What does "non-binary" mean?
What does "non-binary" mean?
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.
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“otherwise cis-gendered” is a pretty ridiculous way to describe a trans person lol. Other than what, the fact that they are trans?
Categorizing non-binary “Butch women”, as you put it, separately from non-binary “femme cis-sexual women” is also just…ick, dude. Besides your, again, ridiculous way of phrasing your point…what if I told you non-binary people are not beholden to your gender expectations?
I am a non-binary person as are many of my friends, and neither we nor our other trans (or even cis) friends have any issues whatsoever communicating the “overlapping and different meanings” of our identity lol…if you are actually curious about why we identify the way we do why not just ask instead of trying to preemptively categorize “women” as either being in a legitimate third category or making a political statement?
That's exactly what OP did. No attempt to shove people in a box was made. There's no need to fly off the handle.
Not every inaccurate statement about nonbinary people is made in bad faith.
Hey, thank you! It sounds like you understood where I was coming from better. I'm not sure how to better communicate to avoid the hostility (I thought I was clear, but I must be wrong), but I appreciate your support.
Not every inaccurate statement about nonbinary people is made in bad faith.
The meanings of non-binary I have encountered may be "inaccurate" according to some other meaning, but I'm not sure we should be so quick to dismiss them as inaccurate. This is sort of what I was explicitly trying to avoid. I understand the impulse to deny another definition or meaning of non-binary that doesn't match our own definition or meaning, but I think we have to set aside some of that judgement so we can be open to the variance that people are reporting.
I have my own biases about what non-binary should mean, even just on pragmatic grounds, but I am explicitly suspending judgement and inviting openness and tolerance.
No attempt to shove people in a box was made
Unless they didn’t look trans enough for OP, you mean? In which case they get an entirely separate box from the more authentic looking enbies?
There's no need to fly off the handle
I can’t help but notice I am the only one at this time who has addressed the actual content of OPs post. Why don’t you take a stab at it so I can see exactly what is necessary.
Not every inaccurate statement about nonbinary people is made in bad faith.
Notice how you phrase it as “statement” instead of “question” lol. As I said I think OP would be better served by simply asking the question instead of guessing (in a weirdly very AFAB fixated manner).
Unless they didn’t look trans enough for OP, you mean? In which case they get an entirely separate box from the more authentic looking enbies?
I think you might not be understanding me. You don't have to look trans at all to be trans (and same for non-binary). The boxes are ways people self-identify or the ways different people approach or understand a label they are using, not ways I am trying to categorize people or judge whether they deserve the label or not.
EDIT: In my example with the butch woman, I'm trying to imagine how they might experience gender and identify or label themselves, not how I as trans woman would label them. Hopefully this makes sense, I feel like I'm making a mess of things. 😅
OP made several guesses about what the word "nonbinary" meant and asked the community which, if any, were correct. I do not think this is unreasonable, and the handful of times I've done it in the past with regard to other topics, it has proven more expedient and much more helpful than asking the community to write a full explanation on their own -- both since it takes a lot less time and emotional labor for someone to correct a minor misunderstanding in your five paragraphs than to write five paragraphs of their own, and since people often lack the words to describe their own experience and giving them a rough outline which they can correct and fill in as needed can be helpful.
OP has explained to you several times that they did not intend to gatekeep who was and wasn't nonbinary. They were asking the community what did and did not qualify. Something that newcomers to the gender scene often do not understand, especially autistic ones as I strongly suspect OP is, is that there are no hard and fast rules. It's common for them to try to ask what the rules are. That's what I did when I first started trying to understand this stuff, and after someone patiently explained to me that anyone who wanted to call themselves nonbinary was and anyone who didn't, wasn't, and that the term didn't have any deeper meaning than that, I understood and was able to better interact with the community, and there were smiles all around. OP made this post in an attempt to educate themself. Attacking OP for making that assumption or using outdated terminology and forcing them to go on the defensive, rather than gently informing them of the truth, helps precisely nobody.
Fair enough, thank you for your assessment
hey, it seems like I've really caused some upset here.
First, I should reiterate what I said in my OP, this isn't about debating non-binary people as whether they are trans or not, whether they are legitimate or not, etc. I think it's sufficient to just take seriously how people identify.
