Not actually glad to help
Massive kudos to @samsmith, who by coming out will help other non-binary people who have to confront the ignorance and bigotry of others.
The people who get angry at *pronouns* are exactly the same who call the left always offended/”triggered” snowflakes.
Everyone is non-binary, Owen. I’m non-binary. Every feminist is non-binary, because we don’t adhere to sexist gender stereotypes. So are you going to congratulate us too?
OJ:
No you’re not, glad to help!
Now just a god damn minute. If the rule is that people are what they say they are, where does he get off replying that way?
Furthermore, how does he think he knows that? What is it that he thinks he knows?
Also – does he know anything about feminism over the past half-century?
It’s almost as if they don’t even mean it about “non-binary,” they just mean “us and our friends, who are cooler than you.”
(Also, for full disclosure, his flippant sexist dismissal of a woman older and wiser and more thoughtful than he is makes me angry.)
I for one am looking forward to seeing what becomes of Owen Jones in the future after the inevitable trans backlash has picked up in earnest. He’s an insufferable little prick and I truly hope the worst for him.
That’s harsh, and I agree with it.
Well, not wanting to remain “ignorant” on exactly what “ non-binary” means ( somehow neither Sam Smith nor Owen Jones has succeeded in enlightening me,) I trotted over to Wikipedia and looked up “Non-binary gender.”
It didn’t help, either.
I mean, I know how the explanation goes, but I can’t seem to create simple examples in my head so I can follow along. The interpretation eludes me.
”Non-binary is a spectrum of gender identities that are not exclusively masculine or exclusively feminine—identities that are outside the gender binary.”
(Okay, ‘Pat’ likes to read romance novels AND work on cars.)
”Non-binary people may identify as having two or more genders (being bigender or trigender);[3][4] having no gender (agender, nongendered, genderless, genderfree or neutrois); moving between genders or having a fluctuating gender identity (genderfluid);[5] being third gender or other-gendered (a category that includes those who do not place a name to their gender).[6]
(Umm ..’Pat’ likes to read romance novels while working on cars, or doesn’t like either, or sometimes likes one and not the other, or has a love/ hate relationship with both, or writes romances about car repair, and/ or green ideas sleep furiously within the passionate mechanics the mind of ‘Pat.’)
I got stuck in the first paragraph.
I need applications or I just can’t follow along.
He’s a man talking to a woman, and even more so, a woman he doesn’t like. So of course anything he’s says is totally right and proper, because he knows stuff a woman doesn’t know, especially one who’s old.
I really detest self-important entitled little gits. Especially when their reasoning is so fatuously incoherent.
I gave up trying to understand when a saw a video by a person who had a “male” side and a “female” side, but the “male” side was the more feminine and the “female” side was the more masculine.
Sackbut,
Were you watching “All of Me,” starring Steve Martin and Lily Tomlin?
Yeah, that guy is rude. I’m not defending his behavior.
I think non-binary is being used in two separate ways here. One refers to the innate sense that you’re male or female. The other to whether you conform to gender stereotypes.
I think everyone accepts that you can be a woman and not conform to female stereotypes, etc. Even if you’re very socially conservative and don’t like it, you know it happens.
The separate innate sense of being male or female is obviously more contentious. A lot of people seem to think if you more conform to another gender’s stereotypes then you’re that gender. Most of us don’t agree with that.
Others feel that it is a separate concern. If you buy into that, then you could be a biologically male who completely feels like a woman but is still into “guy stuff”. This is also disputed.
If you somehow embodied two genders at once, the woman inside you could be more into man stuff and the man inside you could be more into woman stuff. But you’re probably just claiming that to get attention for being super special.
Getting back to the main point, the two definitions of “non-binary” just lead to confusion. If you think it it refers to your true, innate gender, then you’re not going to agree that someone without a feeling of being neither male or female but who doesn’t adhere to gender stereotypes is non-binary in the way you mean it.
But, yeah, when you’re also stomping around saying everyone can have the label they want and it must be respected, then that doesn’t leave you much room to complain about people using labels differently.
@Skeletor;
I’m not sure what “an innate sense that you’re male or female” is. There’s factual knowledge of *being* male or female, and being comfortable that you’ve got it right, but is that an “innate sense?” Wouldn’t it be learned?
If someone who truly cared nothing about gender stereotypes discovered they weren’t the sex they thought they were, they wouldn’t have to deal with readjusting an internal sense that got it wrong, would they? Or would it be assumed that they just somehow *knew*, deep down, the whole time, because of an innate sense?
I’m still unclear.
I got the impression that non-binary was just a bespoke gender that means whatever is convenient at the moment).
I.e. making Cpl. Cheery Littlebottom non-binary so they can cast a (presumed) male in a very definitely female role.
Skeletor @ 7 – there’s no such thing as “the innate sense that you’re male or female.” It’s a myth. Confusion about this is part of why Owen Jones and his friends can’t keep their stories straight.
I wish Skeletor would clarify his ‘innate sense of gender’ comment, because I read it as meaning the innate sense of the word gender rather than an innate feeling of being a specific gender, the latter definition being covered by [t]he separate innate sense of being male or female is obviously more contentious.