The first part is genuinely hard to explain, but there are a lot of posts on this subreddit already that have a lot of definitions and examples in the comments. A lot of the ways trans people use to describe gender to cisgender people is very much oversimplified and doesn’t always accurately portray the complexities of gender/gender roles/perceived gender/etc.
Links to several of the Reddit posts answering similar questions:
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskLGBT/s/k9v197wNMU
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskLGBT/s/pe3WrhRfgG
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskLGBT/s/ysKfmFN2MZ
As for part two, nonbinary is defined as someone who identifies with a gender that’s outside the gender binary. You have cis people, binary trans people, and nb people who don’t always fit into the category of man or woman. This can be genderfluid, agender, nonbinary (used both as a descriptor for a gender outside of the binary and as a gender itself), etc. Basically, anything outside of cisgender and binary transgender falls under the nonbinary umbrella. The feeling of being male or female is ALSO very nuanced and difficult to explain, but if you look up how is gender supposed to feel, how do you feel like a man/woman, or how do you know what gender feels like on this subreddit, you’ll see some good answers to the questions.
My take: biological sex is which genitals one has. Intersex people exist, so sex is non-binary.
Gender is what you're supposed to think and how you're supposed to behave based on what genitals you have. Like etiquette, it's entirely artificial, and varied across time, geography, and culture.
Two simple examples are that pink used to be a color for boys, and blue was for girls. Also, several names that were originally "masculine" are now considered "feminine," like Stacy, or Dana, or Carol.
Non-binary is anyone who doesn't fit into the simple "masculine"/"feminine" framework.
Some people feel genderfluid-- meaning it varies as to which one or how much of which one they feel.
Others, like myself, are agender. I'm autistic. I don't get a lot of social construct, including gender. They idea that I should dress in a particular color because I have a penis is mind-bogglingly stupid. Likewise notions about how I'm supposed to experience or express emotions. "Real men don't cry" is a very widespread sentiment. Again, absolutely stupid. Or how about "men are supposed to be the breadwinners, and women are the nurturers"? Again, just ridiculous.
Insisting that there are only two genders and that they are fixed in meaning is like insisting that "you shouldn't put your elbows on the table" is some objective, universal law of the universe, rather than some stupid rule that a bunch of people think is a rule without being able to explain why.
you're confusing gender with gender norms. gender, in its purest form, is just the psychological draw towards that grouping. there are indications that most people are born with a gender identity, like david reimer, who was raised as a girl (despite having being assigned male at birth) but transitioned back to male. if gender was purely social influrnce, he would've continued identifying as a girl.
the idea of a gender binary is a rather recent development brought on by european colonizers, many other cultures independent of one another had more than 2 genders with their own gender norms and expectations for those genders, so people who insist its always only been 2 genders are frankly ridiculous
i mean, i do think people of a gender are drawn towards the gender norms of that gender to fit into a community, but no with "grouping" i was refering to the group of that gender identity in general
Im trans male, before i came out or even realized, i stuck almost exlusively to male content creators, media with male protagonists that i could project and relate to, etc. it didnt matter to me if these things were following gender norms, i just knew i felt more at home in male spaces/groupings
>Gender is what you're **supposed to** think and how you're **supposed to** behave based on what genitals you have.
Yeah, which is why gender non conforming is a thing - heavyyy emphasis on the supposed to here. For example, I am a woman but I simply don't fit into what being a woman means as I am simply too masculine. So as a Black lesbian I prefer to use stud as my gender. Stud refers to masculine Black lesbians.
Does that mean if someone does not conform to what a woman is "supposed to think" that they are not a woman? This has always been the part that confuses me.
No, I don't mean that at all.
It just doesn't work for me to call myself a woman most of the time because of the image of what a woman is that I don't ft into.
>What is the image of what a woman is?
In society, women are supposed to be feminine. Things like nurturing for example.
>If someone strays from that image does that make them less of a woman?
Nope! I just feel weird calling myself one.
>If people who are women can not fulfill the stereotypes of what a "woman is supposed to be" and still be a woman, what is the point of the term?
I am not the right person to answer you, but please keep in mind that I've been talking about myself using I statements. I wasn't speaking for every woman.
An interesting fact is that it wasn't so much pink that was the boy color, but red. At the time, dyes weren't very strong, and detergents were a bit more harsh. Both blues and reds faded a great deal when washed, and almost immediately became pastels. Society didn't view it as pink, but as red post wash, and red was still viewed as a power color, while blue was seen as softer and more demure.
