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.

@Ereshkigalangcleg

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."

It sounds like you are making an argument for compelled speech.

@Justhadathought

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.

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

I broadly agree, although quite a lot of people are quite stereotypical with regards to gender expression.

@Justhadathought

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

Trans people don't "adopt" their identities, they just notice what their identities are. Gender identity is not a matter of choice - there's nothing you can do about it - it is what it is.

@Justhadathought

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.

"Why waste so much time and energy trying to deny the obvious. There are far bigger fish to fry."

There's a word for that which I'm not allowed to say, let me find a way to say it without using the word itself: that's what we call not-being-trans-privilege.

@Justhadathought

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.

You mean she doesn't have blue-eye identity, she just wishes she had blue eyes because she thinks it would solve her problems. So it's not analogous with gender identity.

@acatcalledjohn

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.

You are deflecting. Young transitioners are subject to the same sexism as girls who don't happen to be trans because no one can tell they are trans.

I grew up in the late 70's/80's, when your hairstyle and clothing went some way to making statements about who you were, or so we thought. But rarely have I witnessed such a self-obsessed chunk of a generation, and never before have I seen groups of people demanding that their 'identity' be respected.

Gender identity is a person's own sense of what sex they are. Scientists believe it's largely biological in origin:

www.endocrine.org/advocacy/position-statements/transgender-health

"The medical consensus in the late 20th century was that transgender and gender incongruent individuals suffered a mental health disorder termed “gender identity disorder.” Gender identity was considered malleable and subject to external influences. Today, however, this attitude is no longer considered valid. Considerable scientific evidence has emerged demonstrating a durable biological element underlying gender identity.1, 2 Individuals may make choices due to other factors in their lives, but there do not seem to be external forces that genuinely cause individuals to change gender identity."

Evidence for it's existence can be seen in studies like this:

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1421517/

When those boys who were raised as girls without know they were really boys, spontaneously stated that they felt they were boys, that's gender identity.

It's not a controversial topic in science. Doctors and psychologists don't question it's existence, but they do study it's development. Here's a page from the American Academy of Pediatrics - an organisation of 67,000 professional pediatricians, discussing it:

www.healthychildren.org/English/ages-stages/gradeschool/Pages/Gender-Identity-and-Gender-Confusion-In-Children.aspx

Of course you are free to say that gender identity doesn't exist - that anyone who says it does is delusional or lying etc, but you will struggle to be taken seriously.

@Thumpsquids

I grew up in the late 70's/80's, when your hairstyle and clothing went some way to making statements about who you were, or so we thought. But rarely have I witnessed such a self-obsessed chunk of a generation, and never before have I seen groups of people demanding that their 'identity' be respected.

Kids of today, eh?

But there are so many things that people may believe about themselves that are patently untrue and we would treat as a mental health issue

Anorexia for example, which I also suspect can be detected in the brain

Why is gender identity different?

@midgedude

But there are so many things that people may believe about themselves that are patently untrue and we would treat as a mental health issue

Anorexia for example, which I also suspect can be detected in the brain

Why is gender identity different?

Anorexia is disordered thinking. Gender identity is perfectly natural and normal. The problem for trans people is that their gender identity doesn't match the sex they were assigned at birth. It doesn't mean that their gender identity is disordered, only that for some reason, their body produced the opposite one to the one that is normally produced.

Think of it like CAIS where someone with testes and XY cromosomes is born with a vulva. That vulva is not disordered - it's a normal healthy vulva, but it's the opposite genital configuration to the one typically associated with XY chromosomes.

Sorry but you do talk such rubbish

To be precise

DSD are not a mismatch between mental image and body

Anorexia and trans are

@midgedude

Sorry but you do talk such rubbish

That's not a very good argument, but you do you I guess.

@midgedude

To be precise

DSD are not a mismatch between mental image and body

Anorexia and trans are

They both involve a mismatch between some sex characteristics.

@midgedude

To be precise

DSD are not a mismatch between mental image and body

Anorexia and trans are

Sorry, to be more precise - being trans and having a DSD both involve a mismatch between some sex characteristics. I would class being trans as a DSD, and expect that will become an official position at some point.

Think of it like CAIS where someone with testes and XY cromosomes is born with a vulva. That vulva is not disordered - it's a normal healthy vulva, but it's the opposite genital configuration to the one typically associated with XY chromosomes.

