Non-binary seems like it could have several non-compatible meanings, so I wanted to list some of those meanings and see if there are any others out there I don’t know.
One way I could think of non-binary is as being a kind of third gender category, like there are men, women, and non-binary people. In this sense of non-binary a butch woman who considers themselves a woman would not be non-binary because they are a woman.
Sometimes non-binary is used like “genderqueer” is sometimes used, as a generic description of anyone who doesn’t fit perfectly in the narrow confines of the binary genders (i.e. men and women). In this sense a butch woman could see themselves as a woman, but also as genderqueer and non-binary, as they do not conform to binary gender norms for women.
Another way non-binary seems to be used (related to genderqueer in its historical context) is as a political term, an identity taken up by otherwise cis-sexual and even cis-gendered people who wish to resist binary gender norms and policing. In this sense even a femme cis-sexual woman might identify as non-binary. Sometimes this political identity label might come with a gender expression that cuts against the gender expectations for the assigned sex at birth, but it doesn’t have to. (I recently met two people whose gender expressions matched their assigned sex at birth but who identified as non-binary in this political sense.)
I was wondering what other meanings of non-binary are out there, and how they are commonly used.
Note: gatekeeping what is “really” non-binary seems pointless to me, since I agree with Wittgenstein that “language is use”.
I know people get heated about policing what a word means (and I am guilty of this myself), but in the interest of inclusion, pluralism, and general cooperation in our community I think we can find a way to communicate with overlapping and different meanings of a shared term.
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Non binary means someone’s experience of gender doesn’t align with the societally mandated binary genders.
That’s it. What that alignment looks like, and what more it may mean varies from person to person.
The way I look at it, is that if a particular label is helping you navigate the world and your relationship with your own sense of self, then it’s the right term, and other people’s opinions on the “right” label don’t come in to it.
So helpful, thanks Ada!
I think your definition of non-binary is similar to what I was trying to capture with my first account of non-binary as a third gender category (or in a “beyond the binary” model, as the only gender category).
What is interesting to me is that this account of non-binary relies on someone’s experience of gender and on their relation to a socially imposed gender. This raises questions about all the variation, which you have brought up, and maybe this could result in different accounts of non-binary that still all fit under one umbrella concept.
The way I look at it, is that if a particular label is helping you navigate the world and your relationship with your own sense of self, then it’s the right term, and other people’s opinions on the “right” label don’t come in to it.
Yes, of course - I think the history of medical gatekeeping (like the Benjamin Rules) and the fact that trans folks are essentially gender outlaws, constantly under the threat of enforcement of a politically dominant gender hegemony, puts us on the defensive about our labels and identities.
In the context of our societies our identities are automatically questioned and doubted, considered fictional or unreal, and considered “wrong” or suspicious. In that context it makes sense to prioritize the authority of the individual to self-identify, and this is a smart move relative to our particular form of political hegemony, which is dominated by an ideology of liberalism which has a rich history of individualism to appeal to. We are able to weave our trans individual autonomy into the broader strands of individualism already present in our society.
To that point, I guess I will speak for myself and to my experience - I have watched myself take and let go of many labels, and it is interesting that the thing that changed was not so much me as much as my understanding, or more to the point, the meanings I had for words. I would have identified with a label like non-binary years ago, where I took that label to mean I did not perfectly conform with the gender I was assigned. The definition sounds very much like your definition, and yet I do not understand it now the same way I would have then. Living as a man then I was unusually soft and failed to conform to my gender in many ways, I would even wear a purse and refused to call it a hand-bag (as perhaps the example of my biggest and most persistent form of gender resistance, which most people found easy to ignore, asserting the binary role of man onto me with ease). Yet for all intents and purposes I lived as a man still and being non-binary was like a technicality for me, something that was true but irrelevant as I was living as a man. There is some amount of shame I experience now in telling this, as I feel I was living as a cis-gendered and cis-sexual person then. Now I have a much richer understanding of non-binary identities, and I know that the in-congruence I experienced before was likely a sign of being trans more than being non-binary (though they are often one in the same). And now as someone who has socially transitioned and would now be described as belonging to trans-gender and trans-sexual (i.e. medically transitioning) categories, I have come to see myself as potentially non-binary in a different sense. Rather than non-binary as a way to describe my incongruence with my assigned sex, now non-binary is a way to describe my incongruence with my chosen gender. I am probably in the ambiguous boundary between binary and non-binary space, and while for practical intents and purposes identify publicly as a binary trans woman, I think of myself as technically non-binary still. All these changes can be unsettling to one’s sense of reality, and I have lost confidence in my ability to know my gender, so everything is left a bit open and ambiguous.
Even now I feel like I am still learning, hence why I’m here asking for new ways of seeing.
maybe this could result in different accounts of non-binary that still all fit under one umbrella concept.
That’s already how it works!
The term non binary by itself only tells you who someone isn’t. It doesn’t tell you who they are.
We have demi gendered folk, trans fem, trans masc, agender, xenogender etc. There are 8 genders in the Talmud, and many extant and historical societies acknowledge more than two binary genders.
In that context it makes sense to prioritize the authority of the individual to self-identify, and this is a smart move relative to our particular form of political hegemony, which is dominated by an ideology of liberalism which has a rich history of individualism to appeal to. We are able to weave our trans individual autonomy into the broader strands of individualism already present in our society.
Yes and no. I’m binary. And strictly speaking, that is a form of self identity, as it’s the label I choose to use when talking about my own experience, and in that context, I am the best authority to speak to my own experience. However, aligning as I do with a binary gender, it means that my experience of gender isn’t a particularly individual experience. My experience of gender is broadly similar to nearly half of the population. So my empowered self chosen identity label leans right in to the hegemonic presentation of gender, and is ultimately, a shared experience.
