Non Binary / Gender Neutral

[MissBax]

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...)

I think gender is part of your personality, or rather your personality is made up of various innate character traits and various external experiences. I think gender is innate, and will be largely unchanged by external factors, although it can be affected (effected? Sorry, never quite figured out the effect/affect thing) by external things (how people view you, how they relate to you etc...)

nauticant
I'd put it another way. Many trans people would love to change sex but know that they cannot and so inflate enormously the significance of gender which they can change, although in a rational world the gender someone displays wouldn't really matter that much.

Massive light bulb moment, thank you.

Any joy on the definition of binary? I think I'm really asking for a list of the characteristics that someone would use to identify as one gender or another or neither. Though I wonder if the neither option means there's nothing left. Or is it just both? Like the rest of us.

In the interests of honest declaration, I am frustrated beyond measure that feminists have thought, talked and worked for years to eliminate gender and the stereotypes associated with sex and all of a sudden it's all for naught. Gender identification requires that gender exists as do the stereotypes associated with sex. That's very far from the progressiveness that the Tumblr types think they are espousing. I'd love a proper discussion around that, if any of those who support self ID are willing.

Loops
I can't think of a single gendered behaviour, preference or identity that is consistently identifiable throughout time in all human populations all over the world. If gender had any basis in biology you would expect to find at least one. Can you think of one? Genuine question!

The notion of a 'third sex' has existed in various populations at various times in history. But is absent in other times and places. Some cultures see individuals as parts of a whole and don't recognise individual 'identity' at all. Why? Are/were they biologically different from us?

First I definitely get that, it's the most complicated part of the argument to understand I think. I guess for me (and I support self IDing) gender has an 'innate' aspect and an external aspect. The innate part is what people mean when they 'feel' their gender doesn't match their sex. The external stuff is harmful gender roles, and performative gender requirements, and sexist dress codes. The innate thing is fine (IMO) but the external stuff is crap

If gender is an expression of personality, that's got to be hard to define as we all have different personalities and express ourselves differently and very often it depends on mood, confidence and any image we want to portray that day. Clothes expression often depends on the situation and any message we want to give off.

Is there a gender ID for that?

innate part is what people mean when they 'feel' their gender doesn't match their sex

But can you see how this feeling might be rooted in a response to the cultural environment? 100 years ago there might have been boys feeling uneasy about the fact that they preferred the colour blue to pink, since pink was the 'boy colour'.

Add up lots of mismatches between personality and cultural expectations and you could well have someone who strongly feels that their gender doesn't match their sex.

stickle that's interesting, I haven't thought about that, I don't think there's a behaviour or preference, but surely the 'identity' is what gender is? So the single identity is 'male' or 'female' or 'neither' or 'both' and that identity exists in all people who ID as female, male, neither or both. So something exists in people who identify as female, that causes them to identify as female.

I don't know what that is, or where in the body/brain/genome it exists, but it's possible that at some stage in the future we will know (That may be overly hopeful, we still don't know why some people are straight and some are not).

I think the fact that third gender exists in some cultures and not others is not a mark that we are biologically different, but that cultures are different and not all of them have the same understanding/language to deal with various realities.

stickle of course, I also agree that in some parts of the world there is an abundance of people who are IDing as trans due to social factors that make it more acceptable to be trans than gay. This is unacceptable.

But the vast majority of trans people are not doing it because they 'need' to but rather because they do feel that something is 'not right'.

It is possible that environment does play a part, but most children raised as gender neutral still develop a gender identity. Some children who were born with ambiguous genitalia and actually 'assigned' a sex at birth, and then raised according to that sex, developed significant problems where they felt they were not that gender. This suggests that it's not 100% nurture either.

'So something exists in people who identify as female, that causes them to identify as female.'

Is there something in us that causes us to identify as having other physical attributes?

Is gender a physical attribute, sex obviously is, but gender doesn't cause any physical outward signs (the way you choose to present your gender is a choice, and that choice IS linked with how other people view gender and the societal expectations of how women and men are).

So then it becomes a thing about whether anything exists in people that causes them to feel a specific way, which ofc there is. Personality will develop even in the same/different upbringing (identical twins will have different personalities even if raised together, or similarities in personality even if raised apart).

Sorry, but what does ofc mean?

I'm really confused.

I understand the concept that some men have a penis and wish they didn't.

I don't understand what gender identity is, but I think Loops is genuinely trying to explain something.

sylvia sorry! of course (getting a bit tired so slipping into internet slang)

I hope I'm trying to explain something lol

Have you seen the gingerbread person infographic?

Yes, I've seen it and it doesn't explain anything to me.

It's like my neighbour said she was a healer. So I nodded and smiled. She said again she was a healer, like it was really important, and I don't know what I am supposed to say to that, because it doesn't really mean anything in my worldview.

And I really want to approach each interaction with compassion, but I don't get the gender identity thing (although I understand body dysmorphia), so I don't think I am approaching with compassion, quite apart from any political issues around this.

The genderbread graphic presents "gender identity" as a spectrum extending between woman and man. It also presents "biological sex" as a spectrum extending between female and male with intersex between the two.

It's a load of rubbish.

Yes, all of these 'explanations' are paper thin and too general.

That's fine I was just wondering if you'd seen it. So like I guess that the way I understand it (and the way I feel) is that people are made up of their bio sex, their gender identity (these can often 'match') then there is gender presentation and then sexual and romantic attraction (different but they exist and form part of people).

Personality can be made up of various traits, some of which are innate, some of which develop as a response to certain factors, some are a combination.

Gender identity is how you view your own gender in your head and forms part of (but not the entirety of) your sense of self.

Gender presentation is how you express your innate gender identity, through your dress/mannerisms/activities and also how these expressions are viewed through the lens of the society in which you live.

I do believe that even children who are raised entirely 'gender neutral' and are not required to conform to gender norms will still develop a gender identity, and that may or may not align with their bio sex. Although these individuals may not 'express' their gender in the same way as someone raised more traditionally.

This is the bit that confuses me- why do most transgender men want to aspire to dress like Beverly Hills wives, when most women don't dress like that?
It looks ridiculous, and I feel quite uneasy about it.

I don't think the gingerbread person is perfect, but I do think that a spectrum more accurately explains gender than a binary. I do agree that bio sex isn't a spectrum

westray this is actually more a social thing I think? They feel they have to 'over perform' their gender in order to be accepted

Why do things have to be a binary or a spectrum? Who even thinks in those terms about the world?

I don't know if a gender identity is a binary or a spectrum or anything else because I've still not been told what it even is. I've only heard what it isn't.

I dunno, I think a lot of the world is more shades of grey than black and white. For me gender identity is how you perceive your own gender.

That is just rephrasing the same sentiment.

Most things are neither shades or grey nor black and white. Why do you think in those kind of systems? Do you understand not everyone does?

If I look around me now, dog breeds, types of pyjama, kinds of meals, window types. These things are not on a a spectrum and they're not a binary either. And they're all much simpler than the human mind.

'For me gender identity is how you perceive your own gender.'

For me X identity is how you perceive your own X.

Still none the wiser as to what X is.

Loop I see it like this:

'even children who are raised entirely 'gender neutral' and are not required to conform to gender norms will still develop a gender identity personality, and that may or may not align with current stereotypes associated with their bio sex.