[Serious] Non-binary

[Rev. Rye]

Sorry, dude, but I don’t think I can co-sign with this view. First off, gender is not the same as sex. Sex is a biological thing and is truly binary (for the most part, anyway), but gender is a social construct. I know it can be kind of hard to truly wrap your head around all the implications of that, and this isn’t me being condescending, I freely admit that it can be very hard to separate ideas of biological sex and gender, and the rise of non-binary gender identities into the mainstream (though, to be fair, there have been groups with non-binary identities for millennia), I admit has been an example of that.

For me, it’s easy to find myself thinking: “So, what exactly is the point of identifying as non-binary? Can’t you just pick one gender and just disregard all the gender roles you don’t like?” But I know that, while I may not really get the point of it, I accept there’s likely something they know that I don’t that makes all the difference. A lot of the time, it’s a personal thing and who am I to judge something that doesn’t hurt anyone.

Real scientific study of what makes those with non-binary identities tick is still in its infancy. If it’s a genetic thing, there’s no point in calling it invalid. If it’s some sort of trend, at least it’s better than the old trend of isolating them and denying them any sort of community where they can talk about what they feel they are. Even if it turns out to just be some sort of ploy for attention, denouncing them does nothing but further feed that desire.

I admit I don’t really get the point of identifying as non-binary, but I also know there’s no reason to dismiss it as a delusion. And to say you no longer accept it as valid helps nobody and harms quite a few. Frankly, all I’d say at this point is “just keep your pronouns intuitive to pronounce.”