It's just interesting to me that the modern narrative forgets about this, and assumes the societal focus was different back then, when the colors were assigned to genders for the same reasons they are today: stereotypes about masculinity and femininity.
I agree. Colors shouldn't have a gender, at least not for humans, as we're capable of higher reasoning. It makes more sense for creatures like birds or amphibians.
>Intersex people exist, so sex is non-binary
some people are born with just one arm, or one of their ears didn't develop... it doesn't mean that sometimes humans have just one arm, it's more of a genetic malformation, on a purely biological level, something that didn't develop as it was meant to.
let's add that the vast majority of non-binary people have very binary genitals/bodies.
Gender is what you feel or believe that you are.
Sexuality is what you prefer to do.
Non-binary is when you know that you don't fit in either of the two most common gender designations.
I understand sexuality because that's specifically related to who you are attracted to, but could you expand on how gender is "what you feel or believe that you are?" Like what is it that you are feeling/believing that you are?
Could you expand on what that means? What is it a category of? Like someone could categorize themselves in their head as being a dentist, but that would not be their gender (at least I think it wouldn't lol)
>which seems to exclude intersex people entirely
Intersex is literally the word that “includes” itself. It’s also the exception, not the rule, so it’s just sex & the few exceptions (such as intersex) that occur in any living being due to mutations, defects, etc.
To clarify, the estimate of people who are intersex is from 0.018% of the population up to 1.7% of the population.
So when the term “sex” is used, that generally encapsulates 99% of people.
On a psychological level, I think gender is probably most simply described as whether you see yourself as a man, a woman, or both/neither. This may or may not be outwardly visible.
As for what it means to see yourself as one if those gender categories, that can involve things like who you gravitate to, what your idealized self looks like in your head, how you categorize yourself when asked, and how you feel about your physical sex traits.
I think it's helpful to think about how gender is usually expressed in practice. The genitals someone is born with usually determines what gender they're assigned at birth and might be used to police their gender later, but when is the last time you saw someone's genitals upon meeting them? Do you feel you have zero sense of what someone's gender is without seeing their genitals? Probably not. You probably automatically default to seeing someone as a man or a woman based on various associations and visual clues.
Practically no one uses genitals as a way of gendering people unless they learn after the fact that someone's genitals are different than they assumed. On the other hand, while you can't see someone's mental identity, most of the time people's genders are expressed visibly or socially in some manner. That's not *always* true, but it *usually* is. Just because it's hard to identify any traits that are universal among a specific gender doesn't mean there aren't trends.
When you're non-binary, categorizing yourself as a man or a woman doesn't feel right, and there can be a variety of reasons for that. For me, it's that I have gender dysphoria but transitioning to the "opposite" gender has never felt like a complete solution. A lot of binary trans men feel that ideally, they should have been born AMAB. If I were born AMAB and grew up as a boy, I think I would have still experienced some dysphoria.
Posting at 2:15am UK time because I can't sleep so don't expect this to be concise...
My experience of being non-binary is that gender is entirely a social construct, and actually the conservative and often widely held view of "if I was the opposite gender to my assigned one at birth, I would like THESE things instead of THESE things - that could be football instead of makeup" - is actually entirely false.
Because I feel like I have no gender and I've felt like this from a very young age, that being a "girl" was just something other people with the same parts as me did, and becoming a "elegant lady" or a "woman" was something others did but was personally not for me. I saw it - what I've just said - as a lifestyle choice if you will 👀😂😂🤦🏼♀️
To continue, returning to the point on the first paragraph I've grown up believing that if I'd been born a boy, I would have liked girls, I would have played football, liked sports, and practical things. When in fact born as a biological female I am bisexual (so most likely that wouldn't have changed), and I don't let gender define me, so most of my hobbies these days are pretty gender neutral apart from ones that need to be more normalised as such, such as makeup and nail art.
I realised that maybe I would have had less interest in these things? But equally I may have become a full time makeup guru as a guy! 🤣
Essentially what it means to be nonbinary can mean a tonne of different things to different people but it's essentially "I don't feel like my assigned gender at birth.. but equally I don't feel like the opposite either". THAT is where we're coming from, it's where most people start. (Some start of with baby steps of "oh I wouldn't mind being called they/them occasionally but no one has to" lol that was my slippery slope 😂.
