Non-binary from a gender critical perspective

[Babolat]

How is non-binary understood from a gender critical perspective? I’m getting tied up in knots trying to get my head round it.

When I was a teenager I hated it when everything I did or a girl did was prefixed by my/their sex, when suddenly sex became the defining feature. So I wasn’t a guitarist I was a female guitarist, my favourite band wasn’t a band it was a ‘girl’ band etc... I totally can understand adopting the NB descriptor to attempt to kick against this type of nonsense. But like a lot of people on this thread have said, by saying you are non- binary you are basically saying you aren’t buying into the restrictions of gender bullshit - like most of us on this board but we’re still women!
Self-declaring as non- binary wouldn’t bother me so much if it didn’t seem to require most females to get double mastectomies.I remember being so disappointed with the designer Kate Moross, who’s work I love, when she declared herself non-binary about 2 years ago. (I believe she uses the pronouns she or they so I will stick with she) I completely understood her frustration and objections to being frequently referred to as a female in design and being asked to make speeches about what it takes to be a woman designer/owner of a design studio. However I feel uncomfortable looking at her Instagram now because she’s there with her ‘top surgery’ scars on show and sometimes posing in stereotypically ‘macho’ poses (with a fab Stetson) One picture I saw on her story recently had her squatting proprietorially by her tattooist girlfriend Emily Malice who was lying down hogtied in classic bondage style. Nice. And her girlfriend is posting cutesy messages on her insta story asking her to spit in her mouth. And she says she might start making some soft-porn in lockdown (presumably with her girlfriend who’s into S&M and has her own OnlyFans page) Why the fuck does everything have to get so pornified?

The other thing that disappoints me is that she did a Q & A about being transgender and was asked by a young person about hormones and surgery and she replied by asking them to contact her directly for advice. At least she isn’t attached to any child protection organisations but it’s a bit inappropriate. As a successful female (lesbian) designer she could have been an aspirational role model to young women but instead she’s up there as yet another human being who has used surgery to change their body and is denying their sex. Is it that thing of railing against being too privileged? After all she was that loathesome thing, a (successful) white, middle-class woman - the highest rung of privilege on the identity politics ladder. Becoming transgender puts you right back at an ‘acceptable’ intersection.

I still love KM’s work and their work ethic but I just won’t be pointing my DD in her direction as a role model because of all the other ‘stuff’. My DD is at a very vulnerable age and i know I can’t avoid her exposure to all this but I certainly won’t be willingly facilitating that exposure. Interestingly KM and her girlfriend have Mermaid’s newest patron staying with them during lockdown.

So I wasn’t a guitarist I was a female guitarist, my favourite band wasn’t a band it was a ‘girl’ band etc... I totally can understand adopting the NB descriptor to attempt to kick against this type of nonsense.

I don't think it challenges sexism (the nonsense) at all. It adds another 'other' descriptor eg female guitarist, non-binary guitarist (female)
guitarist (male)

It's all quite performative, isn't it? Intensely focussed on image and presentation and dislocated from material existence. Hm.

How is non-binary understood from a gender critical perspective?

A) it's cowardly bollocks

because

B) we should all be gender non-conforming. The gender criticial (ie standard feminist) replacement for "non-binary" is gender non-conforming.

And I say "cowardly" because these [usually] young people aren't ready to fight the good fight and do the hard yards that us second wave feminists did and do - the pioneer women of many previous generations, such as the "Bloomerists" in the 1850s and 60s who wore Amelia Bloomer's invention - big puffy divided skirts, caught at the ankle, so they could ride bicycles.

And so on.

These young non-feminist gender ideology extremists need a good series of lessons in women's history.

These young non-feminist gender ideology extremists need a good series of lessons in women's history.

This ^^

The NB person I know isn't a young unthinking eye-rollingly trendy type though. "They" are an older whipsmart feminist who has struggled with feeling masculine, not being diagnosed with ASD until adulthood and has been through a lot of trauma related to being female. So while I don't understand their logic specifically and am not close enough to 'challenge' it I know they have found some respite in the trans/NB community to some extent.

(I'm a GC regular poster but NC occasionally.)

Well, I try - it's increasingly, er, interesting teaching this material to undergrads. They are by turns hungry for it, aghast at the antedeluvian world of their mothers, grandmothers, and great-grandmothers, and smug that they are no longer "like that."

I'd like them to get angry, really.

Genuinely, I think that "non binary" in practice refers exclusively to fashion and styling (the kind that you can capture for Instagram).

