If you're non-binary...

[danyellspanyell]

What does it mean? What does it mean to you?

I'm not looking for GC responses to this - the GC take is obvious. I genuinely want to understand what this means.

This came up on my Instagram and the comments were full of people saying they have the same struggle and I honestly can't get my head round what it actually means to be non-binary, particularly if you're happy 'presenting' as a woman (which you biologically are).

What material impact does this non-binary-ness have on your life?

I dont disagree on the language front, but my point was towards earlier op who said its selfish and boring to feel validated by others. It isnt.

I cant think why someone wouldnt want to have explain their personal values on a thread of people they know wont agree.

And that in itself shows you dont really want to understand.

”This is the trouble with a lot of queer theory- it proposes disruption and dismantling of norms without any suggestion of what might replace them. And the vague idea that all change is a good thing, based on the idea of being 'progressive'. “

”It is a very short sighted project.”

This really needs to be said more often for readers and lurkers. Because I think as regulars we understand how queer theory (and post modernism) has influenced gender and its role in society.

I find gender critical offensive for the same reason.

Having watched a few NB Tik Toks I find it difficult to come to any other conclusion than it being about control. Control over ones self and control over the external.

It seems to overwhelming appeal to young women and girls. There's often a strong vibe of 'not like other girls' about it which I think a lot of us can probably recognise from our younger years.

Young women aren't born understanding how the world works or with deep knowledge of feminism but by the time you're a teen you will have observed and internalised all the ways that female people are treated and perceived as lesser.

I also think at that age there's a tendency to think there's a cheat code to bypass what older generations of women have experienced. Every generation of women does this to some extent.

Very few young women express a desire to be like their mothers/grandmothers/aunts etc. I think when we're young it's easy to think the lives of older women are a product of their own choosing and of course you won't make those mistakes. You're part of a new, enlightened generation of women.

Somewhere around the age 30 onwards for most women there's a creeping realisation that can be summed up as 'same shit, different century'. Takes a while to fully ferment. As a broad generalisation I would say there's a reason why older women tend towards the collective and younger women the individual.

In short I think NB can be construed in many circumstances as a new but misguided take on feminism and empowerment in a similar way many of my generation thought the answer was the 'Horlick' method of having it all. However as the saying goes, the house always wins!

Gender critical isn’t an identity and doesn’t require rejection of an establish term to describe yourself. I think most people can understand that just because you don’t call yourself gender critical doesn’t mean that you don’t hold such views. Whereas non-binary is rejection of a group you’re in such as being a woman. It’s passing a judgement on people in that group.

I work in a university STEM department that still struggles with low numbers of women in senior positions; this goes all the way down the pipeline to the numbers of girls choosing to do Maths and Physics at A Level. I wonder who is likely to be more inspirational to teenage girls; a confident successful female scientist (like Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock for example), or a NB?

I'm trying to consider whether my requests as a young woman to use 'Ms' instead of 'Miss/Mrs' are in any way similar.

That was often met with resistance, frustration. But I didn't want to be defined by my marital status, especially when men didn't face the same categorisation.

I mean, I'm still not. I'm still a Ms. But it's widely accepted now, there's not really that much tutting. Or maybe people just don't tut at middle aged women.

If it's JUST pronouns, then this seems similar?

But I think that's the side that's self indulgent.
Their feelings on their identity is not a rejection of you.

I am definitely not gender critical.

@ArabeIIaScott I don’t see not wanting people to know your martial status as equal to opting out of being a woman. The Ms was all about equality to men who don’t have such a thing.

I think people would argue that you being married or not doesnt offend their status where as them claiming not to be a woman does.
Hence why I struggle with the argument that the feminist view ismt self centred.
It's perfectly okay to be who you are and do what you want until, well, it's not.

Who is claiming to be a woman, though? We're talking about being NB.

Oh, sorry, not claiming to be a woman, I misread.

Claiming not to be a woman, ffs

I don’t think ‘Ms’ is comparative. It only impacted on where a salutation was used. To be fair, some countries had dropped ‘titles’ in a great many instances so they are becoming irrelevant. I was surprised when I arrived in the UK how everything required me giving a title.

And when you think of it, it is not obvious from looking at someone over a certain age who is a miss or mrs. It is probably also not important to know someone’s marital status.

Plus, mainly, ‘Ms’ was also a statement about fighting female oppression. I am a child of a woman who had to give up work when she got married because she was now married and her employer fired her. I have also experienced discrimination in going for jobs for being married.

Having watched a few NB Tik Toks I find it difficult to come to any other conclusion than it being about control. Control over ones self and control over the external.

I agree. From what I've seen irl, there must be a real sense of exhilaration for teenage girls in making your entire extended family, friends and acquaintances dance to your tune under threat of being ostracised. And it's not enough to be polite and use preferred pronouns/new names/not express confusion that a female, presenting in a very stereotypically feminine way, is somehow non binary. You must be a true believer.

I think people would argue that you being married or not doesnt offend their status where as them claiming not to be a woman does

It doesn't offend my status if someone claims to be NB. It irritates the fuck out of me because it doesn't make any sense, but that's not the same thing and I'm RHRN trying to understand so I'm not dismissing out of grumpiness.

Sorry. I mean ‘now’ it should only impact on where salutations are needed.

If everyone is having to "respect their wishes regards how they wish to be addressed, and with regards to the way they relate to the male-female gender binary discourse and practices ( whatever that means?)" it suggests someone who takes themselves way too seriously and feels they are somehow outside of, ar above, the same sets of conditions as everyone else. Just tiresome! Especially if they are beyond their teenage years.

Perhaps they don't want to be referred to as " sweetheart" or "mate" by random strangers? 😉

That is an interesting question, @ArabeIIaScott . I don't think 'Ms' is similar though.

Because they are not nouns or pronouns, the titles Miss and Mrs are not used to refer to objects. They do have associated nouns of course - 'unmarried woman' and 'married woman' - but they are not themselves nouns.
If you were to behave, in relation to your marital status, as people using the term non-binary do in relation to their sex, you would be asking people to accept that neither of those nouns (married woman or unmarried woman) can refer to you. This would be unfairly burdensome on people because you are, in fact, either a married woman or an unmarried woman.
Correspondingly, the title Ms isn't used to refer to an alleged third kind of object that doesn't fit the married/unmarried binary - it isn't used to refer to anything at all because it isn't a noun. Like 'Miss' and 'Mrs' it does have an associated noun. But the associated noun is simply 'woman', since Ms is intended as an honorific for all women regardless of their marital status.

This.

And, in the context of the current discussion, especially this bit: If removing sex based pronouns is actually making someone consider and change their sexist behaviour, that says more about that person whose actions are influenced by pronouns than they probably know. Because it is simply creating a new stereotyped behaviour and response.

Why not treat people as individuals? All people, as default. Why only those who use pronouns to remind you that they may have wants, needs and interests not entirely defined and limited by their sex?

That seems very regressive, doesn't it?

If something is continually being constructed and deconstructed it suggests that thing is essentially meaningless. Simply a evolving discourse about evolving discourses.......It is all 'introduction to philosophy' stuff - which people do at a-level - or in the first term of their degree.