For me, I struggled to claim ownership of the term “woman”. I struggled to tell the world my gender, but I always felt it. Now though, as you have said, my perspectives have changed from my pre transition self. I often think to myself that if I were 20 years younger, and had grown up with more nuanced representations of gender, I wouldn’t identity so strongly with the binary. I feel the differences between myself and other, predominantly cis women, not in the physical sense, but in terms of our relationships with our own gender experience. Yet despite that difference, I still feel that a binary is the most accurate way of describing my experience, and so that’s how I identity.
Ultimately though, the terms we use aren’t authoritive, and they’re not prescriptive. They’re subjective and descriptive, which means they are at best, an imperfect “shortcut” to describe our experience of gender, both in our own minds, and to others. It’s why there are an infinite number of genders, because there are infinite ways of describing experiences with an entities sense of self.
There are 8 genders in the Talmud, and many extant and historical societies acknowledge more than two binary genders.
I didn’t consider the way that genders outside the “Western culture” would relate, it’s interesting that they are getting folded in here as non-binary. It makes sense considering how often anthropologists have reported third-gendering in other cultures, though it is still unclear to me how accurate the anthropologists are in reporting these genders (for example some “third gender” people are more likely to communicate fairly binary-sounding gender identities).
I often think to myself that if I were 20 years younger, and had grown up with more nuanced representations of gender, I wouldn’t identity so strongly with the binary.
I wonder how much of this comes from the societal pressure to fit within the gender binary, that in some ways the space created for non-binary and trans-affirming identities might also allow people to feel less dysphoria and more comfortable in a non-binary gender.
A lot of my dysphoria seems contingent on social norms, for example my insecurities in my gender are often quite similar to the insecurities other women have. In that sense I’m just experiencing an acute form of gender policing that is applied to anyone in the social class of “woman”. (Perhaps this is a kind of misogyny, and it is made acute for me precisely because my body deviates so extremely from the gender rules that are so strictly enforced.)
This makes me think that if the social norms were different, the shape and intensity of my dysphoria would also be different. I think I would still experience some kinds of dysphoria regardless, but I recognize particularly with body dysphoria the ways that society shapes some of those feelings.
Ultimately though, the terms we use aren’t authoritive, and they’re not prescriptive. They’re subjective and descriptive, which means they are at best, an imperfect “shortcut” to describe our experience of gender, both in our own minds, and to others.
Yes, like the “is a hotdog a sandwich” comic I shared in my OP, language is use. People try to make the terms authoritative, after all there are political reasons for doing so, but it is a good reminder that reality is far more complex and wily than our language implies.
I have more thoughts about my identity and the ways that binary or non-binary labels fit, but I can’t tell that anyone would find them valuable. It sounds like we have some similarities in our gender.
I really appreciate the time you took to write out your experiences, thank you.
Non-binary is an umbrella term that covers a wide variety of experiences.
Within the umbrella there’s more specific identities and language people might use if they want.
Many don’t want. Umbrella terms, like the very broad meaning of “Queer” are very useful for people that don’t feel like explaining or justifying who they are is needed.
Makes sense, I think being an umbrella term makes it a rich environment for a wide variety of meanings. I guess it’s not surprising then that we would end up with radically different accounts of what it means to be non-binary.
Sometimes it seems to me that “non-binary” as the broadest umbrella term might technically fit everyone, since there are always ways that people diverge from a strict set of gender norms.
You could, the reason people generally don’t is because people get to choose their own labels.
Yeah, there is a pressure to conform to social expectations, so if anything people who experience dysphoria are more likely to try to identify as cis than the other way around. I guess the exception to that is in subcultures where an environment is created where the values are inverted, like what Julia Serano describes in Whipping Girl as subversivism:
Subversivism is the practice of extolling certain gender and sexual expressions and identities simply because they are unconventional or nonconforming. In the parlance of subversivism, these atypical genders and sexualities are “good” because they “transgress” or “subvert” oppressive binary gender norms.
…
By glorifying identities and expressions that appear to subvert or blur gender binaries, subversivism automatically creates a reciprocal category of people whose gender and sexual identities and expressions are by default inherently conservative, even “hegemonic,” because they are seen as reinforcing or naturalizing the binary gender system. Not surprisingly, this often-unspoken category of bad, conservative genders is predominantly made up of feminine women and masculine men who are attracted to the “opposite” sex.
Perhaps it’s too simple, but I thought non binary people just don’t ascribe to the idea that there is only a binary state of gender.
Ah interesting, I think that might be like the political meaning of non-binary, someone who rejects the gender binary, but maybe for other reasons besides political reasons? The only reason I can think of is maybe someone just doesn’t believe anyone can be binary, like that there is some kind of empirical fact of people’s gender identities and none of them are binary.
Man, I don’t think about this stuff that hard. I just accept people for who they are.
That’s a good rule of thumb, to accept people how they identify. Even in examples where we suspect someone is not the identity they claim, it seems disrespectful and unhelpful to argue with them about it. An example that comes to my mind is the Twitch streamer Finnster who was often thought to be an egg by the trans community. There was lots of doubt of his identity as a cis man and even when they came out as genderqueer and started HRT, I still think it was right to respect Finn’s cis-man identity before they changed their identity and decided to start HRT. It’s just an issue of respect.
EDIT: Have you read Plato’s Euthyphro? I was trying to think of how to describe my affliction, why I’m thinking about this stuff. Socrates came to mind. 😅
What’s an “egg”?
An egg is a trans person in denial.
There’s a meme community called egg_irl ([email protected])
(I hope I’m linking it correctly)
Thanks for the explanation!
Happy to help 😊️
An egg is a person who has not yet realized they are trans. It may be someone who hasn’t even started questioning, can include people who are beginning to question, or even people who sorta know but are in denial as Emma says.
“otherwise cis-gendered” is a pretty ridiculous way to describe a trans person lol. Other than what, the fact that they are trans?
