Okay, I feel like quite a few people are gonna want to kick my ass but here it goes (a promising start, I'm sure). Now I'll say that this subject is weird for me, and I'll do my best to try to explain this, because it's not something I have a strong option about but...I do? Like, it's not something I'll defend to the death even if there's things suggesting that I'm wrong, but I am quite sure of my opinion. I'm hoping that at least makes a little bit of sense.
Now first I'm gonna talk about non- binary genders. Now for those who don't really get into social justice much, I'll explain since it would be stupid to just assume everyone knows what I'm talking about. Non-binary is when someone, to put it simply, doesn't identify as male or female. This could be identifying as neither, both, or otherwise. There's way too many and a lot of them don't make much sense, so that's the best I'll be able to do right now. I mean...some people believe autism is a gender, so...yeah.
So to get it out of the way, I don't believe non-binary is a thing. And a lot of people are surprised by this since I'm pretty left leaning, but it is what it is. Now I'll say that people are free to identify however they want. It's in their right and I'm not here to thought police. But as far as these genders being a tangible idea, I have my doubts. So, I'll start with what's scientifically valid. So throughout our existence, we've had males and females, and each one has different behavioral and physically characteristics. I don't think many people will argue with that. Now since then, we've come to a consensus (for the most part) that that sex and gender a different, although there is a link. Sex is what you've got going on down there, as well as things that go with that like secondary sex characteristics, which are determined by your chromosomes. There can be anomalies with this (intersex) but they're still biologically male or female depending on if they have Y chromosomes. There are other chromosomal disorder variations, but this is the basics. With gender, it's more the psychological characteristics. There are observable differences in the brains of males and females, like how females have more white matter or more activity in their frontal lobe, than males. This affects some of our inclinations, like how women are typically more nurturing and men are typically more protective. These don't define you, it's just an evolutionary thing. And then there's transgender people, who's gender doesn't match their sex and suffer from gender dysphoria. It's been observed that MtF trans people's brains are very similar to biological female brains, which makes sense why they would go through life in a male body and go through male puberty and think that something's wrong or feel disconnected from their body on that sort of level. So that's it for the scientific stuff, and we're still at two genders. To clarify, transgender isn't a new gender. A trans person is still either male or female but transitions to the gender opposite their sex.
Now, onto non-binary. So when I first saw this, I did a bit of research to see what it was all about. I read stories from people and how people defined different genders and this was my takeaway. The majority of these (excluding ones like the autism gender) were based around the two original genders, and were more describing personality and expression than gender itself. The first point is pretty straight forward, they're based on the ideas of being male or female (especially ones like demigirl/demiboy). But they say that there's probably millions of different genders because everyone is different, but what they're describing is usually aspects of expression and personality. Like demigirl, for example, is essentially kind of a girl and kind of not. People who said they identified this way talked about not really being traditionally feminine but still feeling kind of feminine. I would say this is more of an expression thing rather than gender itself. Like with me, I'm definitely not very feminine. I wear sweatpants, basketball shorts, tank tops, and t-shirts, and the likelihood of finding me in a dress or skirt is very slim. I also like things like video games. Most of these are considered traditionally masculine things, but these are not my gender, simply my personality and expression. And of course with expression within genders, there is millions and millions of variations. So basically, when people argue that non-binary is real and there's so many of them and others disagree, I think it's because they're not identifying it as what it really is. It's not a persons gender, it's how they express themselves based on personality and some gendered influence. That's basically what my thoughts come down to.
Now, on to what people call "trans-trenders." Now this was a term actually coined by trans people (which shocks a bunch of people since they're like "this is the most transphobic thing I've ever heard"). Basically it's talking about the people who co-opt being trans to feel special or important. Now I'll never claim to be the arbiter of what is and isn't trans. But I will say with the people who say they're comfortable having gone through their natural puberty, don't really have gender dysphoria, don't want to transition...you're not trans. It's really a medical term when it comes down to it and you don't have the defining characteristics of it. That would be like me claiming I was autistic. It's just not true. Now as far as if I think the term is transphobic, no not really. It isn't something aimed to belittle trans people or anything like that, but it was created by trans people to refer to the people who aren't trans but claim they are. And as for whether or not I think trans-trenders actually exist, yes I do. In the past few years the trans rights movement has gotten a lot of attention and as such there are always people who want to get in on it. And to someone who might be called a trans-trender, if you truly are trans, then just brush it off. But if you aren't, you are to trans people as Rachel Dolezal was to black people.
Anyways, I'm gonna get my ass kicked at some point. I think that's inevitable. But until that day, I will keep talking because that's what I do best, I guess.
Until next time...
