does it ever bother other nb ppl that we’re literally called nonbinary aka ‘not binary’ cuz I feel incredibly othered
This is why “genderqueer” can be a good word to use instead. I believe that was even coined before “nonbinary”.
Yep, genderqueer came long before nonbinary was a thing. Nowadays, genderqueer refers more to people who have a specific NB identity, rather than being used as an umbrella term for all NB identities.
iirc nonbinary as an umbrella term was coined because of certain people not wanting to use their identity from a political standpoint, and wanting to better assimilate into mainstream society (so it’s Corporate Gay constrasted with “gender -fucks, -punks and -queers”, basically) and thus not wanting to use the word ‘queer’.
Nonbinary is also useful to strictly separate ourselves from GNC people, who also used genderqueer – which ties into assimilationist practices. I wonder, though, that if nonbinary had never catched on, genderqueer would just mean nonbinary just like transgender doesn’t cover all GNC or intersex people nowadays.
I like nonbinary because it’s a way to be specific about my gender – literally describing it as not binary – without a need for me to say my actual gender (which would bring up more questions, since most people can’t grasp anything beyond male/female or maybe both or genderless). Also, keep in mind queer is not necessarily a translatable and well-known word all over the world, so genderqueer may require extra explanations too.
I like genderqueer a lot, though, and it’s always an option to just use other gender labels (agender, solarian, demigirl, maverique, gender neutral, etc.) without using umbrella terms for yourself.
Nonbinary is also useful to strictly separate ourselves from GNC people, who also used genderqueer – which ties into assimilationist practices.
Yes yes yes, this is a thing I am definitely seeing. It goes sorta like this:
“We, the respectful non-binary people have a gender identity which is more valid than a gender expression and it comes with a comprehensible set of pronouns and a narrative that makes us easy to understand. We are not like those genderfreaks, transvestites, dragqueens and other weirdoes whose differences are performative and this not valid.”
It’s a ‘pushing ourselves up by pushing others down’ practice and it comes with a lot of stereotyping.
Often non-binary is presented as a skinny short cute young white masculine/subtly-androgynous person who looks naturally androgynous without any make-up, while gender-nonconforming is presented as a large unattrative older feminine person whose genderexpression is on the surface and clearly a product of make-up and other tools. All these stereotypes are used to present one group as ‘inherently real’ and the other as ‘performative’, to push the message that one group is ‘worthy of acceptance’ at the expense of the other.
I hate it.
I hate it.
I hate it.
I hate it.
#interesting perspective #but i do believe having a distinction between a performance and an identity is neccesary #especially with the example used of being a drag queen which is very much a performance #and being a masculine cis woman or a feminine cis man is very different in terms of being a trans person
The thing is, a lot of gender nonconforming people have experiences that are very similar to non-binary people.
Whether someone calls themselves a ‘non-binary person’ and switches up their clothing based on how they feel that day or calls themselves a ‘transvestite’ and does the exact same thing often makes very little difference in terms of their practical experiences of oppression in the world.
The main difference is that ‘transvestite’ is the term that you were more likely to know if you expressed yourself in a feminine way in the 90s and earlier, when ‘transvestites & transsexuals’ was a common umbrella term for gender diversity, and ‘non-binary’ is a term you’re more likely to run into if you’re exploring your gender today. It’s a difference in language that runs between age groups and gender-allignments.
Historically, transvestites and transgender people have in many places long formed communities together. Since the early 2000s that link had often been broken and when mostly young people switched from ‘transsexual’ to ‘transgender’ they often also distanced themselves from transvestites, whom they saw as less worthy of respect than their own community.
Often their rejection of transvestites has a strong undercurrent of transmisogyny, seeing feminine genderexpression as inherently performative, sexual, sinful, dirty, etc, while presenting masculine androgyny as morally superior.
Non-binary people looking for respectability purposely
ignore the historic links of transvestite & transgender communities and group together ‘transvestites’ and ‘drag queens’ so they can distance themselves from both groups at once. They do this so they can use the negative stereotypes people have about drag queens (fakeness, misogyny, cisgender privilege) and the transmisogyny aimed at the feminine gender expression of transvestites.
QueerAnarchism 