Probably less than 1% but is it really a medical condition?
Guess you are one of those people that think homesexuality is a medical condition....
i'm not talking about intent, only impact, and asking that people try as hard as possible to avoid the impact whether deliberate or not. Apologies, did not mean to accuse of intent, or imply that making a mistake is akin to bullying.
I have sympathy with the unintentional but getting run over in an accident or a hit and run breaks bones just the same.
kelvin, nobody is going to change if you can't stop insulting them, it's basic sense.
There seems to be an easy path to fascism here, "you don't agree with me so I will insult you"
What next should he lose his job, be banned from STW?
Why don't you convince him he is wrong with all the evidence you have?
gender identity a “medical condition”
Is gender dysphoria not a medical condition then?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_dysphoria
Making mistakes is impossible to avoid. We all do it. Repeating the error on purpose, after discovering your mistake, because.... "changing the whole pronoun structure which 99% of the population is happy with in order to suit the 1% who have a medical condition would be ridiculous"... would be bullying.
I was just writing a response to Kelvin myself. Using non-binary issues to beat others online and score cheap smarta** points just demeans the whole issue. I thought that only non-binary / trans people were allowed to talk about this? Or have you been appointed their official online defence?
Just to be clear, this was about the "I don't think..." response.
Making mistakes is impossible to avoid. We all do it. Repeating the error on purpose, after discovering your mistake,
Yes, but two wrongs don't make a right.
There seems to be an easy path to fascism here
If you say so. Are you saying that I shouldn't call them something if they don't like it? If so, I entirely agree, and won't do so again. It's not respectful.
Who is Demi Lovato and why should I care?
Exactly what I was thinking. I wasn't even sure what non-binary is and I'm still not sure why its a thing.
Language & culture is dynamic
Things change, just roll with it
It still baffles me why we don’t just use they/them/their as our default in any case, with gendered pronouns being reserved for those who really feel they need to use them for themselves.
I'll be honest, until this most recent change to our 'societal norms', I think most people did, at least part of the time.
and I’m still not sure why its a thing.
Because some folk do not identify with the gender that society defines them by. Some men would prefer to dress and act like a woman, and vise-versa, some people would prefer to behave and dress in a way that doesn't identify them as male or female. Demi Lovato has asked that folk respect her wishes to be identified as neutral rather than female.
It's a simple as that.
Live and let live.
oh, and why does there have to be an advantage +1
I’m not sure I understand why it matters to YOU
It doesn't, I'm trying to understand the concept of a non binary personality and why someone would want to choose it. I posted it so I might learn something, I didn't expected to get criticised for deliberately trying educate myself.
There's nothing wrong with asking questions about something you don't know, don't assume everyone has some kind of nasty agenda.
Re the word advantage; I'm happy to be called out on the use of that word. Why then would someone with past mental issues do something so profound to further damage themselves if it didn't have some kind of benefit, even if that was comfort? To me that would be the equivalent of me tattooing "You're a ****er" on my forehead on the basis I don't like attention and confrontation because I'd quite like t have a tattoo.
i’m not talking about intent, only impact, and asking that people try as hard as possible to avoid the impact whether deliberate or not. Apologies, did not mean to accuse of intent, or imply that making a mistake is akin to bullying.
The problem is, all outward appearances of Demi are of a woman. They look like a woman, they sound like a woman so if I didnt know them and was meeting them for the first time I may well use the wrong pronouns. If that causes them distress or offence, it is not something i can control. Unless every conversation I ever have with someone starts with "nice to meet you, what are your preferred pro-nouns?"
I’m trying to understand the concept of a non binary personality and why someone would want to choose it.
I don't think they are choosing their "personality", but are asking to be referred to and treated in a way that recognises that "personality". The "choice" is to stand up and asked to be recognised.
if I didnt know them and was meeting them for the first time I may well use the wrong pronouns.
For someone who isn't famous, most new encounters will be like this. It's what people do once they have the knowledge of how someone wants to be referred to that matters. They then have the choice of being respectful, and trying to adapt, or not.
If you say so. Are you saying that I shouldn’t call them something if they don’t like it? If so, I entirely agree, and won’t do so again. It’s not respectful.
That's not really the argument that's being made. Otherwise, I could demand to be called "His Excellency Twrch the Slayer of Trails", on the pain of being unacceptably disrespectful. The argument being made is that gendered mis-naming of someone is orders of magnitude more offensive than anything else.
Unless every conversation I ever have with someone starts with “nice to meet you, what are your preferred pro-nouns?”
Maybe they should wear a t shirt or a badge?
(Actually thought of that myself to let people know I am autistic and avoid the problems!)
