Am I non binary?

[YesClemFandango]

Not a TAAT but it got me thinking.... Am I non-binary? I reject gender stereotypes. I would prefer a neutral title (working on it!). I wear clothes that could be considered typically masculine or feminine. To be honest at my age I'd feel a bit odd calling myself non-binary, but I wonder if it's short hand for how my peers understand my views (I'm a student)? How can I check?

How we dress, the length of our hair and the activities we like are not really relevant.

But in the world of trans/non binary it is completely relevant.
If a person with a vagina feels that they are a man what do they do to show that? Their wear their hair short, don’t wear make up/dresses, wear male clothes and undertake male hobbies.

I don’t agree with it, but if your actual body doesn’t define your gender then your actions and behaviours must do, outwardly at least.

If a person with a vagina feels that they are a man what do they do to show that? Their wear their hair short, don’t wear make up/dresses, wear male clothes and undertake male hobbies

What does being a “man” feel like? I have short hair. I wear jeans, T-shirt’s. I have never worn a dress or heels. I walk the dogs, jog and cycle. I have no interest is sewing or knitting. I have given birth to, and raised 3 children. I have been married to a man for 35 years.

In your opinion Am I a woman or a man or non binary??

What is “male clothing”? Every woman I know wears jeans/trousers. Their clothing doesn’t identify their sex. Perhaps you could enlighten us? @EastWestWhosBest

I have worn my hair all lengths, though in the 70s my one brother's hair was longer. I wore jeans pretty much non stop for 15 years, though I'm a bit fat for them now. I dressed as a man in a reenactment society and clobbered with the best of them. I have always liked science fiction and fantasy. I can still cope pretty well with technology. I'm married to a man and I've carried and borne two children. Was I a man then? Am I one now?

@JuneDays

Do you have a gender identity? Do you reject the gender identity of woman and man, but still have a sense of gender identity that isn't based on those genders? If so, then yes, non-binary.

If you have no sense of gender identity and feel more non-conformist with stereotypes for women, then you're a woman who rejects societal expectations.

Nothing wrong with either.

But what is it based on? It's not a conceptualisation of feeling green in a sea of gravy. It's about how masculine and feminine you feel and thinking that your particular combination of masculine and feminine isn't binary. Isn't it?

But we're all a mixture of masculinity and feminine. For a long time I identified much more with my masculinity than anything to do with being a woman. Now I'm just me and I don't give it a huge amount of thought. I happen to be female. And as a woman is an adult human female then I happen to be a woman. Doesn't mean I have to behave or dress a certain way.

Would someone hacking into my mind really detect a discernible difference between me and a non binary person?

I am genuinely developing an aversion to she/her pronouns as it increasingly seems to mean 'happy to agree I fit feminine stereotypes'. Before I became Dr I used to have the same feelings towards Miss (does not yet belong to a man), Mrs (belongs to a man) and Ms ( has political views about feminism).

So therefore, longstanding dislike of my association with female pronouns - I must be non binary.

If I don't understand what a gender identity actually is, how can I have one?

How can I say I don't?

Chickenyhead, you can't, can you? 🤷🏼‍♀️

And that's why the fury goes from 0 to 60 in seconds and the vile name-calling starts. It's why we are told, "No debate!" Because nobody has any definitions that aren't like shovelling smoke.

Of course, and that’s the age old philosophical elephant in the room - how can anyone know what it’s like to feel like a man or a woman without actually being one? We all know we can’t experience what it’s like outside of our own individual heads, so it makes zero sense for anyone to say they know they feel like someone else. You might as well say you feel like a Pacific Islander or a zombie or a unicorn or a hedgehog, it’s all the same - pure imagination.

“I feel I’m an X” is really just “I feel like I have an imaginative idea of what I imagine being an X feels like”. Unless you genuinely believe in shared consciousnesses or a Platonic realm of ideal forms or mingled souls, or have magically invented the first ever device in recorded history that lets you see into someone else’s mind, we all know that it’s all just fantasy and play and imagination.

And fantasy and imagination and play is nice, but we don’t “validate” other fantasies in life - I can pretend I’m a millionaire when I’m looking at houses on Rightmove, but Coutts isn’t going to let me open an account with imaginary money. I can have daydreams about marrying film stars if I like, but if I turn up at Hugh Grant’s house he’ll call the police. Why should dressing up in some clothes and a wig and pretending you’re actually a woman, or cutting your hair short and pretending you’re a sexless non-binary being, mean that we all have to go along with it as well?