Not all non-binary people identify as trans, so your assumption that they are inherently trans may be reasonable but I want to point out that this is not the only way to think of being non-binary. (This isn't just theoretical, I know multiple people who identify as non-binary but not trans.) Personally I would say anyone who is non-binary is typically trans by definition (and this gets into definitions of trans, which is its own post), but again I let people tell me how they identify and I listen and take that seriously.
As for why I used a butch woman as the edge case, it's not some AFAB fixation, I was just thinking about the various scenes in Leslie Feinberg's Stone Butch Blues where trans and butch identities collided. Feinberg's book is a powerful work, so it has rightly anchored itself in my mind when thinking about non-binary identities. Feinberg after all is one of the primary foundational figures in developing the "beyond the binary" model of gender (along with Kate Bornstein).
A lot of this thinking and the reason for my post comes from recently reading Talia Mae Bettcher's paper "Trapped in the Wrong Theory" (here's a PDF). I'm essentially digesting the way she introduces a kind of pluralism through the "multiple worlds of sense":
Worlds are all lived and they organize the social as heterogeneous, multiple. I think of the social as intersubjectively constructed in a variety of tense ways, forces at odds, impinging differently in the construction of any world. Any world is tense, not just in tense inner turmoil but also in tense acknowledged or unacknowledged contestation with other worlds. I think that there are many worlds, not autonomous, but intertwined semantically and materially, with a logic that is sufficiently self-coherent and sufficiently in contradiction with others to constitute an alternative construction of the social. Whether or not a particular world ceases to be is a matter of political contestation. No world is either atomic or autonomous. Many worlds stand in relations of power to other worlds, which include a second order of meaning. (Lugones 2003, 21)
It is also coming off some experiences where I was challenged in my assumptions about what non-binary could mean. Just a week or two ago I met two people who identify as non-binary but who, as I said in the OP, have cis-gender expressions are cis-sexual. Their understanding of what it means to be non-binary was new for me, and did not seem to involve a gender identity as I had previously thought of it (such as a phenomenology of your gender, or having a sense of gendered self that is incongruent with one's assigned sex, etc.).
OK, with some hopefully helpful background, let me respond to your comments.
Categorizing non-binary “Butch women”, as you put it, separately from non-binary “femme cis-sexual women” is also just…ick, dude.
Hmm, I can understand what you mean, but I'm not attempting to impose a categorization for the sake of separation. What is relevant is not that a butch enby is different than a femme enby, but the reasons those people have for identify as non-binary in the context of the meanings I have. The examples are there to help me think through how a similar person from an internal sense of gender and external expression of gender might have radically different ways of identifying, just as I am seeing in real life and is being discussed in the literature.
This is somewhat a separate issue, but I would prefer you not use masculine gendered language when communicating disgust with me. I get the disgust and why you are communicating it, but in that context of no-trust a label like "dude" is not familiar or warm but feels like you are intentionally misgendering me, which feels a bit degrading. It's the internet, I get it, but in case you didn't mean to do that I'm giving you feedback that this didn't feel right to me.
... if you are actually curious about why we identify the way we do why not just ask instead of trying to preemptively categorize “women” as either being in a legitimate third category or making a political statement?
I am essentially asking, that's what my post is about, but I'm not merely asking why people identify as non-binary, I am trying to understand the underlying "world" of meaning. So in that sense I don't so much care why someone identifies as non-binary as much as I care about the underlying meanings or theories that might emerge from those discussions. This is why my post is titled "What does 'non-binary' mean?" and not "Why do you identify as non-binary?". I don't take these to be the same.
Also, I wasn't "pre-emptively categorizing" as much as I was sharing the meanings I had already encountered. The fact that different meanings of non-binary can be used to categorize is somewhat irrelevant, since that's not their purpose in this post.
The example of the butch woman who may or may not be non-binary is to function as a concrete example and an intuition pump within each meaning, to understand the different ways something may or may not apply. None of this is objective or meant to function as a way of categorizing people, though I understand how it might feel that way. Instead there are multiple ways of looking at things. The theorizing and categories are descriptive and a means to understanding the way people think of themselves and others. Sure, people can try to use a particular meaning to then categorize others, but that's not the point.