I didnt know them and was meeting them for the first time I may well use the wrong pronouns. If that causes them distress or offence, it is not something i can control
Sure, but if they corrected you, and asked you to address them differently you would do so, right? So these folk aren't asking you to be a mind reader, all they're doing is asking is that once you know how to address them (either using their name or preferred pro-noun) that you do so. Simple, no?
To Trailwaggers point ^^. I didn't know Ashat from this parish appears in photography as a woman until last week, I don't think its wrong to assume Ashat aka Tasha is likely female, until she/he/they tell me otherwise.
Or is it?
Thought this was quite interesting when I was trying to understand.
Still can't fully grasp it so would welcome any better videos on it.
Unless every conversation I ever have with someone starts with “nice to meet you, what are your preferred pro-nouns?”
My son attended some remote lectures and a discussion forum at a US university and this is what they did.
All 30 students and the lecturers introduced themselves and stated their gender preferences and pronouns.
Everyone else had to note/use them correctly or were asked to leave.
He struggled with it a little and chose to observe rather than actively participate, although he got more used to it in later sessions.
“His Excellency Twrch the Slayer of Trails”
If I may? I think you'll find, Your Excellency, that the determiner is redundant, the speaker presumes it's you already, so the correct announcement would be
"His Excellency Twrch, Slayer of Trails"
It still baffles me why we don’t just use they/them/their as our default in any case, with gendered pronouns being reserved for those who really feel they need to use them for themselves.
Probably one of the more sensible posts we're likely to see on this thread.
they have made this choice to provide something positive in their life, but I don’t yet quite understand how.
Two things.
1) The whole pronoun thing is blown out of proportion, it's a convenient stick to use to beat a minority group who have a rough enough deal as it is. But how would you feel if someone was talking about you and referred to you as "it"? And then persisted in doing so when you'd asked them not to?
I work with a lad called Steven. His name is Steven and he pathologically despises "Steve". So whilst we still slip occasionally, we try and use his preferred choice of moniker out of respect. Would you consider this to be a "choice to provide something positive in their life" worth starting a thread to discuss?
Have you never met any married women? When Miss Smith comes out as married and proclaims that she now self-identifies as Mrs Jones does this also fall outside your understanding?*
2) A famous person** making such a statement could act as a role model for other people struggling with their gender / sexuality / identity and provide support.
(* - It kinda falls outside mine actually, it feels a bit anachronistic these days. Smash the patriarchy.)
(** - I assume, I've never heard of them.)
it can also cause unnecessary confusion
It could have caused unnecessary confusion, having only been in use since the 1300s so you might've missed it. But now that you've had your misconception explained to you, if you were to continue to be confused then one can only conclude that you're doing so wilfully.
Its because changing the whole pronoun structure which 99% of the population is happy with in order to suit the 1% who have a medical condition would be ridiculous.
Yeah, madness. If we go down that road we'll be building wheelchair ramps next.
(Slippery slope, heh.)
Everyone else had to note/use them correctly or were asked to leave
Is that the future we want? How many people who use non-binary pronouns want it that rigidly enforced? No wonder your son was terrified to speak.
@nickc You might be right, but that's how you will address me! 😉
1) The whole pronoun thing is blown out of proportion, it’s a convenient stick to use to beat a minority group who have a rough enough deal as it is.
I certainly agree here, although I would argue that it's a convenient stick to beat others with, on the behalf of a minority group.
Thanks for this. I realize now that in one of my systems we have male/female/couple used as a pronoun selector for mailings and I need to fix that even if we haven't needed it up to now. I might even try and change the naming as it isn't really about sex but rather how they want to be addressed.
Everyone else had to note/use them correctly or were asked to leave
This is the fascism I was talking about, I think some of us can be nice, but those who are strongly opposed need to be heard, it might be painful but its a new and contentious concept.
I have absolutely no care or concern about what people do between the sheets or what they call themselves. It does rather too often come across as screamers seeking attention and is a bit of a distraction when fairly major events are occurring in the world. NB: I do know someone who has in this spirit asked to be referred to by a term I have only ever heard with reference to car paint and expensive sun glasses, that does indeed make it more memorable which might help some like me who can forget names in nanoseconds.
This is the fascism I was talking about
Progress was being made in Europe as regards not trying to divide everyone into one of two immutable categories, and then the real fascists came along and burned books, burned down buildings, smashed skulls... that sort of thing. Not really the same thing, is it.
First of all disclosure. I was AMAB (assigned male at birth) but identify at non binary/gender fluid.
It doesn’t, I’m trying to understand the concept of a non binary personality and why someone would want to choose it.
