Is non binary about gender roles not sex?

[Jackshouse]

I am so thoroughly confused. I am a biological female, yesterday I bled the radiators, re pressurised the boiler and watch tv when my biological male partner but the toddler to bed. This is non binary?

I know quite a few women who describe themselves as ‘non-binary’ in my wider social circle, in their late 30’s. Mostly they’re the erstwhile cool girls who aren’t like other girls, you know the type. Internalised misogyny has a lot to answer for.

A few friends have teenage girls identifying as the same, which again I think is rejection of (hyper)femininity as currently prescribed by society.

Perhaps us middle aged types should embrace the non binary stuff and render it deeply 'uncool'. That would probably stop it in it's tracks. If everyone except Angela Rippon and Danny Dyer identify as non binary the special woke crowd won't be so special anymore.

Get with programme: non-binary means anyone who identifies as non-binary.

Jordan Peterson put it perfectly when he said that he could define gender is one word: fashion.

That's all his nonsense is, fashion choices.

This is a very enjoyable read: https://aeon.co/essays/the-idea-that-gender-is-a-spectrum-is-a-new-gender-prison

Stonewall’s definition of non-binary is “An umbrella term for people whose gender identity doesn’t sit comfortably with ‘man’ or ‘woman’“. Which is not massively clearing it up for me to be honest. Unless the non-binary people assume that everyone else is 100% happy with what society says men and women should do, and it’s only the few special people who have an issue with it?

I belong to the gender of “people who recognise that ‘gender’ is about how societies and cultures operate, not an internal and individual property we can’t apply any kind of group analysis to, because humans and sexism and oppression exist as part of a wider society and not floating around in some pure individualistic ether where oppression mainly relates to pronouns.”

I think the people who describe themselves as non binary are different than those who reject stereotypes. If I look at the university students who say they are non binary, they are making it a statement, they are combining things very stereo typically feminine with things stereo typically masculine. So the men have small, child size pink sparkly T shirts over a male body. A male face with one pink bit of curly hair etc.but no make up to complete the look. The women, I suspect are breast binding or cutting their hair. It's the non binary males I've seen more of though. They don't just wear normal, unisex jeans and a hoody - it's about making a statement.

So they probably think they are expressing their female personality with the mini skirt and the male with their boots, for example, instead of just doing things that aren't gender specific. So, I don't advertise my female-ness or need to, but if I felt 20% male or whatever and believed it was important to express the fact, I might have to have a crew cut.

I think it is nonsense, don't get me wrong, but I do think they do see it differently to us. I also think I might have bought into it a bit as a teen.

“An umbrella term for people whose gender identity doesn’t sit comfortably with ‘man’ or ‘woman’“

Teenager with wacky hair?

WatchThePotatoesBoil

That is a great read. Thank you for sharing. I am now busily emailing it to everybody I know.

I believe in the abolition of gender as I believe in the abolition of slavery. What is this desperation to belong to a tribe? It devalues the rich complexity of identity and personal moral choices, making it into the most superficial conformist nonsense I've ever seen. It would just be ridiculous if not so terrifying. If 'woman' is divorced from sex I suppose I'm going to have to be non binary.

There's a very... helpful page about it here. Very useful for all those of us who are just realising that we are non binary and maybe thinking about coming out to our families. transequality.org/issues/resources/understanding-non-binary-people-how-to-be-respectful-and-supportive

The good news is that "It isn’t as hard as you might think to be supportive and respectful of non-binary people, even if you have just started to learn about them."

Non binary = trying to hard to be interesting.

Non-binary non-shminary! Gender non-conformity has been around for ever, nothing new or special about it. I think a lot of people play around with this when they are young, it's good as it's part of forming your identity and questioning gender norms. But it ain't new.

I wrote a lot about this in my GRA consultation. Especially asking how it could be possible to legislate for those who describe themselves as gender-fluid who, by definition, have an inconsistent sense of gender identity. I mean how could you legislate for it?

You don't get beaten up, or murdered, or treated differently at work because you're non-binary. A landlord won't discriminate you, or a shop refused to serve you because you're non-binary. So what is the justification for allowing NBs to think they can sneak into 'protected characterisitcs' status?

Non-Binary people ask for 'acceptance' in the same way that a vegetarian asks her family to accept her beliefs/tastes and adapt the dishes and choices accordingly.

But NBs don't just want acceptance (as if anyone cares!) , they demand 'privileges' and 'concessions' and bollox around pronouns and mixed sex toilets.

On yer bike, NBs. It's not a thing. It is laughable that the parliamentary committee on Women (yeah right) and Equality actually considers NBs in the reform of the GRA. In fact, it's shocking.

Whenever you see 'non-binary', use the substitute 'vegetarian' just to remind yourself how ridiculous they sound.

