I'm not talking about transgender. That's easy to understand. The brain matter doesn't always match up with the body parts. Those folks should be given the option to transition and be accepted for who they are. It's just a little harder to understand the concept of being gender fluid. Actually, it's becoming difficult to understand what the term gender even means.
Narcissism. It’s all narcissism. It’s the current way to be unique and important. Everyone must bow. But in reality it’s completely meaningless. The only categories that matter are male / female and gay / straight / bi.
Identifying with the other sex, if you have gender dysphoria, I can see as a coping mechanism.
But identifying as "Non-binary" seems to me an exercise in narcissism. It is somebody who needs to be the specialest snowflake. And it requires no change in any perceivable appearance or behaviour--because of course there is no non-binary sex.
I know a woman who calls herself 'they/them', and even has adopted the label 'queer' for herself. She is an attractive, feminine, heterosexual woman who has only ever been in monogamous relationships with men. Of course, she isn't remotely bisexual or lesbian, and even if she pretended she were, those identities no longer have any social currency. But if you are 'non-binary'? Girl you're dismantling the heteropatriarchy like nobody's business.
I don't know about that. I watched a bunch of videos by people who identify as nonbinary. They seemed very sincere and they did seem a bit out of what we might call mainstream gender. I'd call them nerdy or off beat, if I had to judge them.
While I don't really understand exactly why they feel this gender concept is so important, they didn't seem narcissistic. They just seemed to think that their gender ID was very important to them. I don't understand why being misgendered is such a terrible thing, but I'm not one who ever lets other people's opinions of me hurt me, so it's always been difficult for me to understand why other people's feelings get so easily hurt, especially by people who they barely know. Apparently, not everyone is able to ignore the things that others say about them that they feel are insulting. I don't think anyone should be discriminated against or bullied due to being a minority of any type. That's different from simply being called a she when you feel like a they, assuming it's not done out of malice.
I just like to understand where people are coming from as much as possible and how best to make them feel comfortable around me. If it takes referring to one as they, that's cool, even if I don't understand it. There are certainly far more important things to be concerned about in today's world. I would hope that all of us could agree on that, regardless of how we perceive our genders.
What I really dislike about some of this gender stuff, is that is seems to put too much emphasis on stereotypical gender roles. I read about one woman who lost her husband. He had been a truck driver and after he died the wife became a truck driver and then started to identify as mostly male. WTF! I've known of female truck drivers. I met a woman who was an awesome tow truck driver. Sure, she was large and very strong, but she had a husband and children and considered herself a woman. Shouldn't gender stereotypes and roles be dead by now? I think that may be why some of this seems contradictory to me, despite my best efforts to understand it.
Then again, maybe there are some people who literally have an odd mix of white and grey brain matter or a hormonal mix that makes it difficult for them to identify as one gender. I don't think we know at this point whether nonbinary gender is purely a social construct or if there is something more to it.
Anyway......I think I've said more than enough.
In a lot of ways, folks like me are nonbinary specifically
as a rejection of gender norms.
What most of those who refuse to accept pronoun suggestions perhaps realize but do not wish to speak out loud is that no matter what they claim, with pronoun use comes sex essentialism riding on its coattails.
People expect something from "men".
People expect something from "women".
And moreover they don't want to be expected not to expect as much!
What they expect is often purely behavioral, and while some people seek to fulfill the "best of" and the "worst of" these stereotypes, often as a matter of course or perhaps without any conscious effort at all, some people don't, can't, or won't play that game.
What o do know is this: over the last month I've been experimenting with different doses of Spironolactone. It is a testosterone antagonist. At my current dosage I am expected to be about as impacted by testosterone as a
prepubescent individual, mostly because I want to keep my bones from leeching calcium.
Just this last week I had my first follow-up and testing session, which was primarily to monitor possible effects with respect to my kidneys at a known dosage, however now I have been given leave to experiment on dosage with respect to
Double and
Nothing.
Yesterday was my first,
and last day, not taking any.
I absolutely hated the intrusiveness of the "sexual" thoughts. For weeks I've been free of it all, and then yesterday it was as if it had turned up to 15, on a scale of 10.
If there were boobs? I found myself being
shoved to stare at them, even if the result of staring was "I don't even like looking at these why am I looking at these? Can I please not?"
Imagine this: you probably either now or when you were younger didn't like other people staring at your breasts. Imagine not liking breasts being stared at by your eyes, the lecherous perv being inside your brain somewhere but not exactly the part of you that is "you" in the same way as the part of you that beats your heart or breaths air into your lungs.
You know, for the past 25 years I just chalked it up to the fact I hate looking at faces, and shirts have interesting stuff on them? The fact that I always look down and away? But no, it was like a website trying to advertise a product I don't even like by shoving it into the frame constantly... but by my own fucking endocrine system.
Sometimes it has as much to do with something inside you pushing you to be something that does not fit the person who you are, something which gains in strength from the presence or absence of a hormone, something that
pushes you on who you are even if the push is unwanted, even if it is a gross violation. Imagine being touched in an unwanted way not on your body, but your very thoughts!
Imagine a father in your life who keeps telling you to be a "proper lady", and that "you will never find a man acting like that", and to "smile more"... But instead of another person it's
something inside your own head.
For many trans people it starts with living while fighting against a current in one's head that is very insistent on telling them to
be something they are not. In the instance of mere behavioral transition it lets someone experiment, even in the face of a wind fighting against them, to discover ways of acting that more befit their own desires for themselves above those desires of compartments fueled by their endocrine balance.
I can say this with distinct confidence now, that this is the case, because I have lived it. I have directly observed, through differential diagnosis, that testosterone is the driver of those nerve cells and their unwanted intrusive thoughts and even behaviors.
I can't decide to suddenly LIKE the effects testosterone has on me. The effects only make me
miserable. I had some respite from just
ignoring them to the best of my ability but now that I don't have to I feel
at peace.
Being misgendered sucks specifically because it is a return, an echo of that droning force, that expectation, but foisted upon you by others, expected by others. It's saying "you are that voice from the back of your head that you already are fighting against, and you can never escape it, a d you shouldn't even try. It defines you!"
It's a statement that they don't trust someone to have more leverage over themselves than the leverage held by a droning "hormone monster", even when that hormone monster has been killed. It's demoralizing and moreover counterproductive to the act of self-actualization.
Oleg was talking about gender fluidity! If you haven't formed an opinion on gender fluidity yet then what the heck did he say that you think conflicts with neurobiology research?