Please stop with this. It's not a choice any more than being gay is a choice. My gender issues have caused no end of mental health issues over the years including getting very close to suicide. I'm 49 now but growing up with this was horrendous. There was no internet and as far as I was concerned I was the only person in the world who suffered with this. I certainly have never made the choice to have this issue.
Let me give you an idea of what it's like. Imagine as a male you wake up tomorrow morning and you don't have a penis. You have breasts and a vagina. Imagine how wrong that would feel. You know you have to get up, get dressed and go to the office. Your wardrobe is full of "womens" clothes, "womens" underwear. Society expects you to wear make up and heels and behave in a certain way.
How does that feel? Are you happy doing this or are you going to feel like a freak all day? Will you feel confident? Will you be productive? Or are you going to feel anxious and depressed? Suicidal?
I have the opposite of this maybe 3 days out of 7. For me putting a suit on feels as ridiculous as if you put on a dress. I feel naked without a bra. I need to feel makeup on my face. But I put on my stupid man clothes and pretend to be a man for the day. And I hate myself. The other 4 days it's fine and the idea of putting on a skirt feels weird. Sometimes it flips during the day and those days are great fun. Going out in a skirt then flipping into "man" mode. Awkward. Going out in man mode and changing to woman mode. Depressing. Really, really depressing.
I didn't come out as non binary to my colleagues for "an advantage". I came out to get a degree of understanding, to stop the stupid conversations about "choice" and "ohhh today I'm going to identify as a butterfly, it's all a load of bollocks", and so if I turned up at the Christmas party in a skirt no-one would be surprised.
There is no "one size fits all". I couldn't care lass about pronouns, I just don't want to be beaten up or laughed at. Life is too hard living with it without that sort of bollocks.
But don't EVER tell me it's a ****ing choice because no-one would ever ****ing choose to live with this.
Is that the future we want?
If it helps make the world a more inclusive place then yes. I understand it feels a bit uncomfortable having to adjust the way we interact with each other but that’s how progress works.
Are you saying that I shouldn’t call them something if they don’t like it?
and
If that causes them distress or offence, it is not something i can control.
This is what it boils down to. No-one is expecting you to be psychic. However, when a preference is expressed then it's down to you what you do with that information. You can, and you're well within your rights, to ignore that request. It's a bit of a dick move, but you have the right to be a dick.
The "fascist" (really?!) example cited is simply a smaller part of "anyone being disrespectful to others will be asked to leave" and is bugger all to do with pronouns. If someone referred to an Asian gentleman by using the P-word I rather suspect that they'd have been ejected also.
I’m trying to understand the concept of a non binary personality and why someone would want to choose it.
Ah, and this is your stumbling block. It's not a choice, it's who they are. Did you wake up one day and choose (I assume, playing the odds) to be heterosexual? Fancy choosing something else next week?
The argument being made is that gendered mis-naming of someone is orders of magnitude more offensive than anything else.
Is it? By whom?
It's Wheaton's Law, is all.
I certainly agree here, although I would argue that it’s a convenient stick to beat others with, on the behalf of a minority group.
Good. Some of them need beating with it until they grow the hell up.
Is it? By whom?
It's already been suggested in this thread that it's up to 100x more offensive than "regular" bullying. We also have examples not too many comments above this one where forgetting correct pronouns on first meeting is reasonable excuse for being excluded from that meeting (in this case, presumably very expensive higher education). I doubt there were similar exclusions in place for forgetting someone's name, hence the observation that forgetting pronouns has become the same as using the most grossly offensive slurs (eg, certain racist terms).
Making the world more "inclusive" by forcing people to adhere to the rules of an arbitrary memory game, on the pain of being excluded, does not sound like it helps anyone. I say this only because the rules are so rigidly enforced - the requirement (at least in the example of US education given above) is that you instantly remember and correctly use 30 sets of possibly unique pronouns, on the pain of unforgivable offence.
I don't want to be a dick, and I'll call you whatever you like, but don't make forgetting someone's pronouns such a big deal.
So, I read the news that Demi Lovato has come out as non binary. So I get it, they is no let she/her buy they/them.
Someone needs to explain to me why this is an advantage for someone. I’d like to think I have an open mind but this has baffled me, er they TBH.
Advantage? My own opinion, for every person who truly feels they don't belong to any gender, and are willing, to at least ask people to respect that, there are 99 people who see it as a way of gaining attention, or publicity. This won't be a publicly popular opinion.
As I think others have said, They are in the midst of a very public mental health and substance misuse problem that's been going on for over a decade. It could be the case that this was brought on by Gender issues, is unrelated to gender issues, is part of a greater PR plan to build profile (they're been on every outlet that would take them for the last couple of months). Or the latest car crash in Demi's career spiral. She's been describing herself as "California Sober" recently, which supposedly means sober, but you smoke weed, but they say she's back on the gear too.