Categorizing non-binary “Butch women”, as you put it, separately from non-binary “femme cis-sexual women” is also just…ick, dude. Besides your, again, ridiculous way of phrasing your point…what if I told you non-binary people are not beholden to your gender expectations?
I am a non-binary person as are many of my friends, and neither we nor our other trans (or even cis) friends have any issues whatsoever communicating the “overlapping and different meanings” of our identity lol…if you are actually curious about why we identify the way we do why not just ask instead of trying to preemptively categorize “women” as either being in a legitimate third category or making a political statement?
That’s exactly what OP did. No attempt to shove people in a box was made. There’s no need to fly off the handle.
Not every inaccurate statement about nonbinary people is made in bad faith.
Hey, thank you! It sounds like you understood where I was coming from better. I’m not sure how to better communicate to avoid the hostility (I thought I was clear, but I must be wrong), but I appreciate your support.
Not every inaccurate statement about nonbinary people is made in bad faith.
The meanings of non-binary I have encountered may be “inaccurate” according to some other meaning, but I’m not sure we should be so quick to dismiss them as inaccurate. This is sort of what I was explicitly trying to avoid. I understand the impulse to deny another definition or meaning of non-binary that doesn’t match our own definition or meaning, but I think we have to set aside some of that judgement so we can be open to the variance that people are reporting.
I have my own biases about what non-binary should mean, even just on pragmatic grounds, but I am explicitly suspending judgement and inviting openness and tolerance.
No attempt to shove people in a box was made
Unless they didn’t look trans enough for OP, you mean? In which case they get an entirely separate box from the more authentic looking enbies?
There’s no need to fly off the handle
I can’t help but notice I am the only one at this time who has addressed the actual content of OPs post. Why don’t you take a stab at it so I can see exactly what is necessary.
Not every inaccurate statement about nonbinary people is made in bad faith.
Notice how you phrase it as “statement” instead of “question” lol. As I said I think OP would be better served by simply asking the question instead of guessing (in a weirdly very AFAB fixated manner).
OP made several guesses about what the word “nonbinary” meant and asked the community which, if any, were correct. I do not think this is unreasonable, and the handful of times I’ve done it in the past with regard to other topics, it has proven more expedient and much more helpful than asking the community to write a full explanation on their own – both since it takes a lot less time and emotional labor for someone to correct a minor misunderstanding in your five paragraphs than to write five paragraphs of their own, and since people often lack the words to describe their own experience and giving them a rough outline which they can correct and fill in as needed can be helpful.
OP has explained to you several times that they did not intend to gatekeep who was and wasn’t nonbinary. They were asking the community what did and did not qualify. Something that newcomers to the gender scene often do not understand, especially autistic ones as I strongly suspect OP is, is that there are no hard and fast rules. It’s common for them to try to ask what the rules are. That’s what I did when I first started trying to understand this stuff, and after someone patiently explained to me that anyone who wanted to call themselves nonbinary was and anyone who didn’t, wasn’t, and that the term didn’t have any deeper meaning than that, I understood and was able to better interact with the community, and there were smiles all around. OP made this post in an attempt to educate themself. Attacking OP for making that assumption or using outdated terminology and forcing them to go on the defensive, rather than gently informing them of the truth, helps precisely nobody.
Fair enough, thank you for your assessment
Unless they didn’t look trans enough for OP, you mean? In which case they get an entirely separate box from the more authentic looking enbies?
I think you might not be understanding me. You don’t have to look trans at all to be trans (and same for non-binary). The boxes are ways people self-identify or the ways different people approach or understand a label they are using, not ways I am trying to categorize people or judge whether they deserve the label or not.
EDIT: In my example with the butch woman, I’m trying to imagine how they might experience gender and identify or label themselves, not how I as trans woman would label them. Hopefully this makes sense, I feel like I’m making a mess of things. 😅
hey, it seems like I’ve really caused some upset here.
First, I should reiterate what I said in my OP, this isn’t about debating non-binary people as whether they are trans or not, whether they are legitimate or not, etc. I think it’s sufficient to just take seriously how people identify.
Not all non-binary people identify as trans, so your assumption that they are inherently trans may be reasonable but I want to point out that this is not the only way to think of being non-binary. (This isn’t just theoretical, I know multiple people who identify as non-binary but not trans.) Personally I would say anyone who is non-binary is typically trans by definition (and this gets into definitions of trans, which is its own post), but again I let people tell me how they identify and I listen and take that seriously.
As for why I used a butch woman as the edge case, it’s not some AFAB fixation, I was just thinking about the various scenes in Leslie Feinberg’s Stone Butch Blues where trans and butch identities collided. Feinberg’s book is a powerful work, so it has rightly anchored itself in my mind when thinking about non-binary identities. Feinberg after all is one of the primary foundational figures in developing the “beyond the binary” model of gender (along with Kate Bornstein).
A lot of this thinking and the reason for my post comes from recently reading Talia Mae Bettcher’s paper “Trapped in the Wrong Theory” (here’s a PDF). I’m essentially digesting the way she introduces a kind of pluralism through the “multiple worlds of sense”:
Worlds are all lived and they organize the social as heterogeneous, multiple. I think of the social as intersubjectively constructed in a variety of tense ways, forces at odds, impinging differently in the construction of any world. Any world is tense, not just in tense inner turmoil but also in tense acknowledged or unacknowledged contestation with other worlds. I think that there are many worlds, not autonomous, but intertwined semantically and materially, with a logic that is sufficiently self-coherent and sufficiently in contradiction with others to constitute an alternative construction of the social. Whether or not a particular world ceases to be is a matter of political contestation. No world is either atomic or autonomous. Many worlds stand in relations of power to other worlds, which include a second order of meaning. (Lugones 2003, 21)
It is also coming off some experiences where I was challenged in my assumptions about what non-binary could mean. Just a week or two ago I met two people who identify as non-binary but who, as I said in the OP, have cis-gender expressions are cis-sexual. Their understanding of what it means to be non-binary was new for me, and did not seem to involve a gender identity as I had previously thought of it (such as a phenomenology of your gender, or having a sense of gendered self that is incongruent with one’s assigned sex, etc.).
