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Non-binary identities are valid

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Earthborn said:
In Japan there is a common superstition that blood types are predictive of personality types. Suppose you have one bloodtype, but feel that the description of the associated personality does not fit you at all and you recognise yourself more in the description of another blood type.
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I identify as an Aries, even though I'm actually a Taurus. The astrological descriptions of Aries really fit my personality better.
 
arthwollipot said:
Say that you are an American. I don't know if this is true, but this is just an example. I keep referring to you as a Canadian, and asking you how life is in Canada. You keep insisting that you are American, not Canadian, but I don't appear to be listening. When you press me on it, I tell you that America doesn't exist. How much of this would you take before you started to get annoyed?
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On the other hand... let's say that people keep referring to you as a white person and asking you how life is in the 'burbs. You keep insisting you're a black man and they don't appear to be listening because you are pasty white with straight blond hair and blue eyes. They all seem shocked that you get annoyed by them assuming that you're a white person when you truly feel like a black guy on the inside. It might not stop you from being annoyed... but on the other hand, you're asking people to accept your feeling of being a black person over the evidence of their own eyes. You're asking other people to redefine their entire understanding of what a black person is, so that it fits with your feelings. In effect, you're asking everyone else, including people who are black by nature, to accept you as a black person regardless of whether you have the biological characteristics of a black person, and regardless of whether you've had any of the lived experience of a black person. In addition, because you identify as a black person, you demand that you have access to scholarships for black people and be allowed to take part in programs intended to help black people overcome discrimination and cultural barriers.
 
Earthborn said:
In Japan there is a common superstition that blood types are predictive of personality types. Suppose you have one bloodtype, but feel that the description of the associated personality does not fit you at all and you recognise yourself more in the description of another blood type.
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I'm not sure that drawing an analogy between gender identity and superstitions is where you want to take this.

I am, however, open to arguments that gender identity is a superstitious social construct that people are free to believe or dismiss for themselves. I think it's probably a mistake to look at it that way, but if there's an argument in favor I'd at least like to see it before making up my mind.
 
arthwollipot said:
Rather than responding directly to anybody in particular at this point (which I feel would be a fruitless endeavour), I would simply ask you: why do you care? What is it to you how or why someone identifies as nonbinary? Just use the damn pronouns and let people be who they want to be. That's it. It's that simple.
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I don't care, in so far as it's how they feel about themselves.

I do care, however, when their perception of themselves confers an obligation on me.
 
arthwollipot said:
Most of which are used by a vanishingly small number of people. Few nonbinary people would object if you used they/them. If in doubt, ask.

I can't believe that this is still a thing.
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Given that 99.9% of the population are visibly going to be perceived as either male or female, and will prefer to be referred to as she or he in a way that matches their physicality... I'm more inclined to say that if someone feels that they do not conform to their physicality they should volunteer their preferred pronouns, and do so without attitude. It makes no sense that I should be obligated to ask everyone what their pronouns should be when it's entirely obvious nearly all the time.

I get that it's supposed to be respectful to nonconforming people to ask their preference. What often gets overlooked (or dismissed) is that it's also disrespectful and someone insulting to ask for a pronoun if that person isn't nonconforming. If a person is female and identifies as a woman, and someone asks "Do you prefer he or she?" that's tantamount to telling her that she is unfeminine and essentially ugly. It's up there with asking a fat women when her due-date is.
 
Olmstead said:
In my opinion, there are two separate discussions that are happening. One is the discussion on the rights of transgendered people. The other is the discussion on whether a transgendered person's gender objectively differs from their sex. And many people on both sides seem to think that one issue somehow depends on the other. Why?
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Because they are related. The rights that transgender people (more specifically transwomen), are ones that obligate other people to grant them access to services and programs designed for females. Services that grant protection and safety, that provide sex-segregation where appropriate, and programs designed to overcome sex-discrimination that presents challenges to females.

The right to not be fired for one's gender presentation? Yes, I'm on board. The right to obligate other people to provide services to a person as their identified gender regardless of their presentation and/or genitalia? That gets a lot fuzzier. The right to treat misgendering or deadnaming as hate speech on par with racial slurs and calls for genocide? No, not so much.
 
arthwollipot said:
Again, this may seem like nitpicking, but it's not - the word is "transgender" not "transgendered". The latter makes it seem like it is something that has happened to someone, rather than something that they are.

