Another uncritical gender identity article in the journal Science

[TheBiologyStupid]

Science, the peer-reviewed academic journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, has been captured for a while, sadly. Here's it's latest uncritical example of gender identity nonsense: www.science.org/content/article/how-astrophysics-helped-me-embrace-my-nonbinary-gender-identity-in-all-its-complexity

I despair for science (more broadly) sometimes...

You can’t opt out of your sex and NB isn’t opting out of your sex. It’s opting out of the gender binary. NB isn’t not being “truthful about your sex” because NB refers to gender not sex.

Non-binary or genderqueer is an umbrella term for gender identities that are not solely male or female‍—identities that are outside the gender binary.

Why on Earth do you think that NB means opting out of the binary of sex? It doesn’t mean that at all.

You can’t opt out of your sex and NB isn’t opting out of your sex. It’s opting out of the gender binary. NB isn’t not being “truthful about your sex” because NB refers to gender not sex.

IME people use it to mean a range of different things, definitely including that some people believe they don't have a sex, or that sex is just a "construct" and irrelevant. It's not a particularly logically coherent concept.

Yes, in my experience people have misunderstood and misused the term NB and in so doing demonstrate that they have zero understanding of gender identities.

It's such a meaningless term which is used in so many different ways that I'm not that bothered how individuals want to use it.

Why on Earth do you think that NB means opting out of the binary of sex?

She thinks that, because that is how it is frequently used, as you acknowledge.

I stated misused that’s quite different from used.

I can see she thinks that, but in so doing she’s misunderstood what NB is. It’s ridiculous to criticise something you don’t understand and if you misuse the terminology, that just shows you know next to nothing about the subject.

Oh yes, we don’t need definitions for any terms we use, that will so improve communication if we all just make up our own definitions for whatever we want to talk about. I decide that “sky-rats” are pigeons but you decide “sky-rats” are sea gulls. Now we can sit and argue about sky rats being grey or white, and whether they live in woods or by the sea all day long.

I don't agree either. I was a tomboy and no one minded or made life difficult for me because of it. I remember my headteacher when I was about 7, showing off an airfix kit I had made to the whole school and saying how great it was that a girl had done it (a male headteacher too). I got mistaken for a boy, but when people realised I wasn't they apologised and that was that.

I was a teenage in the 80s when gender non-conformity was everywhere in the public eye and was considered cool. I'm straight, but had short hair and didn't wear make-up - still got boyfriends.

There are still plenty of GNC people including feminine gay men, masculine lesbians and just people who resist or mix up stereotypes to a greater or lesser extent, normal people and famous people too.

I do agree that gender stereotypes have got worse and more polarised since the 80s, but it's absolutely not true that you have to adhere to them. Of course if you're raised in a very sexist household and put under pressure then it's harder, but people still break free.

I get so annoyed by this massive pretence that everyone who'd not trans is living in some kind of pink and blue binary gender world, they're not. Sex is binary, that's our bodies and what they do. The rest is personality and culture and everyone's different.

You can’t opt out of your sex and NB isn’t opting out of your sex. It’s opting out of the gender binary.

But there isn't a gender binary. There are some things, like colours and clothes and jobs, supposedly ascribed to expected of males and others to females, but a) people ignore those all the time and b) there are vast areas of life, culture, behaviour, work, tastes, hobbies, etc etc that don't have a gender stereotype attached at all that most people spend a lot of time doing. (Gardening, reading, writing, watching TV, cycling, walking, theatre, music, eating out, swimming, and on on on the list is endless.) We're not stuck doing only "feminine" or only "masculine" things. I haven't announced I'm "non-binary" but if course I am, pretty much everyone is. It's really insulting to suggest that everyone who's not trans or NB is totally devoid of independent thought or imagination and enacts the gender stereotypes for their sex and does nothing else.

I get so annoyed by this massive pretence that everyone who'd not trans is living in some kind of pink and blue binary gender world, they're not. Sex is binary, that's our bodies and what they do. The rest is personality and culture and everyone's different.

exactly. When I met dh we clicked initially because we knew the same quotes from PJ Wodehouse (e.g. the magnificant "That time in my life when aunt called to aunt like mastadons across a primeval swamp") and we were attracted to each other physically. The first was personality; the second was sex. nothing was gender. in our childhood photos we have more or less the same hairstyle and clothes (anyone can still tell who is the girl in the brown cords with short hair and who is the boy in green cords with short hair).

"I learned about quantum mechanics, where anything can happen"

The quantum world is strange but it is not quite 'anything goes'

". Being nonbinary means challenging the status quo every day. It means everything can and must be questioned"

Apart from gender ideology

"I learned about quantum mechanics, where anything can happen"

The quantum world is strange but it is not quite 'anything goes'

Yes that's a pretty "freshman" view of quantum isn't it.

🤣🤣🤣 Irony alert 🚨 🚨🤣🤣🤣

Could that be because nobody understands what a gender identity is? Because gender identity is usually defined as identifying as a sex. Most people don't identify as a sex. They have a sex and a personality and no gender identity. People with a gender identity are a tiny minority.

You can’t opt out of your sex and NB isn’t opting out of your sex. It’s opting out of the gender binary. NB isn’t not being “truthful about your sex” because NB refers to gender not sex.