All of this is very dangerous ground to bring up with my teen dd, but I actually might suggest to her that I'm non binary and see what she says. I suspect she'll be annoyed and dismissive, and the only reason that she won't accept it is because I'm too old to fit into her narrow perception of what a non-binary (brave and stunning blue-haired person) looks like.

There is an ageist streak a mile wide in this ideology, as well as a logic vortex.

Aornis I think you might be onto something there. If we oldies all start describing ourselves as NB, because we are when you consider Bonerwall's definition, it will instantly lose it's appeal as a hip identity. Genius!

I think it's much shallower than gender roles and is the consequence of a generation who have fallen hook, line, and sinker for the notion that boy = blue, pink = girl. Thanks largely to marketeers now everything is gendered: pink vs blue lego, etc. They've been brainwashed to think this way and that why they can't see beyond it. It's tragic and so limiting. Kids feel so constrained by it that they feel the need to identify out of it. Then there's all the porn-related pressure to perform. Just look at the cast of Hollyoaks, which I assume many teenagers and preteens watch, and it's like they're squeezing them from tubes: one from the boy tube, another from the girl tube. I think I saw only one female with short hair on there. All the rest look like a very heavily made up version of Barbie. And this gendered rubbish is starting way before that. CBeebies is riddled with gendered assumptions. I know this because my child who doesn't watch TV chucks a paddy when I try to put her in trousers (suitable clothing for playing in the woods) because another four year old she plays with (who I know watches a fuck tonne of TV) has told her they're boy clothes! When TV is presenting kids with such 2 dimensional characters from such a young age it's no wonder they're confused!

Slightly OT but the jeans thing only happened yesterday and I'm still fuming about it!

Laundry that's awful. When my DD was little and came out with nonsense like that I just laughed (gently) and said ' "How silly that person was to say that". Then I introduced her to as many strong female characters in books as I could find. Time to read Pipi Longstocking to your DD?

I know two women in their thirties who identify as non-binary. One wears hippy colorful style clothes and has multicolored hair and the other wears jeans/t-shirt/hoody and doc Martin style combos, oh and has blue hair.

I’m staring to wonder if NB’s is code for part Troll, what with all the snazzy hair and that.

Both women are in relationships with men and have children so heterosexual women, but on a serious note, neither of them do, or probably would ever conform to societal “beauty standards” and I do wonder if the NB label is a way of opting out of the ubiquitous pressure of having to perform femininity. As a fat person myself, I have some sympathy with women who just would rather not have the “standard” applied to them than spend their whole life striving for the unobtainable however as a feminist I want to see the “standard” eradicated for everybody rather some nonsense, reality bending ideology of non-sexed people (which doesn’t work anyway because everybody still know they are female and society will treat them accordingly regardless of blue hair and feet stamping whilst screaming I’MNOTI’MNOTI’MNOT!).

Agree it's nonsense and just means you hate the sexual stereotypes. It has nothing to do with your sexuality as it doesn't mean you're bisexual. I think it's used by immature attention seeking people who don't realise most people, especially women don't conform to the stereotypes and that's OK, you don't need a special box and pronoun to be nonconforming.

Posted without comment:

twitter.com/DrAdrianHarrop/status/1049677108136546305?s=19

Attempting to deliberately invalidate, delegitimise, and indeed, make fun of non-binary gender identities is manifestly transphobic.

Non-binary people are valid and real, and have the same rights to recognition and inclusion as everybody else.

#nonbinary #trans #LGBTQ 🌈

Oh, what a coincidence!

I can see how it happens though, I mean my GP also spends her whole day reading MN and Tweeting and never doing any actual doctoring.

It's quite a dense read but Dr Jane Clare Jones' piece is worth a look: A note on 'smashing the binary'

What I want to do here then is think through what ‘smashing the binary’ would or should mean in its original context, and to lay out the fundamental conceptual mistake in how it’s being thought in trans ideology. My claim – surprise! – is that this conceptual mistake is so dramatic that when trans ideologues and their allies wheel out some vague-ish claim that they’re leading us to liberation by ‘undoing’ or ‘challenging’ binaries, they are, in fact, repeating exactly the problem that the original critique of ‘binaries and why they are bad’ was trying to address. What this comes down to is that people don’t understand the distinction between ‘a binary’ and ‘a difference.’

janeclarejones.com/2018/10/01/a-note-on-smashing-the-binary/

Non-binary people are valid and real, and have the same rights to recognition and inclusion as everybody else

Given that many (most?) people on this thread have identified as non-binary, I'd say the good Dr H is preaching to the converted. How very dare he.

I belong to the gender of “people who recognise that ‘gender’ is about how societies and cultures operate, not an internal and individual property we can’t apply any kind of group analysis to, because humans and sexism and oppression exist as part of a wider society and not floating around in some pure individualistic ether where oppression mainly relates to pronouns.”

I agree with this