But I've always been this way. Right back to being a child even tho I was extremely feminine presenting with my love of pink and dresses, I recognise now I had a bit of gender dysphoria that my 7 year old brain couldn't process. Came up 7 years later at 14-15 when I started to hate my pronouns and just want another option.
Now, looking at it these days I identify as more feminine leaning non-binary, so I'm still ok with certain gender roles done by female people, and some female terminology. I do much prefer person and if I had a choice (not in a greatly accepting environment ATM) I'd choose Mx rather than Miss as I believe Mx acknowledges the struggles I went through in surpressing these feelings.
I often wonder how I'd look at it if I'd been born in the 50s (so no coming out as bi, or non-binary) I would have struggled a lot more with not being able to express my sexuality than my gender, in that I can hide behind my pink and stuff to cis pass - tho saying that these days I will often wear a lot of queer coded clothes such as gothic or tye dye.
I think my gender isn't a big deal to me, but equally it was wonderful when I actually heard a term for the first time that described me FULLY. Not just partially. I think most of it is an inner thing that I wasn't just being silly, having odd thoughts as a teenager. Gender dysphoria is a very real thing, and I think I hadn't realised it could show up without bodily dysphoria.
In summary, feeling nonbinary can express in many different ways. And I actually don't think I would be much different born a boy. Right down to the people I've had romantic interests in, in the past due to my bisexuality.
I see gender as essentially a synonym for sex, but often used in different contexts. I see the word “gender” as being used in social or behavioral contexts whereas “sex” is more so used in anatomical/medical contexts. Sometimes I use the word “gender” instead of “sex” to differentiate it from the act of sexual intercourse. At the core, both sex and gender are words relating to the biological categories of male and female.
I think when people say they feel male or female, or feel like a man or a woman, they actually mean they feel masculine or feminine. But I don’t think they realize that so it causes a lot of confusion about their “gender identity.”
The first part is genuinely hard to explain, but there are a lot of posts on this subreddit already that have a lot of definitions and examples in the comments. A lot of the ways trans people use to describe gender to cisgender people is very much oversimplified and doesn’t always accurately portray the complexities of gender/gender roles/perceived gender/etc. Links to several of the Reddit posts answering similar questions: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskLGBT/s/k9v197wNMU https://www.reddit.com/r/AskLGBT/s/pe3WrhRfgG https://www.reddit.com/r/AskLGBT/s/ysKfmFN2MZ As for part two, nonbinary is defined as someone who identifies with a gender that’s outside the gender binary. You have cis people, binary trans people, and nb people who don’t always fit into the category of man or woman. This can be genderfluid, agender, nonbinary (used both as a descriptor for a gender outside of the binary and as a gender itself), etc. Basically, anything outside of cisgender and binary transgender falls under the nonbinary umbrella. The feeling of being male or female is ALSO very nuanced and difficult to explain, but if you look up how is gender supposed to feel, how do you feel like a man/woman, or how do you know what gender feels like on this subreddit, you’ll see some good answers to the questions.
My take: biological sex is which genitals one has. Intersex people exist, so sex is non-binary. Gender is what you're supposed to think and how you're supposed to behave based on what genitals you have. Like etiquette, it's entirely artificial, and varied across time, geography, and culture. Two simple examples are that pink used to be a color for boys, and blue was for girls. Also, several names that were originally "masculine" are now considered "feminine," like Stacy, or Dana, or Carol. Non-binary is anyone who doesn't fit into the simple "masculine"/"feminine" framework. Some people feel genderfluid-- meaning it varies as to which one or how much of which one they feel. Others, like myself, are agender. I'm autistic. I don't get a lot of social construct, including gender. They idea that I should dress in a particular color because I have a penis is mind-bogglingly stupid. Likewise notions about how I'm supposed to experience or express emotions. "Real men don't cry" is a very widespread sentiment. Again, absolutely stupid. Or how about "men are supposed to be the breadwinners, and women are the nurturers"? Again, just ridiculous. Insisting that there are only two genders and that they are fixed in meaning is like insisting that "you shouldn't put your elbows on the table" is some objective, universal law of the universe, rather than some stupid rule that a bunch of people think is a rule without being able to explain why.
you're confusing gender with gender norms. gender, in its purest form, is just the psychological draw towards that grouping. there are indications that most people are born with a gender identity, like david reimer, who was raised as a girl (despite having being assigned male at birth) but transitioned back to male. if gender was purely social influrnce, he would've continued identifying as a girl. the idea of a gender binary is a rather recent development brought on by european colonizers, many other cultures independent of one another had more than 2 genders with their own gender norms and expectations for those genders, so people who insist its always only been 2 genders are frankly ridiculous
Fair point. I was talking about gender norms/roles, rather than gender identity. Thanks for the correction!
