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

@NeurotrashWarrior yep - my now ex-husband apparently suffered more when I gave birth to/miscarried our daughter at 20wks 18mths ago! He wouldn't have it that not only had I gone through all the horrific morning sickness, the cramps, the piles, the weight gain, the migraines, the spotting and anxiety but also the CVS when they discovered there may be a chromosome disorder (it was Edwards Syndrome) and then hours and hours of agonising labour whilst knowing I wasn't going to hold my baby, followed by depression, bleeding, cramps again etc... ALL THE WHILE he was nowhere to be found because he didn't know I was in hospital losing the baby as he was shagging his ex wife that night... yeah, the only difference in his words, was that it came out of my vagina but he felt allllllllllll the pain and suffered as much, possibly more than me, because he cried louder than I did (he didn't hear me screaming "my baby!" over and over again in the hospital) and because being a man or a woman should be irrelevant these days in ALL cases! As I said, they were his words - I actually have them in a text somewhere! I filed for divorce when I got home from hospital - and that was before I even knew about the affair, just based on his complete lack of empathy and total narcissism.

Is it not bolder to say I'm not male or female and dress / wear / interact how you want and say deal with it society and not label it.

I love the idea of everyone defining their own pronouns, I would have dug being them/theirs. It bugs me though - is they grammatically correct for a singular person?

I like what Simon Fanshawe tweeted about Sam Smith’s “announcement”:

[https://mobile.twitter.com/SimonFanshawe/status/1172871154090041345 Simon Fanshawe on Twitter]

Mr Fanshawe is the founder of Stonewall and one of the leading figures in calling out Stonewall’s homophobia. Pretty shocking turn of events which shows how far this misunderstanding of the difference between sex and gender, and the trans activist extremists bollocks are doing to advocacy for ordinary gay men and women.

Simon is a staunch feminist ally on this. He sees what is happening. Interestingly, he doesn’t get banned, doxxed, or threatened with arrest like women who speak out against gender bollocks do.

Sorry clickable links. On phone and grumpy

Simon Fanshawe on Twitter

die

Ok...but where did these ideas of gender come from? I mean they can’t have just been made up.... patriarchy. Soz but true.

Is it not bolder to say I'm not male or female and dress / wear / interact how you want and say deal with it society and not label it.

Bolder, yes. But not ‘fashionable’.

And if you refuse to label yourself, you remove your right to get self-righteously indignant and start crying when someone inadvertently gets your label ‘wrong’.

Oh it's just further attention seeking. Let's be honest, he thought it was so bold to be gay, when it's pretty normal, especially in the music industry, how long's Elton been out?

What annoys me most, is when he says he's got a sassy woman waiting to come out of him.
It's funny, all these men (and that's what he is) have a sassy or fierce woman inside them who prances around in heels.
Not one of them has a woman on day three of a heavy period in sweats, watching Netflix and eating a whole pizza to herself followed by a tub of ice cream! Oh no, because that's not what a woman is to THEM!

Attention seeking, pure and simple. Don't know who this person is, but if a 'celebrity' then perhaps a need to get publicity?

My only question is: who are Sam Smith?

As someone who has to correct unintentional bad grammar can I just say that that sentence hurts?

Thanks for the clicky link. I can’t get on the link right now. I imagine there are a lot of people doing the same.

SS is doing fa for woman. I can’t believe some people think coming out as non binary is refreshing and liberating. It would be if it weren’t for the fact it’s all on the back of woke bollocks.

Spartacus
I agree. But it was a piss take, I imagine.

Oh sorry - I know it was a piss take - sorry if that wasn't clear :)

GCAcad it's interesting you say that. I've often said the introduction of questioning gender to infant children actually doesn't seek to allow them to be themselves but rather just reinforces gender stereotypes.
So a 5yo girl who prefers trousers and playing football is having the 'male' gender stereotype being reinforced when they are encouraged to consider their gender self identification based on those choices.
I understand that a teacher will not active,y approach them and ask them if they identify as a boy/male. But we are introducing the topic of gender identification at an age that I believe they don't understand. Whereas in fact - we should almost be teaching gender non binary (not as a concept and label) by actively teaching both male and female sex can enjoy any activity and it not gender based.