As for the recent (10 years or so) call for changes to accepted norms when it comes to sexuality and gender, my opinion has evolved from broadly in favour, to 'on the fence' to broadly against.
It's only my opinion, but I can't see past the attention seeking, the most vocal advocates seem impossible to satisfy, Bi-Sexual for example, wasn't enough, so Pan-Sexual was used, but then some people prefer Queer. At the same time people refuse to accept "people are people", do anyway with all these terms and pigeonholes and just accept people have different ideas, tastes and identities, because that robbed them of who they are.
My stance in now, people are free to call themselves what they like, this is a great step, and I will try to remember that on a 'best endeavours' basis, in other words, if I ever find myself in the company of Demi, and, after 4 decades of 2-gender thinking, call her 'She' I don't expect to be chastised for it.
That said, I don't understand the 'rules'. For example, if Demi, who (presumably) has a Womb, wishes/demands to be accepted as genderless, then why can't I as someone who'd lived for 41 years, wish/demand people accept me as a 23 year old? I've never been able to accept middle age, I hate being labelled as such, I honestly find it disgusting when people accuse me of having a mid-life crisis when I talk about Sporty Car I fancy, riding my Bike or playing a bit of Xbox, as I've done these things since I was a teenager, if not before. Why should I feel pressured by society to shave all my hair of because it's receding a bit, or worse be laughed at for caring.
For me putting a suit on feels as ridiculous as if you put on a dress. I feel naked without a bra. I need to feel makeup on my face.
Really good post. I would like to open it up though... are you saying that makeup and underwear are what make you feel like a woman?
Non Binary ?. To each their own.
Maybe they should wear a t shirt or a badge?
(Actually thought of that myself to let people know I am autistic and avoid the problems!)
HA! cant fool me with that one. Im also autistic and also thought of a t shirt stating such. But the reasons for it can only be not to get out of situations before they happen but as a precursor to get into situations deliberately . An excuse or get out of jail free card if you will.
Non binary ? well speaking from the autistic spectrum, I couldnt give a toss one way or the other. Black white male female orange blue,green or spoon, its all the same to me.
It’s a bit of a dick move, but you have the right to be a dick.
Careful there. But well put.
Progress was being made in Europe as regards not trying to divide everyone into one of two immutable categories, and then the real fascists came along and burned books, burned down buildings, smashed skulls… that sort of thing. Not really the same thing, is it.
It is fascism when people have lost jobs, been publicly shamed, even threatened with violence, because they refuse to believe that a person can change there sex.
That said, I don’t understand the ‘rules’.
the "rules" for what they are worth are the simplest of simple things: If someone askes you to address them using a particular pronoun, try to remember to use it. It's exactly the same as when someone asks you you to call them Steven, rather than Steve.
It's really no more difficult or complex or life changing than that.
It’s really no more difficult or complex or life changing than that.
even simpler BE KIND.
It's a first word problem.
Re
It doesn’t, I’m trying to understand the concept of a non binary personality and why someone would want to choose it.
Please stop with this.
You've gone to great lengths to explain the issue you've faced - thank you and thats very brave and appreciated, so why would you ask me to stop asking the question? I want to learn and understand, that was the point of my first post. Are you saying I should remain ignorant? I understand your own point re "choice" but my OP was about Demi Lovato who has made a choice, and my question is to try to understand why.
ok, i withdraw the 10x or 100x worse comparison.
It's at least as bad, may be worse, let's not get hung up on metrics.
As to assuming a pronoun. Yes, can be a challenge particularly in the M or F to non-binary they/them where someone looks like a binary person but wants to be known as non-binary. Less so in the case of my son for example, he wears a binder to squash his chest, and wherever possible baggy tops as well, styles as a boy, etc. He not totally convincing especially as his peer group now are all getting bigger and hairy but not totally obvious. And fully transitioned F to M particularly are indistinguishable (he's already decided he's growing a beard, to his mum's annoyance) So unless completely socially unaware, you might think 'I think that's a TG boy' than 'why's that girl wearing boy's clothes' and then either be crippled by fear of assuming wrong, or do what would be acceptable and ask.
I'm obvs quite aware now (don't say woke) so by choice my email signature specifies he/him. A few of my colleagues asked about it and I explained (nothing to hide after all, I'm so proud of my boy every day) and now also include their pronouns. It's fine if they don't, it's a choice, at least they are a bit more aware to not assume.
are you saying that makeup and underwear are what make you feel like a woman?
Let's be clear. Only Shania Twain knows what that feels like.
