Non binary

[Fullofquestions1]

Watching first dates and someone said they were non binary and asked the bar guy what his pronouns were.
I just don’t understand surely you are male or female whether that be what you were born or not. I just can’t get my head round not feeling youre either. Can anyone please put it in simple terms for me.

One of my DC identifies as NB. It is the only thing that they have changed that has significantly helped their very poor mental health in the last 4 years and it's made a huge, huge difference.
The only people who have a problem with it are over the age of 40, as no-one under that age seems to care frankly. They take care to be respectful of older people who may not understand (e.g. GParents) and always go in the appropriate loo/changing area, matched to their sex. It can be done if there is respect from both sides of the aisle, for those who don't feel as they do.

We have to modify our speech for gay people all the time. If I don't believe that gay marriage is a real marriage I'm still forced to call my gay colleagues partner his husband or else be shamed and called homophobic. Gays already compel speech.

But if your gay colleague is married then his husband is his husband.
A man cannot become a woman and vice versa. And no one is non-binary. Everyone is male or female.

Not if I believe only true marriages are ordained by God. They are only 'married' because a piece of paper says so. And with a GRC a piece of paper can declare a man now becomes a woman and some countries allow people to get a piece of paper stating they are neither men nor women.

Marriage is literally a piece of paper. That is what it is. Marriage pre-dates Christianity. Its a contract with the government for the purposes of taxation and property. Churches jumped on the bandwagon to make money - as usual. But marriage is a government construct. Nothing to do with any God.

So as marriage has nothing to do with any God, and as it is a government construct and contract, and gay marriage is legal, they are legally married.

Does that mean you think people that aren't religious that marry in a registry office aren't really married?

@WaitingfordoggoI assume not as it would be their sperm and womb, but a donated egg.
I doubt the person exists anyway.

Does that mean that you'd only recognise marriages by "your" God? So if you're a Muslim then you don't recognise Christian marriage? Or vice-versa?

I'm a woman married to a man. Our marriage was conducted by registrars in a hotel; I presume our "marriage" is just a bit of paper too?

Some of us feel particularly distant from typical behaviour for our sex, without necessarily strongly identifying with the opposite sex either.

This is hardly a new thing but what is new is the idea that you can opt out of all sex-specific linguistic descriptors and make a big thing out of how different you are and apparently this will somehow make everything better.

If you're extra keen to be different you can show it by dressing in exactly the same way as the other non-binary people.

I remember when "if you don't have long hair you're not a real girl" etc was the kind of thing said by particularly thick and nasty six-year-olds, but now apparently it's considered right on.

I remember when "if you don't have long hair you're not a real girl" etc was the kind of thing said by particularly thick and nasty six-year-olds

You must be either old enough to be my mother, or young enough to be my daughter. At least half the girls in my class when I was 6 had either a pixie cut, or the same bowl cut as their brothers. I only remeber 1 with hair below her shoulders. Most of our mothers had short hair, and every single one of our grandmothers.

It's so depressing that we've regressed this far.

My neighbour has had blue hair, she's a dog trainer. She's a mother, a grandmother, she's nearly 80. She's fit as a fiddle. Quite average in her views. Her hair colours over the years have made no difference to her life. Why does hair colour bother you? We know people with low intelligence are bothered by it, also preditors are confused by it, which are you?

I seriously don't get the obsession on here with deriding/ sneering at/avoiding people with blue hair on here either.
Saw somebody with the most ,amazing blue AND purple hair the other week, I remember thinking "wow, love it!" then immediately thinking how it'd get certain parts of MN reaching for the smelling salts in a fit of the vapors as they must obviously be a wrong 'un 😂

Can get pregnant, therefore has a womb and ovaries, presumably then ovulates, but can't have periods because no vag opening! How does that work then?

the casual ageism is tedious.

Good for your DC.

As for the reference to "blue hair" it shorthand, like all the tedious posters dropping ageism in or referring to "boomers"

Not if I believe only true marriages are ordained by God. They are only 'married' because a piece of paper says so.

then you do what the rest of us do when confronted by the "They/Thems" or the people who insist on incorrect sex pronouns: use your language to avoid using the words you don't want to use, without being rude. Or let your homophobia hang out there for all to see and take what comes in terms of judgy looks and comments.

This stuff always reminds me of a quote I saw (can't remember who, sorry)...

"You would care less what people think of you if you realised how seldom they do".

As an individual I don't need every person who I meet to validate my personal version of identity. Identity is made up of many, many, many aspects. One small part is how we see and feel about ourselves, the rest is socialisation, how others in wider society see and treat us, how people close to us see and feel about us etc. I can't decide if it is massively self-obsessed or a need to feel a sense of control that drives people to invest so much in promoting their preferred identity on strangers.

Social media and the ability to curate image etc has probably played a huge role in this shift as well.

People don't seem to adapt themselves to different situations in the way that they used to. That isn't to say necessarily change themselves, more people don't think t"there's a 'me' who parties with friends and a 'me' who visits my grandparents but they are both 'me'".

all this childish prejudicial bollocks, do you all realise how petty and catty you sound?

OP its quite simple, people who are 'non-binary' simply don't feel an affinity with being particularly masculine or feminine and prefer to be somewhere in the middle, it used to be called being androgenous.

The thing around they/them pronouns is just an extension of that.

Hope you're not generalising there, I'm over 40 and don't "have a problem with it."
Otherwise that's just as bad as assuming everyone with blue hair is a weirdo who needs to be avoided.

"catty" - get outta here.

NOBODY can force anyone else to refer to them with "they/them" or whatever. When you start on the "oh you're committing literal violence" shite, it makes even me (who will use pronouns for people in person if i can't avoid it) want to slap them.

Everyone should give everyone else at least a modicum of respect as a person. by not being out and out rude to their faces. But ridiculous demands can get to fuck, IMO.

Fundamentally though, that is what a significant percentage of people think/have always thought. There is nothing unusual about rejecting gender stereotypes.

Demanding special labels and pronouns is totally OTT for this very normal human experience.

Hummm...

Bad bad women
Silly and small minded not to act as a mindless mirror and reflect back what is projected on us by others.

Duly noted and filed appropriately.

Non-binary means “I believe in gender/sex stereotypes for other people, but not for myself. So by dressing how I like etc I am proving that I am not a member of either sex.”

Feminists in the 1970s also refused to conform to the sex stereotypes that are now called gender identities. We didn’t imagine that unsexed us. We were proud to be women, and still are.

Ah.. the putting words into mouths/extrapolation condescension 'i'm more intelligent that you' response. Hit a nerve did i?

Do you know all the people replying on here are women? Men/boys are just as capable of being catty.

People can object to a thing without being childish and sounding like nasty mean kids from high school. We're adults, not horrible teenagers poking fun at kids we don't like on the playground.

You talk about trans/nb/pronouns on here and quite a few posters revert to Mean Girls territory in how they respond, its unnecessary.

Then by that logic, do you agree a GRC can make any man legally a woman and everyone should be forced to behave as if it's true?

Oops a personal scolding.
How charming.
Duly noted and filed appropriately.