/05/2017 21:56

If only it were a joke, brix.

Quim Where on earth has all this gender pigeonholing nonsense come from? Why is it being taken seriously? I see no difference between masculine, feminine and stargender. All labels for a set of shifting affinities, personalities and behaviours. Social constructs.

onemorecupofcoffeefortheroad You are describing a female person getting on with life in the way that suits her best. There should be nothing noteworthy about a woman behaving in a way that suits her personality and preferences. It's a completely normal, neutral situation IMO. Nothing that needs pigeonholing. Just 'woman gets on with life'.

gender really is not a fixed thing
YY. Which is why I personally think that gender labels are unnecessary and irrelevant. Sex is objectively, consistently fixed and measurable in every culture throughout human history all over the world. Gender really isn't. There is no need to define or pigeonhole it. Or sense in trying IMO.

exWifebeginsat40 · 17/05/2017 21:59

is it within policy, i wonder, to say your post is a really cunty way to speak about people who, presumably, would like to go about their business without endless speculation about their genitals.

i'm not saying you're a cunt, OP. i'm just saying you made a goady, ignorant, unfounded and prurient post, and that maybe you should think about why.

jellyfrizz · 17/05/2017 22:33

exWife But no one is talking about genitals - that would be sex. This is about gender.

Bambambini · 17/05/2017 22:46

Surely trying to hyde or be ambiguous about the genitals you possess - is going to get folk wondering about them more rather than less.

Cos, with most folk we'd never guess of course.

Leads me wondering if we have a right to know the sex of the people we are interacting with.

StickThatInYourPipe · 17/05/2017 22:56

I've gone off tonight and watched some videos on this

Still no clearer although I do find it a bit of a way to pigeon hole people. Equally I am starting to find it a little offensive that people who are non-binary seem to be defining gender sterotypes like - you must act this was way if you're a woman, that way if you're a man. If you don't you are not those things and therefore must conform to being non-binary.

Fauchelevent · 17/05/2017 23:06

bambam well imho it's a whole lot of navel gazing and there is a lot of conversation along the lines of not needing to make any changes at all because it's what you feel inside that matters (see: Danielle Moscato) but from my perspective why anyone would a) need to know that deep inside you (like most of us) do not walk around singing Man I Feel Like A Woman to the point where you give it an identity label and b) be able to oppress you based on a deep down feeling such as this on any tangible level

Really it's beyond me, but i do see people getting distraught over a passerby using "madam" to refer to them and of course there is further division because dysphoric trans people will criticise non-dysphoric non-binaries who are then called "truscum"

I mean a lot of this politic only really becomes any kind of reasonable on tumblr when you can have these long self-indulgent identity politics explanations, and bloggers are identified by laundry lists of labels detailing who they are, and then the people disagreeing with you are toxic oppressive abusers. When it gets transplated to the real world it becomes quite absurd.

JigglyTuff · 17/05/2017 23:08

God - this is just Kevin and Perry really isn't it?

Bambambini · 17/05/2017 23:13

I blame The Breakfast Club myself. That's where it all kicked off.

exWifebeginsat40 · 17/05/2017 23:21

i dunno i feel like the cock-and-balls IN YOUR CHILD'S FACE at the swimming pool post is going to appear any minute.

it's like godwin's law but with transgender people. you can set your watch by it.

QuimJongUn · 17/05/2017 23:35

exWife the OP is about non-binary people, not trans people. There is a difference. Also, re your previous post, gender is a social construct and has nothing at all to do with genitals.

StickThatInYourPipe · 17/05/2017 23:40

Exwife - I don't understand the transgender issue being raised in this, I thought transgender people were men or women who identified as the opposite sex. Something, IMO takes a lot of courage for people who should receive as much respect as everyone else.

That is not the issue here, I don't understand the balls in your child's face thing can you explain?

StickThatInYourPipe · 17/05/2017 23:41

*Something THAT! That should say