Although feminism made space for women to not have to spend their lives performing feminine archetypes, many, many people still regard a feminine appearance (by whatever standard of the day) as the ultimate physical appearance goal of women and masculinity as the ultimate physical appearance goal for men. In crude terms, that's make up & long hair for women (and pink, and sparkles, and sugar and spice and all), baggy clothes and short hair for men (and snakes and snails and puppy dogs' tails), and so on.

I think non-binary is also a massive reaction to the past 15-odd years, when hyperfeminine and hypermasculine grooming standards have been absolutely huge (Fake lashes and blow-dries for girls! Massive beards and lumberjack styling for boys!). The "indie" crowd has turned against the Kardashian approach to style and beauty, and with gay culture currently being synonymous with youth culture more young men want to use feminine appearance standards, and more young women want to use masculine ones. Neither wants to be treated like a bunch of losers for doing so - quite the opposite, they view themselves as trend setters here to liberate everyone else from the last fashion trend.

I still can't work out why it's positioned as an innate "gender identity" rather than just this generation's discovery of the joys of androgyny and gender-bending, though.

It would be far less problematic if firstly there was an acknowlegement that gender and sex are different and whatever exotic gender rebranding they apply to themselves, their sex is wholly unaffected, and secondly that the outcomes weren't the damaging of young people's bodies through the use of drugs and/or surgery.

These are ways in which this youth movement is significantly different to what's gone on before.

I still can't work out why it's positioned as an innate "gender identity"

A lot of the TRA ideology requires faith, in the same way much religion requires (blind) faith. I think 'gender identity' is the holy ghost of the TRA movement.

Virginia Woolf: “It is far harder to kill a phantom than a reality.”

I would love for someone to clearly explain what 'gender identity' is. But they can't because it isn't anything, it's a phantom. Can only be described using tautology and circular reasoning.

I think non-binary is also a massive reaction to the past 15-odd years, when hyperfeminine and hypermasculine grooming standards have been absolutely huge

Yes.

I was watching television far too late the other night because I got entranced by the Dolly Parton programmes on BBC2. After the programme celebrating Ms Parton's 50 years as a member of the Grand Ole 'Oprey, there was a really lovely programme about Parton's collaboration with Linda Ronstadt and Emmy Lou Harris. Heaven & really interesting about the way they reintroduced the old Appalachian songs kept & sung by women. Highly recommended - and I am not a country music fan!!

Anyway.

What really struck me about Ronstadt and Harris in the late 60s and 70s was their non-hyperfeminine aesthetic. Long hair, but not gussied up, hippie style (I think there are bits when Ronstadt is on national television bra-less) and that hippie "natural" style.

It was soooo refreshing - took me back to my teenage years in the early 70s. And Ronstadt's voice OMG, swoon - I didn't realise she's been hampered by Parkinson's and lost that a-mayz-ing voice. .

Footage from the mid-80s however, you can see the difference in aesthetic - frosted Farrah Fawcett style hair (even Emmy Lou, make up & shoulder pads.

I thought of our discussions here.

Also, I have it on good authority (a journalist who's spent a fair bit of time with Ms Parton for various profiles) that she is really as nice and friendly as she performs herself.

The whole programme is really worth a watch - it's on iPlayer:

www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b081sx50/sisters-in-country-dolly-linda-and-emmylou

I could understand if these young people (especially girls/women) were using nb to reject the gender stereotypes expected of them - how they should dress, act, what jobs are suitable etc. But they’re not they’re actually using it to opt out of their sex - not necessarily stereotypes

Thanks so much for drawing my attention to that programme YogaFaker , I adore Trio.

Hh

Sam Smith the Non-Binary millionaire who photographs themself a lot,

Sam Smith was on telly saying "trans and non binary folk are better in bed than cis people"

Anyone who labels themself as non binary rings enormous alarm bells to me.

Narcissist, self absorbed, controlling.

At the end of the day, you're either a male person who self identifies as Non-Binary or you're a female person who self identifies as Non-Binary.

What's going to happen if two non-binary "folk" are in a relationship and struggling to conceive, as they would both love a baby.

They go to the fertiliy clinic.

Is the doctor going to give one shiny shit about your very special gender identity?

Non binary is a shorthand for the most recent alternative youth culture. Back in the day they would have been New Romantics, Goths or Emo's

Non binary is a shorthand for the most recent alternative youth culture. Back in the day they would have been New Romantics, Goths or Emo's

For some young people yes.

It is also used to effect political change by advocates of Queer theory many of whom are older.

