Help explain non binary

[Educationneeded]

Hi, thread was inspired by the other about coming out as GC. I have name changed as I’m not ready to be outed so just incase.

I am GC, although only have expressed my views to close friends and family. My younger sister is due to go up to high school in September and six months ago came out as non binary. We all believe this decision was heavily influenced by TikTok and the wokeness on there.

My parents don’t really understand. My Dad just rolls his eyes but my Mum wants to learn however doesn’t know much on the subject and has asked me to talk to my sister. I have no idea how to even approach the topic with her. Anyone have any guidance? Anything I can tell or show my Mum? I’ve read a lot on trans and women’s right but not much on non binary and don’t really know where to start with this minefield. I guess I’d like to educate myself too.

Majority female

It's best to report any posts you perceive as deliberately goady to MN. Including the labelling of individual women on the board with the ideological in-group label "cis", which is acknowledged by MN in their talk guidelines as often perceived as inflammatory towards users.

From the guidelines (my bold):

"Likewise, many feminists are affronted by the term ‘cis’ and ‘terf’, so using these terms will make civil debate less likely. As we’ve said, context is everything – but our moderation team will most likely delete these expressions if we feel they're being used in a deliberately inflammatory way."

"I look forward to you intervening when someone on this forum says that a trans woman doesn't have a female gender identity."

Shizuku, do you still not realise that gender identity is not the important factor in discussion about sex based discrimination and rights?

A male bodied person having what they believe is a "female gender identity" is their business. Express yourself how you want, as long as you aren't harming others. What I will always object to is that male-bodied person with "female gender identity" claiming that they are actually female-bodied and therefore experience the same sex based discrimination as female-bodied people do. Or that they share some innate femaleness with me and all other women and girls.

That's not what non binary means. It's not about what gender stereotypes you are into - some non-binary people are overtly masculine, some are overtly feminine, some are androgynous and there's every variation in between

Most people are not " into" any stereotypes. Being a woman, means being female, and has nothing to do with what you are " into".

I actually think this contemporary need to signal, and to label oneself so publicly, is very much associated with the age of social media, where everything is about presentations.

So just as you identify as a woman regardless of you behaviour, so a non binary person identifies as non binary regardless of their behaviour

Being a woman/female is just a fact. It has nothing to do with an adopted identity. People may adopt many other identities or associations, based on their interests or beliefs, but sex is not one of them

The fact that no part of you disagrees with the statement "you are a woman" means you have a female gender identity

Only if you subscribe to that world view, or if you interpret your feelings and experiences in that particular way.

You need to understand that the whole world does not share in your way of framing things. in fact most don't.

basically, non-binary means, I like anything that says they believe they are anything. I don't believe in the sexes.

The fact that "woman" feels correct to you, means that you have a female gender identity

What it means is that most of us make peace with reality; or at least we make the most of it, as best we can; and we negotiate our own meanings within that context. Why waste so much time and energy trying to deny the obvious. There are far bigger fish to fry.

You mean like making spurious analogies? I'll tell you what, I'll take you seriously when psychologists start writing about eye-colour identity, studying how it forms and treating people who have eye-colour identity issues

in a kind of analagous way...Have you read Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye? :

"Toni Morrison addresses the theme of racial self-loathing in the tragic story of the little black girl, Pecola Breedlove. Morrison's narrator doesn't explain why this self-loathing exists, but how, in Pecola's and her family's case, it came to be"

"Pecola prays to God for blue eyes, thinking that others, including other black people, will see her as pretty, like the little blue-eyed white girls. The use of the singular "eye" as opposed to "eyes" in the title brings Pecola's predicament into sharper focus. She is subject to the "eye" of the beholder, her life and dreams shaped by the narrowed perceptions of others"

Pecola struggles with social and cultural prejudices based on her race, and wishes to identify out of this by fantasising she has blue eyes.

Right - and that's because you have a female gender identity. If you didn't, you'd have a whole lot of feelings about it

Yes, based on negative feelings towards gendered expectations and experiences and so on. I think most people struggle with gendered projections and expectations from an early age; especially in cultures or families where sex roles are very firmly ascribed. and also as a girl approaches puberty and womanhood, she may struggle too. This is so common as to be normal.

It is not the girl that is at fault, but the pressure coming from society.

Indeed - you can't change your gender identity

Isn't that why the more contemporary notion of non-binary comes in.....?

have a female gender identity

What does this mean, if it is not tied to biology? Can you explain in simple terms?

Trans just means that you gender identity doesn't match the sex you were assigned at birth. If you're non-binary, it generally just means your gender identity falls somewhere between male and female.

Sex is observed at birth, not assigned. Gender identity is a made-up phrase that means nothing and has no basis in reality - it's someone trying to convince another person that they must or should adhere to stereotypes that are often misogynistic and have no bearing on how anyone wishes to live.