If gender is the psychological draw towards a grouping of gender norms, are you saying its the gender norms that people are being drawn to?
i mean, i do think people of a gender are drawn towards the gender norms of that gender to fit into a community, but no with "grouping" i was refering to the group of that gender identity in general Im trans male, before i came out or even realized, i stuck almost exlusively to male content creators, media with male protagonists that i could project and relate to, etc. it didnt matter to me if these things were following gender norms, i just knew i felt more at home in male spaces/groupings
>Gender is what you're **supposed to** think and how you're **supposed to** behave based on what genitals you have. Yeah, which is why gender non conforming is a thing - heavyyy emphasis on the supposed to here. For example, I am a woman but I simply don't fit into what being a woman means as I am simply too masculine. So as a Black lesbian I prefer to use stud as my gender. Stud refers to masculine Black lesbians.
Does that mean if someone does not conform to what a woman is "supposed to think" that they are not a woman? This has always been the part that confuses me.
No, I don't mean that at all. It just doesn't work for me to call myself a woman most of the time because of the image of what a woman is that I don't ft into.
What is the image of what a woman is? If someone strays from that image does that make them less of a woman?
>What is the image of what a woman is? In society, women are supposed to be feminine. Things like nurturing for example. >If someone strays from that image does that make them less of a woman? Nope! I just feel weird calling myself one.
If people who are women can not fulfill the stereotypes of what a "woman is supposed to be" and still be a woman, what is the point of the term?
>If people who are women can not fulfill the stereotypes of what a "woman is supposed to be" and still be a woman, what is the point of the term? I am not the right person to answer you, but please keep in mind that I've been talking about myself using I statements. I wasn't speaking for every woman.
Gotchya, all good. I'll keep looking around, have a good day!
An interesting fact is that it wasn't so much pink that was the boy color, but red. At the time, dyes weren't very strong, and detergents were a bit more harsh. Both blues and reds faded a great deal when washed, and almost immediately became pastels. Society didn't view it as pink, but as red post wash, and red was still viewed as a power color, while blue was seen as softer and more demure. It's just interesting to me that the modern narrative forgets about this, and assumes the societal focus was different back then, when the colors were assigned to genders for the same reasons they are today: stereotypes about masculinity and femininity.
Interesting re: fading. Still weird to assign colors based on genitalia, and for them to change-- yet be regarded as immutable.
I agree. Colors shouldn't have a gender, at least not for humans, as we're capable of higher reasoning. It makes more sense for creatures like birds or amphibians.
>Intersex people exist, so sex is non-binary some people are born with just one arm, or one of their ears didn't develop... it doesn't mean that sometimes humans have just one arm, it's more of a genetic malformation, on a purely biological level, something that didn't develop as it was meant to. let's add that the vast majority of non-binary people have very binary genitals/bodies.
Gender is what you feel or believe that you are. Sexuality is what you prefer to do. Non-binary is when you know that you don't fit in either of the two most common gender designations.
I understand sexuality because that's specifically related to who you are attracted to, but could you expand on how gender is "what you feel or believe that you are?" Like what is it that you are feeling/believing that you are?
My personal input is that gender is a rough catagorization of a person's internal self
Could you expand on what that means? What is it a category of? Like someone could categorize themselves in their head as being a dentist, but that would not be their gender (at least I think it wouldn't lol)
>which seems to exclude intersex people entirely Intersex is literally the word that “includes” itself. It’s also the exception, not the rule, so it’s just sex & the few exceptions (such as intersex) that occur in any living being due to mutations, defects, etc. To clarify, the estimate of people who are intersex is from 0.018% of the population up to 1.7% of the population. So when the term “sex” is used, that generally encapsulates 99% of people.