Edward Lord, for example, who has written about his experience:

(extract)
"I was asked by Jos Twist and Ben Vincent contribute to an anthology of essays about the intersecting identities of non-binary people, which will be published as Non-Binary Lives by Jessica Kingsley Publishers on 21 April 2020.

The introduction to my essay, Out in the Establishment – the gender journey of an Outside Insider, gives a flavour of of what I have to say:

I have never felt totally comfortable in the spaces or boxes into which being assigned male at birth automatically put me. I pretty much always knew I was queer, but didn’t find any particular connection with gay men. I went to an all boys school, but didn’t really fit in. I look very masculine but don’t feel it. I shudder at the inevitable association that my physical embodiment creates with toxic masculinity. People see me and make assumptions about the person that I am. That is made more complex by being what I often refer to as an ‘outside insider’, a queer radical who lives their life at the very heart of the British establishment with all the inevitable privilege that comes with it. I bet there are very few non-binary people who have found themselves over the years deep inside two of Britain’s main political parties; the Freemasons; the Judiciary; the City of London; faith communities; London private members’ clubs; major charities; the board of a FTSE listed plc; and some of the U.K.’s top sporting bodies. This is my story."

"Ed Lord (they/them) has been at the heart of LGBT communities for many years and is a trustee of LGBT Foundation and a Stonewall role model. They are a senior elected member of the City of London Corporation, currently chairing the workforce and inclusion committee; as well as being a Justice of the Peace in central London; a trustee of Trust for London and City Bridge Trust; and a director of the British Basketball League and Middlesex County Cricket Club."

**Lord's blog indicates that he 'accepts' other people using male pronouns to describe him.

edwardlord.org/2020/02/15/non-binary-lives-published-on-21-april-by-jkpgender-includes-my-essay-out-in-the-establishment-encompassing-some-thoughts-on-the-city-of-london-football-and-freemasonry-as-well-as-my-own-gend/

Dr Meg John Barker (Lord's former partner) is a senior OU lecturer & also wrote the BACP 'Gender,Sexual, and Relationship Diversity' good practice counselling guide which was withdrawn (August 2018) after complaints & publicity of the claims to lazy stereotypes of northern women etc

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3339137-BACP-Gender-Sexual-and-Relationship-Diversity-by-Dr-Meg-John-Barker

'an anthology of essays about the intersecting identities of non-binary people,'

Haud me back.

"I was asked by Jos Twist and Ben Vincent contribute to an anthology of essays about the intersecting identities of non-binary people, which will be published as Non-Binary Lives

Dr Ben Vincent has been influential in shaping NHS policies to removeand/or obscure patients' sex from records etc, replacing the marker with gender identity.

From 2018 TRA conference 'We're Still Here'

(extract)

1. Health Panel: Chair was Dr Ben Vincent of GIRES.

Part of the discussion on this panel was around GPs reluctance to prescribe “bridging hormones”. GPs are reluctant/afraid to prescribe them for liability reasons. Apparently a brand of T-Gel was withdrawn and GPs are reluctant to switch brands.

There was then a bit of chatter about whether a person’s sex was relevant for healthcare stats.

Then there was discussion about trans children. Dr Vincent was very scathing about GIDS-said there was disgusting and unethical practices. BV spoke about dispelling the myths about desistance and the myths of ROGD- BV called this “concern trolling, malicious and ethically bankrupt”. BV would like a review of the whole system.

Then Dr Vincent said that they’d received a review copy of “Born in your own body” edited by Heather Brunskell-Evans and Michele Moore. BV is reviewing it for some Royal College and said “I will tear it a new arsehole”

Also (and they didn't want this tweeted) BV is also planning a book called Terf Wars which will be a “rigorous takedown of terf arguments” which is getting serialised as articled in some peer reviewed journal- I’m sorry but I couldn’t catch which one.

Dr Stuart Lorimer, of the Tavistock and Portman who was also a panellist- said that ROGD is “evidence free”.

There was a great deal of discussion as to the health risks for transwomen taking certain brands of hormones- one person said they knew three other people who’d died taking them, and they’d nearly died as well."

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3398737-We-re-Still-Here-Conference-8th-September-A-report-from-the-inside

I wonder how many women

shudder at the inevitable association that my physical embodiment creates with hyperfemininity

But women try to change the culture of harmful stereotypes, not avoid the struggle like a coward.

Edward Lord played a key role in opening all female only spaces in City of London (including the Women's Ponds) up to males who identify as non-binary, gender queer, femme, trans etc

Clearly he doesn't suffer from lack of entitlement, and has been thoroughly socialised into the upper classes' contempt for women as anything other than breeders.