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...)

Going back a few posts, but the children with ambiguous genitalia raised as one sex but IDing as another isn't convincing for the 'nature and gender' argument IMO - too many variables in an already complicated situation.

There are tons of studies on twins. I'm not familiar with the evidence. But would expect there to be a mathematical probability of certain personality traits (e.g. non binary ID) appearing in separated twins raised in broadly similar cultures. It would be interesting if there were lots of NB separated twins who were raised in environments as different as Beijing and Nairobi.

Owl (one of the NB people interviewed by Piers) has written an article for the Independent about non-binary. I just read it and I'm still non the wiser!

(I'm on my phone, so can't link!)

It does seem to be that identical twins are more likely than average to both be trans, but not guaranteed that they will both be trans (trans here is being used as an umbrella term) which suggests that the cause is not 100% genetic, but neither is it 100% environmental (or there would be no increased likelihood among twins), the results seem to be similar to the likelihood of one twin being gay and the other being straight, which also suggests that sexuality isn't entirely genetic or entirely environmental. But not enough twin studies have been done (small sample size?) specifically looking at the incidence of trans IDs.

stickle I can see that, but I view gender ID as part of one's personality, rather than JUST another word for personality. Like there's not one personality trait that makes you a woman, but you still 'know' that you are or are not one.

Ok, sorry, so you get the idea of gender ID being how you perceive your own gender, but not what 'gender' is, like what it is you are perceiving? So like, if you're just perceiving gender stereotypes then you just feel like a stereotype of a gender rather than actually 'being' that thing?

I can understand that viewpoint, although yeh I don't agree. I was not raised 'stereotypically' girly, I wore whatever (clothes marketed to girls and boys) liked various colours, hated pink, played football, liked imaginative play, liked to read...things that are from the 'boy' list as well as the 'girl' list, but I never felt like anything other than a girl. My nickname was fairly gender-neutral and my parents praised me for various things not 'generally' thought of as feminine. But I still felt like a girl.

I don't think that the absence of any part of my anatomy, or presence of any different anatomy, would make any difference. If I woke up tomorrow with a male body, I'd be a very confused woman, with a man's body. If I feel that strongly about my gender identity, I can't see why anyone else would be less 'sure' about theirs. Although I can understand that a lot of people don't really think about it, or think to separate the two. Of course it's super hard for me to 'know' what my life would have been like had I been born with male parts, or if my parents had socialised me as a boy, and I retained my bio sex, whether I'd feel different.

But trans people are saying things that fit with my experience of my own body/mind, so I don't feel the need to question it all that much because it makes sense to me. I totally understand questioning it if you don't understand it, but I'm not sure that questioning people who don't experience it will get many more answers, because it's not coming 'from the horse's mouth' as it were.

I guess from my experience being an asexual who feels romantic attraction to women, I have been used to thinking of sexuality and romantic attraction as split. Many people who are both sexually and romantically attracted in the same way (heterosexual and romantic, homosexual and romantic, bisexual and romantic, even asexual and aromantic) don't need to necessarily consider that there are 2 aspects to sexuality, so may not even think that there are.

If sexuality can be 'split' then I don't see why bio sex and gender ID can't also be 2 separate but related (often 'matching') things. But yeh, this is all just my attempt to understand the world, and I am by no means going to assume I am definitely right, or that I can't be proved wrong when we eventually discover what if anything 'causes' some people to be trans.

I actually really appreciate how civil this discussion has been, I've felt like people have listened and engaged which is all I was hoping for, we might all be wrong, but all we can do is try and figure it out

I am on the fence. I get the feeling that it is a crusade or something.

It affects a minuscule amount of people, but seems that EVERYONE has to observe and agree, or be damned.

Just my opinion.

I know I am a woman because I have female reproductive parts. If I had been born with male reproductive parts I would be a man.

Firstly I admit I haven't RTFT
It got a bit repetitive after a while.

I think part of the point of non-binary to get away from the labels.
The 'male/female' labeling.
I know non-binary in itself has become a label but that's just a bit of irony for you I think.

The word binary basically means 2. As in 2 genders.
So non-binary is the idea that there are not 2 genders but more of a fluid spectrum. One that includes trans.
I can see the confusion but from what I gather the whole movement is about taking labels off and stop assigning everyone into a box.

For everyone that's feels like 'everyone' is coming out as 'something' these days should be embracing the fact that young people feel comfortable to voice how they feel about themselves, the next generation hopefully will be a lot more understanding and empathetic than any that has come before.

Anyway this is literature the worst place to have a conversation about trans and non binary issues. There's a lot of trans hate in these parts.

