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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.