Non binary

[gettinabitwindy]

What does it even mean?

I've got a friend whose stepson "identifies as non binary". Born male, has grown hair long and changed name to a female one. Dresses in a mixture of traditionally boy/girl clothes. Wears a bit of eyeliner sometimes.

Genuinely I don't know what they mean by this. I don't identify as anything, does this mean I am non binary? Most people I know don't either. Does it mean he's not comfortable being a boy, but doesn't want to be a girl either?

It's quite simple really.

The reason we all have to be put in gender boxes is because a small group of male people want to be in female only spaces and sports, and so they have to invent an imaginary category that includes them and female people and pretend that this is the basis on which we organise society and always have done.

If we get rid of the gender boxes then trans women are just men.

Yes. Non-binary people are the (unwitting?) trojan horses. The reason given for mixed sex toilets being a fab idea, the reason given for mutilation of sex-based language in women's health, the reason given for gender-based categories on forms rather than sex-based.

Glasgow Women's Library is advertising a workshop with the poet Jackie Kay, that's only open to women of colour. Great idea, I'm sure it'll be really useful to budding writers who share some of Jackie's protected characteristics, that have very much informed her writing, to have this time with her.

Then they go and spoil it all by saying transwomen and non-binary people are included.... so that'll be men then. Don't even say what flavour of non-binary, so literally any man that says so.

Agree with @unsync .

I am a child of the nineties, who was encouraged to reject stereotypes and forge a path based on my abilities not my sex (or later, "gender").

NB relies on stereotypes that I try to ignore or avoid. Just because you wear a dress whilst being a man doesn't mean you stop being a man, or that by wearing a dress you "reject" both male and female genders. It just means you are a man wearing a dress. End of.

OP, watch any Top if the Pops rerun from 60s/70s/80s and up to mid 90s. We've had decades of experimentation which we used to call 'gender bending'.

Yes I know, I grew up through it which is why I find this all so confusing 😂

The worlds gone mad.
I dont buy in to all this crap.
The other day i came across a clip online and i cracked up laughing.
When a man with beard dressed as a woman said he identifies as a woman and hes a lesbian.
The first comment was mate you need counseling.
Then all this gender crap makes me laugh because they spend so much time talking and telling people they are not confused it makes them sound like they are confused.
Ita all a load of rubbish to me.

I know this is a real concern in relation to trans people, but is it so much for non-binaries? Young women having double mastectomies to becomes trans men - are non-binaries doing that too?

I agree mostly. But I think the difference now is that we have people declaring they are NB and wanting to deny their sex entirely

Then they go and spoil it all by saying transwomen and non-binary people are included.... so that'll be men then
And why is it always women that get lumped in with non-binary? Age old sexism. Women are not considered a valid category on their own. Men are the default.

Yes, it was a half Marathon in some American City. I seem to remember that it was the female bodied non binary who felt a bit hard done by at the dominance of the male bodied, but the male bodied were very put out at the suggestion that they should run in a seperate section (where they couldn’t beat the female bodied competitions).

Mind, there were very few competitors in the NB class anyway, so I think the male bodied nB would have ended up competing against himself. A whole new meaning to ‘personal best’ 🤡

Yep. Surgery and hormones to create a more ‘androgynous’ look.

Is there any data on that?

It means narcissistic attention seeking plonker

In the States, there is a ‘doctor’ offering to construct hermaphrodite genitals . You can add a dick or a ‘front hole’ to get the full set. I don’t know whether or what the supporting pharmaceuticals would be though.

Mengele would acknowledge himself a novice.

This is a small, single centre study and obviously self-selecting since people identifying as non-binary who just dyed their hair blue wouldn't be represented, but it gives you an idea: Gender Affirming Surgery in Nonbinary Patients: A Single Institutional Experience - PMC (nih.gov)

Although most of the subjects were male, the female ones were most likely to have surgery.

10% of these female teenagers getting their breasts removed were nonbinary.
Gender-Affirming Mastectomy Trends and Surgical Outcomes in Adolescents - PMC (nih.gov)

You can also just Google and see the surgeons targeting their 'top surgery' offer to 'transgender & non binary' patients. And of course Gender GP will prescribe to non binary people

I agree with this.
Plus, with gender-bending no one had to be careful not to refer to someone in a way that might be 'hurtful' or make them feel 'unsafe' because it referenced their sex.
Being required to do the mental gymnastics of looking at someone who is plainly male or plainly female, and yet referring to them as 'they' instead of 'she' or 'he', is all new. And it's compelled speech. And I for one am not keen on my speech being compelled. Neither am I keen on potentially being shouted at and called a bigot, a transphobe etc etc for saying 'she' or 'her' or 'he' or 'his'.

I'd just call the kid by their name (chosen if applicable) and not be fussed what they identified as. It seems to be saying they are neither gender, which I guess could be possible if gender is only a construct? He's obviously a boy. But who bloody knows. As long as they seem happy just let them get on with it.

My daughter who is only 12 has been sucked into this ideology and now believes that she is non binary and not a girl. I find it incredibly difficult to use they pronouns about a person I've known as a female her entire life and most of our time together now is spent with her policing our language and getting upset with us and causing scenes in public. It's really tiresome. She is 12 fgs and imo too young for all this nonsense. When I ask her to define why she doesn't feel like a girl, she can't without resorting to stereotypes. Has anyone's child been through this and come out the other side? I'm worried it's a slippery slope to wanting medical interventions like those mentioned in this thread.

Not me personally, but I noticed a while ago that a friend had started referring to his child on SM as 'they'. We didn't talk about it, largely because we were in a phase of not getting together or really speaking other than on SM (no bad reasons, just life/busyness).
Now he's back to referring to the child by their correct sex pronouns. I've seen him (the friend, not the child) recently and he uses the correct sex pronoun in person too.
I haven't asked about it, largely because every conversation about this shite has great potential to end up a dumpster fire, but it seems clear to me that this was a phase. I'd imagine a lot of this sort of thing is, if left to run its course, and that children going on to want medical interventions is largely down to parents egging them on, to put it bluntly.

Thanks. Yes I feel maybe the best thing to do is just to go along with it and hope its a phase. I surely can't be the only one who finds it nearly impossible to naturally use "they" when speaking to refer to a singular person whose sex you know though . Apparently this makes me evil incarnate

I would never...

Oh yes, on the subject of non-binary people being "outed", let's remember Roz Adams of ERCC and the employment tribunal, revolving around the non-binary support worker, who found it terribly traumatic and triggering to be asked to confirm that they were a woman - to a genuinely traumatised rape victim, no less.