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>>

This thread shows how complex it is. No one had described it clearly. Because no one can.

"But there are pushes to make non-binary a legal status, and it has happened in some countries, which means it’s being imposed on the rest of us. "

I didn't know this. Which countries already have?

What makes something moon? What is the essence of moon that defines it as moon, and not cheese?

To kill three birds with one stone, here is an example of a country, pointing out that Jamie Shupe was the first as I used as an example above (who has admitted he’s AGP).

The third bird is to point out again what idiots they are at the Guardian.

https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/16/i-am-first-official-genderless-person-united-states

I can accept that identities are complex. Perhaps there are biological elements to them, perhaps not. As they are to do with the subjective experience of being human, there are more difficult to study.

Sex, however, is material and, as such, objective study is straight forward. We can easily determine which sex someone is, even in cases of rare differences in sexual development.

How people feel about their sex and their sexed bodies - we are back to 'more complicated' as this is subjective territory again.

In terms of this thread, the one straightforward element is sex. Every one is one of two sexes.

I'm still waiting to find out what differences there are between most non-binary people and most other people.

I am starting to suspect that the only difference is that so many non-binary people are extremely touchy about anyone ever referring to what sex they are, including situations where their sex makes a difference such as medical consultations or the ERCC case. Whereas the rest of us don't mind. But even that may only be a noisy minority of non-binary people, and there be many more non-binary people who aren't offended when other people need to refer to what sex they are. I just don't know.

You can classify people however you like...but don't expect the rest of the world to conform. Language has a social purpose.Many categories have material, measurable, observable reality and a meaning which is uniformly, or certainly widely, understood. Male and female are one of those categories.

The material, physical world is pretty 'essential', regardless of individual philosophical beliefs. A lot of people, most of us, in fact, struggle with the realities of the material world and seek to transcend it, in the belief that it is too limiting, confining, frustrating and not conducive to individual liberty or feeling. At the end of the day we have to make peace with it, though. It is our fate. We are born and we die and then the next generation continues.

The concept of a 'personal identity' has grown well out of proportion to its relevence in everyday reality. Now peope are expected to consciously construct identities in a very' lifestyle - consumeristi'c way - choosing from a range of 'ready to wear' or 'made to measure' labels. It is all so narcissistic and ultimately dysfunctional. I guess that is also one of the effects of this social media age - where people are encouraged to signal or create a manufactured social identity to present to the world. An avatar. A character.

People think they can be whoever they want on-line or when gaming.

Good post @RebelliousCow

The only 'essential' characteristics of being female are that one is capable of being impregnated and carrying a child, and then feeding that child after birth. Even if one doesn't have a child, though, or has a hysterectomy the 'programme' is still in the hard drive ( even if the software isn't working or is faulty)

Females tend to be smaller than males of the same species and their physicality has adapted to accommodate fundamental biological roles and the tasks associated with them. We all register physicality- biology at a very basic, fundamental and instinctive level.

We can try to or over-ride the basic programme or set of conditions or try to adapt then to our current conditions. We all have individuality and a unique catalogue of personal characteristics, talents, skills, inherited patterns from our parents - but underneath the basic programme remains and to an extent shapes our experience and our response to experience.

Living at a time when there is so much focus on the natural world and the ways we, as humans, have over-stepped our boundaries or infringed upon the workings of other systems on earth - creating negative or undesirable effect - it seems very odd that we are simultaneously seeking to deny the absolute reality of earthly life and our place as humans in that.

I often think nb is soooo close to understanding GC especially the female nb people. They do t want to be constrained by the social construct of gender, they want to be able to have the freedom to do male and female things/hobbies/job/role at home etc etc. The difference is nb don't understand that women shouldn't have to opt out of womanhood to escape these restrictions while gc often (not always) are against the existence of the restrictions.

It's sad really because everyone else can see they are women and those who will treat women differently will do it anyway. Maybe they will come to a realisation with time or maybe they will assume the difference in treatment is because they are nb and thus their belief is perpetuated

I often think nb is soooo close to understanding GC especially the female nb people.

But somehow we've ended up in opposition to each other. This article sums up the situation quite well. The author was fired from her job as a software engineer for writing it.

https://4w.pub/non-binary-is-the-new-not-like-other-girls-and-its-deeply-rooted-in-misogyny/

@Peasandsweetcorns i do love how you can identify a group of people who all have the same characteristic of being women who don’t all have the same characteristics 😂😂

ie you have said that a group of people
who can all be categorised in the same group certainly can’t be said to be able to all be categorised in the same group

it is breathtaking stupidity

So what are the shared characteristics of non-binary people that make this a useful category?