If you claim to be non-binary what even are you “identifying” as? There are no actual androgynous beings, we all actually have genitals underneath, so you’re just projecting a fantasy and demanding everyone else go along with it. That’s for kids, not grown adults.

Someone needs to ask Tiresias or Caeunus.

(Disclaimer: I don’t actually want to marry Hugh Grant by the way 🤣]

Can any of say we are 'not non binary'? That is the question !

@Kanaloa

To be honest, a disconnect between 20 year old uni students and a woman in her forties is hardly surprising. You are a lot older and have much more life experience. I don’t think identifying as non binary will bring your lived experience closer to theirs.

What genuinely guts me about this.

I felt confused, out of place, I didn't understand why I was assumed to be good at/ place importance on/ enjoy xyz... Rather then being seen as a person.

And this goes back to maybe, 5 or 6 and has never changed.

I was a feminist way before i knew the word or anything about it. It's my deep and visceral reaction to sex roles/ gender stereotypes etc etc

I would be.. non binary now? Or agender.. Or something.

This idea you just opt out if you hate the stereotypes etc etc is removing all the girls who would have been Feminists. Now. They're not girls. Not women. In fact. It's an idea that if you don't comply then you're not in that group. Those who stay in the girls women category. They like their place. Sex objects, hair, etc etc.

So along with all the other consequences. A massive number of future Feminists are... Gone.

The impact of all this is massive. And detrimental to so many groups that are still fighting for some basic things, even in three UK let alone around the world.

@JuneDays

Do you have a gender identity? Do you reject the gender identity of woman and man, but still have a sense of gender identity that isn't based on those genders? If so, then yes, non-binary.

If you have no sense of gender identity and feel more non-conformist with stereotypes for women, then you're a woman who rejects societal expectations.

Nothing wrong with either.

So much in such a short post.

Do you have a gender identity?
No.

Man and woman are sex based words and have been always until relatively recently.
When the suffragettes agitated for votes for women. When women fought at various points against laws that saw them as property. When women said it's appalling that it's legal for a man to rape his wife (law changed early 90s FFS).

Was that about gender identity? Are you comfortable to day none of that was to do with sex?

I don't know what you mean by gender identity. I don't identify as man or woman as you would see them. I'm a person. That's it.

If you have no sense of gender identity then you are agender and therefore trans. You are incorrect.

Also. There's a difference between feeling non conformist and being non conformist. a big difference.

I'd also like you to tell me what the stereotypes for women are please. Seriously. I'm interested.

I think if they are passing laws on this, we should all be 'educated' so that we can understand what a gender identity is, what each look like and where we fit.

As that hasn't happened I get lumped in cisgender, which I can't be, because I don't have a gender identity of what it is to be a woman. I literally have absolutely no clue what a gender identifying woman is. None. Nada. Zip. So yes, I am, nothing.

Do you have a gender identity? Do you reject the gender identity of woman and man, but still have a sense of gender identity that isn't based on those genders? If so, then yes, non-binary.

Wtf does this even mean? How can you have a “sense of gender identity that isn’t based on those genders”? What gender identity would that be? Neuter? Hermaphrodite? Hentai porn character? Alien from the planet Zog? There IS no “gender identity” that isn’t based on sex: it’s literally impossible to “identify” as anything “non-binary” - that’s the whole point. Those “identities” are pure fantasy and fiction, and I think we should start actually saying that for once.

Not to mention the logical impossibility of claiming that you’re “non-binary” just because you’re mixing up different bits of the binary. All you’re doing then is reinforcing the bloody binary, not dismantling it FFS.

Gender identity is the unmeasurable and shifting notion of what a person thinks they may feel at any specific moment in time about a fluid and changeable concept that either correlates or denies their innate biological sex or alternatively corresponds with that person's estimation of their opposite sex predicated on their own personal perception of a stereotypical yet ultimately unknowable and reductive abstraction of an assumption of that sex for which they have no frame of reference to even begin to understand.

I really really don't have a clue what non binary means. I'm female, lesbian where male and female clothes, have very short hair. So what? So do many many other women. I'm just a woman.