OK, with some hopefully helpful background, let me respond to your comments.
Categorizing non-binary “Butch women”, as you put it, separately from non-binary “femme cis-sexual women” is also just…ick, dude.
Hmm, I can understand what you mean, but I’m not attempting to impose a categorization for the sake of separation. What is relevant is not that a butch enby is different than a femme enby, but the reasons those people have for identify as non-binary in the context of the meanings I have. The examples are there to help me think through how a similar person from an internal sense of gender and external expression of gender might have radically different ways of identifying, just as I am seeing in real life and is being discussed in the literature.
This is somewhat a separate issue, but I would prefer you not use masculine gendered language when communicating disgust with me. I get the disgust and why you are communicating it, but in that context of no-trust a label like “dude” is not familiar or warm but feels like you are intentionally misgendering me, which feels a bit degrading. It’s the internet, I get it, but in case you didn’t mean to do that I’m giving you feedback that this didn’t feel right to me.
… if you are actually curious about why we identify the way we do why not just ask instead of trying to preemptively categorize “women” as either being in a legitimate third category or making a political statement?
I am essentially asking, that’s what my post is about, but I’m not merely asking why people identify as non-binary, I am trying to understand the underlying “world” of meaning. So in that sense I don’t so much care why someone identifies as non-binary as much as I care about the underlying meanings or theories that might emerge from those discussions. This is why my post is titled “What does ‘non-binary’ mean?” and not “Why do you identify as non-binary?”. I don’t take these to be the same.
Also, I wasn’t “pre-emptively categorizing” as much as I was sharing the meanings I had already encountered. The fact that different meanings of non-binary can be used to categorize is somewhat irrelevant, since that’s not their purpose in this post.
The example of the butch woman who may or may not be non-binary is to function as a concrete example and an intuition pump within each meaning, to understand the different ways something may or may not apply. None of this is objective or meant to function as a way of categorizing people, though I understand how it might feel that way. Instead there are multiple ways of looking at things. The theorizing and categories are descriptive and a means to understanding the way people think of themselves and others. Sure, people can try to use a particular meaning to then categorize others, but that’s not the point.
I acknowledge your response without agreeing with you. Your journey of having your preconceptions challenged is admittedly fascinating in its own right, but my opinion remains that you are not in a position to be teaching people about this stuff. I think you have the makings of a skilled lecturer but you must imagine how it feels to have a lecture delivered about you and your friends from someone who doesn’t quite seem to understand you. Under the pretense of asking, no less.
That being said I also do not believe your strategy of trying to uncover the deeper underlying meaning of the word “non-nonbinary” without regard for “why people identify” as such will be fruitful for you in the long term, but I would remain interested in your perspective as time goes on if perhaps presented in a different context.
To address the separate issue, you have my apologies for the use of the word dude. My intention when employing the word was not related to gendered connotations. I am immersed in a a local trans community that has completely neutered the term, but I should be more cognizant of how it can read outside of that context.
First, you assume I’m not non-binary and that there is some kind of divide between us as though I’m lecturing you about something I know nothing about or that I’m not experiencing myself. A lot of the motivation for thinking through these different meanings is precisely because I am struggling with my own experience as a trans person, which slots easily as non-binary depending on the definition or meaning you give to it.
Second, this was not meant as a lecture at all - it was a question, an invitation, and a disclosure of my working thoughts. The meanings I have encountered contradict one another and are not authoritative, nor coherent. They aren’t meant to have the weight that I infer from your message you seem to be giving them (let me know if I’m wrong here, I just think calling it a “lecture” sounds pretty heavy). I was thinking the meanings I shared were meant to be questioned and modified by the voices here - I want you to tell me what meanings you have encountered, what you make of those meanings, etc. and also what you think of the meanings I have described and whether they are accurate or not, or when or how you have encountered them.
That being said I also do not believe your strategy of trying to uncover the deeper underlying meaning of the word “non-nonbinary” without regard for “why people identify” as such will be fruitful for you in the long term
I think that’s a fair point, I think why people identify as non-binary is usually involved in what the meaning then becomes for those people (though it may actually go the other way), but I wasn’t so much trying to deny that relationship as much as I was trying to clarify what exactly I was interested in, which is the theories and meanings that emerge (rather than just why someone identifies).
Of course I expect the “why” to be one of the main entry points to discussion about non-binary identity, but I was just trying to be clear and to respond to your criticism that I shouldn’t be asking about the meaning but about why people identify.
I am immersed in a a local trans community that has completely neutered the term
Hey, I appreciate your apology, I think I am a bit surprised honestly. I don’t usually do well at recovering once I have made someone upset, and it felt a bit foolish of me to be vulnerable in that moment and share my feelings. Thank you for being so human.
Also, the term is typically neutered in most contexts for me too, but it was in particular the way you were approaching me with a kind of hostility, in particular the expression of open disgust or contempt, that transformed the term into a misgendering barb. I considered that you may have not intended that, but it still stung. Thank you for being sensitive, especially in a context where it’s not easy to be.
I’m also sorry that I didn’t find a way to write my OP in a way that didn’t avoid this situation all together, as it seems I have failed to avoid the very thing I was concerned about when writing the post. I think people are rightfully defensive about these identities and labels and their meanings, and rightfully defensive against attempts to inspect them (especially by outsiders). There is a kind of vulnerability to asking questions that requires trust, and I acknowledge that trust isn’t always just there.
I want to learn and don’t mean to be imposing, but I also understand what I’m doing is perhaps too sensitive for this context.
Hey, I appreciate your apology
Of course, friend. I appreciate your communication on the matter.
