Sam Smith coming out as non-binary - help me understand!

[namechangeblah2019]

Name changed for this in case it gets messy.

I don't know if you've seen in the news but the singer Sam Smith came out as non-binary recently and has now asked that people use they/them pronouns with regard to them.

Absolutely not a problem with using those pronouns - I'm not a fan of theirs particularly so it's unlikely that they'll be cropping up that much in conversation anyway!

But - and I promise I am not being obtuse here, I am just old and slow but I am willing to learn - what exactly is non-binary? I just can't wrap my head around it. Surely the existence of non-binariness as a concept positions it as an alternative to an existing binary (i.e. men being macho and loving beer, women being all pink and girly and love wine) which I thought we all got over (or are meant to be getting over - sadly some people are very slow on the uptake!) anyway?

If I put on a pair of trousers or drink a pint or watch football I don't feel any less like a woman. I still feel like namechangeblah2019. How can you both refute the existence of a gender binary but also claim to be outside of it?

Please be kind to me - as I say I'm not implying they are wrong at all and if that is how they feel most comfortable being referred to then good on them and we should all respect that! I just want to learn as I currently feel like a right old fogey

I love the Penguin story.

Because that won't drum up more business and have more tourists paying to come and see the "non binary" penguin, and "lesbian penguins" for possible selfies with them AT ALL.

When I go to the zoo I will bring along a couple of teensy bonnets for baba penguin and ask if I should try to tie on the link one or the blue one. Are penguins colour blind?

12th rule of misogyny: whatever women suffer from, men suffer from more.

Being non-binary is actually quite feminist. It’s a way of rejecting gender stereotypes without doubting them. It’s like feminism light. Perfect for people who don’t like extreme gender stereotypes but don’t want to upset tras.

I agree, Contraceptionis and I can't help but think some woke record company executive is rubbing his/her/their/its hands together that the marketing strategy worked.

Miley Cyrus is gender fluid/non binary/speshial, you know.
It was the short hair I believe.

We are all being played.

And want to get their name and face in the newspaper when their career isn’t doing so well. But the whole ‘I dance therefore I am female’ is absolute nonsense and not feminist.

boggles I used to think that. Read my post further up thread.

How is encouraging girls to damage their breasts feminist?

How is it different to breast ironing? The motivations, to me, actually seem the same. Trying to reject and avoid what the patriarchy and men want to do to and treat women. As objects.

This is how far the gender ideology has gone.

Foot binding was a thing wasn’t it. Mutilate women because - was this driven by women or men?

To PPs who deny that gender stereotypes are getting worse - have a look at a modern toy shop.
25 years ago, when my DC were small, I got all their toys from a chain called The Early Learning Centre. Absolutely everything in it was gender neutral and educational. There was no pink crap for girls and war toys/robots for boys. My girls played with trains, puzzles, board games, construction bricks, dolls that had zips, buttons, poppers etc to help toddlers learn to get dressed, plastic animals and so on. That shop has disappeared, and the modern alternatives look designed to reinforce stereotypes and patriarchy.
When I was young, people could dress and express themselves in any way they wanted, without needing a gender label. Think of Bowie, Suzie Quatro, the New Romantic style, long haired male hippies, and so on.
Nowadays, everyone is supposed to squeeze into a rigid gender box of sexist oppression, and if they don’t like it they must be “in the wrong body” or “binary” or some other woke bullshit. It’s profoundly depressing, and risks sabotaging everything we feminists fought for 50 years ago.

Funny how women are always bound somehow aren't they...

Free the breasts! Have a mastectomy in the name of rejecting gender stereotypes!

Given his singing voice he should identify as a wailing alley cat.

Back in the 70s society was more sexist but with kids stuff it was boys and girls stuff but not colour coded (I guess more ‘stuff’ is being made in variations). Cars, bikes and toy coolers came in a small selection of colours and styles. Pogo sticks and choppers were neutral!

However my sister always had ‘boys’ stuff and no one batted an eye.

We are born with a gender though. Sure, a person can be gay, straight, trans, whatever but surely you can't refute your actual gender? Call it male&female or any name you like but there are only 2 actual genders. Why do so many people now think that gender isn't like that?

Babdoc spot on.
Many years ago when my son was a baby, I dressed him in orange, blue, red, green, purple, blue, white etc etc.
Clothing g was so much better with far more choice.
Now it's all blue, Brown or khaki.

What you describe is sex, not gender. It is called female or male.

We are born with a gender though. Sure, a person can be gay, straight, trans, whatever but surely you can't refute your actual gender? Call it male&female or any name you like but there are only 2 actual genders.

No, that is biological sex. Gender is not the same thing, it's about made up airy fairy feelings.

All this non-binary/trans-gender issue is a step backwards in my view. In the 1980s there were girls at school that didn't conform to gender stereotypes- they had short hair, never wore dresses or make-up, they played football, etc. Usually they turned out to be gay. It was never considered that they weren't girls or women though- no-one ever suggested they were 'men' or born in the wrong body. It was just accepted that they didn't conform.

ffs why can't we just call him Sam??

When things went pink, the problem started.

Boys then weren't allowed to play with them (and secretly did then sometimes thought it meant they were a girl)

Girls only went for pink coloured items. Those items generally included domestic type content. Avoided STEM type activities.

Fast forward and there's an issue with girls achieving in geometry due to lack of STEN toys and fewer women in STEM subjects.

In some respects pink Lego opened up Lego to those pink honed girls; in others it maintained the division.

To be fair, there are now loads of female characters in normal Lego, and often the hero in some of the books linked to kits (ds has a few!) but the existence of pink means girls, unless they actively reject pink, still won't see it as bing for them.

sorry should have said call them sam

When I was a kid Lego was just Lego and it never occurred to anyone that girls couldn't play with it unless they made it pink.

I always liked the clear Lego bricks.

There's an awful lot of TERF and fairly negative attitudes to gender fluidity on MN which I've not been fully able to figure out but this may go south if there's a pile on of those people.

I'm of the live and let live kinda thing

There is a tonne of very intelligent writing about this online by those who have actually experienced these feelings and can explain better than most here. I've read a lot in an attemot to discover more.

I'm still struggling to get my head round this. When did gender stop.being linked to our assigned sex? Why didn't we hear about people being gender fluid 10 years ago? Is gender fluid the same as non binary??

They did scans of brains whilst showing study participants sad pictures and men and women show differences in brain activity. So.. I’m not saying that men or women are more compassionate just that our brains react differently this meaning we are not the same when it comes to this. And that is because of our genes

Not quite. I recommend the book Pink Brain Blue Brain by Cordelia Fine which collates a large number of studies to show that while how very small sex differences in babies brains become larger gaps due to the difference in how we treat girl babies and boy babies.
Many,if not most, of the differences we see by adulthood are down to socialisation and cultural conditioning, and even then there is often such variation between individuals as to make it effectively meaningless.