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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:
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Loopsdefruits · 19/05/2017 16:55

Walking mostly female victims, probably, although males are also victims of rape and may be raped by women (although, at least the last time I studied this, rape was requiring penetration, so more men are 'sexually assaulted'). It's revolting, as is all rape, but it's very sad as it can happen in communities where the victim is convinced that it was for their own good :(

Sylvia Sure, if that's how they want to ID, but that shouldn't legitimise the idea that asexuals are straight. Do you agree with the split-attraction model?

Walkingtowork · 19/05/2017 16:56

If an obviously male person (whoever they were dressed/made up) was given a women-only award, or a place at a hard-fought-for women's refuge, and saw me looking horrified, would that be a micro-aggression?

CricketRuntAndRashers · 19/05/2017 16:58

Walking

Yes.

Walkingtowork · 19/05/2017 16:58

Just to be nit-picky, it's not really "all rape" as only women are at risk of pregnancy and all its life-changing consequences. Or may feel they have to seek an illegal abortion and risk their life for it.

Loopsdefruits · 19/05/2017 17:01

Not water boarding, chinese water torture. Water boarding is probably more akin to the major forms of aggression, where the aim is to cause fear/pain/death whereas water torture is designed to break someone psychologically. Water torture doesn't hurt, or cause any damage externally really, it's designed to drive somebody insane. There is a difference between the 'odd' micro-aggression here and there and sustained 'chipping' away at a person's psyche over days and weeks and months and years.

The accumulative effect of that can be just as damaging as a major aggression, although it takes a lot longer, and is taken less seriously by other people.

Bullying can take the form of micro-aggressions

Loopsdefruits · 19/05/2017 17:09

walking the reason rape is horrifying is not because of the potential for pregnancy, like there's risks of HIV, PTSD, mental illness cause by rape. Those effect all rape victims equally. Like, if an infertile woman is raped it's not 'less bad' just because she can't get pregnant from it. Pregnancy is a very real and upsetting potential outcome for women who get raped, but it is one of many, and it's not the worst.

cricket it might be seen as a micro-aggression, and it might not even really register. It's usually a bit more than a 'look' for it to be picked up on.

Terfing · 19/05/2017 18:41

@Loopsdefruits

Can non-binary people (who were assigned female at birth) claim maternity leave? Or is that just for cis-women? If we aim to change.aws, then we need to work this stuff out.

nauticant · 19/05/2017 19:40

cricket what exactly was the problem with that woman using the locker room?

My guess is that the leisure centre's concern was triggered by this:

I usually do it in this gender neutral area the gym has but sometimes, like today they close it for schools visiting the swimming pool.

Depending on the configuration of the place they might have perceived a risk that schoolgirls while changing were going to be exposed to an adult male (assuming the reddit poster is an adult). But I have no inside knowledge and might be mistaken.

DN4GeekinDerby · 19/05/2017 20:23

I agree with M0stly that TERF has become a sex-specific insult for women not toeing a certain line and used a lot as silencing tactic. I've been quite frustrated within the last year how many organizations I've seen attack and had people threaten physical violence because of things like inviting people that a twitter-mob has decided is a TERF or Women's libraries have particular books available that have been labelled 'terfy'. Who does that help? Who does all these boxing and policing help? It isn't the the ones usually targetted with TERF - lesbian women. We've come full circle from the '70s with so many so-called 'queer' publications throwing butch women under the bus for their 'masculine privilege' and other BS like butch women aren't currently and have for decades been pushed to alter themselves. All I can see is people being hurt and silenced under all of this.

I know many women who take testosterone for medical reason and I know some trans men who take it and while testosterone increases sex drive, I've yet to see anything that suggests the kind of sexual predatory behaviour used to described 'trans women hopped up on testosterone' for any other group or used to excuse any other group. I am a woman with very odd hormones, I'm closer to the lower end of blokes than women my own age due to ovarian insufficency and other issues [I've been told hormonally I am intersex] and I am a bisexual woman with a strong preference for dating other women... and even at my most 'inappropriate' I do not pull the stuff described. I find excusing it just on testosterone ignores a lot of biological diversity which I would have thought was important.

Re: asexuality - while I agree it should be part of sex-ed, I think ensuring that it was okay for young people to know it can be normal and okay for people of any orientation to not want sex or to nor feel any attraction unless there is a strong connection [as with demis]. I think it is also important to note that in a heteronormative society, some of LGB people struggle to know when we're sexually attracted to others particularly when we're young - almost everyone I know has a 'I dismissed it for reasons' stories and some still struggle with it well after being out. It's far more complicated than whether it belongs under the 'umbrella' (ignoring that there is no singular LGBTI or queer or MOGAI or whatever community), but how we discuss what attraction means, the range of how it is experienced, how society and biology influences those. The split-attraction model which is quite old can be helpful for some but its blanket usage can be damaging as well - treating sexual and romantic attraction as completely separate feeds a whole host of homophobic and biphobic ideas.