With this crap Sam is also sending a message to any young male that also tends to put fat on in their hips and thighs that they're not actually a male or a man.

I'm reality the pronouns aren't a huge issue as sometimes it's appropriate to use neutral pronouns, for example when discussing job candidates where achievements are being discussed and sex/gender bias is being avoided.

It's when he links it to 'being part female' and trots out a pile of gender stereotypes linked to women.

Regarding weight, Many women are naturally lean and it's more linked to phenotype, genetics and increasingly gut bacteria passed down from the mother through vaginal births.

There is male, female. That is it. A biological classification. No one gets to opt out of it. The non binary wagon is attention seeking rubbish and the only people negatively impacted by it is women, in terms of rights and safety.

youarenotkiddingme I agree with you.

I feel the whole gender identification issue is definitely reinforcing gender sterotypes to the detriment of everyone.

For example, my DD is pretty girly, but her favourite colour is green, and some idiot asked if she was a real girl because her favourite colour wasn't pink! DD is nearly 20, so not some tiny child

And I think back to when I was young, my parents telling my brother and I we could do whatever we wanted, like what we wanted to like, generally telling us in many ways we didn't need to conform to steroetypes.

School was the same, in fact in general we were all encouraged to break away from male/female norms and I thought society was really changing.

Then suddenly, to me at least, it seemed that we were back into the girls like pink and glitter, boys like blue and dinosaurs shit again.

We need to go back to teaching kids they can be what they want. Not in a change your gender way, that reinforces the sterotypes. But in a "girls can like dinosaurs and boys can like ballet" way.

Is it not bolder to say I'm not male or female and dress / wear / interact how you want and say deal with it society and not label it.

I’d say it’s braver to say I am female or male because that’s my biological sex, and I dress / wear / interact how I want because that’s my personality. Not because of gender crap. I have short hair, a techy job & no interest in babies, high heels or lipstick. I wear dresses on occasion, quite like cooking & my best friends are a group of phenomenal women.

Spartacus
No need to apologise. My brain isn’t working well today - migraine. Was just asking... genuinely.

Yes youare, the only way gender should be explored with children is via smashing stereotypes.

This is an excellent watch at how bad stereotypes are for young people of both sexes.

It also demonstrates how tackling ott masculine stereotypes for young boys supports their understanding of emotional literacy and potentially helps them to be less violent and misogynistic as adults.

smashing stereotypes is feminist.

Trying to change who you are and your body to fit said stereotypes is not.

I haven’t RTFT because I’m cooking pancakes but I feel female, I can’t necessarily quantify that but having had a short period of having to take testosterone for a medical condition I can definitely say that I felt different, physically, mentally and emotionally. I hated it.

walk, if you are female you will feel female- you can't possibly feel anything else.

I find it spectacularly disrespectful of SS and others to claim they sometimes 'feel like a woman'.

Being a woman isn't a costume you put on. It isn't something you opt in or out of. It isn't a feeling in a man's head. It's not a collection of stereotypes for playacting blokes, nor is it liking pretty things.

It's a lived reality, day in, day out. It's the only thing that unites half the population of the planet. It's physical, hormonal, frequently bloody awful and we aren't identifying our way into this shit.

We aren't someone's cosplay.

Sam 'Nicked a song from Tom Petty and got caught' Smith can call himself whatever he likes. He'll still always be a bloke, if not a terribly interesting one.

@Fresta
How do you know what is and isn’t possible for someone else to feel?

There are people on here saying they don’t ‘feel’ female.

What makes you able to determine whether their feelings are accurate?

how is it progressive/smashing stereotypes for a man like sam smith to say sometimes i feel 'womanly', - whatever the feck that is - in conclusion i am not a man?

what does it say other than that he is terribly confused?