I’m also sorry that I didn’t find a way to write my OP in a way that didn’t avoid this situation all together
Eh, perhaps I am the only one who has taken issue. Given your clarifications, suffice it to say that I do not think the meanings you have described are accurate lol. Broadly, I think you’re overcomplicating things. If someone told me she was a woman, I would take her at face value. She is a woman. From there if everyone were so inclined we could continue to learn about each other.
Let me put it another way. Do you think women who shave should be categorized within womanhood differently than women who do not? One woman might tell you it’s important to her because it makes her feel more feminine, the other might tell you it’s unrelated to how she thinks about herself so she doesn’t bother. Is this a contradiction deserving of investigation? I suggest that no, it is not a contradiction, and that by even framing the question in those terms I have revealed a critical underlying misunderstanding I carry about the concept of womanhood as a whole.
Now there are women who shave and there are women who don’t and it is related to gender expression and there is a way to have a productive conversation about how that all plays out. But I would go about it much differently.
Now, in light of all that you have written I do not mean to say that you have gone about inquiring about non-binary identities in the exact same manner as I just described, I just want to illustrate my point generally. If that in any way assists in seeing where I’m coming from
Given your clarifications, suffice it to say that I do not think the meanings you have described are accurate lol
Yes, I was avoiding saying this because I want to be open-minded and receptive to different perspectives, but I also don’t think some of the meanings of non-binary I have encountered are accurate or make sense.
For example, in one lecture I attended a femme-presenting presumably AFAB individual gave a presentation of their paper about non-binary identity, providing an account of non-binary as being defined exclusively by political positions (such as rejecting oppressive binary gender norms), and even took a stance that people who identify as non-binary cannot be if they do not live up to certain behavioral standards such as showing solidarity (the example they gave was of a shooter of a gay club in Colorado who identified as non-binary, and the presenter argued that this person could not be considered non-binary because they violated solidarity by killing fellow LGBTQ+ folks).
This whole approach, of thinking about non-binary in exclusively political terms, reminds me in some ways of the second wave radical feminist Sheila Jeffreys’s Political Lesbianism (PDF) whereby she argues that women should become lesbians for political reasons (essentially because heterosexuality oppresses women).
In both cases it feels like the main context for the identity is hijacked and utilized for political ends but without regard to the underlying reasons the identity had for existing in the first place. Specifically lesbianism is usually a sexual orientation, presumably an orientation someone is born with and which is not the result of conscious decisions or reasoning. Some women just happen to be attracted to women, and others are not (at least that seems to be the case with sexual orientations). Similarly the argument for political non-binary identity seems to miss the element of gender identity that I do tend to think underlies being non-binary. That is, people are typically non-binary because of their gender identity, not because by some line of reasoning they chose to be non-binary. But I do not feel confident in my position, clearly it seems like political lesbianism and political non-binary identity both are getting argued for in some fashion, and I guess I’m wondering what people make of these ideas.
After I left the lecture and went out for lunch, a stranger who was also at the lecture in the audience recognized me and asked to sit and chat, and in doing so I learned that they too identify as non-binary for political reasons, as a form of resistance. While it’s always uncomfortable to disclose these things, it’s probably worth noting this person disclosed they were AMAB and they don’t alter their gender expression based on this political non-binary label, so they are cis-gendered in their expression and presumably in their gender identity, though who can say for certain, perhaps for example, their openness to identifying with a non-binary label for political reasons could have to do with being an egg, who knows.
All this to say, I hope you can see some of the reasons I am trying to present the different ways I have been confronted with theories or meanings of non-binary which seem at their root based on quite different notions.
Broadly, I think you’re overcomplicating things. If someone told me she was a woman, I would take her at face value. She is a woman. From there if everyone were so inclined we could continue to learn about each other.
Hopefully now with context you can see my post is not a practical question about when I should call someone non-binary or not. I’m going to call the political non-binary people non-binary because they identify that way. Even if I am suspicious about their conception of non-binary, I’m going to respect their identity. I don’t see much good in refusing to respect that identity (though the lecturer seem perfectly willing to deny other non-binary people their identity, something I found somewhat disturbing).
Do you think women who shave should be categorized within womanhood differently than women who do not?
Of course not, but this question communicates to me that I failed to communicate adequately in my original post. Perhaps this relates to my use of butch women in examples? I was thinking about Leslie Feinberg and the characters in Stone Butch Blues, and particularly the way gender worked for the main character Jess Goldberg - the way they moved through identities, living as a butch woman, then transitioning to living as a man, then detransitioning back and trying to reclaim that connection to women they had before. I was thinking about how it might feel when working through one’s gender that way, and how one might reason to themselves about their identity and which label applies. In my example I was imagining the very same butch woman considering whether they were non-binary. One way of thinking about non-binary might lead that character to thinking of themselves as non-binary and embracing that label. Another way of thinking about non-binary might lead them to rejecting that label.
My point wasn’t even about what categorization is right or legitimate, it was more like I wanted to draw a map of the constellation of non-binary meanings (the “worlds of sense” that are vying for power, to connect this back to how I was approaching it after reading Bettcher and by extension Lugones).
One woman might tell you it’s important to her because it makes her feel more feminine, the other might tell you it’s unrelated to how she thinks about herself so she doesn’t bother. Is this a contradiction deserving of investigation? I suggest that no, it is not a contradiction, and that by even framing the question in those terms I have revealed a critical underlying misunderstanding I carry about the concept of womanhood as a whole.
This is interesting, I am not sure yet exactly how this example maps to my project of mapping the constellation of non-binary meanings, but I suspect it has to do with your interpretation of my OP as a kind of misguided, critical, and invalidating perspective on non-binary identity. It seems to me you are suggesting that I was poking holes in non-binary as an idea by exposing contradictions, and here you provide me with a counter-example where there might be inconsistencies in how women experience their gender, yet there is no hole or problem created. The inconsistency doesn’t create contradiction / paradox / problem.
Am I understanding you correctly?