I mean, I don't get why it should be assumed to be under "the umbrella" or why it is assumed that everyone who doesn't see it's place there is 'gate keeping', bisexuals aren't always under "the umbrella", many large organizations didn't include them well into the '90s and some into the '00s even with one of the 'Mothers of Pride', Brenda Howard who was a lifelong activist was openly bisexual. The movement to put everything as queer - like HuffPo having kink articles under "queer voices" or treating polyamory as queer, just why? Who does it help? For me, my being polyamorous is very important in discussing my experience and being open about my feelings and how I see the world & want to live my life...but it's not an orientation. I have had people give me a lot of shit for it which was hurtful and based on damaging stereotypes but...that doesn't make polyamory queer and making it so wouldn't help anyone.

The T is similarly new - and really, the whole thing of trans women and trans men having to be seen exactly as their 'cis' counterparts is historically very new as is the idea that everyone who has dysphoria about their bodies is trans. There is a lot of great writing particularly by butch women and femme men on the grey area throughout the last century. For much of even recent history, living safely was the goal with being treated as one wanted socially as the dream, I do not see how having 'gender identity' used in crime stats or health stats helps anyone nor having it legally protected to a higher point than sex. I cannot help but ask who it helps to push for misgendering someone to be a hate crime when misogyny isn't in the UK outside of Nottingham.

I used to be in a environment where questioning the 'trans women are women' was seen as blasphemy and the assumption that all movements should help all other movements was very much the rhetoric - it took my a long time that it was never followed by action. The women's bathrooms get changed but not the men's or fighting for more facilities, the women centre and shelters have to open up rather than fighting for own resources like many third+ gender groups in other cultures that are rebuilding from the violent destruction of colonization are doing, the treatment of Black women's movements by mainstream White feminist groups, disabled activist groups constantly having to defer and ensure able bodied groups aren't offended by pointing out most ableist abuse happens at the hands of our families and carers. I like there being more words to express ourselves and challenging how identities are maintained in society, I just don't think the push to have them enshrined in law and have to be validated by everyone really helps those who need it.

It isn't a hate crime for someone to tell me I'm not really disabled, it isn't as a female a hate crime for people to tell me I'm not really a woman if they hate my appearance or how I live my life (and one thing I see an awful lot on people targetting 'TERFs' is to misgender and call the women they target 'men' or 'manly'), but that is what people are pushing for here and in Canada and so on.

and loops, I'm not sure why you assume more men are sexually assaulted by women rather than raped by men. I don't think that matches the research I've seen though the differences in definition does cause problems with that. Also, the transmission of STDs is not equally shared by sex (this depends on the disease but most are more easily caught and have more consequences for women) nor is PTSD (women are more than twice as likely to have PTSD compared to men even when considering social reasons why men would be less likely to come forward for help). While all rape and sexual assault victims deserve the same level of care and consideration, and no one should judge any as less bad than another, you can't say any of the effects of rape are equal between sexes. Neither can you say what would be the most horrifying thing about it - that is subjective to the individual and the assault -- and I say that as someone who has had it happen to me both by men and by women - and having had PTSD already prior to the first time it happened. For some, that wait to find out if their rapist impregnated them is weeks of on-going torture and that's before we get to the mental issues for those who do become pregnant or reproductive coercion which can happen separate as well as alongside "corrective" rapes.

jellyfrizz · 19/05/2017 20:26

So how should we describe ourselves if we do not accept that we have a gender identity at all?

Congratulations iggi, you are agender! gender.wikia.com/wiki/Agender

EezerGoode · 19/05/2017 20:30

It's not so funny when it affects someone you know and care about...real people with real feelings upset and worried,not sure of anything anymore...how hard it is to find your place in the world,when you don't know yourself first..

jellyfrizz · 19/05/2017 20:52

Is that to me Eezer? I am agender and I'm worried and upset about people conferring gender on myself and those I love because it is harmful in so many ways.

Pipefighter1982 · 19/05/2017 21:30

I am a man who feels he doesn't belong. I am not fully human. I want to be recognised as a sooper dooper ultra awesome gadji

DN4GeekinDerby · 19/05/2017 21:35

Blush Sorry for the novel above, all the ideas and such seemed to have gotten away with me.