If you don't understand it then fine but it's not really that complicated there's no need to be so dismissive though as some PP are, describing a whole generation as snowflakes just makes you look old and unaccepting, it does not change how people feel and choose to express themselves.

So like, if you're just perceiving gender stereotypes then you just feel like a stereotype of a gender rather than actually 'being' that thing?

Almost - I don't feel like a stereotype, I just feel like me. I don't really see myself as having or being a gender. Gender = sex role stereotype, imposed from outside not created within. Aside from the biological fact of being female (not related to gender IMO) I'm just...me. If I woke up in a male body tomorrow I'd still be me.

I would say that you knew you were a girl because you correctly identified your biological sex. There was no reason to question it in your healthy family environment. In some families, behaviour that doesn't conform to sex stereotypes is considered problematic.

Must sleep now!

If people want to come out as whatever, why the fanfare? Why is that necessary now?

I don't give a damn what people ascribe to.

So what is the actual problem here?

Lack of attention or what.......

Loopsdefruits

Identifying as one of a number of different genders is a way of rejecting stereotypes. Which I can understand.

However identifying as the opposite sex, which might be a rejection of stereotypes, is something different, in my opinion. Partly because they are merely switching one set of stereotypes for another. So it's only a rejection of one set of stereotypes. And a reinforcement of the others.

But secondly, I have yet to have any kind of discourse, of any description, with a transwoman where they did not come across as male. Resoundingly.

My take on that would be that they have male socialisation. But they utterley deny that.

The narrative being that as they always knew they were female, they absorbed society's misogyny. Which is frankly ridiculous.

Because, using the same logic, it means that transmen have absorbed privileges bestowed on men. When clearly they haven't. And they often transition because of misogyny. Never because of privilege.

The ideology does not stand up to any kind of logical scrutiny. And one cannot cherry pick the bits that might make sense, when the rest of it clearly doesn't. Especially as they are so vehement over the bits that are clearly senseless.

And it also doesn't take into account transwomen with autogynephilia. An explicitly male fetish.

If transwomen were so convicted about their innate gender, they wouldn't have to come up with all the other nonsensical bits to support their argument.

I can see the confusion but from what I gather the whole movement is about taking labels off and stop assigning everyone into a box
The obsession with gender identity does the opposite of what you claim - it shoves people thoroughly back into those boxes. I don't need to call myself non-binary to say I often reject typically feminine things - I am just a woman.

@susanboozan
Because they are happy?
Or because it feels good to be honest with everyone in their life about how they've been feeling inside.
Its not attention seeking it's a celebration.
Does that make it easier for you to accept?

@Iggi999
Or a person perhaps?

I can see the confusion but from what I gather the whole movement is about taking labels off and stop assigning everyone into a box.

No, its about creating more boxes and shoving others into boxes that you decide for them also.

@WankingMonkey

Precisely. And thank you for your view.

To me it is a summons for everyone to adhere to the rule du jour, for a tiny proportion of the population.

Anyway, whatever, will be all over in a year or two and on to the next cause.

'describing a whole generation as snowflakes just makes you look old and unaccepting'

But the millennial are old as well now, aren't they? Their time is up. The next generation after the snowflake one are now starting out on adulthood, and they're going to have very different ideas, having grown up in a pretty tough time.

Milennials aren't 'old' lol (are we?) I mean, I'm not a teen, but I'm still in my twenties, and seeing as most of us can't afford a house and don't have much hope of a graduate 'career' and also have a mountain of student debt we certainly don't feel old :P

I think part of it is that gender has moved in a lot though thankfully not all discussion from socially constructed roles and their influence on individuals and societies to individual perception of self and trying to change language to create terms to fit all that complexity. Very individualism and self awareness and "discovering oneself" and identity as self sufficient if that makes sense - a lot of treating society, social systems, and just other people as unimportant to how we see ourselves (which I strongly disagree with, I don't think there is any part of our identity not influenced by others and social structures).

I think having words for how we feel we fit within groups and society is good for many reasons, it's great to have things that help us know we're not alone in feeling a certain way that we can use to find others who feel similarly. I am generally happy to refer to people as they wish but the traction of creating labels that everyone else must validate thing going on feels wrong and it's becoming pushy and elitist in some places with the language and such used around it. I know several people, including myself, who have other people try put these labels on for whatever reason and I think while for some it feel great, for just as many others it's painful. I remember a scene in Gender Troubles: The Butches where one woman discusses how she's had several people ask if she's transitioning or trans or this or that and I really connected with what she said about how you have enough people tell you things, it raises doubts and concerns. It feels like some people are trying to erase the complexity of people with more boxes. Personally, and I've seen some people do this, I think I prefer the usage of much of these terms as gender descriptors like masculine or feminine to kinda mark an area in the complexity rather than the hard identity boxes if that makes sense as I think the way some are going is way too in ones' own head rather than as a social thing for others to know which isn't helpful if we want the words to be used to communicate something.

