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Non-binary identities are valid

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Thermal said:
Ok, maybe you could add some clarification about Sam Smith?

American here, who is not familiar with Smith. They have a guy's name, a guy's appearance and traditional guy's dress, and identifies as gay, which is by definition a guy who is attracted to other guys. By any standard, they is a guy. There is nothing 'non-identified' about them, objectively.

To some of us, that makes the whole 'but not really' thing, complete with jazz hands, a little capricious. If they does literally everything in appearance, behavior, and self-identified orientation as a man, than what is this whole 'no really dude, I'm totally neither' thing about?

Not trying to be difficult, btw. This is one of those things I genuinely don't get.
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This is the exact scenario with my karaoke friend. They are to all appearances a man, no mistaking it, no ambiguity. They are gay, no mistaking that either. A gay man, right? Wrong. They are a gay person who doesn't internally feel like either a man or woman. They prefer "they" as a pronoun but they aren't a stickler about it either. I've screwed that up many times and they are understanding. I've argued with them about this too. "Like, you are a dude! It's ok to be a gay dude. What exactly do you feel inside that makes you not feel like a dude even though you are big, muscular and bearded?" All he can really say is, "I don't know what to tell you, it's just how I feel inside. Like you feel like a man inside? Same thing. I feel like neither man nor woman."

Now I think they are copying Sam Smith. They can really sing "Stay With Me," at Karaoke...
 
Matthew Best said:
I'm afraid you'll just have to ask them yourself. I have no idea other than what is in the article.
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Soooooooo....we're restricting the topic to someone we don't understand?

ETA but just being an American is no excuse - Smith has won an Oscar and a Golden Globe so they are not some obscure Brit that you could never have heard of.
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It's a pretty good excuse. I don't follow the Oscars or Globes either. Like a Real AmericanTM.
 
LondonJohn said:
Exactly.

Where things go off the rails quickly, I think, is where people either a) treat this as some sort of anti-libertarian "compelled speech" nonsense and refuse to comply on principle, or b) take an ideological stand ("all males are he/him, and all females are she/her, and I refuse to accept otherwise").

It's quite something to observe.
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Neither of those 2 things apply to me. I'm non-binary when it comes to my feelings about non-binary people. It's not ideological and it's not some "compelled speech" thing.

I'm genuinely fascinated by the topic. People and the way the think and feel are very interesting subjects. I can't quite wrap my head around exactly what's happening with people that feel they are non-binary. I want to understand but I just can't grok the concept. I also like to argue because I think arguing openly is the best way to get to understanding.

I have my own internal working theories -a narcisssistic culture, mostly, along with a big societal change in the way we view "masculine" and "feminine." It's a conflict between the younger Facebook/TikTok generations and the older more traditional generations. I see the phenomenon as not very different from previous cultural shifts like the Hipsters, the Hippies or the Beatniks. Youth culture usurping the culture of their elders.
 
xjx388 said:
This is the exact scenario with my karaoke friend. They are to all appearances a man, no mistaking it, no ambiguity. They are gay, no mistaking that either. A gay man, right? Wrong. They are a gay person who doesn't internally feel like either a man or woman. They prefer "they" as a pronoun but they aren't a stickler about it either. I've screwed that up many times and they are understanding. I've argued with them about this too. "Like, you are a dude! It's ok to be a gay dude. What exactly do you feel inside that makes you not feel like a dude even though you are big, muscular and bearded?" All he can really say is, "I don't know what to tell you, it's just how I feel inside. Like you feel like a man inside? Same thing. I feel like neither man nor woman."
Now I think they are copying Sam Smith. They can really sing "Stay With Me," at Karaoke...
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Yeah, this. Sexual orientation aside, I don't really know what it feels like to be a man versus a woman. Without trying to trivialize it, I'd be inclined to say to someone who is objectively a guy in all respects: "Dude. You know how you feel right now? That's what being a guy feels like. There's no other comparative standard that the rest of us have, either."
 
Steve said:
I would just like to mention that most people who have won Oscars and Golden Globes are very likely to be, and remain, obscure to me because those are not things, or people, that I have any interest in. I could have heard of this Smith but I did not. And now that I have I have no interest in learning any more, so he/she/it will remain obscure. Not everyone has the same interests as yourself.
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That's fine - that's got nothing to do with your nationality, though.
 
Thermal said:
Soooooooo....we're restricting the topic to someone we don't understand?
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If we restrict the topic to someone non-binary who you DO understand, I don't think we'd have much of a discussion.

It's a pretty good excuse. I don't follow the Oscars or Globes either. Like a Real AmericanTM.
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You'll have to direct me to an accepted definition of a Real American that insists they have no interest in the above. Or I'll start to think you're just making up your own definition of how you feel and insisting that people go along with it. ;)
 
Upchurch said:
You previously linked to a parody account on twitter and I'm not sure what you think this is proving.
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Previously? No, Upchurch, not previously. Subsequently. I linked to McGrath twice: post #644, and post #618.
This post:
Upchurch said:
I did not realize you were that far down the rabbit hole. I will slowly back away now and leave you to your tin foil.
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is #617. I linked to parody accounts AFTER you posted this, and therefore this post of yours has nothing to do with me linking McGrath. And if you don't get the point of the parody, there's no point in explaining it, but it's not even necessary since everything required for this particular sub-exchange is actually independent of those posts because, get this, time travel isn't a thing.