Just wanted to point that out before returning to the topic of nonbinariness.
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This is an interesting point. In almost every other aspect of life, we take pains to make sure that we are NOT defining what a person is. In all other aspects, we recognize that a person is a complex, multifaceted individual who is the sum of their attributes and experiences and character, and that no single label defines them as a monolithic identity.

But when it comes to gender, we're being asked to turn right back around, and make that single element of them as a person the entirety of their identity.

And then there's common sense. I'm an epileptic. It's not the only thing I am, but trying to insist that people call me a "person with epilepsy" is frankly dumb. Most of the time, my epilepsy is completely irrelevant. The only impact it has on day to day life is that my phone alarm goes off in the evening so I don't forget to take my anti-seziure meds. Oh, and I probably won't do a month-long camping trip in the outback or go sky-diving, and I don't much care for nightclubs with loud music and flashy lights that are likely triggers of a seizure.

But when it's relevant, it's perfectly acceptable and straight up common sense that I be referred to as "an epileptic".
 
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arthwollipot said:
It's time to start unlearning that. "They/them" is the preferred pronoun for the vast majority of nonbinary people. The vast majority. And for those who do prefer a nonstandard pronoun, use they/them anyway. They will appreciate that you at least made an effort.
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It's the preferred pronoun of a vast majority of an extreme minority of people. It's strongly not preferred by the vast majority of an extreme majority of people.

If I'm asked to use special pronouns, and it isn't going to cause confusion or introduce needlessly complicated semantics, I'll happily do so. But I'm not going to spurn the preferences of 99% of the people out there in order to accommodate a very few people.
 
lomiller said:
Nope, just the opposite in fact. “Race” is meaningless in a biological sense. Rather, it’s a cultural construct consisting of learned behaviors. Of course, some here would argue that the same is true of gender, so maybe they are not all that different after all.
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Race is largely irrelevant in terms of biology... but there are anthropological identifiers that are strongly associated with what we view as race. Some are superficial - skin tone, epicanthic folds, hair color, etc. But others are a bit more complex, like the relationship between leg length and torso length, type of hair and how to best keep it healthy, skin care needs, etc.

None of that should have any bearing at all on how people are treated in society, and none of it should have any bearing on employment or rights or assumptions made about others.
 
JihadJane said:
Furthermore, the huge and unprecedented explosion of teenage girls deciding they're trans indicates, at least in their case, that it can be driven by psychological and social processes rather than being something innate within us.
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You know, if i were a teenager in today's society, with the kind of career aspirations that I have, and with a good understanding of the innate sexism and gender bias in my society... I might very well decide that life would be easier and overall better if I were accepted as a man.
 
TragicMonkey said:
No, I'm not. That's an exceptionally ridiculous misinterpretation of what I clearly said: nobody can know what it's like to be their own sex because they cannot experience that in isolation from all other characteristics and inputs. I'm saying neither males nor females know what it feels like to be males or females, as distinguished from being everything else that they are as well.
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Wouldn't that also necessarily imply that a transgender person cannot know what it feels like to be male or females either?
 
Emily's Cat said:
I don't care, in so far as it's how they feel about themselves.

I do care, however, when their perception of themselves confers an obligation on me.
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The only "obligation" on you is to use their preferred pronouns and respect their right to be who they are. How hard is that?

Emily's Cat said:
This is an interesting point. In almost every other aspect of life, we take pains to make sure that we are NOT defining what a person is. In all other aspects, we recognize that a person is a complex, multifaceted individual who is the sum of their attributes and experiences and character, and that no single label defines them as a monolithic identity.

But when it comes to gender, we're being asked to turn right back around, and make that single element of them as a person the entirety of their identity.

And then there's common sense. I'm an epileptic. It's not the only thing I am, but trying to insist that people call me a "person with epilepsy" is frankly dumb. Most of the time, my epilepsy is completely irrelevant. The only impact it has on day to day life is that my phone alarm goes off in the evening so I don't forget to take my anti-seziure meds. Oh, and I probably won't do a month-long camping trip in the outback or go sky-diving, and I don't much care for nightclubs with loud music and flashy lights that are likely triggers of a seizure.

But when it's relevant, it's perfectly acceptable and straight up common sense that I be referred to as "an epileptic".
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Okay, and additionally it's common in the ASD community to refer to an "autistic person" rather than a "person with autism". It's almost like different things are different, and not all analogies are applicable in all cases.
 
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d4m10n said:
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TragicMonkey could, if TragicMonkey desired, go the rest of TragicMonkey's life without using a single pronoun. All pronouns in English are simply linguistic convenience.
 
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