Confused on the concept of non binary

[ireallycantthinkofaname]

Please be nice, i am not the sharpest knife in the box under normal circumstances and I'm running on about 6 hrs sleep over the past week at the minute.....

But something I've been trying and failing to understand re. the concept of 'non binary' in the 'gender movement' (or whatever it is/ought to be called) is that on the one hand, people who subscribe to that philosophy are saying they reject the traditional idea of explicit male/femaleness (because if "trans women are women" then they have swapped for instance). But then if you have 'non binary' individuals isn't that pretty much saying oh yes, actually there is a binary - and some people don't subscribe to it?

I do acknowledge sex =/= gender but not all NB people are intersex/have DSD

<<thoroughly discombobulated>>

If you want to classify people like that, then classify people like that.

Every single one of the billions of people who have ever lived came from one female and one male. None had any trouble knowing which was mum and which was dad.

That's a pretty significant classification, and not one that is created by someone's "want".

In my experience teens are much more likely to do something if a bunch of middle aged adults tell them not to.

I agree, and my proposed solution is for lots of boring middle aged people to identify as "non binary". Instant social death.

I never said it wasn’t useful to categorise things, or that sex was different.

Sex is defined by biology. It's 100% about reproductive role. So you can have your whimsical fancies and sophistry and word games, but the biologist you dismissed knows more about what it is than you.

It's not a belief, or a feeling. You can believe Paris is the capital of Spain, if you like. But you're objectively wrong, and no amount of "well I don't recognise France and I call it Greater Spain" is going to cut any ice with anyone else, and they'll just make their excuses politely and leave you to it.

"I don't imagine many queer people are on mumsnet and willing to answer questions".
@Josette77. Not sure about all the self identified "queer heterosexuals" on here but there are a number of lesbians on this board (unsurprisingly). We all regularly contribute our experiences and share knowledge - as lesbian parents, professionals, women and lesbians. There's more homophobia than there used to be from those who erase lesbian identities by insisting that lesbians must accept men in our dating pools but apart from that it feels a remarkably safe place to be. (imo)

You’ll find you disagree with the way some people have been classified,

Can you explain this? 'Have been classified' by whom? Why might OldCrone (or anyone else using sex-based classification) disagree, if that classification had been made according to sex as described?

I've suddenly realised I don't actually know what the capital of Spain is! But I don't believe it's Paris! I'm off to google!

peas there are people who think the world is flat. That's objectively wrong. Not believing in sexual dimorphism is similarly wrong. Of course there will be some people who continue ro believe objective untruths but we should not pay any attention to them when making policies and laws. Or would you like to divert all the airline routes so they don't fall of the end of the world?

For real though!

Look my partner is a transman, long before any of this became popular.

I'm not going to debate trans and nonbinary feelings because I think some people genuinely are trans.

However if less fuss was made and more adults decided to identify as NB I imagine 95% of kids would lose interest.

I agree, and my proposed solution is for lots of boring middle aged people to identify as "non binary". Instant social death.

Snap @DSDaisy it would finish it off in weeks.

Oh I agree believe me. I hate the idea that anyone is entitled to sex, and lesbians are not going to want a person with a dick no matter how feminine they appear.

That said the thread on Jodie Foster reminded me that quite a few women on here are homophobic imo. Many who are very dismissive of the struggles that gay people historically have overcome and the very real threats that still exist.

Because in the case of some DSDs children are classified to a particular sex after a discussion between Drs and the parents and an overall decision about what they think is likely to be in the best interests of the child in the future. The decision is subjective, so it’s likely that OldCrone, or other people, would sometimes disagree with the decision that was made, especially where it was a more difficult decision, or where perhaps medical understanding of development, or ideas about what is in peoples’ best interests, have evolved since the original decision.

