AIBU to feel confused and old about transgender issues.

[confusedandold]

I was born in 1976 so 43 years old. During school, I don't recall any children in my school having issues with their gender. There may have been some but none that I was away of. I had no experience of transgender people apart from a vague memory of seeing a man in women clothing walking up the road and being fascinated by it.

Transgender issues have never been at the forefront of my mind. I feel that I'm very accepting of other people's life choices and that people have a right to be happy in their lives whatever that means for them.

Lately, I feel completely confused by transgender issues. It has never been something that I'd given much thought to but I get completely an utterly confused by the terminology. Non-binary, cisgender etc this is all wording that I had never encountered before. Everyone seems to be talking about trans right and gender issues and I don't understand where this has suddenly come from. Is it that more people have issues around their gender? Is it fashionable to be gender-neutral? Is it just that people now feel more comfortable in expressing how they feel inside? Is there greater acceptance? I'm returning to the UK after 10 years abroad and this is a topic that was never really discussed when I left.

I guess I'm asking because I don't want to inadvertently offend anyone by using incorrect terminology. As shocking as this may sound but when I was at school mixed-race people were referred to as 'half-caste', even mixed-race people in my school referred to themselves in this way, now this is a huge no-no. Times change, language changes and it is so easy to offend while having no intention whatsoever of doing so.

@ListeningQuietly

So am I right in thinking that the non binary people regard the rest of us as some sort of 1950's stereotype male and female ?

Presumably they do, but only as much as anyone else might.

It's not that gender critical feminists don't understand non binary, I think they do. Everyone recognises sexism. It's just that the non-binary solution is to attempt to opt out of it on a personal level, whilst allowing it to flourish.

And gender critical feminism addresses it across-the-board.

It's akin to religious belief.

People who buy into gender identities reify (turn into a thing) the concept of gender. People who say there are non-binary identities are simply saying there are three or more of this nebulous gender identities rather than simply two (masculine and feminine). It's like a Catholic and Protestant arguing over whether transubstantiation is a thing. Both agree that taking communion is an important part of being redeemed, they just differ on the finer points about the form and substance of the bread and wine.

GC feminists are more akin to atheists or agnostics. We don't think of ourselves as having a gender identity, merely (contingently) a sexed body (which has precious little to do with our personalities beyond the obvious fact that we are all conditioned - albeit arbitrarily and only partially - by the society we grow up and live in).

It is possible that part of the problem stems from having one word - gender - doing double duty for two entirely separate concepts. There is "gender" as it always used to be used in social sciences/feminist theory as a word for the complex, culturally relative and culturally constructed, and oppressive system of sexist stereotypes. Then there is "gender" as it has been used post Judith Butler, to mean internal sense of one's masculinty/femininity/in-between-ness/neither-ness (which is the point at which it all begins to look a bit like the religious concept of the soul to me).

The two do overlap though, in that any conversation I've had with someone who takes the Judith Butler line either leaves "gender identity" as this nebulous thing that they just feel exists (the Layla Moran "I can see into souls" approach) or ends up degenerating into a list of sexual stereotypes of the sort I want to escape from ("gender" in the old-fashioned social sciences sense).

That's why I along with many feminists would argue that you can't believe "gender identities" are a thing out there in the world, existing independently of cultural construction, while simultaneously being critical of "gender" as a set of repressive boxes.

Cool,

Now can somebody define what a man and a boy are
just sorting that Eton application for a non binary child

Yes, I agree. It's a personal cop out. On the days/%situations when I would say I was none binary , it's when I feel boxed in to specifying a gender , feeling defensive, or when I have spent too long on social media with people going on about wrong bodies

@DianasLasso I feel the need to advance search you are read everything you have ever said 😁

I’m SO interested in these discussions, if you have any reading materials you can recommend to me that would be great.

Here you are @ACNH.

4w.pub/non-binary-is-the-new-not-like-other-girls-and-its-deeply-rooted-in-misogyny/

And I just saw this article. It's not actually about 'non-binary' people, it's about those women who want to help all women in the fight against sexism (feminists) versus those who just want to get on for themselves (they are called 'Queen Bees' in the article, but it sounds very similar to how female people who call themselves non-binary behave with their 'not like other women' attitude).

