What is nonbinary?

[crossfire]

My original point was that sex identity is useful information to have. Male and female are definitive terms for that. Isn't it therefore obscuring the usefulness of those terms by allowing people with a penis to call themselves female and people with a vagina to call themselves male, or for people to proclaim they are neither male or female? It just creates more confusion where there needn't be any.

For example, what if people with brown hair wanted to identify as blondes? What if people with blonde hair wanted to identify as brunettes? The words blonde and brunettes become meaningless, because there would be no concrete definitions of those words, they just feel that they are blondes and brunettes, it's subjective you might say.

Information that is useful to have can also be useful to keep hidden and undisclosed. Just saying.


Why would I care if someone identified with their hair color?

 

[crossfire]

Lets say this person committed a crime.
What would the BOLO say?

Be on the look out for a ???? ....person?

Really?

"Be on the lookout for x gender person about such and such tall, such and such build, last seen at such and such location, area wearing such and such clothes, with whatever other distinguishing characteristics."

It is really not that difficult.

 

[JDMS]

When I say biology, I mean XX chromosomes instead of XY, a testosterone level of 15-25 instead of 900-1200, a pancreas instead of a uterus. Now what does any of that have to do with whatever you have in your pants?

Every human has a pancreas. It is an organ in the digestive system, not a sex organ. I am guessing this was a slip of the tongue?

 

[We Never Know]

Really?

"Be on the lookout for x gender person about such and such tall, such and such build, last seen at such and such location, area wearing such and such clothes, with whatever other distinguishing characteristics."

It is really not that difficult.

Lol. So they wouldn't know whether to look for a male or female., which btw helps their search very much.
No problem chief, we will find a person

 

[SomeRandom]

I agree it is but that doesn't give any understanding to why a male that identifies as female, that lives as female, wants to be addressed as a female, etc doesn't have the surgery to become more feminine(so to speak) to go with their mind and lifestyle(get rid of the family jewels so to speak)

To be fair, surgery is rather an “extreme” option, so to speak. Painful, invasive etc
Not to mention the cost
Some people might not be able to afford it even under universal healthcare. I hate to think what it must cost under the US model without good insurance.

 

[The Sum of Awe]

Information that is useful to have can also be useful to keep hidden and undisclosed. Just saying.


Why would I care if someone identified with their hair color?

What good is it to destroy the meaning of useful language?

 

[We Never Know]

To be fair, surgery is rather an “extreme” option, so to speak. Painful, invasive etc
Not to mention the cost
Some people might not be able to afford it even under universal healthcare. I hate to think what it must cost under the US model without good insurance.

Yes I know surgery sucks.

 

[The Sum of Awe]

Information that is useful to have can also be useful to keep hidden and undisclosed. Just saying.


Why would I care if someone identified with their hair color?

I suppose what I’m asking is: when a book tells me this person is a female, what am I supposed to imagine if not a biological female?

 

[Kfox]

Every human has a pancreas. It is an organ in the digestive system, not a sex organ. I am guessing this was a slip of the tongue?

Actually a slip of the fingers; I meant prostate. Thanks for pointing that out to me.

 

[Kfox]

It is still my private information that I should not be required to expose and or disclose to nosy people.

I agree. But if you want to use the shower facility at the gym, and your private information says you are male, you know which locker room you are to go to. If you want to join the swim team, and your personal information dictates which team you try out for. If we get rid of gender, all those problems go away. You still get to identify as a woman (whatever that means) you just don't get to insist everybody else around you pretend you are a biological woman.

 

[We Never Know]

Yeah, but that is not objective. That is not something you see or view.

You can see and view when people are offended.

If you are trying to say being offended isn't something you see or view because its in the mind, then the "I identify as female or male" isn't something you see or view either, its in the mind.

 

[crossfire]

I suppose what I’m asking is: when a book tells me this person is a female, what am I supposed to imagine if not a biological female?

I'm not one to tell you what to think.

 

[crossfire]

I agree. But if you want to use the shower facility at the gym, and your private information says you are male, you know which locker room you are to go to. If you want to join the swim team, and your personal information dictates which team you try out for. If we get rid of gender, all those problems go away. You still get to identify as a woman (whatever that means) you just don't get to insist everybody else around you pretend you are a biological woman.

I'm really not interested in having my identity tied to male or female. Nor am I interested in insisting others pretend that I am something I am not. Nor would I be interested in going to the gym.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I suppose what I’m asking is: when a book tells me this person is a female, what am I supposed to imagine if not a biological female?

What book? What context? A biology 101 book will cover the subject differently than a psychology 101 book.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I didn’t read some article. It wasn’t Michigan. I personally know a school bus driver in CA and he has heard firsthand from students concerning this litter box situation in their school.

It's not happening here. It's like that gel braclet game that everyone has heard of but no one could recall it actually happening in their school.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

Okay; at first you said biology has nearly nothing to do with it;

Which is true. People's modes of dress are not dependent on biology; modes of dress are socially determined. The fact that many people are cis gendered and tend to dress in a way that indicates and matches what social prescriptions society has about their biological gender doesn't mean that biology and dress are linked in a meaningful way beyond the way that we link them socially. There is nothing about wearing trousers, ties and suits that requires a penis, but we ASSUME the biological link because, socially, that's the connection that society has created. Either way, the judgement you are making cannot be said to be drawn FROM biology, but from various other signifiers that you are socially programmed to ASSUME indicate biology.

