Non-binary - what's that all about?

[Melody21]

My DD (at uni) is working on a project with a young woman who identifies as non-binary. She (non-binary person) has a female name, long hair, looks female. Daughter tries dutifully to "they/them" her but it's clearly an effort and sounds very unnatural. What's the point of it all?

Genuinely curious, I'm not being snarky (well, maybe a bit). Since I can't ask this person directly, can anyone explain it to me? If it's about not fitting gender stereotypes, aren't we all a bit non-binary?

@SidewaysOtter 's point about non-binaryness reinforcing gender stereotypes is an important one. It requires the rest of us to 'identify as non-binary' or accept that the gender stereotypes apply to us (or will be assumed to apply to us). It's part of a regressive trend, dressed in the fake mantle of 'progressiveness'.

I think non-binary identity is a logical next step if you already believe that woman and man are identities, and have internalised a set of stereotypes about what these identities may represent.

If you already believe that TWAW and TMAM then it's easy to bridge the very small gap towards NBIV.

I see myself as nonbinary (more agender)

Can I ask why @itsabeautifuldayjuly , If you don't mind sharing obviously, and what put the idea in your head?

It's so odd. I don't "identify as" a woman - I am a woman. I don't "identify as" a mother or a daughter or an English person or a white person or a nurse or a dog-owner, I am all of those things, I'm attached to some of them more than others but all are facts about me.

Why is sex/gender so different? I can't identify as a doctor or an Argentinian person or a horse owner because I am not those things (unless I buy a horse, maybe that's not a good example). But if I said tomorrow that I was a man or non-binary and insisted everyone call me by new pronouns, that would be seen as valid.

@NebulousSadTimes the idea has been in my head for almost 50 years
I just don’t see gender (or sex) as anything relevant in day to day life. A bit line race - important from a medical point of view but that’s it. I find it bizarre to use gender identifiers in daily life, and to make any sort of decisions around friendship, jobs, clothes based on somebodies genitalia is just odd to me.

This is exactly how I feel.

Especially when English ( unlike Romance languages) has a singular neuter pronoun. Heaven help you if you use that , though….👩🏻‍🚀

I do not feel uncomfortable when someone addresses me as she or her, I'm female, Ms Smith, "ask that lady" would be fine for someone to say about me. I do have negative feelings if someone "misgenders" me - I have been mistaken as male in the past and being called he or him is upsetting to me. If I heard someone refer to me as "that man over there" I'd feel annoyed, uncomfortable, sad, embarrassed. Depending on the day 😆

I used to have short hair and a woman told me she fancied me because she didn't go for feminine looking people. That sucked and made me feel bad. Even though she was telling me I was attractive to her! I don't want to be masculine.

I can only assume that non-binary people feel that way when people use any gender pronouns and words for them and about them.

I don't know if I have a gender identity but I do know I have feelings about being called the wrong one. So I can try and understand that some people have that feeling about the gender associated with their sex.

@LikeThatNotThat yes, exactly like that. I just feel really weird if someone calls me a woman or a man. I’m human, rest irrelevant.
Similar to gender specific clubs and places, feels almost a bit apartheid like to me.

That's interesting, I don't feel like it would bother me if someone thought I was male (though I'm not aware of it ever having happened, so maybe I would feel differently if it did).

As a child I was a bit of a tomboy and would have been delighted if anyone ever thought I was a boy. They never did 🙁

Thank you for explaining.

I find your mention of genetalia into it a bit odd. It's obviously usually how we are assigned our sex at birth but it's not something I've ever given any thought to when going about my life, apart from in medical contexts. I'd be surprised if many people think about their genitals when they're just living the life that hopefully suits them. I sometimes buy clothes from the men's section but I never give my genitals a thought when doing so.

I'm not criticising you, BTW, perhaps I'm making too much of your wording.

I know a young person who has decided not only to identify themselves as non binary and declare pronouns as they/them, but has decided that everyone is non binary, and consequently uses the pronouns they/them for every person talked about irrespective of what that person might want. I tried pointing out that they get annoyed if misgendered, yet they are effectively misgendering the vast majority of people they ever talk about since most people are still he or she depending on their biological sex. This fell on deaf ears.
This person has just been accepted to study medicine at university! I can't wait to hear how they get on when they do their obstetrics and gynaecology rotation.

Perhaps that is because you have a strong connection to the truth and an accurate representation of your sex.

Someone who has declared that are non-binary is not basing that on any material reality about themselves at all. I look at your post and I don't feel that there is an equivalence to be made between the two examples.

Why should any person on this planet have to feel compelled to affirm someone's gender identity belief when it is an identity that is not based on anything except what they believe about themselves which is that they reject their sex class?

@NebulousSadTimes Sex assigned at birth comes down to external genitalia , and i just find it weird that this is supposed to define us so much, down to how we are addressed.
I buy my work clothes from an online retailer that just specifies body types (wide hips, or bigger chest, straight fit etc), and i find this a lot more helpful than male/female which is always an awkward proxy.

Asking here about non-binary people is like going onto Stormfront to ask about race or Kiwi Farms to ask about feminism.