I acknowledge your response without agreeing with you. Your journey of having your preconceptions challenged is admittedly fascinating in its own right, but my opinion remains that you are not in a position to be teaching people about this stuff. I think you have the makings of a skilled lecturer but you must imagine how it feels to have a lecture delivered about you and your friends from someone who doesn’t quite seem to understand you. Under the pretense of asking, no less.
That being said I also do not believe your strategy of trying to uncover the deeper underlying meaning of the word “non-nonbinary” without regard for “why people identify” as such will be fruitful for you in the long term, but I would remain interested in your perspective as time goes on if perhaps presented in a different context.
To address the separate issue, you have my apologies for the use of the word dude. My intention when employing the word was not related to gendered connotations. I am immersed in a a local trans community that has completely neutered the term, but I should be more cognizant of how it can read outside of that context.
First, you assume I'm not non-binary and that there is some kind of divide between us as though I'm lecturing you about something I know nothing about or that I'm not experiencing myself. A lot of the motivation for thinking through these different meanings is precisely because I am struggling with my own experience as a trans person, which slots easily as non-binary depending on the definition or meaning you give to it.
Second, this was not meant as a lecture at all - it was a question, an invitation, and a disclosure of my working thoughts. The meanings I have encountered contradict one another and are not authoritative, nor coherent. They aren't meant to have the weight that I infer from your message you seem to be giving them (let me know if I'm wrong here, I just think calling it a "lecture" sounds pretty heavy). I was thinking the meanings I shared were meant to be questioned and modified by the voices here - I want you to tell me what meanings you have encountered, what you make of those meanings, etc. and also what you think of the meanings I have described and whether they are accurate or not, or when or how you have encountered them.
That being said I also do not believe your strategy of trying to uncover the deeper underlying meaning of the word “non-nonbinary” without regard for “why people identify” as such will be fruitful for you in the long term
I think that's a fair point, I think why people identify as non-binary is usually involved in what the meaning then becomes for those people (though it may actually go the other way), but I wasn't so much trying to deny that relationship as much as I was trying to clarify what exactly I was interested in, which is the theories and meanings that emerge (rather than just why someone identifies).
Of course I expect the "why" to be one of the main entry points to discussion about non-binary identity, but I was just trying to be clear and to respond to your criticism that I shouldn't be asking about the meaning but about why people identify.
I am immersed in a a local trans community that has completely neutered the term
Hey, I appreciate your apology, I think I am a bit surprised honestly. I don't usually do well at recovering once I have made someone upset, and it felt a bit foolish of me to be vulnerable in that moment and share my feelings. Thank you for being so human.
Also, the term is typically neutered in most contexts for me too, but it was in particular the way you were approaching me with a kind of hostility, in particular the expression of open disgust or contempt, that transformed the term into a misgendering barb. I considered that you may have not intended that, but it still stung. Thank you for being sensitive, especially in a context where it's not easy to be.
I'm also sorry that I didn't find a way to write my OP in a way that didn't avoid this situation all together, as it seems I have failed to avoid the very thing I was concerned about when writing the post. I think people are rightfully defensive about these identities and labels and their meanings, and rightfully defensive against attempts to inspect them (especially by outsiders). There is a kind of vulnerability to asking questions that requires trust, and I acknowledge that trust isn't always just there.
I want to learn and don't mean to be imposing, but I also understand what I'm doing is perhaps too sensitive for this context.
Hey, I appreciate your apology
Of course, friend. I appreciate your communication on the matter.
I'm also sorry that I didn't find a way to write my OP in a way that didn't avoid this situation all together
Eh, perhaps I am the only one who has taken issue. Given your clarifications, suffice it to say that I do not think the meanings you have described are accurate lol. Broadly, I think you’re overcomplicating things. If someone told me she was a woman, I would take her at face value. She is a woman. From there if everyone were so inclined we could continue to learn about each other.
Let me put it another way. Do you think women who shave should be categorized within womanhood differently than women who do not? One woman might tell you it’s important to her because it makes her feel more feminine, the other might tell you it’s unrelated to how she thinks about herself so she doesn’t bother. Is this a contradiction deserving of investigation? I suggest that no, it is not a contradiction, and that by even framing the question in those terms I have revealed a critical underlying misunderstanding I carry about the concept of womanhood as a whole.
