So what *is* non-binary?

[BareBelliedSneetch]

Not being goady, honest!

But I got myself lost in this tweet

twitter.com/sophierunning/status/1049552156402077696?s=21

It’s full of people saying “that’s not what non-binary means” and “maybe you should do the listening” but no one actually explaining it.

It seems that non-binary has nothing to do with gender conformity. And you can be an adult human female, and present as femme. And still be non-binary. Which just confuses my little head.

Can anyone help?

(And help me make it clicky?)

It's bollocks tbh. Everyone isnon binary because not everyone fits fully into gender boxes.

It's personality. That's all.

If you believe in 'non binary' it means you believe that girls like pink and dresses because they are girls - even if you can't actually explain what 'girls' are or how to define them.

@UpstartCrow but that’s exactly what all the people on that thread are saying is wrong. And then it saying what it is

Not saying.

There is no definitive definition of non binary!
Each person decides what they think it means then argues their point. I wish I were joking, I'm not.
Identity politics is useless and divisive, it creates and supports hierarchies

Here, this explanation makes as much sense as any;

www.healthline.com/health/transgender/nonbinary

What is nonbinary?
The term “nonbinary” can mean different things to different people. At its core, it’s used to describe someone whose gender identity isn’t exclusively male or female.

If someone tells you they’re nonbinary, it’s always important to ask what being nonbinary means to them. Some people who are nonbinary experience their gender as both male and female, and others experience their gender as neither male nor female.

Nonbinary can also be used as an umbrella term, encompassing many gender identities that don’t fit into the male-female binary.

Dr Jane Clare Jones addresses something like this issue in her: 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/

When I've read accounts by people who define as non-binary they just seem to be rejecting societal sex stereotypes for men and women. I get that but I can't follow their logic into this meaning that they are neither man or women, or male or female. You can say 'fuck you' to sex stereotypes and still be a woman/man who lives life on his/her own terms. I mean, that was what feminism was all about!

From those I've met, most non-binary people are surprisingly sexist...

I really really want to reply "2... 3.... 4..." to the question in the title.

To me non-binary is pretty much everyone who isn't trans. No-one fits exclusively into the 'woman' or 'man' gender box.

To woke teen DD non-binary is people who strongly reject one gender one day or hour or minute but accept it at another point. Or someone who strongly rejects various aspects of one gender while accepting others and vice versa.

I'm not non-binary despite my aversion to pink, small children and glitter and love of tech though she can't explain why. Apparently I am agender as I don't have strong associations to either gender.

The whole thing is bullshit if you ask me. They are making more boxes to put people in while accusing those who don't believe in the trans narrative of being small minded

"I really really want to reply "2... 3.... 4..." to the question in the title."

On a recent BBC webpage (which had a selection of 'young people' who seemed ridiculously ignorant of basic safer sex information BTW), we had a non-binary transman. I think that means you can have a beard, but don't consider yourself to be a man, or not exclusively. Or something/anything................
It's as important as anyone elses subjective description of their own experience, but for that reason, not necessarily terribly interesting to anyone else who doesn't share other people's obsession with gender identities.

Myself, I'm not binary, I'm octal (but hexadecimal on Thursdays)...........

www.feministcurrent.com/2017/07/28/special-millennials-special-please-tell-im-special/

Personally, I think the TRA lobby overreached themselves with non-binary. I think they genuinely thought that everyone who was not trans cleaved to a 'gender identity' that matched their sex. With more people saying 'well, I'm non-binary then because...' it weakens the whole gender ideal. Either the criteria for non-binary will be tightened up or non-binary will be pushed out of the trans umbrella and given to 'cis people'.

I think it's one of those cases of the human urge towards pattern recognition and attributing causation gone wrong.

Basically it starts from a good place - the recognition that there are all sorts of sexist expectations within society which are forced on people willy-nilly (girls like pink, boys don't cry, women are submissive during sex, men have to be driven and ambitious, women are empathetic, men are systematising, women are "people people", men are drawn to things...) Then add on the additional recognition of the fact that you as an individual don't fit any of those stereotypes.

So far so good.

Then leap to completely the wrong explanation. Instead of saying "well, the stereotypes are a crock of sexist shit", say "the stereotypes are real, but I don't fit them, so there must be something different about me... I know, I occupy a special place in between stereotypes."

I'm old school. So if binary means... In mathematics and digital electronics, a binary number is a number expressed in the base-2 numeral system or binary numeral system, which uses only two symbols: typically 0 (zero) and 1 (one). The base-2 numeral system is a positional notation with a radix of 2. Each digit is referred to as a bit. wtf does that have to do with wanting/not wanting to wear a skirt or play with a doll.

Lol London
That article is spot on

Non binary people are the most irritating of all gender ideologists because for one they repeatedly claim to be "opressed" on the basis of their gender identity but consistently the ppl most likely to declare themselves non-binary are (class privileged) white middle class university undergraduates.

They also demand the ridiculous and counter-intuitive pronouns "they, them, theirs" well actually it's up to a speaker as to how they use those pronouns, not you.

What is the difference between a male non-binary person and a female non-binary person?
Well, I'll tell you, it's their their sex. A sex that everyone can clearly see.

Line up all non-binary people in a row, we will all know who is male or who is female especially after they speak. Sex is a binary. (Intersex conditions notwithstanding but even all ppl with DSD are male or female humans not in some vague mid point).

Non binary is 'ordinary person' who wants to feel special.

Analog? Hm. I think more of a point on a smoothly varying N-dimensional surface. Summat like that, anyhow. Surely no one thinks a person's 'gender' can map onto a 2d line?

Thank-you for that article London Painter, it just highlights how ridiculous non binary is.

01000010 01101111 01101100 01101100 01101111 01100011 01101011 01110011

01011001 01100101 01110011 00101100 00100000 01100110 01101111 01110010 00100000 01101101 01100001 01101100 01100101 00100000 01101110 01101111 01101110 01100010 01101001 01101110 01100001 01110010 01101001 01100101 01110011

53 68 6f 75 6c 64 20 77 65 20 70 75 74 20 61 20 68 65 78 20 6f 6e 20 74 68 65 6d 3f

Just joking!

01001100 01101111 01101100 00100000 01000101 01110010 01110010 01101111 01101100 00100001 00100000 01000100 01101111 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01110100 01101000 01101001 01101110 01101011 00100000 01110111 01100101 00100000 01100011 01101111 01110101 01101100 01100100 00100000 01100100 01101111 00100000 01100001 00100000 01110111 01101000 01101111 01101100 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101000 01110010 01100101 01100001 01100100 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01110100 01101000 01101001 01110011 00101100 00100000 01101111 01110010 00100000 01110111 01101111 01110101 01101100 01100100 00100000 01101001 01110100 00100000 01100111 01100101 01110100 00100000 01110110 01100101 01110010 01111001 00100000 01101111 01101100 01100100 00101100 00100000 01100110 01100001 01110011 01110100 00100000 01011011 01100111 01110010 01101001 01101110 01011101

1. It's 7 isn't it?

The answer is 7.