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?

You know when you come on a thread and you read something so stupid that it makes you question if you've actually read it right. 'Vagina people' is that something.

I suspect @NiceGerbil is being sardonic.

I’m not entirely sure what you mean by “neutral title”. Do you mean pronouns? Whatever title or pronouns you use won’t change your biological sex, however you identify. Use them if you prefer, though.

Non binary to me is a meaningless term, with many different interpretations, so it’s impossible to know what anyone means when they use it. It seems to encompass anyone from a male who wants to wear nail polish, to girl who decides that to be non binary she needs to have a mastectomy, with many variations in between.

If you’re a woman who doesn’t feel that she needs to confirm to female stereotypes, then you can either be a woman who doesn’t conform to female stereotypes (eg is a female dustbin collector automatically non binary?), or you can call yourself non binary if you like. It’s a not very useful label IMO.

The whole language thing seems to be men tightly controlling the meaning of man/men. If someone doesn't fall neatly into the male and masculine and proud of it camp, they get to use a grab bag of leftover labels, including woman/women, which essentially have no protection or clear definition but nobody worries because man/men is safe.

And I'm not cis, because I'm honestly not aware of any internal gender identity to match or not match with my useful, adult female body which is what I got handed and I've lived in/with it for a long time now. It's not perfect but it's all I have, so I look after it the best I can and it has served me pretty well and failed me on occasions.

Since there's nothing to match, I don't meet the definition of cis. As a second wave feminist, I've long understood that many of the issues I've had when living in this body are not the fault of the body but of the external world's expectations, beliefs and attitudes about the people who inhabit bodies like mine. Let's call those people women.

Some people set out to change and improve things for women. Let's call those people feminists.

It's quite simple, really. My feminism has given me the courage to reject all sorts of daft labels over the years, and cis is just the latest.

You don’t have pronouns in Persian (yea I get called ‘he’ a lot and I am still alive from the literal murdering). Now how’s that working or for women in Iran now?

Non binary is what a lot of women are I reckon. We don’t just wear pink, and dresses, we like to wear trousers, have short hair at times, maybe not wear make-up and are quite good at reverse parking.
However, we don’t need attention and recognition for being special so just get on with life without demanding different pronouns and making strange videos on tiktok of ourselves pulling weird facial grimaces and whining about how no one understands us.

Previous threads on here on chat/ AIBU have had the vast majority of posters responding that they have no internal sense of gender ID.

I'm one of them.

The clue in what's going on is that

On the one hand a declared gender must be accepted. You don't know anyone's gender unless you ask. Certainly you can't assume from physical appearance, name, pronouns, how you dress etc etc

But strangely. In general. Certain groups are assumed to be cis.

And in fact on here quite a few times.

When posters say they don't ID as cis and please don't apply a gender to me. They are ignored, told they are being difficult. Or that they are cis but don't realise because women don't know their own minds presumably.

The gender term for no sense of gender is agender and is under the trans umbrella.

So a person who is passionate about respecting gender should understand that those women are trans.

But oddly. That's not how it seems to work...

I'm super non-binary me.

I work in STEM in male-dominated industries yet have just come back from 3 years being a stay at home "mummy" to my 3 children.

I wear the same uniform as my children's father/ husband. Don't wear make up or heels, at work (would look a bit strange with the uniform) or most of the time, don't get my nails done but I do spend my cash on skincare and getting my hair coloured and wear dresses loads.

Raising my children equally as my daughters are older than my son so he just loves to do what they do including tutus and playing with babies and prams.

Used to be the hot girl in engineering back in my uni days, confusing all the sports science lads

Gosh I'm so confused. Pity I'm in my 40s not 20s as I'd definitely be the most non-binary of all!

But are you speshul enough @blocker ?

I have just seen the following explaination of non-binery, made by a non-binery person -

"...non-binary means my gender expression doesn't fall on the spectrum of male-female. Specifically I am genderfluid, which means I have days I feel like a woman, days I feel like a man, and days I feel like neither/both. It's really not hard."

I mean, FFS, there is stupid and there is stupid...

Who actually gives a fuck about who I fancy as long as it is an adult or what I wear?
I want to laugh until a bit of wee comes out at these kids who think that they have discovered sex and androgyny.
And given that I am in my fifties there's a good chance that will happen.

@JediGnot

I have just seen the following explaination of non-binery, made by a non-binery person -

"...non-binary means my gender expression doesn't fall on the spectrum of male-female. Specifically I am genderfluid, which means I have days I feel like a woman, days I feel like a man, and days I feel like neither/both. It's really not hard."

I mean, FFS, there is stupid and there is stupid...

But what is feeling like a man or feeling like a woman? I don’t know how it feels to be a man. How do I know that my day to day life and feelings are not that of a man?

Well, that's the obvious question, EWWB. I'd like to know how a gender identity can exist outside of the male / female spectrum. [This is even more of an urgent question to answer when the person concerned also identifies as a man and a woman at different times, implying that gender identity has nothing to do with biological sex (which itself implies that a gender identity has nothing to do with identifying into alternative single sex spaces). I'd like to know how a "no gender" day differs from a "both genders" day, or if they're the same

*"...non-binary means my gender expression doesn't fall on the spectrum of male-female. Specifically I am genderfluid, which means I have days I feel like a woman, days I feel like a man, and days I feel like neither/both. It's really not hard."

I mean, FFS, there is stupid and there is stupid...*

So true. If it's "really not hard" why not explain it properly. Starting with what "feeling like a woman" means. Given that most women don't know what that means I think it really is worthy of a nice simple explanation.

Feel like a woman...well it could mean that I feel like these Estonian women who run their community without men
www.google.com/amp/s/www.aljazeera.com/amp/gallery/2015/9/1/estonias-kihnu-the-womens-island
Or it could mean that I feel like a woman in a period hut who has to follow regressive practices. What does it mean?

The semantics will change deoending on my own cultural baggage. It is clear that for a lot of males "feeling like a woman" means being submissive, wanting to be dominated. This is so offensive. And yet it is lauded. If I were to say I am race neutral because sometimes I feel white yet on other days I feel black because I would justifiably be attacked for it. Noone seems to be able to explain why non-binary is different in this respect but we all know why.