I saw an interview with someone recently where they were saying that they had been assigned female at birth, by Drs and their parents, but it had been kept secret from them that they had a DSD until they heard about intersex people in a university lecture and they started asking questions. They said Drs and their parents then told them about their intersex condition, and why they made the decisions they did. However years later when this person was in their 30s, Drs told them that what they had been told then was also wrong, and they had since learnt more about sex development, and realised they didn’t have the DSD that had been thought; they had a different one. And, that possibly if more had been known about sex development 30 years ago they would have been assigned male at birth instead, because they thought the decisions that had been made had been based on incorrect assumptions. These things aren’t always straightforward.

That’s no longer true, @Peasandsweetcorns

30 odd years ago doctors could identify whether a baby with DSD was male or female. They couldn’t necessarily correct the disorder. So parents were given the choice of raising the child as, for example, a boy without a penis or raising the child as a girl.

That doesn’t mean the child wasn’t one or the other.

And as for a definition that always works- bodies react differently to meds depending on whether they are male or female. They develop illnesses differently according to their sex.

There absolutely is an objective classification that encompasses all humans as male or female. Generally it’s fairly self evident. Occasionally it needs closer examination.

It’s still true. It can be complex, and not everyone will agree about the choices made.

So because in some very unusual situations caused by DSDs, it has been difficult to identify the sex of an individual, then the categorisation of people into one of two sexes is... what... wrong? Not helpful? Not as meaningful as some other undefined way of categorising people? Not relevant to people's lives? Or something else? What is the relevance of the comments about people with DSDs?

I wonder how people with DSDs feel about it (both binary categorisation based on sex and the idea of NB gender identity plus gender identity as a whole).

"I know what sex I was born with..I don't want an operation." No one said anything about operations.

"I just want to be free to walk down the street as I am." If you have a female body which was set at conception and confirmed at birth then you are a woman: that's a fact, not a feeling or an essence.

"Sorry if some people are disgusted about it but not every one can conform" No one is disgusted by your thoughts, and I for one don't conform or believe in any gender stereotypes. Equally no one has to agree with your thoughts in order to validate you. Your female bodied presence in the world proves you are a woman, that cannot and will not change no matter your thoughts on the matter.

The idea that it would be possible to find a single definition which would capture all female people (or that one has been found) is a belief, like a belief in god or heaven. Disingenuous rubbish. The words women and girls are facts, not beliefs.

So because in some very unusual situations caused by DSDs, it has been difficult to identify the sex of an individual, then the categorisation of people into one of two sexes is... what... wrong?

It’s something which not everyone will agree on. E.g. one person may think the person should be categorised as male, but they may have been classified as female, or vice versa. There will be individual situations where people disagree about the choice. The question was why would people sometimes disagree; that’s why.

I'm amazed non-binary survived Sam Brinton - the US poster-non-boy for NB who turned out to be nicking women's clothes.

Their views are diverse. There are plenty of interviews available online (which can be found with google), where different people discuss their views and experiences, if you would like to find out more.

It is useful to classify things.

I’m not at all sure what I have in common with transwomen that I don’t have with other men. Nor am I sure what I don’t have in common with female non-binary people that I do have with other women. I’ve been reading posts on these boards for several years now, and no-one has ever managed to explain those things. To be honest, I don’t actually recall anyone even trying to, other than staying as fact that people are what they say they are, which even a very young child knows is clearly nonsense.

Ok, so in some cases, usually historic due to the state of science at the time, some people may have been told they were one sex when they would now likely be told they are the other sex. I will happily agree that this can sometimes, very unusually occur.

None of that has got anything to do with anything that's being discussed here about non-binary identities. Nor trans identities. Nor does it invalidate the sex binary. Nor does it devalue the use of categorising people by sex in specific situations where it is needed.

This seems appropriate
https://genderarguments.com/openletterbiologicalsex/

Most DSDs are sex-specific. As far as I understand, the cases where a person cannot be assigned to one sex are extremely rare. But as others have pointed out, this has nothing to do with the vast majority of those identifying as nonbinary who do not have DSDs.