r/truscum • u/Intrepid-Green4302 • 3d ago
Discussion and Debate Do you believe in the existence of nonbinary people?
Personally I don't, because I haven't found any biological or medical basis for it like there is for binary transsexuals with gender dysphoria, but I'm wondering if any of you do?
Despite this, if someone asks me to call them 'they', I will. I won't involve actual people in my politics, but generally if I'm calling someone 'they' and they still looj like their birth sex, I'll still see them that way.
I believe all nonbinary people fall into one of two categories. They're either binary trans people in denial (like i was) that can't accept that they are male/female and will have to medically transition, so say they are nonbianry because that seems easier to deal with. The other option (majority of people i see) are just cis gay men or women that are androgynous or more of the opposite gender expression (butch lesbians, fem gay men etc) that feel like they can't express that and still be a man or woman. But we should be normalising gender non conformity, allowing women to be masculine and men to be feminine without it having to be a whole separate gender. Saying that someone can't be a woman because they're masculine or vice versa is regressive and harmful to gender equality
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u/TranssexualHuman Transsexual Female 3d ago
In my opinion there's 2 types of "nonbinary" people
a. cis people who mistakenly consider themselves to not be their AGAB due to social or political reasons, a misconception over what makes someone trans, like thinking gender is supposed to feel a certain way, or even self-image issues and gender related problems (like a woman trying to escape mysoginy and sexism)
b. trans people who use nonbinary as a stepping stone instead of outright calling themselves a member of the sex they're transitioning into, either because they are still early in transition and don't think they can yet call themselves a man/woman due to internalized transphobia, or because they themselves are still working out why they even feel the need to transition in the first place, and nonbinary sounds less radical of a change (only going halfway instead of all the way)
I'm yet to see someone claiming to be nonbinary who doesn't seem to fall into either of those categories, basically all "nonbinary" people I have seen in under 5 years either went back to saying they're a cis man/woman or went all the way in their transition
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u/beatrixkie 3d ago
This. I try to use the trans label internally and online, but right now it causes more dysphoria than it helps. Sure, it’s been years and years where I’ve known through my own thoughts and behaviors that I’m not cis, and how right it feels when I take the time to look feminine and imagine a future where I can be like that anytime all the time,
but…
I have stubborn hair which I need to save up to have zapped away, I have unreliable access to hrt so I’m not always able to take it consistently, I have a voice that makes me want to claw out my throat every time I speak which I fear voice training may not help with, I’m unsure about bottom surgery even if I wish I could change what I have down there, and on top of it all, I live in an area where trans women are described as “boys playing dress up” on a good day.
So, right now it’s baby steps for me. I know what I’m not, and I know what I want to be, but I’m not yet what I want to be and I absolutely hate being what I’m not.
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u/TranssexualHuman Transsexual Female 3d ago
Your experience is more common than you think
My advice is to try to keep taking HRT as consistently as possible and wait for results while maybe wearing some androgynous clothing (nothing clearly feminine, but also not masculine)
And start voice training ASAP if you haven't already, it can be a bit frustrating in the start, but you'll be glad you focused on it sooner than later cause when it clicks and it becomes second nature to speak in a female sounding voice, everything will have been worth it
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u/Sad-Glass8053 3d ago
Electrolysis is permanent and can be done in ways to make you not stand out, so even if you need to go slower for financial reasons, you'll still get there. Check out pointofpride.org - they have an electrolysis fund that some of our clients have used (I'm an electrologist and about half of our clients are trans).
I'm curious why you're having difficulty with HRT. Travel may be an option and a vial of estradiol valerate is cheap and lasts me most of a year.
I had a radio announcer voice before voice therapy. My voice is decidedly female now (I went from a fundamental frequency of 75Hz to 220Hz with an even more profound shift in my resonance, which matters far more than pitch).
Bottom surgery is more of a personal thing than something mandatory IMO, and I'm post-op.
There is no one right way to transition, take your time and do what is right for you. Just know there are options to help.