The only thing that encompasses all the non binaries is 'feelings' and thoughts in their own head.

So once again, entirely subjective, unprovable nonsense, that somehow must afford this group special privileges and a pretence that they are somehow persecuted and oppressed because people won't buy their batshit.

The 'non binary' I know is mentally and emotionally immature, despite technically being an adult. She used to say she was a boy for a few years but at least has stopped binding now.
She was/is using these 'identities' as a shield.

A moon is a big solid object that orbits around a planet. Cheese is made from adding bacteria to milk and let it curdle in specific circumstances. There are no space cows no matter how much drugs you are taking. I suggest you stop because your brain has turned to mush. Your brain didn't just went full potato it went mashed potato.

Id agree if they weren't doing this

www.teenvogue.com/story/liv-hewson-profile-nonbinary

That's not true. Two spirit has only been around since the 1990s, and it's not a universal concept.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-spirit

Among the Iroquois, there is a report from Bacqueville de la Potherie in his book published in 1722, Histoire de l'Amérique septentrionale, that indicates that an alternative gender identity exists among them.

You are correct the term Two Spirit is 30 years old.

An excellent question, DSDaisy, that about shared characteristics.

I believe that the only way to argue that those shared characteristics exist is to insist that everyone NOT identifying as nonbinary is comfortably aligning themselves with very two-dimensional caricatures about binary sex and gender stereotypes. If you accept that retrogressive and sexist view, then the shared characteristic of nonbinary people is that they don't do that.

But this is crucially dependent on forcing all the rest of us into the gender identity ideology (including 'cis'). I am strongly opposed to this because I want feminism to be possible, and it is not really possible if being 'a woman' is interpreted as being very content with all the gunk cultures assign to being female.

Because then we have no clear terms to address sexism and misogyny (whom they affect etc.), and neither do we have terms to refer to the two sexes, one of which is still widely globally oppressed on the basis of sex.

Sex is the basis on which women are oppressed, gender is one of the tools which maintain that oppression. Hence the term 'gender-critical.'

Sometimes posts on here make me very sad.

We all hate what's being done to women's rights in the name of "progress" and the inability of many people in positions of power to hear us. There are lots of terrible specific stories and a general worsening of our position as women in this society. It's right that we are angry about this and do whatever we can to improve our lives.

But does that have to lead to hatred of people who are different from us? Being trans has always existed - it's not in any way new or made-up. And so has being non-binary. As people have pointed out, it used to be called androgeny. In general here posters seem perfectly willing to accept that gay people exist and are fine with them. Why must we vilify all trans and non binary people, just because a few of them are extremists?

Yes, it's dificult to understand NB unless you're experiencing it. I know two NB people and they've tried to explain it to me. I still don't really get it but I absolutely know that they are intelligent, sincere people who are grateful to live at a time when there is some understanding and acceptance of their difference. They are both neurodivergent also, and this seems incresingly to be understood as a common factor in the development of non gender conforming identities.

There's a lot of hatred on this thread, frankly. I don't want to "be kind" as a way of allowing abusive men to trample all over my rights. But I also don't want to be cruel to people who are doing nothing to harm anyone and just want to lead what are often very difficult lives.

Perhaps you could quote or otherwise indicate the comments you describe as "hate" rather than make a generalised post essentially telling everyone else off?

"Non-binary" is easy to understand. It's a concept that requires people to believe in fixed stereotypes about how people of each sex should present. I don't think it's a useful or helpful concept and I don't find that someone telling me they're non-binary tells me anything useful about them, other than that they probably have ideas about sex and gender roles that I profoundly disagree with. I think that how you present or behave is not dependent on your sex, and that changing how you present or behave doesn't change or nullify your sex.

Trans people, as in people who wish to be or believe themselves to be the opposite sex, have always existed. I am not about to state that they don't exist or shouldn't exist. I just disagree that they can in any way change sex, and I disagree that attempting to present as the opposite sex means that they should be able to access opposite sex facilities. That's not hate.

I don't want to vilify anyone. I want men to stop claiming that they are women, or not men, or that biological sex doesn't matter. And I don't want to be forced to pretend I believe it.

It's not cruel to refuse to live in someone else's imagination.