As such, that nonbinary "falls somewhere between male and female" means nothing as humans are either female or male. No thoughts, no identification, and no wishing on a star can make a person be anything other than female or male.

*It's your innate knowledge of your own sex. Your mistake is thinking that it is purely derived from observing what reproductive organs you have, when actually it's something you are born with, hard-wired into the brain.' Utter rubbish.

you can't change your gender identity Can't change (or define) what does not exist.

I think it's sad that young women are so worried about or frightened of what lies ahead of them as adult women that they think they can escape the reality of what may happen to them as a result of having the sexed body of an adult woman that they'd try to elude it by claiming something as nonsensical as being nonbinary.

@Shizuku

If you didn't have a female gender identity, then the statement "you are a woman" would immediately seem wrong to you. It doesn't, so you have a female gender identity.

Yes, but it isn't the word itself that feels wrong to people, is it? There is no inherent meaning in a particular string of letters or sounds, so there must be some concept of what "being a woman" actually means that informs that feeling that you're talking about. How can it "feel wrong" to be called a woman if you don't have any concept of what a woman is? There must be a concept of "woman" in your mind that people are rejecting when they conclude that it doesn't apply to them.

I'm asking about that concept. What does "you are a woman" mean if it doesn't refer to biological sex or gender stereotypes? Because that statement can't really feel wrong to someone unless it actually means something. I'm trying to understand what that something is, but I don't feel I'm really getting an answer.

Again, I'm genuinely trying to understand here, but I can't understand the circular argument that someone feels like a woman because they feel like a woman. What does feeling like a woman feel like?

Gender identity is clearly hugely important to some people, so I'm sure that they must be able to articulate what it means to them?

Firstly, you are forgetting that there are now quite a lot of people who transitioned young with puberty blockers or got on to hormones before much damage was done.

Conveniently forgetting the damage puberty blockers do. Puberty doesn't do damage, it's our bodies developing as nature intended. The damage is done though promoting puberty blockers to prevent something entirely natural from happening.

Puberty blockers don't fix a problem, they just fix the appearance of a problem.

Gender identity is clearly hugely important to some people, so I'm sure that they must be able to articulate what it means to them?

And it's simultaneously so complex that nobody can explain it to us in a way that we can understand, and so simple and obvious that very young children can intuitively grasp what it is.

For a child, or young person, whose nascent orientation is gay ( same sex oriented), or on the autistic spectrum, the struggle to conform is going to be even more difficult.

The first issue is that the trans orthodoxy seeks to erase women's sex based rights without discussion, debate or meaningful logic and reasoning. Can someone please explain to me why gender identity rights (clearly a very important thing) are more important than women's sex based rights?

Then you have gender identity. Gender identity is not biological sex. It is not a stereotype (even though trans women NEVER seem to identify as masculine women who never wear make up or dresses, though they do often seem to be as physically and verbally agressive in a very "man-like" way). It isn't even akin to supporting a football team. Trans women do not seem (to stereotype) to think that their womanhood relates to the fact that they're part of a wider group including all women. It is deeply personal.

So what is it?

Without being an expert I "believe" in gender dysphoria - I believe that for some people there is a inherent, strong, deep incongruity between body and mind. But this doesn't seem to be the case with many (the vast majority?) of trans people. And surely if there is this incongruity, and given biological sex cannot be changed, is it not possible that the best solution for some of these people is to address the incongruity in the mind, not the body which ultimately cannot be changed completely?

But lots of trans people do not have gender dysphoria. What the hell is a gender identity if it's not biological, stereotypical or about being part of the "women" club?

@OldCrone

Gender identity is clearly hugely important to some people, so I'm sure that they must be able to articulate what it means to them?

And it's simultaneously so complex that nobody can explain it to us in a way that we can understand, and so simple and obvious that very young children can intuitively grasp what it is.

So we can conclude that gender identity is:

-not definable
-not quantifiable
-more important than anything else in a person's life
-especially important to be validated by every other person on the planet

It sounds like some sort of miasma, floating stealthily and invisibly around at night? If you breathe it in you're infected with an identity? Maybe the women of FWR don't live near the right swamp?

I suppose what really gets to me is that GC people seem to be giving trans people a choice - a pretty reasonable choice IMO -

Can you acknowledge our sex based rights that are distinct from gender based rights and respect them, just as we respect your identity based rights?

If not then can you explain to us what a gender identity is and why gender identity based rights trump sex based rights?

The trans community response seems to be "no, you are a literal nazi and are literally smashing my face repeatedly into the pavement by asking the question" and "no, you are a literal nazi and are literally smashing my face repeatedly into the pavement by asking the question".

@MarshaBradyo

We don’t need the term cis on here it’s offensive.

Fed up with having offensive and derogatory language forced on us. And constantly being silenced over it.

Especially on here a female space.

How about a compromise - I won't refer to people who aren't trans as "cis", if you won't refer to trans people as the sex they were assigned at birth?