CAIS can be diagnosed with objective measurements of karyotype - XY - the presence of testes visible on a scan, and high testosterone levels.

How do you diagnose a trans person’s identity being one thing and their body producing “the opposite one to the one that is normally produced”? You can’t. It’s a ridiculously offensive comparison.

Your appropriation of DSDs is another chalk line on the board of the list of your offensive behaviours.

@NotBadConsidering

Think of it like CAIS where someone with testes and XY cromosomes is born with a vulva. That vulva is not disordered - it's a normal healthy vulva, but it's the opposite genital configuration to the one typically associated with XY chromosomes.

CAIS can be diagnosed with objective measurements of karyotype - XY - the presence of testes visible on a scan, and high testosterone levels.

How do you diagnose a trans person’s identity being one thing and their body producing “the opposite one to the one that is normally produced”? You can’t. It’s a ridiculously offensive comparison.

Your appropriation of DSDs is another chalk line on the board of the list of your offensive behaviours.

"How do you diagnose a trans person’s identity being one thing and their body producing “the opposite one to the one that is normally produced”? You can’t."

It's like diagnosing a migraine. The doctor could do all kinds of scans and tests that might show up certain anomalies or not, but actually, they just go by what you tell them, and prescribe accordingly.

"Your appropriation of DSDs is another chalk line on the board of the list of your offensive behaviours."

Well of course - I'm trans so I'm inherently evil.

It's like diagnosing a migraine. The doctor could do all kinds of scans and tests that might show up certain anomalies or not, but actually, they just go by what you tell them, and prescribe accordingly.

So it’s not like CAIS then. It’s like something else.

Well of course - I'm trans so I'm inherently evil.

I had no idea you are trans. And I described your behaviour as offensive, not your identity. Which it is. Daily. Lack of empathy, understanding, appropriation, aggressive in your posts, dismissive. I don’t think that’s because you’re trans, because I didn’t know, I think that’s just you.

I have long advocated for a biological marker of someone’s gender identity in comparison to their sex. I think all of the campaign efforts should be put towards this, get millions of dollars and pounds put into it. Don’t you think it would be fantastic Shizuku, to finally have a test to back up your basis for a biological explanation of gender identity mismatch? You say you’re trans, would you take such a test?

Do you think there would be a rush of people desperate to take such a test? Would people like Danielle Muscato, Alex Drummond, Eddie Izzard be rushing out for it? Would Izzard’s markers fluctuate depending on which mode Eddie was in? Or whether Eddie had an acting job that day or not?

I’m sure, given your current commitment to explaining a biological model by misusing science, having some actual science to back you up would be fantastic, don’t you think? Let’s campaign for that.

It sounds like you are making an argument for compelled speech.

Not at all. Just evenhandedness. There are some arguably useful terms which the feminists here can't use, as they are recognised as inflammatory and not conducive to civil discussion. And the same applies to some genderist terms.

I would class being trans as a DSD, and expect that will become an official position at some point.

I am pretty sure that you will be eternally disappointed then.

Differences of sex development is not anything to do with being trans. And having a DSD is a medical condition. You keep telling us that being trans is not a medical condition. Considering there are clear diagnosis parameters for DSD and seemingly nothing concrete for the other. And apparently a patient does not have to have gender dysphoria to be trans, so what even are you diagnosing.

I think this really does reflect disordered thinking.

You are deflecting. Young transitioners are subject to the same sexism as girls who don't happen to be trans because no one can tell they are trans.

Such a shame that they are physically harmed for life by preventing puberty, and then further at risk of medical misdiagnoses because of physical differences between males and females.

Not to mention that there is no evidence that physically transitioning fixes dysmorphia. So in essence you have a load of butchered bodies with mental health issues.

But that's ok. Because, progression?

Absolutely, notbad

And no, same sexism my arse.

Well of course - I'm trans so I'm inherently evil.

Really? You are stating that you are evil due to being trans? Or are you labelling all trans people as evil?

Or are you are making a show of again putting words into poster's mouths with your usual all or nothing arguments?

I follow quite a few different trans people on social media and have conversations with them. I, for one, don't associate the two as synonymous.

I don't think you will find anyone on this board who does think the two are linked in anyway. And I don't believe people have said this. I have noticed you use this hyperbole lately though.