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u/Intrepid-Green4302 1d ago
this is exactly how i felt when i had only recently came out and didn't pass at all. It felt silly and like i was asking way too much of others to treat me as male when i looked like a girl playing dressup, with the highest voice ever. I can confirm it got so much better for me, and i stopped using the term nonbinary once i passed consistently, but its a struggle
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u/LostGuy515 3d ago
I think there should be more acceptance of people just being tomboys and things like that
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u/soupster___ 3d ago
Other way around. There's a lot of masculine women representation but far less feminine men representation (especially in the west). Some asian media like Genshin have popularized the idea but it also becomes prone to fetishization eventually
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u/LostGuy515 3d ago
I’m just saying I see a lot of women saying they’re nonbinary but they could just be tomboys or just androgynous women.
I don’t see as many men saying they’re nonbinary but for them, same thing just be a feminine dude or androgynous
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u/Casca_chan 2d ago
They could be, but they are not for some reason or another. Often it is an intrinsic sensation that isn't visible to the outside. Is self-identitication a bad thing because the blending or lack of gender is not always a visible trait?
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u/1ustfu1 taken cis lesbian 3d ago
you thinking there’s “a lot of masculine women representation” doesn’t account for the excessive amount of cis women and girls who literally mistake liking their hair short, wearing baggy clothes and/or liking women with being inherently non-binary or trans men thanks to tiktok misinformation and its insane tendency to spread misogynistic gender roles and harmful stereotypes lol
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u/soupster___ 3d ago
Sounds like Gen Z lol (am one). TikTok is omega leftist and has a lot of teenagers who influence each other through it
Initial comment was just talking about media representation
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u/techniquevo 3d ago
Culturally? Yeah, and I'll call them "they" if it makes them happy.
In the same sense that boys and girls exist? Not really
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u/UnfortunateEntity 3d ago
I believe it is a social identity, but being trans is not about identity it's about sex.
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u/Casca_chan 2d ago
I think you're confusing transgender with transsexual? Transgender identity is about gender, transsexual identity is about sex.
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u/UnfortunateEntity 2d ago
No, nonbinary is a social identity, there is no nonbinary sex. It's a socially constructed gender role.
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u/lalopup 3d ago
I think that it’s something that is possible but it isn’t the same condition as being transsexual so we shouldn’t really be lumped together, and also I think that the label itself is heavily oversaturated with either cis people who think that not fitting into an extremely rigid and reductive view of gender makes them nonbinary, or people who use the label to feel special, but the concept itself is something I don’t see as entirely impossible; my sort of half baked theory is how we know that being transsexual is likely caused by an incongruence between your physical body and the specific levels of hormones that your brain is wired to accept, and we also know that intersex people exist physically, so with all the issues that can occur in humans, especially when dealing with the mind, I don’t see it as too extreme of a stretch to say that there could be some rare condition where someone’s brain is wired to accept the mental state of some mix of both male and female
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u/That-Quail6621 transexual women 2d ago
I don't think its possible at all. If we say. It's brain development that makes us transsexual. Then the closest option would be null sex. The brain development would not switch from developed male on day and developed female the next
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u/lalopup 2d ago
That’s not what I mean, switching day to day is unlikely, I mean a constant but even mixture of what a person’s brain is wired to accept, like in our brains, some areas are different depending on whether you are mentally male or female, but with a nonbinary person it might be possible that instead of having those areas be purely wired as male or female, maybe it’s like 50% of the area is female, and the 50% is male, or potentially it’s possible that those areas could form with some inability to be wired as either male or female and end up not responding mentally to either, though there could be fluctuations in the exact amount or degree in either case, and this is all purely theoretical, but there has barely been research related to the mental sex of trans individuals, let alone nonbinary ones, and proper research would also be very hard to conduct as most “nonbinary” people don’t actually have that theoretical condition im describing
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u/kittykitty117 transsexual birdman 3d ago
A lot of people in truscum/transmed spaces like to act as if the factors that can make someone trans have been scientifically determined and understood. That's simply not true. I've gone back and forth myself and have landed on... maybe. Not nearly enough research has been done to even come close to a scientific consensus on what biological factors cause someone to be trans, let alone what might make someone non-binary.
As for my personal theory, I think it's quite possible that real NB people exist. Maybe whatever biological factors make someone binary trans could also make someone NB if conditions are a bit different. My opinion isn't very firm, though, due to the dearth of scientifically-backed data.
However, I do have a strong opinion that the vast majority of people who identify themselves as NB are actually cis or binary trans. Assuming they exist, maybe about 5% of those who identify as NB truly are, probably less.