Now, in light of all that you have written I do not mean to say that you have gone about inquiring about non-binary identities in the exact same manner as I just described, I just want to illustrate my point generally. If that in any way assists in seeing where I’m coming from
I hope that I have also made some clarifications, and more so that I am understanding you correctly. Let me know where I’m going astray when interpreting you.
And thank you for making an effort to help me understand your point. I’m sorry that this is so laborious (I recognize it’s a lot to read my messages and respond).
This is interesting, I am not sure yet exactly how this example maps to my project of mapping the constellation of non-binary meanings, but I suspect it has to do with your interpretation of my OP as a kind of misguided, critical, and invalidating perspective on non-binary identity. It seems to me you are suggesting that I was poking holes in non-binary as an idea by exposing contradictions, and here you provide me with a counter-example where there might be inconsistencies in how women experience their gender, yet there is no hole or problem created. The inconsistency doesn’t create contradiction / paradox / problem.
Am I understanding you correctly?
Yeah you are understanding perfectly correctly! I would only add that my question about shaving was rhetorical and also a part of this same counter-example. I believe also that I am understanding you, now. Thank you for taking the time.
Even if I am suspicious about their conception of non-binary, I’m going to respect their identity. I don’t see much good in refusing to respect that identity (though the lecturer seem perfectly willing to deny other non-binary people their identity, something I found somewhat disturbing).
It’s a very interesting concept. Certainly, it is possible to lie. When the mentioned shooter was arrested, I heard several people essentially claiming that “they came out as non-binary after-the-fact to try and get a lesser sentence”, presumably on some hate-crime technicality. This could be true. It could be true, also, that they were closeted beforehand as many are. Or they just snapped and started saying random things, and none of it really matters. At a certain point you just can’t know.
In this case, I mean, after what they did, to be honest it’s a struggle for me to even see their bare humanity as being valid. But if I can surmount that suspicion, then it’s just plain easy to respect their gender as well. Worst that happens is I was deceived into believing someone was a member of a group anyone is welcome to join at any time anyway.
In the less severe cases, such as someone who says they are motivated to identify as non-binary for seemingly superficial reasons such as political posturing, like I said, they are still welcome! Even if they brush it off as not being a big deal for them, that just actually demonstrates (in my opinion) an exceptionally non-binary attitude haha. It is very unlike a cis person to change their gender for any reason.
It could also very well be that they were living their lives authentically before, but because they were always told they were their agab, grew up believing their expression was naturally representative of their agab. And now that they have learned more and affirmed their non-binary-ness, they simply don’t realize their presentation was actually congruent with their non-binary identity all along.
And yeah I’m sure a handful of people really are just lying for some hopefully innocuous reason. That’s cool too, I hope they enjoy their stay.
Completely random thought just popped into my head, but I believe when I was reading about Canadian powerlifting, they actually had very specific rules about trans lifters competing. Such as “must be affirmed on your government ID for at least two years”, (apologies for not linking the document, this may not be exactly accurate as I am going by memory.). This type of “purity test” I think attempts to add a dimension of legitimacy someone’s identity by asking them to maintain it for a duration of time. I personally will not comment on that other than that I found it interesting, and somewhat related to our topic here.
I used to think of nonbinary as just a third box, but the more I’ve been exposed to nonbinary identities and just thinking a lot about it, it seems like falling for the binary trap again. I guess technically it’s ternary, but the point is that discretizes gender again.
Imagine a survey asking for people’s favorite color:
- Blue
- Green
- Other
“Nonbinary” is akin to saying “Other”, which isn’t very descriptive. In a world where 95% of people pick blue or green, I suppose it is useful to say “I’m not one of those”, but that serves mostly to preempt expectations, it doesn’t actually say much about the person.
More complicated: what if my favorite color is a purplish blue? Is that blue? Is that other? People get confused when I flip flop between those two answers because they’re thinking purely about the 3 answer choices rather than the entire color spectrum. My favorite color is actually quite clear and consistent, it’s just the mapping to the limited answer choices that’s confusing.
The 3 answer choices generally work for most people (even " other" is good as a very quick summary), but people frame their entire understanding of color through those answers rather than understanding the actual color science it’s based on, that’s the problem. Even among blue people, they prefer different shades.
So about the contradictory definitions: yeah, red is not the same as yellow, but they’re both “other”.
Anyone who doesn’t conform to the binary gender system of male and female. Maybe they’re both, maybe they’re neither. Maybe they’re something in between.
What’s your definition for being trans?
Someone who is the opposite gender than the one they were assigned at birth.
Trans man: I was born a woman, but I feel like a man.
Trans woman: I was born a man, but I feel like a woman.
NB: I was born a man/woman, but I feel like something else.
I would call that binary trans, and define “trans” more generally
Oh interesting, do you consider non-binary people to be trans?
No, that’s why they have a unique label. “Trans” as a prefix means “across” or “of the other side.” Non-binary fall completely outside of the traditional binary gender terms. They are only similar in that they concern how one feels on the inside, despite what they may look like on the outside.
For the whole movement of gender identity, though, I would think it’s okay to categorize them all as trans simply for the sake of brevity, though. Some may feel like that’s enabling erasure, though.
It’s interesting because when I talk to people, the most common meaning of trans that is used is more like what you are saying, usually it means someone who has transitioned to another gender from the one they were assigned at birth.