Now there are women who shave and there are women who don’t and it is related to gender expression and there is a way to have a productive conversation about how that all plays out. But I would go about it much differently.
Now, in light of all that you have written I do not mean to say that you have gone about inquiring about non-binary identities in the exact same manner as I just described, I just want to illustrate my point generally. If that in any way assists in seeing where I’m coming from
Given your clarifications, suffice it to say that I do not think the meanings you have described are accurate lol
Yes, I was avoiding saying this because I want to be open-minded and receptive to different perspectives, but I also don't think some of the meanings of non-binary I have encountered are accurate or make sense.
For example, in one lecture I attended a femme-presenting presumably AFAB individual gave a presentation of their paper about non-binary identity, providing an account of non-binary as being defined exclusively by political positions (such as rejecting oppressive binary gender norms), and even took a stance that people who identify as non-binary cannot be if they do not live up to certain behavioral standards such as showing solidarity (the example they gave was of a shooter of a gay club in Colorado who identified as non-binary, and the presenter argued that this person could not be considered non-binary because they violated solidarity by killing fellow LGBTQ+ folks).
This whole approach, of thinking about non-binary in exclusively political terms, reminds me in some ways of the second wave radical feminist Sheila Jeffreys's Political Lesbianism (PDF) whereby she argues that women should become lesbians for political reasons (essentially because heterosexuality oppresses women).
In both cases it feels like the main context for the identity is hijacked and utilized for political ends but without regard to the underlying reasons the identity had for existing in the first place. Specifically lesbianism is usually a sexual orientation, presumably an orientation someone is born with and which is not the result of conscious decisions or reasoning. Some women just happen to be attracted to women, and others are not (at least that seems to be the case with sexual orientations). Similarly the argument for political non-binary identity seems to miss the element of gender identity that I do tend to think underlies being non-binary. That is, people are typically non-binary because of their gender identity, not because by some line of reasoning they chose to be non-binary. But I do not feel confident in my position, clearly it seems like political lesbianism and political non-binary identity both are getting argued for in some fashion, and I guess I'm wondering what people make of these ideas.
After I left the lecture and went out for lunch, a stranger who was also at the lecture in the audience recognized me and asked to sit and chat, and in doing so I learned that they too identify as non-binary for political reasons, as a form of resistance. While it's always uncomfortable to disclose these things, it's probably worth noting this person disclosed they were AMAB and they don't alter their gender expression based on this political non-binary label, so they are cis-gendered in their expression and presumably in their gender identity, though who can say for certain, perhaps for example, their openness to identifying with a non-binary label for political reasons could have to do with being an egg, who knows.
All this to say, I hope you can see some of the reasons I am trying to present the different ways I have been confronted with theories or meanings of non-binary which seem at their root based on quite different notions.
Broadly, I think you’re overcomplicating things. If someone told me she was a woman, I would take her at face value. She is a woman. From there if everyone were so inclined we could continue to learn about each other.
Hopefully now with context you can see my post is not a practical question about when I should call someone non-binary or not. I'm going to call the political non-binary people non-binary because they identify that way. Even if I am suspicious about their conception of non-binary, I'm going to respect their identity. I don't see much good in refusing to respect that identity (though the lecturer seem perfectly willing to deny other non-binary people their identity, something I found somewhat disturbing).
Do you think women who shave should be categorized within womanhood differently than women who do not?
Of course not, but this question communicates to me that I failed to communicate adequately in my original post. Perhaps this relates to my use of butch women in examples? I was thinking about Leslie Feinberg and the characters in Stone Butch Blues, and particularly the way gender worked for the main character Jess Goldberg - the way they moved through identities, living as a butch woman, then transitioning to living as a man, then detransitioning back and trying to reclaim that connection to women they had before. I was thinking about how it might feel when working through one's gender that way, and how one might reason to themselves about their identity and which label applies. In my example I was imagining the very same butch woman considering whether they were non-binary. One way of thinking about non-binary might lead that character to thinking of themselves as non-binary and embracing that label. Another way of thinking about non-binary might lead them to rejecting that label.