Forgot the link
www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/06/queen-bee/488144/

@ListeningQuietly

Cool,

Now can somebody define what a man and a boy are
just sorting that Eton application for a non binary child

Its only "woman" that can be identified into.

Females can't identify as men in order to benefit strangely enough...

@OldCrone I’m happy to read all perspectives however your general sweeping statement about NB people does not sit well with me.

females can't identify as men in order to benefit

Exactly, I tried for many years but it doesn't matter , you are stuck with your body ,and being somewhat aged, I am extremely glad that no one volunteered to help me to try and fix that issue

[quote ACNH]@OldCrone I’m happy to read all perspectives however your general sweeping statement about NB people does not sit well with me.[/quote]
What does non-binary mean to you then?

As advised on page 19 ..

Today 10:17 ACNH

So for me non binary is ‘does not wish to be identified by male or female’

I think of the XX XY as blood type - we all have our own blood type - but we don’t disclose it - however if we did there is no stereotype bias by others knowing we our blood type - some people don’t know their blood type and is has had no detrimental effect to their lives. So being non binary and not disclosing chromosome type does not deny any part of our being the same as not disclosing our bloody type.

midgebabe
We are all really stuck in our bodies
but in the words of Helen Mirren
as you get older you give less fucks

So by hiding the fact that they are a woman, a woman can protect herself from discrimination based on her sex? It's the act of disclosing ones sex that causes people to discriminate?

I meant to quote ACNHs post there, sorry.

OK, so maybe a better question is why would someone identify as non-binary? Why would someone want to keep their sex secret from everyone who meets them? (And you do realise that this is impossible for virtually all adults, don't you?) What benefit does this have for the individual concerned and/or all the people they meet?

Basically a cult is infiltrating our society and creating an issue where there wasn’t one once. Some men and women have always enjoyed wearing traditional clothes of the opposite sex which people either approved of or disproved of depending on their personal point of view. Then along came the medical profession and they felt the best way to support people with mental health problems was to mutilate them. Now a group of people think they can change sex which they can’t but it doesn’t matter really because a newer more extreme group of people (men) think they don‘t HAVE to medically transition but think they have the right to don a frock and waltz into any female space whenever they feel like it! Anybody who thinks differently to them must be silenced so they are facist in nature. They also like to use language to create a ‘debate’ where often their feelings are ‘hurt’ much more than any woman’s feelings and also they have managing a bit of state capture by infiltrating and lobbying government organisations to change guidance and law to allow men into women’s and girls exclusive areas. Why would adult men want this I hear you cry? And after all the abuse scandals I think we all can see the true agenda here.

@DickKerrLadies no that’s gender bias

@OldCrone you’d have to ask that individual

@ACNH so I have to ask every non-binary individual what non-binary is? Is there nothing these non-binary people have in common with each other? In that case, how do they all know that they are non-binary? How did they discover this identity which they all have if it's something different to all of them?

Yes there is something they have in common- they are non binary.

The same as what being a woman means to all women.

woman has a definition though - an adult human female. I share that with all other women irrespective of anything else

Is there a similar shared definition of non binary that all NB could point to and say “yes that’s me”?

@ACNH

Yes there is something they have in common- they are non binary.

The same as what being a woman means to all women.

But everyone who is non binary is either female (a woman) or male (a man).

The same as what being a woman means to all women.

That we have XX chromosomes and in our reproductive capacity produce large gametes. There’s really nothing else we have in common beyond that. However, the lived experience of the gendered expectations imposed on us and some of the consequences of fulfilling or not fulfilling reproductive capacity may allow some women to collectively identify over some areas and share distinctive experiences.

I assume what non-binary people have in common is not based on their sexed bodies as there will be male and female sexed people with this identity but the rejection of traditionally ascribed masculine and feminine gender roles and attributes. Although that’s a bit of a Venn diagram as some men and women who would not describe themselves as non-binary, reject these things as well.

They all have XX or XY chromosomes. They are neither of those genders.

@Gwynfluff being a woman means a lot more than that to me.