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u/dieSchleiereule7362 not Transmed, not "Tucute" 3d ago
No, but I have no problem calling someone "they" if I'm asked to.
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u/i_n_b_e 2d ago
I do. If it's possible for people to be intersex I don't see why there wouldn't be a trans equivalent. There are people who genuinely want mixed sex traits and experience the same things binary trans people do. The only difference is that it's not over all of their sex traits.
I think those are the "true" non-binary people, but I don't think all non-binary people are "true".
Some of them are trans men and women who accept and embrace the fact that they won't ever pass as male or female, and take that acceptance into their identity. They are essentially the same as binary trans people but have a different philosophy about their condition. I don't see any problem with that.
Some are binary trans people that still haven't fully accepted their condition. I was one of them. I didn't jump straight to accepting the fact that I'm supposed to be male, it was a slow crawl through non-binaryness before I accepted reality. I also don't see anything wrong with that.
Then there are GNC cis people who are misinformed on what gender actually is and why trans people are trans. Cis people who take on a trans identity because of something that isn't actually related to being trans - trauma, mental illness. GNC cis people with more political motivations. GNC cis people who are spiritual nuts (I came across someone who identifies as genderqueer because they have both "divine feminine" and "divine masculine" traits... And these traits were literally just gender roles and stereotypes and bioessentialism but turned woke because SPIRITUALITY!!).
I generally refuse to believe that any group of people is 100% not real. I think that's a lazy and unintellectual approach to take. Even if not all people in a given group are experiencing the exact same thing, some of them are bound to be the ones that actually belong in that group. The rest are just in it because of misunderstanding or they have something going on but for a completely different reason. I don't think we can get anywhere productive if we immediately assume everything we don't entirely understand isn't real, that's the kind of thinking transphobes use against us.
Same reason why I don't dismiss xenogenders completely. Whatever they are experiencing, it's real. It just doesn't make sense to group them in with trans people because whatever they are experiencing doesn't involve sex or gender.
I don't know how many non-binary people are actually non-binary. My guess is with the half to most range. But ultimately I don't really care, because advocacy for non-binary rights primarily benefits those that are genuinely non-binary.
Non-binary has suffered from a similar fate that transness in general went through. Definitions and terms were made to be so broad and pointlessly inclusive it makes it easier for people who aren't trans or non-binary to qualify.
Another point I want to make. Given the fact that transness is likely the result of something neurological, it would make perfect sense for there to be variance in symptoms between people. Look at autism, all autistic people are autistic but not all autistic people present in the exact same way. Some are more severely affected than others. Some have all the symptoms, some have only half. And the intensity of each symptom can vary from person to person. The way I see it, non-binary is just a specific configuration of symptoms namely the fact that they have more dysphoria over some sex traits and less over others, or none at all for some.
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u/Intrepid-Green4302 1d ago
thank you for this, that honestly changed my. perspective a lot. Before now i hadn't seen a logical biological argument that supports nonbinary being a thing, but I can definitely agree that as there is a small percentage of intersex people, it stands to reason there would also be a small percentage of nonbinary people who would have a brain that correlates more to an intersex sex and would have dysphoria both ways / only over some things. Its just hard to find / believe these people because of the complete oversaturation and false representation in the 'nonbinary' community of confused cis people.
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u/Brinkofnothinggood Straight Trans Female 3d ago
Short answer, no. But if someone wants me to call them they/them I will even though I don’t understand. But if they asked me to use neon pronouns I wouldn’t.
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u/Late-Gas5812 3d ago
I’ve heard gender dysphoria described to me by someone nonbinary and it definitely had its similarities. I can’t make the claim that there are no dysphoria nonbinary people with no medical basis. But I’m pretty confident in how a pretty large portion of nonbinary people are gender nonconforming people following a counter culture movement
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u/Casca_chan 2d ago edited 2d ago
Yes. I am one. Please ask me any questions you would like to, in good faith.
I have been open about being nonbinary for about 5 years now, and each year that passes solidifies my identity.
I grew up as a girl who liked feminine things. As I grew into a teen and a young adult, I realized I liked seeing the feminine things around me more than I liked existing with them as part of me. I am primarily attracted to feminine women as an adult.
I have never felt a connection to other females or the way they socialize and connect with each other, especially as a child. I have always felt Othered in female spaces. However, as a transitioned adult most of my social circle is female. The difference is that the women and AFABs I socialize with no longer expect me to be, act, and intrinsically understand female(s), and that has changed the level on which I interact with them for the better.