My point wasn't even about what categorization is right or legitimate, it was more like I wanted to draw a map of the constellation of non-binary meanings (the "worlds of sense" that are vying for power, to connect this back to how I was approaching it after reading Bettcher and by extension Lugones).
One woman might tell you it’s important to her because it makes her feel more feminine, the other might tell you it’s unrelated to how she thinks about herself so she doesn’t bother. Is this a contradiction deserving of investigation? I suggest that no, it is not a contradiction, and that by even framing the question in those terms I have revealed a critical underlying misunderstanding I carry about the concept of womanhood as a whole.
This is interesting, I am not sure yet exactly how this example maps to my project of mapping the constellation of non-binary meanings, but I suspect it has to do with your interpretation of my OP as a kind of misguided, critical, and invalidating perspective on non-binary identity. It seems to me you are suggesting that I was poking holes in non-binary as an idea by exposing contradictions, and here you provide me with a counter-example where there might be inconsistencies in how women experience their gender, yet there is no hole or problem created. The inconsistency doesn't create contradiction / paradox / problem.
Am I understanding you correctly?
Now, in light of all that you have written I do not mean to say that you have gone about inquiring about non-binary identities in the exact same manner as I just described, I just want to illustrate my point generally. If that in any way assists in seeing where I’m coming from
I hope that I have also made some clarifications, and more so that I am understanding you correctly. Let me know where I'm going astray when interpreting you.
And thank you for making an effort to help me understand your point. I'm sorry that this is so laborious (I recognize it's a lot to read my messages and respond).
This is interesting, I am not sure yet exactly how this example maps to my project of mapping the constellation of non-binary meanings, but I suspect it has to do with your interpretation of my OP as a kind of misguided, critical, and invalidating perspective on non-binary identity. It seems to me you are suggesting that I was poking holes in non-binary as an idea by exposing contradictions, and here you provide me with a counter-example where there might be inconsistencies in how women experience their gender, yet there is no hole or problem created. The inconsistency doesn't create contradiction / paradox / problem.
Am I understanding you correctly?
Yeah you are understanding perfectly correctly! I would only add that my question about shaving was rhetorical and also a part of this same counter-example. I believe also that I am understanding you, now. Thank you for taking the time.
Even if I am suspicious about their conception of non-binary, I'm going to respect their identity. I don't see much good in refusing to respect that identity (though the lecturer seem perfectly willing to deny other non-binary people their identity, something I found somewhat disturbing).
It’s a very interesting concept. Certainly, it is possible to lie. When the mentioned shooter was arrested, I heard several people essentially claiming that “they came out as non-binary after-the-fact to try and get a lesser sentence”, presumably on some hate-crime technicality. This could be true. It could be true, also, that they were closeted beforehand as many are. Or they just snapped and started saying random things, and none of it really matters. At a certain point you just can’t know.
In this case, I mean, after what they did, to be honest it’s a struggle for me to even see their bare humanity as being valid. But if I can surmount that suspicion, then it’s just plain easy to respect their gender as well. Worst that happens is I was deceived into believing someone was a member of a group anyone is welcome to join at any time anyway.
In the less severe cases, such as someone who says they are motivated to identify as non-binary for seemingly superficial reasons such as political posturing, like I said, they are still welcome! Even if they brush it off as not being a big deal for them, that just actually demonstrates (in my opinion) an exceptionally non-binary attitude haha. It is very unlike a cis person to change their gender for any reason.
It could also very well be that they were living their lives authentically before, but because they were always told they were their agab, grew up believing their expression was naturally representative of their agab. And now that they have learned more and affirmed their non-binary-ness, they simply don’t realize their presentation was actually congruent with their non-binary identity all along.
And yeah I’m sure a handful of people really are just lying for some hopefully innocuous reason. That’s cool too, I hope they enjoy their stay.
Completely random thought just popped into my head, but I believe when I was reading about Canadian powerlifting, they actually had very specific rules about trans lifters competing. Such as “must be affirmed on your government ID for at least two years”, (apologies for not linking the document, this may not be exactly accurate as I am going by memory.). This type of “purity test” I think attempts to add a dimension of legitimacy someone’s identity by asking them to maintain it for a duration of time. I personally will not comment on that other than that I found it interesting, and somewhat related to our topic here.