With all due respect OP, you really are old enough to know better.

Man, gender stereotypes really have screwed us over.

And the people who hate them the most, do nothing more radical than … reinforce them.

So you have breasts, a vagina, ovaries and a uterus. But you don’t like the way women present themselves, so instead of just being you - a human - you emulate all the stereotypes of men. Cut your hair short and wear trousers. Maybe spread your legs when sitting on public transport, to infringe on someone else’s space.

Wow. Really subversive.

'As that hasn't happened I get lumped in cisgender, which I can't be, because I don't have a gender identity of what it is to be a woman. I literally have absolutely no clue what a gender identifying woman is. None. Nada. Zip. So yes, I am, nothing.'.

In the end this is the whole point.

You have noticed I'm sure that although

Gender should never be assumed, not from a person's name, pronouns, or presentation.

Pronouns must always be learnt remembered and adhered to.

Dead naming is very harmful indeed.

I mean apart from the fact there is no practical way that can work IRL (how this works has never been expanded on, I have asked quite a few to times).

We have pronouns in emails, training the police blah blah.

Contrast this to loads of women complaining for YEARS about
Being called the wrong name. Often a totally wrong name. So losing their identity and personhood entirely.
Eg Ms Jane Jones getting post to Mrs Robert Green.

Being put second on things they have applied for and are paying for and then being told they are not first named so can't change any info etc.

Being TOLD including by orgs like DBS that if they were Ms then MUST have a previous surname as that's a title for divorcees.

And being told it's trivial. Stop making a fuss. It's tradition. It's not important.....

Interesting that.

And with this. The 'rules' don't apply to people like us. Women. Mothers. Older. Outspoken. Lesbians. Grandmothers. Wives. These things aren't for us.

We are again told what to be.. Mrs Robert Green. Cisgender....

In fact most people in the end fall under the trans umbrella. But that doesn't work does it. The needs to be something to be different to.

So when a woman says.. I've listened to your definitions and according to those I am agender, bigender, non binary etc.

Suddenly the rules don't apply and we're TOLD that we are 'cis'. Because that's what we have to be to make it all work.

So men are what men say they are and women are what men say they are. That statement has been around long before all this.

So in the end, it's all clearly not at all what it claims to be. A progressive social movement. In fact, it is divisive and worryingly, what's the word. It's just labelling people as good or bad. Irrespective of real life as well.

So.

No one can know a person's gender without asking. A person's gender is what they say and must be respected.

Some women: OK well I've looked at the definitions and according to them I'm agender.

Answer: No you're not. You're 'cis'. And that's that.
Furthermore if you are ??? about self ID into everything then you are literally killing people. A huge violent risk.

Women: ..... ????? Erm. Isn't it pretty much always men who murder and attack etc?

Answer: That's sexist. Those violent thugs are only doing this because they listen to middle aged lefty feminists.

Etc etc.

It's not logical. It is highly impractical. And only certain people are allowed to have a trans identity.

And the only people worse than women who have concerns

Are old school transsexuals who are having everything fucked up for them. And also have various areas they don't agree.

They get called truscum.

And that's the good guys saying that. Lovely.

Well why not try Xenogender (from Wikki non binery..coined in 2014 by Tumblr user Baaphomett )..is a nonbinary gender identity "that cannot be contained by human understandings of gender; more concerned with crafting other methods of gender categorization and hierarchy such as those relating to animals, plants, or other creatures/things.

It's got a flag and everything.

Oooooohhhhhh

Hmmmm

How about genderfuck?

'Genderfuck is a form of gender expression that seeks to subvert the traditional gender binary or gender roles by mixing traditionally masculine (such as a beard) and traditionally feminine (such as a dress) components. It literally means to "fuck with" or mess with traditional notions of gender expression or gender roles.[1][2][3][4] For some it is their gender identity, for others it is a label for a certain event's clothing or outfit. [5] This may also extend to the belief that the social construct of gender does not exist.'

Note the last line. Does not exist.

At work then. Hi. I'm trans and I identify as genderfuck. How would that land?

Interesting to note that the traditionally masculine thing is a beard (male secondary sexual characteristic), while the feminine example is an item of clothing.

That seems inconsistent to me.