Are you arguing that classes shouldn't teach students or that nurses don't need good bedside manners in their jobs?
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Good bedside manners doesn't generally require asking and giving preferred pronouns. And your attempt to justify what you previously denied was happening at all is pathetic.
 
d4m10n said:
That's something of a dodge, though. I'm asking whether the ongoing social construction of gender is a process you're content to watch unfold or whether you feel like we should direct it towards specific (more ethically desirable) outcomes.
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I'm content to let it unfold as it will, partly because I think it is heading toward a more ethically desirable outcome. Making arguments and having discussions is fun, but we're not going to change the course of history on this small corner of the internet.

I see our understanding of gender heading along the similar paths as our understanding of sexuality and race and, to a lessor extent, perhaps religion. Complaining and moaning or even advocating for it isn't going to have an effect on how our culture evolves. But, as I've said in other threads, I don't think talk of non-binary/trans people being confused or predators or just plain nonsense is going age well over time.

I could be wrong. It's not up to me.
 
According to Sam Smith, “Non-binary genderqueer is that you do not identify in a gender. You are a mixture of different things, you are your own special creation. That’s how I take it. I’m not male or female, I think I flow somewhere in between. It’s all on the spectrum.”

Seems to me he's confusing male/female with masculine/feminine but other than that this describes most everyone I've talked to about such things.
 
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Thermal said:
Yeah, this. Sexual orientation aside, I don't really know what it feels like to be a man versus a woman. Without trying to trivialize it, I'd be inclined to say to someone who is objectively a guy in all respects: "Dude. You know how you feel right now? That's what being a guy feels like. There's no other comparative standard that the rest of us have, either."
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Exactly. I cannot definitively say that I know what it feels like to be a man. I only know what it feels like to be me.

The really interesting question is, what exactly is it that makes me a man? I know that I am a man, but I can't tell you how exactly I know that. If we were to create a composite of "a man" from the stereotypical "male" traits, I don't match up very well. But that doesn't change anything for me: even if I'm not tall, muscular, confident or "manly," I still know I'm a man.

So what exactly is it that convinced me I'm a man?
 
Ziggurat said:
Previously? No, Upchurch, not previously. Subsequently. I linked to McGrath twice: post #644, and post #618.
This post:

is #617. I linked to parody accounts AFTER you posted this, and therefore this post of yours has nothing to do with me linking McGrath. And if you don't get the point of the parody, there's no point in explaining it, but it's not even necessary since everything required for this particular sub-exchange is actually independent of those posts because, get this, time travel isn't a thing.
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Yeah, I know. It was previous to the post you just quoted.

But do tell, who are the "they" that are coming to get me?


Ziggurat said:
Good bedside manners doesn't generally require asking and giving preferred pronouns.
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Does good bedside manner involve referring to patients by their preferred name? I, myself, go by a nickname of my middle name. That's usually asked once and then is forever on my chart because after that I am never referred to by my first name. (Plus, I've seen in written on there.)

Does good bedside manner involve building a personal rapport with the patient? Acting in a familiar manner to make the patient more relaxed? If so, what do you imagine would be the effect of having a doctor who insists on calling the patient by the wrong name or wrong pronouns?
 
Steve said:
I just do not understand how you could be so wrong without it being intentional. Why did you pick out the slavery example, and not the farting example?

Did you even consider, before you got so triggered, that sometimes an example is just an example?
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I'm not triggered. But I am incredibly tired of the ridiculous assertions of everything being tantamount to slavery. Yes, you had farting in there too... but still there's no rational reason to bring slavery into this discussion in any way.
 
Upchurch said:
Does good bedside manner involve referring to patients by their preferred name? I, myself, go by a nickname of my middle name. That's usually asked once and then is forever on my chart because after that I am never referred to by my first name. (Plus, I've seen in written on there.)

Does good bedside manner involve building a personal rapport with the patient? Acting in a familiar manner to make the patient more relaxed? If so, what do you imagine would be the effect of having a doctor who insists on calling the patient by the wrong name or wrong pronouns?
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None of this is what was actually going on. This wasn't a case where nurses would be marked down if they "insist" on using the wrong pronouns or the wrong name. Nor did it suffice for the test to use whatever pronoun the patient requested. You have completely misrepresented the nature of the problem. I won't speculate on why.
 
Ziggurat said:
None of this is what was actually going on. This wasn't a case where nurses would be marked down if they "insist" on using the wrong pronouns or the wrong name. Nor did it suffice for the test to use whatever pronoun the patient requested. You have completely misrepresented the nature of the problem. I won't speculate on why.
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Sorry, I thought you were confused as to why personal pronouns are important.

What do you think the nature of the problem is?


eta: And are They coming to get me sooner or later? How will I know Them when I see Them?
 
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d4m10n said:
The range of gender concepts generally deemed to be within our cultural Overton window.

(Just a guess.)
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I doubt it. That would be horribly ineffective. The rubric doesn't even require you identify with non-binary pronouns. Zig must have something else in mind.
 
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