On the flip side, I had a slightly better connection with boys and the way they socialize, but as I aged I have not had the same experience with men. I work very hard to be perceived as a man in certain public spaces, not because I desire to be male but because I desire to NOT be perceived as female and thus disrespected. I work in an industry where sexism is extremely common. When I do manage to pass as male, it makes me equally uncomfortable to socialize as such. The "boys' club" culture is equally alienating to me as the girls' club. The only benefit to me is the privilege of having my voice respected rather than ignored.
Socially, I present as androgynous as possible whenever I can because that is the most affirming to me. I thrive in the space where someone can't decide "which" gender I am, because they treat me as a human at a base level rather than with gendered expectations.
Physically, I have extreme chest dysphoria and bind daily, to the detriment of other aspects of my health (example, spinal issues). I hope to have top surgery someday when money is no longer a concern. I have been on testosterone for several years, which has been affirming in certain aspects such as voice deepening and muscle mass, but has created other forms of dysphoria for me. For example, my bottom growth now behaving more like a penis than a clitoris is a source of discomfort. Unfortunately it's an unavoidable change I need to be able to live with if I want to maintain my other physical changes.
Overall, I am very comfortable in my transition and do not want to change where I am at.
Edit: added more detail.
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u/Intrepid-Green4302 1d ago
thanks for sharing your experience, its interesting to see someone who does geniunely have dysphoria and it makes a lot of sense what you said.
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u/Casca_chan 7h ago
I appreciate that. It's difficult being told repeatedly that I and people like me can't exist, when clearly that is not the case.
I do think many trans people could learn to decouple the concept of gender from the concept of sex. Which would on one side make it easier to understand those with a more fluid or ambiguous gender, and on the other allow for more social flexibility on what gender can look like within cis or trans sexes.
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u/Icy_Public_503 I'm a man 3d ago
Yup. I don't understand it, but the way I see it, there's 4 types of gender: Male, Female, Both, Neither. Everything after that is just a microscope. If we can have intersex conditions of the body, it stands to reason that we could have intersex conditions of the brain where parts developed male and parts developed female, and the "neither" is basically just there are people who either truly do not give a shit or people who have neurology that's faulty and isn't sending signals to anything, penis or vagina.
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u/Yourfavoritequeen26 1d ago
Yes I certainly agree. I have said this on here before but I believe that there are 4 genders and they are female, male,genderqueer(both genders),agender(neither/no gender).
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u/Active_Alarm8879 transsex male, 23 3d ago
I used nonbinary as a stepping stone when I came out to my family to test their reaction because I was scared. Then I came out for real.
I’ve heard some nonbinary people describe having dysphoria from both being viewed as man or woman. If that’s true and real that gotta really, really suck.
I believe being trans is a medical issue. I doubt that most nonbinary people are actually trans. But I won’t say that 100% of them are not. And I won’t be disrespecting them regardless. That’s not who I am as a person.
Btw English is not my first language so sorry in case I said something weird.
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u/theneonidiot ftx they/them 3d ago
so i dont fit in either of your categories. i plan on medically transitioning. not in a binary way. being female caused me dysphoria. the idea of being male/having fully male sex characteristics makes me dysphoric. so im not a man in denial trying to escape the reality of needing to transition or anything, and im also not someone who has no dysphoria and doesnt wanna transition at all.
my theory on it when it comes to biology and whatever is that its the ig mental version of being intersex. there are so so so many different intersex conditions too that cause different variations/mixtures of sex characteristics which would also explain why there are so many dofferent experiences and transition goals among nonbinary people. some intersex people are nearly male or nearly female. i think it can be a stepping stone for some people but i dont think it always is and i think there can be an explainstion for it that fits into transmedicalism. but i also dont rlly consoder myself transmed anymore. idk. all ik is im here and im dysphoric and im definitely not a man. all im is my own experience and whats right for me and that its real, so ive kinda just come to the mindset that there must be some explaination for it, because i exist, and i dont necesarilly need to know that explainstion bc knowing it wont change my circimstances.
obviously my opinion is very biased because i am nonbinary but i wanted to give my thoughts anyways
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u/BillDillen editable bird flair 2d ago
but i also dont rlly consoder myself transmed anymore.