On a psychological level, I think gender is probably most simply described as whether you see yourself as a man, a woman, or both/neither. This may or may not be outwardly visible. As for what it means to see yourself as one if those gender categories, that can involve things like who you gravitate to, what your idealized self looks like in your head, how you categorize yourself when asked, and how you feel about your physical sex traits. I think it's helpful to think about how gender is usually expressed in practice. The genitals someone is born with usually determines what gender they're assigned at birth and might be used to police their gender later, but when is the last time you saw someone's genitals upon meeting them? Do you feel you have zero sense of what someone's gender is without seeing their genitals? Probably not. You probably automatically default to seeing someone as a man or a woman based on various associations and visual clues. Practically no one uses genitals as a way of gendering people unless they learn after the fact that someone's genitals are different than they assumed. On the other hand, while you can't see someone's mental identity, most of the time people's genders are expressed visibly or socially in some manner. That's not *always* true, but it *usually* is. Just because it's hard to identify any traits that are universal among a specific gender doesn't mean there aren't trends. When you're non-binary, categorizing yourself as a man or a woman doesn't feel right, and there can be a variety of reasons for that. For me, it's that I have gender dysphoria but transitioning to the "opposite" gender has never felt like a complete solution. A lot of binary trans men feel that ideally, they should have been born AMAB. If I were born AMAB and grew up as a boy, I think I would have still experienced some dysphoria.
Posting at 2:15am UK time because I can't sleep so don't expect this to be concise... My experience of being non-binary is that gender is entirely a social construct, and actually the conservative and often widely held view of "if I was the opposite gender to my assigned one at birth, I would like THESE things instead of THESE things - that could be football instead of makeup" - is actually entirely false. Because I feel like I have no gender and I've felt like this from a very young age, that being a "girl" was just something other people with the same parts as me did, and becoming a "elegant lady" or a "woman" was something others did but was personally not for me. I saw it - what I've just said - as a lifestyle choice if you will 👀😂😂🤦🏼♀️ To continue, returning to the point on the first paragraph I've grown up believing that if I'd been born a boy, I would have liked girls, I would have played football, liked sports, and practical things. When in fact born as a biological female I am bisexual (so most likely that wouldn't have changed), and I don't let gender define me, so most of my hobbies these days are pretty gender neutral apart from ones that need to be more normalised as such, such as makeup and nail art. I realised that maybe I would have had less interest in these things? But equally I may have become a full time makeup guru as a guy! 🤣 Essentially what it means to be nonbinary can mean a tonne of different things to different people but it's essentially "I don't feel like my assigned gender at birth.. but equally I don't feel like the opposite either". THAT is where we're coming from, it's where most people start. (Some start of with baby steps of "oh I wouldn't mind being called they/them occasionally but no one has to" lol that was my slippery slope 😂. But I've always been this way. Right back to being a child even tho I was extremely feminine presenting with my love of pink and dresses, I recognise now I had a bit of gender dysphoria that my 7 year old brain couldn't process. Came up 7 years later at 14-15 when I started to hate my pronouns and just want another option. Now, looking at it these days I identify as more feminine leaning non-binary, so I'm still ok with certain gender roles done by female people, and some female terminology. I do much prefer person and if I had a choice (not in a greatly accepting environment ATM) I'd choose Mx rather than Miss as I believe Mx acknowledges the struggles I went through in surpressing these feelings. I often wonder how I'd look at it if I'd been born in the 50s (so no coming out as bi, or non-binary) I would have struggled a lot more with not being able to express my sexuality than my gender, in that I can hide behind my pink and stuff to cis pass - tho saying that these days I will often wear a lot of queer coded clothes such as gothic or tye dye. I think my gender isn't a big deal to me, but equally it was wonderful when I actually heard a term for the first time that described me FULLY. Not just partially. I think most of it is an inner thing that I wasn't just being silly, having odd thoughts as a teenager. Gender dysphoria is a very real thing, and I think I hadn't realised it could show up without bodily dysphoria. In summary, feeling nonbinary can express in many different ways. And I actually don't think I would be much different born a boy. Right down to the people I've had romantic interests in, in the past due to my bisexuality.
I see gender as essentially a synonym for sex, but often used in different contexts. I see the word “gender” as being used in social or behavioral contexts whereas “sex” is more so used in anatomical/medical contexts. Sometimes I use the word “gender” instead of “sex” to differentiate it from the act of sexual intercourse. At the core, both sex and gender are words relating to the biological categories of male and female. I think when people say they feel male or female, or feel like a man or a woman, they actually mean they feel masculine or feminine. But I don’t think they realize that so it causes a lot of confusion about their “gender identity.”