I'm not an enby, but the best book I've read about their experiences is "Trans like me" by CN Lester. It's also very good on trans history

I was surrounded by people like this years ago. When asked how I identified I said it wasn’t something I’d thought about and I didn’t fit into any gendered stereotypes anyway. They helpfully informed me that my lack of firm gender identity actually made me non-binary.

Initially, I didn’t see any harm in it (thought it might at least stop this group incorrectly assuming “she/her” = into stereotypically ‘female-coded’ hobbies/movies, dresses, nail polish, and gossip).

However, after somebody happily told me that my non-binary gender identity meant I was under the “trans umbrella”, I backtracked. When I clarified that I’m not trans, I am 100% female, I just don’t believe in gender for myself, and I now didn’t want or need a label to describe something that isn’t there (especially if the label meant I would be classified as something I definitely am not)…my newly assigned trans status was quickly confiscated and replaced with TERF. Apparently ‘agender’ also comes under the nonbinary/trans umbrella so I didn’t want that label either, and I think the final straw was asking them to refrain from calling me “cis”.

I understand wanting to opt out from gender, and can see how ‘gender neutral’ options can feel like a way to do that…but I don’t think it works; it just replaces one set of assumptions with another. I also suspect any adult insisting others must use they/them pronouns, or being ‘proud’ of their NB identity, is either attention-seeking, or they’re going through something that would be better addressed by therapy than it would a pair of yellow/white/purple/black earrings or a pin badge.

"Apparently ‘agender’ also comes under the nonbinary/trans umbrella so I didn’t want that label either, and I think the final straw was asking them to refrain from calling me “cis”."

Indeed, 'agender' requires someone to believe in gender identities in the first place.

Until people realise, as you did, that for gender identities to be treated as valid requires a direct belief action people don't understand the harm of it. For the philosophical belief to work, the people who seek to redefine themselves have forceably redefined all people.

It isn’t them saying ‘people with transgender identities’ and ‘people without transgender identities’. It is them declaring everyone has this thing they belief in - a gender identity. That is what this word ‘cis’ means. And 'agender' is similar.

Cis means that a person identifies their gender identity as the sex they were born. And 'agender' is an active belief that you have no gender. They were never neutral positions.

For example, religious people can call other people non-believers of their religion and this is a material fact. It is real and it is meaningful. I doubt people would reject that. It is a null option. It doesn't require the person who does not believe in the religion to do anything. It simply describes their lack of belief.

In comparison, ‘cis’ and 'agenda' are not describing the lack of belief. Because the use demands that everyone has a gender identity, even if it is the rejection of that 'gender identity' if you see what I mean. It is enforcing belief about that label on the recipient.

How is this acceptable?

I have no idea! How can someone genuinely believe they are 'no sex'. Unless somehow they've a genetic disorder that gives them the physiognomy of a Barbie or ken doll?

Why can't someone just have a gender neutral name, and dress/look a way which makes it not immediately obvious what sex you are?

It's literally a human body. You're staring down at a pair of tits and a vulva or a flat chest and dick/balls and your saying you're 'not ANY sex'?

I really don't get it. I wish people no ill will but it seems so unnecessary.

I should imagine if they work for NHS Fife they’ll do very well

I’m happy to sit under the trans umbrella. I don’t identify with the gender assigned to me (or any other gender ).
Sex is about your body, is medically relevant, but that’s it. Just like a parent’s cancer diagnosis can medically relevant, or having loads of twins in the family can be medically relevant. But not something i see as relevant in day to day life.
I get that for some people gender is relevant, so i’m trying to acknowledge that

Yeh I totally get what you are saying. My post was just saying that is the only way I can try to understand it. The "feelings" part of being misgendered would be similar to how I feel if someone thinks I am a man.
Non binary is an odd concept I'm just trying to understand the feelings bit of it.
The difference between me not wanting to be called a man, and a non binary person not wanting to be called a man or a woman is, I guess, where dysphoria comes in. Which is not something I have experienced and therefore is difficult for me to really understand. Just trying to have some empathy and frame it in terms I can get my head round 😊

The bodies of male and female infants are not obviously different in appearance apart from the genitalia, which is why this is used to identify the sex of a baby at birth (I'm sure you know this really).

The bodies of male and female adults are quite different in appearance in many ways other than genitalia (I'm sure you know this really as well).

The "body types" you describe aren't actually body types. A woman with a "bigger chest" because she has large breasts is a completely different shape from a man with a "bigger chest" because he is a bodybuilder.

Female body types are different from male body types (I'm sure you know this really as well).

how often are you "addressed by your gender?" in daily life though?

It's not like the 1950s, people rarely use gendered titles these days, at least in actual speech. I honestly can't remember the last time I was called 'Mrs/Ms myname,' - not by customers/colleagues/at the doctors, when I engage with a professional (estate agent), etc. It's always just 'Hi, First name?'

It's the same as the whole pronoun thing - in reality, most occasions where someone refers to you in the third person you're not around to hear and be offended by it.

See, working in higher education, it now feels really unnatural to say he/she now. I always use them/they/their etc - it doesn't even take any effort anymore.