Eezer I was one of those people. I spent years feeling like I needed an explanation of why I wasn't a 'normal' woman, why I felt and was treated like I had failed as a girl. I was in a bubble which told me I was probably a trans man, genderfluid, genderqueer - my real feelings ended up twisted against me as proof that I was anything but a woman, anything but an individual woman in a society that wants us simplified and dehumanized and separate. They were very sure of how right they are and our places in the world but... being in one's head too much and focusing on all the things that made me not a woman ended up really damaging and slowed down my finding myself - only getting out of it and working with those completely different from me perspective-wise helped me see myself. It's elitist 'we know better, don't step out of line while we educate the poor masses' ideology appropriating the work of others.

We can have new words to describe people's experiences that help people find their place and people like them in the world without creating identities people are pushed to pin themselves to, draw battle lines around, and expect everyone else to validate. We should expect safety and consideration from others, but we can only find ourselves in the world when we can validate ourselves.

Datun · 19/05/2017 21:44

We should expect safety and consideration from others, but we can only find ourselves in the world when we can validate ourselves.

Exactly.

If your sense of self relies on validation from others, you are setting yourself up to fail.

Friends, family, loved ones might support you. But then there is always the next person. The one at work, the waiter, someone online.

You are inviting a crisis every day.

And there will be many people who invalidate you deliberately. Because they don't agree.

Your sense of who you are cannot, must not, rely on everyone else.

marfisa · 19/05/2017 21:44

Coincidentally, today for the first time I learned that someone I know identifies as non binary.

I'd spent some time with them before but didn't realise that they preferred to be referred to as 'they'. In fact I probably inadvertently used the wrong pronouns but they never called me up on it.

Now that I know this person prefers 'they', I'll call them they. I'm a feminist and to me that means respecting people's sense of their own gender.

It's patronising to think that if someone chooses to identify as genderqueer, it's because they've been 'pushed into' it. People choose that category because they find it personally liberating.

DN4, it's terrible that you were made to feel as though you weren't a 'normal woman' (what's a normal woman anyway??). For you, it was important to hold onto your identity as a woman by ignoring people's ignorant stereotypes of what a woman can or should be. But for others, it might be equally important and empowering to reject the labels of male and female altogether.

I just don't see non binary people as threatening. I don't see trans people as threatening either. But I know that makes me a minority on MN. Sad

Datun · 19/05/2017 21:47

I will add, and I don't mean this to sound patronising, but this is also something that comes with age.

As you get older, the sense of who you are and what is important to you distils. You slough off the unnecessary and you pursue the vital. And it should not involve someone else making that happen for you.

jellyfrizz · 19/05/2017 21:49

But for others, it might be equally important and empowering to reject the labels of male and female altogether.

Do you mean masculine and feminine? Because male and female are discriptors of sex not gender.

styledilemma · 19/05/2017 21:56

I can't believe people are falling for all this they pretentious bollocks.

I'm going to cal you He or She, Her or His

If you don't like it. tough.
I'm not pandering to nobody.

marfisa · 19/05/2017 21:56

I don't see 'biological' sex as simple any more than I see gender as simple. We experience sex within a social world, a world constructed by language. That means that on some level, 'male' and 'female' are constructs too.

Walkingtowork · 19/05/2017 21:56

I do wonder how much of the disagreement is just due to us working on different definitions of words. "Gender" and "sex" mean different things to me and the younger age group.

You probably have to tediously agree on definitions to get any meaningful discussion going.

Walkingtowork · 19/05/2017 21:59

To me:

male/man = biologically male
female/woman = biologically female

female gender = feminine
male gender = masculine

With a note to add that I wish gender was abolished altogether and we could all just be ourselves (which acknowledging women are oppressed)

If your definitions are different marfisa what are they?

marfisa · 19/05/2017 21:59

No worries, style. I don't think you're going to be mobbed by hordes of non binary people demanding you address them as 'they'. Hmm

It's a matter of courtesy really. It winds me up when people call me Mrs or Miss instead of Ms, and it makes me think they're a bit ignorant, but I can't force them to call me that. It doesn't change my view of my own identity.

Walkingtowork · 19/05/2017 22:01

sorry I mean while acknowledging.

second thoughts, I'm probably a bit too tipsy to be posting here right now Grin

styledilemma · 19/05/2017 22:05

A lot of it (at least among st the younger age group) I'm sorry to say, is, by and large, attention seeking.

MySIL who's daughter (my neice) ,has decided, on a whim, to describing herself as Gender Neutral. Hmm
It's a thing in college at the moment. Apparently.
Even her own mother admits it's the latest thing/phase her daughter is going through (she has been through many)
We refuse to refer to her as they. Much to neice's disgust.

I'm not saying there aren't some people who genuinely identify as gender neutral, but don't kid yourselves.
A lot of the kids who are identifying as gender neutral are doing it mainly to be seen as cool. It's the latest thing
Nothing more nothing less.
We as parents shouldn't be pandering to it.
the worst thing we can do is to take it too seriously.

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