Check this out from Susan Stryker’s Transgender History (from 2008):
Transgender entered widespread use in the early 1990s, although the word has a longer history that stretches back to the mid-1960s and has meant many contradictory things at different times. During the 1970s and 1980s, it usually meant a person who wanted not merely to temporarily change their clothing (like a transvestite) or to permanently change their genitals (like a transsexual) but rather to change their social gender in an ongoing way through a change of habitus and gender expression, which perhaps included the use of hormones, but usually not surgery. When the word broke out into wider use in the early 1990s, however, it was used to encompass any and all kinds of variation from gender norms and expectations, similar to what genderqueer, gender-nonconforming, and nonbinary mean now. In recent years, some people have begun to use the term transgender to refer only to those who identify with a binary gender other than the one they were assigned at birth—which is what transsexual used to mean—and to use other words for people who seek to resist their birth-assigned gender without necessarily identifying with another gender or who seek to create some kind of new gender practice. This book usually privileges the 1990s version of transgender, using the word to refer to the widest imaginable range of gender-variant practices and identities. It also relies on abbreviated variants such as trans or trans* to convey that sense of expansiveness and breadth given that contemporary connotations of transgender are often more limited.
It’s interesting to me because Stryker and other authors have opted to use trans and transgender as an umbrella term similar to how genderqueer is used (which includes drag queens, cross-dressers, etc.). It’s a politically savvy move to maintain a big tent, but it can be confusing sometimes when talking to someone, it feels like I have to essentially sniff out what meanings they have for different labels.
For example, I tend to consider non-binary people as definitionally trans, but that’s because I think of trans as just meaning almost “gender-illegal” or something like that.
Still, I understand what you mean, as trans does literally mean across and implies a binary setup. Before I realized I was trans, I definitely did not think non-binary meant trans, it’s only after a lot of reading and thinking that I have found these meanings have shifted under my feet (to my obvious detriment sometimes).
I think it’s harder than to just say they either 100% are trans or 100% aren’t because there are people who identify as neither, as an example I’m Isogender. To say people 100% are is invalidating towards those who identify as neither, and to say they 100% aren’t invalidates those who identify as trans. The real answer is that it’s complicated and dependent on the person.
When I say non-binary is trans definitionally, I’m describing something about how I am using the words and how their meanings are related to one another. But those aren’t the only way those words are used and not the only way they are related, so while it might seem like I’m saying it applies to 100% of cases, I’m only saying that in that established context. In my mind words and meanings are established contextually so as to help communication.
If someone explains they are isogender and therefore explicitly don’t identify as trans, they might technically fit my definition of being trans but there is now grounds for accommodating a different way of using that word so as to not disrespect or fail to communicate with that person.
Sure, some people will double-down in their meaning and reject someone else’s meaning, but this is not always so helpful to the purposes of communication, and it certainly indicates a power dynamic and hierarchy.
It can be hard because dominant meanings of words tend to have an easier time going unchallenged, so it can be harder to get a new word or meaning to be accepted. This is a common tactic conservatives take, to simply appeal to “common sense” meanings and spurn any attempt to show why those might not work in one context or another. It is a simple view that is enabled by the power and dominance that view has, the fact that there is a view that doesn’t need to be explained gives it a lot of power.
All that said, isogender is a term I learned for the first time earlier this morning, so I admit I don’t have much context for the term, what it might be like to feel isogender, or how isogender people place themselves in relation to others. I’m curious to learn, though!
Just want to say thanks for expanding my knowledge. First time I have heard about isogender.
The labels “trans femme” and “trans masc” do exist to describe some non-binary identities. I identify as trans femme. I’m AMAB and am on feminising HRT. I am really happy with it’s effects, I had a lot of dysphoria about not having breasts. But every once in a while I’ll wear a binder. I don’t really have any bottom dysphoria though. You can be both, though you can definitely be non-binary and not trans as well.
I don’t think it has any solid, narrow definition, hence why it seems to broaden as it catches some more unique experiences of gender, and the political label a cis person might adopt. The more people talk about how their experiences don’t conform to a binary, the more points on the spectrum might get grouped up as non-binary, partially due to the rigidity of the binary gendered norms.
I’m considering calling myself a non-binary man, as I don’t feel that I fit firmly in the standard gendered masculine group, but I don’t feel awful being nominally gendered male by others most the time.
I want to present more androgynous most times, feminine at other times, masculine otherwise.
Even at the end of the day, I still feel more comfortable with he/him or they/them, or he/they pronouns. Though I sometimes feel a bit dysphoric when I’m wanting to present less masculine and look in the mirror and see my beard growing back 🙃
To me, it is more about non-conformance and the desire to queer gender norms and experiences, but I’ve met people who see it more as a third gendered option both in the sense that both genders are present, and in the sense that none are present. And I’ve seen people who use it more as a non-gendered option.
I’ve also seen people use it in a similar way to what I do, calling themselves a non-binary trans-woman/trans-man/trans-person, often as a way to add more nuance to how they experience gender.
While I’m queer, I didn’t spend a lot of time in LGBTQ+ spaces growing up due to a lasting consequence of my conservative christian upbringing leading to a mild queer-phobia. Even when I was happy calling myself a socialist (aka being a leftist who says “just don’t shove it in my face”). I’ve probably fudged some terminology. I’ve had some catching up to do lmao.
That being said, I do think my ideology has been shaped, to a degree, from my experiences going through that, being closeted, and what exploration I let myself do then and now.
Interesting notions, it sounds like a lot of your notion of “non-binary” is similar to the second meaning I had in mind, basically the idea of being genderqueer or gender non-conforming.
I can really relate to some of what you are saying about not feeling awful being nominally gendered male by others, I had a sort of indifference to gender and felt like if people wanted to call me he/him that it was on them, not me. They were gendering me, so I didn’t have to take it that seriously.
When I watched the Transition Channel videos, especially the Common Excuses to Transitioning video, I realized I might be more trans than I had previously considered (I thought of myself as nominally non-binary and “gender non-conforming” before, not really thinking of those terms as being trans per se), and most importantly that I might have been suppressing myself and ignoring dysphoria. It was a good coping strategy while growing up since transitioning was never going to be an option then, and it was unsafe not to conform to the assigned masculine gender.
Like Natalie Wynn and Mia Violet describe, I too found living as a boy not too bad. I didn’t really have thoughts that I was a girl before puberty hit. Even living as a man wasn’t that distressing as I could just ignore gender and dissociate to cope.
