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...)

A lesser kind of woman, loops? How about a different kind of woman... One who has male genitalia, however much they "feel" like a woman. All women clearly are not equal.
I wonder how far I'd get wailing and gnashing my teeth at the unfairness of these women who have a penis when I don't; in the way transwomen claim actual literal violence when women talk about childbirth or having periods or breastfeeding?
Why is it always one way??

Oops. Sorry for rant.

I was a nice, accepting, warm human being, kind to those in psychological turmoil, before all these earnest teenagers starting pushing this weird illogical terminology on people.

I don't 'feel like a woman' - I just am one. In the same way that I have two arms. I don't identify as having two arms, I just do.

In relation to gender/sex I find that in most cases, 'I identify as' means 'I am not'.

I appreciate loops' attempts to explain her perspective, despite still not being any the wiser as to what a gender identity is and how I would know if I had one.

And bang on cue, I've had a memo from a research colleague to say 'Sex v gender terminology. In gynaecology, urology, pathology and other physiological papers we default to sex as the class designator. In psychiatry papers please use gender identity, shown to be the more accurate factor in a mental illness context.'

I was reading a conversation on Twitter recently where a TW is arguing that their body and vagina is just the same as a woman's now. I always wanted to stay nice and accepting and tolerant - but Language, facts, definitions matter.

Indeed; the feel like thing... I wonder why deciding you don't feel like a man automatically presupposes how you do feel is "like a woman"?? How the fuck do they know, any more than I know how it feels to be a giraffe?

'You can't want equality (or to work towards equality) if you also want to other a 'lesser' kind of woman.'

Who is saying they are working towards equality?

I don't presume to force any kind of identity or descriptor on anyone else, I am perfectly comfortable with using cisgender to describe myself, you don't have to, but I use it because it describes the relationship between MY gender identity and MY biological sex, saying "I am a cis woman" is a lot easier than "I identify as a woman and was born with female reproductive parts" but then, all of my friends also choose to describe their gender identity/bio sex relationship as cis (if they are) or trans, or they ID as NB so it's a cultural use of language. It's also on a lot of our student union forms and things that ask for your gender, our uni is pretty 'gay' (using it as an umbrella term here, not sure on how people posting here feel about the word queer).

Someone asked if there was anyone comfortable IDing as cis, and yeh, I am lol but it's fine not to, although it is widely seen as 'othering' amongst the majority of people I know to only use trans. But again, culture, university is a lot more left than most other places.

Trans women aren't 'lesser' women, because they're not women at all. They're male. Everyone knows this which is why people tie themselves in knots trying to pretend otherwise.

Gay isn't an umbrella term.

Othering to describe yourself as a woman without mentioning which subset of "women" you belong to... Bollocks to that
Transwomen are a subset of men, not a subset of women.

Gay isn't an umbrella term.

It is when the TRA get their hands on it. Then it can often mean "heterosexual".

Quite Bambambini!

Loops - I am extremely left wing but I'm also a radical feminist. If you'd been left wing for as long as I have, you'll realise that, however right on they are, most men always prioritise men over women, and that includes transwomen. It's why transactivism has gained such traction on the left - because it's a brilliant way of shutting women up while also gaining massive political brownie points. Win-win.

So how should we describe ourselves if we do not accept that we have a gender identity at all?
You have to wonder at all the injustices that are going unchallenged while students of all people gaze at their non-binary navels in this way.

Gender is enforced for the sole purpose of one class to oppress another.

The same way that slavery maintained that black people were inferior, and therefore it was perfectly ethical to use them as unpaid labourers.

Gender is harmful to women. It is beneficial to men.

Men who transition to women do not take on any of the negativity produced by female gender roles.

They are not exploited for their sexual or reproductive labour. They have no investment in fighting for the rights that pertain to women's biology. They clearly have no understanding of, or support for, women's boundaries, otherwise they would not be campaigning to remove them.

Whether you think gender identity is innate or not, the reality is, it is nonetheless the biological lived experience that counts.

If you accept that transwomen are women, to all intents and purposes, and need to be included on that basis, you also have to accept the feminism is pointless.

You also then have to accept that a male body, despite being different should be accepted as female.

Which makes almost everything that women fight for completely redundant. Because women's rights are based on their biology.

Datun

Well, modern liberal feminism is quite pointless imo. Unfortunately :(

I'm sorry, feminists do not fight for women's rights, only to be told that they have to include a man's access to erectile dysfunction medication in those rights.

Fucking hell, exactly much nose blowing and arse wiping are women are expected to do?!

Or for male rapists to end up in female prisons...

Or for male trans women to further enforce gender stereotypes.

CricketRuntAndRashers

I agree with that. It's just an extension of the MRA movement.

Iggi I think I'm now gender neutral but female by biology.
I'm refusing to enter into those categories that are imposed on us by whoever.
I'm not going to be a woman that has to wear make up and high heels. I'm not going to stop being able to do some DIY nor am I going to stop liking outdoor stuff (of the dangerous kind too).
And I'm not going to stop to want to be good at what I want professionally and to aim high, putting a lot of importance on my job rather than on 'being a mum'.
I'm refusing to fit into those very simplistic categories.

Datum even though I don't quite agree with the way you present things, I agree that most transwoemn do not fit into the 'feminine' gender stereotype. Because basically when they do, they either really hate it (and some transwomen have actually acknowledge that said they would refer to live as men, much easier thank you very much) or, instead of seeing it for what it is, have decided to say that it's all about trans oppression and how badly they are treated rather than a lot of the behaviours just being linked with being a woman and treated as a woman.
And they won't give it up because after a ifetime living with privilege, living wo it feels very hard work indeed. So let's blame ... women (as usual) not the men that actually are at the basis of the oppressive behaviours (can't be them anyway, they are men, just like them....)

This idea that it is your brain that makes you one sex or the other and not your body doesn't hold water. Because it is your body, that gives you the lived experience of being that sex. Both in actual biological terms and the way the world treats you.

Yes, this. This is what I was trying to say, but (as always) Datun's expression is much clearer.

There is only biology. There are no 'pink and blue brains', nor is there any research which supports this.

Of course there is also the ossibility that being transwoman in the middle of women, they feel it's giving them an edge and some sort of superiority towards women, because .... they are men to start with and therefore should be deferred too....

Ok, so we may have a different idea of what the goal of feminism is? For me it is gender equality, which obviously means that women will not be oppressed by being women, but I also include trans women in that as they do face real and consistent difficulties from both men and women for being trans.

Trans men are also rarely welcomed by cis men, although somewhat more accepted by cis women (because trans men are women? Which is sort of invalidating their gender identity but ok)

Sorry about using gay as an umbrella term, do people prefer queer or LGBTA+? Or the satirical QUILTBAGPIPE that came up on a forum I was on a few years ago (it's long, but also kinda humorously so)

Loop

Yes, gender equality. And especially specific issues women face. Seeing as gender equality is unfortunately a very vague term.

Trans men are rarely welcomed by cis men:

Then go convince "meninists?" MRAs? MGTOW? And not just women/feminists that are supposed to deal with this?

Just like most abuse trans women face is not perpetrated by females but other males?