I think the use of other cultures is not very helpful either as most of the ones I know of were violently targeted by various colonizing forces as are most social constructs that don't fit the powerful are and some are being rebuilt by people who are working very hard and the way it's treated by some as naturally there I think does the work those people are doing to decolonize and rebuild a disservice. Also, in many of those, it isn't self identifying, there are rituals and specific expectations and language involved that cannot be applied to the individualist treatment of gender that is rising.

Relax. Its a load of bullshit

FB is full unpretentious twats, describing themselves as Gender Neutral.
makes me laugh. 99% are obviously doing it for attention.

pretentious

I'm another 'I know I'm a woman because I have a female body' individual. As a child/teen I pushed back on those gendered rules and stereotypes, but that made me no less female. As an older feminist I see gender primarily as a set of rules imposed upon me and other females. Sometimes relatively benignly but often violently and oppressively.

The idea that I should 'identify' as those rules is really quite abhorrent to me. The ID movement feels like a faith / religious movement and I want no part of it at all. I think it's toxic and damaging, and watching my teenagers and their peers I can't see it brings anything but greater anxiety and division.

Add to that the damage that the trans activists are causing, which has self identification as it's core ideology, the 'I am whatever I say I am' narrative that has hugely expanded the previous small group of transsexuals who really did/do need support and understanding (although not unquestioning acceptance as women).

Oh and the 'spectrum' concept really makes very little sense. Masculinity and femininity aren't fixed concepts, either over time or in people's minds right now. Studies don't tend to find that groups of people consistently put characteristics in male or female boxes.None of us are binary, we are all complex beings with many characteristics.

I would like to know how a woman making a declaration of being non binary fares after a few years in the workplace. I find that the entirely solipsistic description of gender as an innate "essence" that may or may not coincide with ones biological sex to be completely opposite to the lived experience of interacting with other humans. We are unable to control the behaviour of other people towards us and that behaviour is based on their adherence to gender stereotypes, not ours. I subverted gendered expectations by pursuing a career in STEM. This choice was fully under my control, as was my descision to work hard and get quite good at it. I still couldn't do anything about the inevitable things that happened to me by those who could see that I am a woman, who chose variously to pay me less, disregard my technical opinion, assume erroneously that they were more knowledgeable than me, follow me around my office staring at me. I could go on. It's called sexism, and it happens because of my sex, and declaring that I am a special gender will not stop it.

'Milennials aren't 'old' lol (are we?) I mean, I'm not a teen, but I'm still in my twenties, and seeing as most of us can't afford a house and don't have much hope of a graduate 'career' and also have a mountain of student debt we certainly don't feel old :P'

Nobody feels old, Loops.

The next generation are now entering adulthood and its their turn to be the young people, whether you've got a house and a job or not. Time just keeps going forward.

I think I put questions marks because...It's sort of a university habit, we all discuss things but try to frame our statements as questions to continue the discussion.

Loops it's more of a Home and Away habit than a university habit. And I say that as an Australian. It makes you sound like an airhead. That and the constant lolling. You don't want your generation characterised with sweeping generalisations but the ubiquitous and unnecessary lols are characterising you as part of a very silly portion of your generation.

I do appreciate you helping us understand the concept of gender as an innate thingummy. I can't make any sense of it, but I understand you have sincerely held beliefs about its authenticity. So thank you for that. (Also sorry I'm currently on page 14 and just about to read on, so if I've missed the mark that's why).

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.

See, this is my problem. I don't have this conundrum. That's why I think it's a load of old cobblers.

If everyone from birth had to wear dung coloured boiler suits, like in More's Utopia (I think, from memory?), then would we have this problem? No we fucking wouldn't. It's a problem created by late capitalism exporting fucking manufacturing offshore to be made by quasi slave labour and sold for peanuts to people who buy too many clothes and earrings. Fucking the end.

And what I think proves my point is the fact that 'Genderrr non binary/genderqueeeer/blahblahblah' often like wearing lipstick and high heels, which are basically annoying face paint and hurty shoes. If you wanted to opt out of gender you'd opt out of the most fucking irritating parts of it, wouldn't you?