Anyway, your description of your gender reminds me a lot of myself before I transitioned (not that this means you will be like me, I just can relate to what you are describing). It’s hard for me because transitioning is so difficult, there is still such a strong desire in me to ignore this problem and not prioritize it. I feel selfish for prioritizing it, and I also feel like it’s a huge risk for something that I have been able to live without for so long.
That said, HRT changed the balance - I’m not transitioning so I can live as a woman primarily, I’m transitioning because repressing and having androgen dominance turned out to be impacting my mental health in ways I didn’t know until I tried HRT.
I’ve always thought it’s a metaphor for the binary language of computer code, 1s and 0s, male and female. The old model of sexuality and gender looked like this, binary. You’d be male or female, and be into men or women, or in case of bisexuals both. The flaws of this system was that there were people who did not fit into this system, not just by gender but also by their biological sex (genetic intersexuality).
So a non-binary system would be turning the binary system into a spectrum instead. I see it going from “masculine” to “feminine”, and all its ranges in between. So a non-binary person that was born male, but identifies as female and is also very much passing as one, but does not want to move to a post-OP state like what we usually think about for trans women, could be very far but not fully placed onto the feminine side of this spectrum, being neither classically male or female.
Likewise, I think it makes sense if sexual attraction works the same way. You’re not so much straight, bi, or gay - but rather attracted to a range of feminine to masculine features, with classically bisexuals being in the middle of that spectrum. Someone who’s classically straight or gay would be on either of the ends of that spectrum, and people who don’t mind for example the sexual organs to be different to their classical gender identity could lean strongly towards one of those sides but would also be more aligned towards the middle of the spectrum, since they’re more flexible towards non-binary people.
That being said, I think the science is still so early that people should be careful with being too judgemental about specific terminologies, as long as we’re respectful towards each other. With each study and more research done those things can change pretty drastically over short amounts of time, and not everyone is super into the topic to the point where they’re always perfectly well informed.
Interesting, so there is this notion of non-binary as applying a spectrum to previously binomial things, like sex, gender, and sexuality.
It’s also interesting that you position non-binary less as a label or identity but more as a fact about someone (that they may or may not know, or identify with). For example, a trans woman who does not want bottom surgery is considered less feminine, then, on the spectrum.
See, I wonder if you couldn’t take the same distinction and apply it to even more refined categories. I think of Helen Daly’s paper “Modelling Sex/Gender” (PDF), in which Daly proposes a “many strands” model of sex and gender, whereby sex or gender is not thought of as a set of categories whether binary (as man or woman) or ternary (as man, woman, or non-binary) nor as a spectrum between two extremes (man on one end, woman on the other, and “non-binary” being anything in-between), but rather as a set of characteristics that may be spectral or not.
This is suggested as a way to help policy makers navigate the complexity of sex/gender, for example when deciding whether someone qualifies to compete in men’s or women’s sports.
Personally it seems this thinking ignores the potential for policy makers to have a transphobic bias when choosing relevant characteristics to include in defining someone’s sex or gender for the sake of a given decision, but what I do like is that it does give a helpful model for approaching contextually different notions of sex and gender.
So in a medical context a doctor could use the many-strands model to approach better care for their patients. Rather than focusing on whether a patient is a man or woman, they can focus on facts like whether a patient has a prostate or not, whether they have a uterus or not, etc.
So the question comes back that in what context would an otherwise binary trans woman need to be labelled non-binary for being no-op or pre-op?
The label can function various ways, but there seems to be something wrong with labeling an intersex or trans woman as somehow less feminine or less of a woman due to having the “wrong” genitalia.
I think this intuition probably comes from the weight we give to someone’s internal sense of themselves, and that the brain and mind are the ultimate authority of who someone is and what their authentic identity is.
Anyway, I know you weren’t attempting to foist the non-binary label onto binary-identifying trans women, but I’m thinking about the theoretical limitations of a model like that, which seems to impose that kind of meaning onto them regardless of how they experience gender.
I could also be wrong about my assumptions, I admit there might be an empirical aspect to these questions that is being left out (as dangerous or politically unsavory as that kind of biological determinism can be).
I think the whole benefit of a non-binary system like this would be that we see people less as labels such as man or woman, which many struggle to fit into, and more just as a person. Everyone has their own sexuality and who they’re attracted to anyway and that won’t change based on this. The only difficulty I could see here is that the question of genitals would obviously be blurry since we don’t present them openly, but I’m sure that can also be solved in an elegant way without giving anyone a bad surprise.
Medically when it comes to the biological sex & identification I think we could just as well use XY chromosomes in identifying documents like passports, IDs, etc. That does the same job and is generally more neutral.
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Firstly, “transgendered” isn’t a thing.
In the same way that tall people aren’t “talled”, trans people aren’t “transgendered”. It’s not something that happens to us, it’s who we are…
As for your question though, what you’re describing is being closeted. A queer person who isn’t able to live authentically in their daily life, who has to hide a part of who they are, is closeted, and that’s what you’re describing in your question. It has nothing to do with gender. Unfortunately, every part of the LGBTQ community has members that have to be closeted, even today…
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Depends on why the disconnect between online and “in person”
Are you “cis” in real life because you aren’t comfortable coming out to family/friends/work yet?
How do you internally identify? Why the difference between online and real life?
For example, I am transgender is all facets of life. Even at work where I’m not out to anyone yet. I’m just “presenting” cis
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Non-Binary is just an umbrella term; it’s not very specific to my mind but someone else’s identity isn’t mine to specify. It’s theirs, and they may very much have a different conception of the word to the one that I have or identify strongly with it anyway. It’s still useful in a binary world.
I make sure to ask everyone – binary or not, trans or not – what terms they would like to be understood in and what those terms mean to them. That’s the only important part, how they wish to be understood. If one of those terms is “Non-Binary” I will accept that and aim to make them feel safe.
