Cisgender vs Non-Binary
January 22, 2019 at 9:00 am
(This post was last modified: January 22, 2019 at 9:06 am by Acrobat.)
Cisgender vs Non-Binary
These terms are relatively new to me, and I never had to think under which label might I fall into, based on their definitions, until recently.
I have male and female friends, and there’s a variety of things I share with both genders. I am not as masculine as my male friends, who like sports, hate shopping, don’t care about aesthetics, more stoic, hate cooking, are not as nurturing, while sharing aspects considered traditionally female, like taking a very active nurturing role in parenting, enjoying shopping for myself and for my wife, picking out handbags, cooking, being open about my feelings. In fact for the most part I feel more comfortable with my female friends than my male friends, probably has to do with being raised primarily by my mom, and with having two sisters.
While when I was younger I had a more androgynous look, where I idolized prince. As I grew older I preferred the more masculine, rugged appearance, dad fashion. I am also both aggressive and assertive, and straightforward more like my male friends than girl friends.
Based solely on appearance I look like a traditional cisgender male, but on the inside I feel I can identify with some traditional components of each gender, while not relating to others.
Some people here poked fun at me for referring to myself as non-binary, by claiming that I sound more like a hipster than a non-binary, or sarcastically claiming that by my description they’d also classify as non-binary.
If I strongly identified as non-binary, these comments would come off as very hateful, and bigoted. But since I’m not too well versed on the distinctions here, I take it as there could possibly be some truth to their implications, that I’m more of a confused cisgender male, as opposed to non-binary. I would like to hear from those who think I’m misusing the label, as to why they think that? I’m trying to understand what am I not getting about the non-binary cisgender distinction?
I did watch some videos of non-binary people, and it’s clear that we don’t look alike, but this doesn’t seem to be the dividing line from what I read.
I read a few article as well, and still came out thinking it’s an appropriate label for me.
Since I feel many people here perhaps know more about gender identities than I do, I’m hoping this is a good opportunity to explore the question more, and not misuse these labels, if that’s what I’ve been doing.
These terms are relatively new to me, and I never had to think under which label might I fall into, based on their definitions, until recently.
I have male and female friends, and there’s a variety of things I share with both genders. I am not as masculine as my male friends, who like sports, hate shopping, don’t care about aesthetics, more stoic, hate cooking, are not as nurturing, while sharing aspects considered traditionally female, like taking a very active nurturing role in parenting, enjoying shopping for myself and for my wife, picking out handbags, cooking, being open about my feelings. In fact for the most part I feel more comfortable with my female friends than my male friends, probably has to do with being raised primarily by my mom, and with having two sisters.
While when I was younger I had a more androgynous look, where I idolized prince. As I grew older I preferred the more masculine, rugged appearance, dad fashion. I am also both aggressive and assertive, and straightforward more like my male friends than girl friends.
Based solely on appearance I look like a traditional cisgender male, but on the inside I feel I can identify with some traditional components of each gender, while not relating to others.
Some people here poked fun at me for referring to myself as non-binary, by claiming that I sound more like a hipster than a non-binary, or sarcastically claiming that by my description they’d also classify as non-binary.
If I strongly identified as non-binary, these comments would come off as very hateful, and bigoted. But since I’m not too well versed on the distinctions here, I take it as there could possibly be some truth to their implications, that I’m more of a confused cisgender male, as opposed to non-binary. I would like to hear from those who think I’m misusing the label, as to why they think that? I’m trying to understand what am I not getting about the non-binary cisgender distinction?
I did watch some videos of non-binary people, and it’s clear that we don’t look alike, but this doesn’t seem to be the dividing line from what I read.
I read a few article as well, and still came out thinking it’s an appropriate label for me.
Since I feel many people here perhaps know more about gender identities than I do, I’m hoping this is a good opportunity to explore the question more, and not misuse these labels, if that’s what I’ve been doing.