So we're all NB then? How many people do you think are 100% walking stereotypes of masculinity or femininity?

Why on Earth do you think that NB means opting out of the binary of sex?

Maybe it's the way all the non-binaries keep insisting they're not men or women?

Non-binary or genderqueer is an umbrella term for gender identities that are not solely male or female‍—identities that are outside the gender binary.

And this is your error - when we use "male" or "female" we are referring to sex, not "gender identities", whatever they are.

So can we agree to just ignore non-binaries and treat them as men and women?

They just need to get their head around the fact that when we call them "men" and "women" we are not in any way suggesting they have a "male" or "female" gender identity - because we don't know what that is! We're just categorising them the same way we categorise ourselves. By sex.

They can be non-binary among the places they hang out that believe in "gender identity", but out here in non-genderology land, it's a meaningless concept.

And why should they have any objection to that if they're "truthful about their sex"? We all live in a happy gender-free world where we're all truthful about our sex too.

Come join us.

There was a gender binary.

It's really insulting to suggest that everyone who's not trans or NB is totally devoid of independent thought or imagination and enacts the gender stereotypes for their sex and does nothing else.
Ive not suggested or implied or hinted at any such thing 🙄

No gender identity isn’t defined as as identifying as a sex, if it was then it would be called sex identity. It is what it says on the tin: gender identity is identifying with a gender, more than one genders or no genders. There is no sex in it.

No, we aren’t all NB. You don’t have to be 100% of all a gender’s roles and expectations and stereotypes to be that gender. That’s applying extreme illogic to a basic concept.

No gender identity isn’t defined as as identifying as a sex, if it was then it would be called sex identity. It is what it says on the tin: gender identity is identifying with a gender, more than one genders or no genders. There is no sex in it.

I think we're almost there and can call a truce.

Similarly "male" and "female", and by extension "man" and "woman" and "he" and "she" aren't defined as identifying genders. If they were, they would be "masculine" and "feminine". They're what they say on the tin: denoting reproductive class. There is no gender in it.

We're not misgendering you, or referring to your gender, and we do not accept that your advertised lack of gender makes you any different from us with our unadvertised lack of gender.

@NecessaryScene
We all live in a happy gender-free world where we're all truthful about our sex too.

Your post is very fair & rational. The only thing is that we don’t live in a gender free world. I think many would like it if we did, I think I would too. But that’s not reality. So I think we should treat people with different gender identities how they would like to be treated. Even if you think gender identity is similar to a religious belief in spirit animals or crystal healing, it’s best to respect the other persons beliefs insofar as they wish to be treated. You don’t have to change your beliefs, not saying that.

@NecessaryScene
I think we're almost there and can call a truce.
Yes, I agree

Similarly "male" and "female", and by extension "man" and "woman" and "he" and "she" aren't defined as identifying genders. If they were, they would be "masculine" and "feminine". They're what they say on the tin: denoting reproductive class. There is no gender in it.

Id say that in practice men/women and male/female are used interchangeably to refer to either sex or gender depending on context. This is where much of the confusion and faux offence comes from. So I agree when you are using these terms to denote sex, you’re not misgendering anyone. But similarly, when a another person uses these terms to denote gender, they’re also not lying about their sex.

The problem is you're not respecting OUR beliefs. I agree that gendered expectations are a thing, but you are insisting that we internalise them. You're insisting that the men and women here have "gender identities" which you've assigned to them by sex.

And then you're saying that non-binary people don't have those gender identities.

Sorry, where's the distinction here? Why do we have them, but they don't?

Note that a "gender identity" - this inner soul - is clearly separate from an "external gender expectation", which is where you started. The non-binary people still have those, like everyone else. Everyone still knows they're male or female, and groups them into "male non-binaries" and "female non-binaries" - two quite distinct classes because they're rebelling against different gender expectations.

So the only claimed distinction is in this inner "gender identity". I believe non-binaries don't have a male or female gender identity. That's fine. They have to accept that WE DON'T EITHER. The problem isn't us not believing in THEIR soul, it's them claiming things about US.

So if gender identity isn’t about sex, and I totally agree that gender isn’t sex, then why are we told that so many trans people need cross sex hormones and surgery to be their true selves (and not die), or that they’re happy when they “pass” as the opposite sex physically, or that they have to be allowed into the opposite sex’s spaces (including some “non-binary” males who think that gives them a right to female spaces)? You do know there’s sex nullification surgery for NB people? Why are other people asked, or told, not to use sex-based pronouns for them but to use “they”?

also, I understand the point you make that it’s not about opting out of your sex and that your sex stays the same. Are you aware that that statement would have you cancelled/abused/doxxed/threatened/seen as a legitimate target for physical attack, by a great number of gender ideology activists who insist that you can change sex, and/or that sex isn’t a real thing, and or that a man is as much a woman as I am the moment he announces that? the evidence for this is all over the internet and the real world. People are losing their jobs for saying you can’t change sex or that sex matters. So the line you’re taking that we’re getting it wrong, and you can’t just make up what things mean, is odd. Because what you’re saying NB means is very different from what many others who identify as NB or trans are saying.