[Serious] Non-binary

[Fake Messiah]

You know, I watched recently Ken Burns' documentary on Ernest Hemingway and it turns out that Ernest was non-binary. He sometimes considered himself a lesbian, and sometimes he and his wife would "switch" genders during sex.

[Foxaèr]

For those of you who are still confused, perhaps this will clarify the situation.

Elliot Page, formerly known as Ellen Page, identifies as both trans and nonbinary.

The trans part makes sense. Transitioning from female to male. Which suggests that she understands the biological binary system quite well. Therefore, where's the nonbinary part coming from? If s/he's nonbinary, why change the name from a female name to a male name? That, again, suggests an understanding of the binary system.

As much as people want the nonbinary concept to be realistic, it just isn't.

[The Architect Of Fate]

This thread says otherwise

[The Grand Nudger]

Sex and gender aren’t the same thing. I assume that you can understand the distinction as a matter of biology on the one hand, culture on the other. I also gather that you don’t understand the feeling, the experience, how a person can perceive themselves to be as such.

I’m with you wholeheartedly on the latter. I think I might even be incapable of perceiving things beyond the boundaries of my societies expectations in this regard....which covers a wide range of sins. Given that we’re both incapable of genuinely understanding being-as-such, imagine the experience of people who can and do faced with people like you and I, a society or culture like our own.

We may not be able to meet them on their claims own terms but we can certainly understand that there might be an underlying misapprehension in any state of affairs where reasonable and competent people casually deny their very existence.

[Ravenshire]

Again, trans being an entirely different subject, I am only bringing up trans again to make a brief point. When someone is transitioning, they are required to seek professional psychological help to ensure that they are in the proper frame of mind to undertake the process of aligning their bodies with their minds. That is understandable and acceptable from my perspective. I have never had any issue with trans people, and again the nonbinary concept is a completely separate issue.

That being said, I reiterate that nonbinary is simply someone's personal, albeit unreasonable, choice to be recognized as something outside the biological binary. Which can logically be likened to a harmless self-delusion based more on a growing movement than reality. Do nonbinary people need professional psychological help? I doubt it. Are they still delusional? Absolutely.

(my bold)

What biological binary? Even if you've never heard the term intersex, I'm sure you've heard crude references to "chicks with dicks." The sharing of physical sexual traits across your imaginary binary boundary may not be common, but it does provide evidence that biological sex is more a scale than an on/off switch.

[Paleophyte]

And having latched itself beneath the LGBT umbrella, most people are too afraid to question or offend this conceptual movement. But me being gay, I have no qualms pointing out that in my community which makes no sense.

To use an analogy that I hope brings this home to you what you're saying is roughly equivalent to, "There are only two sexes. Heterosexuals make sense and I can at least understand homosexuals, but bisexuals are simply irrational. You can't have an orientation that isn't at one of the two extremes." Now excuse me while I go clean my keyboard with bleach and a wire brush.

Non-binary gender is neither new nor American. I'm aware of non-binary communities existing in Mexico and India and suspect that there are several more. The Hijra of India appear in the Kama Sutra, making that group at least 1700 years old.

Sex is what you are born with between your legs. Gender is how your sex interacts with your psychology, neurology, and society as a whole. They are not the same thing.

Lastly, non-binary individuals do not "choose" to be non-binary. Nor are they "confused". I will trust that you understand these errors in thinking as presented by the anti-gay crowd.

[Foxaèr]

This is about gender, not sexual orientation. Biologically, there are only two genders, two sexes; and despite the opposition to the contrary, gender and sex are the same concept.

[Paleophyte]

This is about gender, not sexual orientation. Biologically, there are only two genders, two sexes; and despite the opposition to the contrary, gender and sex are the same concept.

Since you can't follow that analogy here's a decent primer from the journal "International Review of Psychiatry". PDF Download. They clearly state that gender and sex are not the same thing. These are professional psychiatrists writing in a peer-reviewed journal so I trust that any issues you have will be made more clearly than this repetitious assertion. From the abstract:

Some people have a gender which is neither male nor female and may identify as both male and female at one time, as different genders at different times, as no gender at all, or dispute the very idea of only two genders.

Emphasis mine.

[Foxaèr]

What they may personally identify as in no way correlates with reality, unfortunately.

[Paleophyte]

What they may personally identify as in no way correlates with reality, unfortunately.

According to the APA it does. Kindly read the article linked above.