No; gender is based on stereotypes; that’s why some of the most brilliant minds in the world can’t define what a man is.

No, gender is an exceptionally loose concept that can be based on any number of factors. That's why it can be difficult to define.

Fortunately, however, I haved defined it. Guess I am the most brilliant mind in the world, eh?

Okay; so if nobody is binary, what do people mean when they proclaim they are non-binary?

No, that's not what I said. I said BIOLOGICAL GENDER isn't binary, it's BIMODAL. That doesn't mean that, socially, we don't treat it as a binary, and that people who don't ascribe to that mode of thinking can't consider themselves NON-binary.

Because they say this as if they are somehow an exception to some rule!

Because most people ARE binary; they treat gender as a binary and prescribe certain social roles and labels as a binary. They are the exception to a SOCIAL rule, not a biological one.

Biologically, gender is bimodal.

 

[The Sum of Awe]

I'm not one to tell you what to think.

What book? What context? A biology 101 book will cover the subject differently than a psychology 101 book.

@Kfox was suggesting to get rid of gender roles and use the words male and female for biological descriptors. I think it has already been agreed on that there is no concrete definition of what a psychological female is or a psychological male is, that females can be masculine and males can be feminine.

Why isn’t it more logical, for the sake if language and understanding, to keep those adjectives assigned to their biological definitions instead of redefining them as labels that have no definition at all?

Again, if brown haired people called themselves blonde because they felt the word fit them better, the word blonde would lose its context. How are we supposed to paint the picture of a ‘true’ blonde when the word can now include brown haired people?

 

[crossfire]

@Kfox was suggesting to get rid of gender roles and use the words male and female for biological descriptors. I think it has already been agreed on that there is no concrete definition of what a psychological female is or a psychological male is, that females can be masculine and males can be feminine.

Why isn’t it more logical, for the sake if language and understanding, to keep those adjectives assigned to their biological definitions instead of redefining them as labels that have no definition at all?

Again, if brown haired people called themselves blonde because they felt the word fit them better, the word blonde would lose its context. How are we supposed to paint the picture of a ‘true’ blonde when the word can now include brown haired people?

I'll go ahead and disclose my own hair color to suit an illustration: I have a natural mixture of several colors and textures, consisting of some very fine very light blond (mostly straight,) some heavier, slightly curly dark ash brown, some very fine, straight, almost colorless gray, some medium fine gold-colored slightly textured hairs, some heavier, fully textured silver hair, and some medium weight, slightly curly white hairs. (I have a lot of hair.) I can't use any of the "true" descriptors to describe my hair color, and I'm fine with that. Same goes with my eye colors: they are a mixture of different colors, some of which will get darker with exposure to the sun.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

@Kfox was suggesting to get rid of gender roles and use the words male and female for biological descriptors. I think it has already been agreed on that there is no concrete definition of what a psychological female is or a psychological male is, that females can be masculine and males can be feminine.

Why isn’t it more logical, for the sake if language and understanding, to keep those adjectives assigned to their biological definitions instead of redefining them as labels that have no definition at all?

Because defining who someone is by a biological trait (even if only linguistically) will inevitably lead to creating the exact same rigid associations and labels anyway. What's more, it doesn't speak to the actual issue: that is, people not wanting to be defined by their biology, or feeling that their biology puts them in a category they do not belong to. These categorisation errors will still exist, even if we all agree that the labels exclusively refer to biology, because making biology an inherent part of how we refer to each other is fraught with just as much - if not more - problems and associations as referring to each other with a vaguely defined social construct.

Again, if brown haired people called themselves blonde because they felt the word fit them better, the word blonde would lose its context. How are we supposed to paint the picture of a ‘true’ blonde when the word can now include brown haired people?

Except there is no such things as a "true" male and a "true" female in social concepts. What's more, your analogy is fundamentally flawed: people dye their hair. Is someone who is naturally brunette but has dyed their hair blonde "objectively brunette, so we should only refer to them as brunette", or would you look at that person and say "that person is blonde" because that's literally what they actually look like?

 

[The Sum of Awe]

Because defining who someone is by a biological trait (even if only linguistically) will inevitably lead to creating the exact same rigid associations and labels anyway. What's more, it doesn't speak to the actual issue: that is, people not wanting to be defined by their biology, or feeling that their biology puts them in a category they do not belong to. These categorisation errors will still exist, even if we all agree that the labels exclusively refer to biology, because making biology an inherent part of how we refer to each other is fraught with just as much - if not more - problems and associations as referring to each other with a vaguely defined social construct.


Except there is no such things as a "true" male and a "true" female in social concepts. What's more, your analogy is fundamentally flawed: people dye their hair. Is someone who is naturally brunette but has dyed their hair blonde "objectively brunette, so we should only refer to them as brunette", or would you look at that person and say "that person is blonde" because that's literally what they actually look like?

Do you think that sex identity is useful in any way? For example; dating, doctor guidance, adult guidance, therapy guidance (for some reason some people prefer a certain sex for a therapist).

In regards to your last question; I would say they are blonde, but if extra context were needed I would say they are naturally brunette. The same would go with sex: male but assigned female at birth.

I see your point now…