Non binary

[loveforautumn]

Hello!
Not sure if this is the right group but here goes..

My sons just come down to me and said his friend is non binary and he thinks he is. He's 12, his first year in secondary school so its a crazy year for him anyway and wonder if hes picked it up from others but I replied with that's fine you do you, also as your happy im happy

I have no idea what it really means so had to Google it & I still dont fully understand what it means?
He's changed over the last few months hes a very placid, lovely child and just floats around. Im so happy he felt he could come and tell me & he thanked me for being ok with it

Has anyone else had this? Did you do anything or just let them float through finding themselves?

@Catiette
Gosh, your recollections of being a teenage girl struck a chord!
I think being a late developer is a bit like being the only person left sober at a drunken party.
I remember wondering why they were drooling over these really rather awful pop stars etc. Much later, I realised that while they were seeing Rock Star Smoulder and Alpha Male Smirk, I was simply seeing Sulk and Smug.

I'm not a fantastic ally. I'm beginning to dislike the whole concept of "ally", as it seems to lead people to losing their own minds and selves, which is surely unhealthy? C S Lewis once said something like "she lived for others, and you could tell the others by the haunted look in their eyes". Healthy people are still flawed, but they temper their own self interest by trying to understand the people around them and by accepting societal boundaries - though boundaries are not set in stone, they should only be changed cautiously, in my opinion, as there are reasons for them. Those reasons aren't always unquestionable, but it's dangerous to ignore them.

I remember everyone going stupid over the Beverly Hills 90210 men. I didn't understand what 15 years old saw in such old men - I've just checked, 21,23 and 26 when it started. The main female characters were much younger and still in their teens. That was weird!

I was supposed to choose one but couldn't understand what was attractive about any of them and it was stressful trying not to settle on a wrong answer.

I'm wondering how much of teen girl 'crushing' is performative and a means of bonding iwth other girls as much as it is about actual feelings towards the subjects? That's surely often why the object of attention/affection is a distant figure, a celebrity, etc?

And then I wonder if girls who are classed as 'late developers' may be as much about them working out how they relate to their peers and are sited in groups and networks and society as their attraction or lack thereof towards romantic targets.

Part of 'gender' as I understand it is one's relationship to society and societal expectations.

Back when 'gender' was used as a useful means of describing a societal phenomenon, rather than being reified into a quasi-religious subculture.

A really good, thought-provoking way of putting it.

Totally with you on the concept of so-called allyship. So unhealthy in so many ways. Connotations of war and unquestioning allegiance?! Excellent, just the way to encourage vulnerable people to think. 🙄 Cf. the redefinition of "safe". I find these applications disingenuous at best, and dangerous at worst.

Love the C. S. Lewis quote. I've not heard that one before. I must remember he's not just all wardrobes and witches.

This also chimes with me. It was this conscious cynicism about socially constructed "girliness". It really irritated me to see them all embrace it! I wouldn't have been able to put it quite like that then, but what I was thinking and saying about it wasn't that far off. I do know I recognised it as a kind of feminist perspective.

And I do think that it's sometimes this totally rational wariness that we could even call gender criticism in teen girls that's, ironically, being neatly swept up and packed into a box labelled "non-binary".

I mostly like C S Lewis, though I'm unconvinced by his line on gender in That Hideous Strength (but did he write that when he was still a bachelor?). He makes me think, maybe especially where I don't think I agree.

It's interesting how the different influences on us can change our thinking, if we are prepared to say "why does that person think the way they do; is there anything in what they are saying?". But truth and reality matter, as well as feelings. Allyship can be very adjacent to "my country, right or wrong".

One may or may not agree with C.S. Lewis's theology, but he had a very sharp eye for social and intellectual silliness and dishonesty. Other expressions of his I like are "chronological snobbery" - the idea that more recent automatically means better and more enlightened; and "inner ringer" - the kind of person who likes to be in a special cliquey in-group within an organisation or movement.

I clearly need to read more C. S. Lewis. I'm ashamed to say I've not got beyond Narnia...

Screwtape Letters, I think.

And that's not a dodgy porn movie, don't worry.