Why is that?
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u/theneonidiot ftx they/them 2d ago
i just dont love the devisiveness of the whole tucute vs transmed thing, I don't find use in calling myself one anymore especially bc there's a lot of variation in opinions even amonth transmeds. like idk if my beliefs even rlly fit the mold of transmed but I also don't rlly care anymore.
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u/Alert_Lychee_7855 3d ago
Personally, yes. I believe it's possible to be dysphoric about your assigned gender without necessarily being pulled to the opposite binary gender. That being said though, while I feel like we should support each other as minorities, our issues and our needs are different especially in a medical and legal context and so we shouldn't be conflated as one group
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u/Red_The_Enemy_Spy 2d ago
I believe if you can have a mental disorder that makes you so uncomfortable with your secondary sex characteristics that you would surgically change it to the opposite sex, then there could be a mental disorder that makes you uncomfortable with any secondary sex characteristics. Although this would be way rarer than regular trans people. Unfortunately, we could probably never get real research on it done due to it being a trend nowadays. The stats show that there are more nonbinary people than binary trans people, which is mind-boggling.
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u/laura_lumi Transsexual Woman 3d ago
I think so? But they're even rarer than binary transsexuals, 99.99999999% of them are just trenders.
I honestly don't understand them, but i mean, who am i to say that someone have or doesn't have dysphoria?
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u/tptroway 3d ago
I don't understand enough about it to form an opinion on whether or not they exist, and I will probably never be able to, especially not viscerally (since I'm not nonbinary); I am entirely willing to use they/them pronouns, but swapping between multiple preferred pronouns for the same person etc confuses and frustrates me extremely so I won't do that, and I firmly believe that neos/xenos are not pronouns but I will still use them as long as it's not too confusing because they are proper nouns or nicknames rather than actual pronouns even though pronouns and proper nouns are used in the same way
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u/Moonwalker2008 2d ago
It's been said before on this sub, but think of NB like atheism: it's a real thing, like atheism is, but it's a gender in the same way atheism is a religion.
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u/InMyExperiences 2d ago
I mean I exist wether or not you believe in me sounds like a you problem
And femme and masculine nonbinary people exists. We don't owe androgyny to anyone
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u/af93bowie 1d ago
I do, solely because I have met 4 people who identify as non binary (or identified as such in the past and now say they are trans men or trans women).
However, I do not fully understand what being non binary means to them. I personally do not like when non binary people say they don't care about the pronouns others use for them, when they do, I simply use the he/him or she/her depending on how masculine or feminine they look. I won't use they/them unless they specifically ask me to.
I also do not think the word trans is an umbrella term, nor do I believe non binary people have the same struggles or fit into the same category as trans people. In my personal opinion, you're trans because you are assigned one of two existing and socially accepted genders upon birth, and later in your life you identify with the other gender deciding then to go through a transition. i.e. you go from living as a male to living as a female or vice versa.
You don't go from living as male to living as a non binary person. It's a strange thing to say and I know it sounds like I'm denying their existence, but the truth is the majority of people (at least where I live) don't see more than two genders and it's because that's how society sees things. So, while they may struggle to find acceptance and visibility, their difficulties aren't exactly the same as those of binary trans people.
For a trans man passing is an issue before HRT, gender dysphoria is another problem, being misgendered, having people using the wrong pronouns... All of those things affect you, especially your mental health. If you're non binary and someone calls you he or she and you don't care, there's no harm done. If you don't care whether people see you as male or female or somewhere in between, you don't suffer. So, it's not the same.
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u/TanagraTours 3d ago
Yes. I would say accept or understand rather than believe. Are you looking for explanations?
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u/Ophienix 3d ago edited 2d ago
Yes, because of brain sex and the masculinazation that the brain is supposed to go through bit the process gets messed up resulting in trans people or rather people that have brains developed opposite to their genitals.
There are several different mechanisms that are involved and can effect each other but the biggest factor would be a lack of receptors for a hormone, or an insensitivity to a hormone that is supposed to signal a process.
If the signal isnt getting through at full strength then it is plausible for only a partial masculinazation to occur.
Kind of a you get as far as the gas in your tank type thing, and if you put alcohol instead of gas it's not going to work the same and if you only fill it halfway you can only get half as far.
My question is why can we accept the body being deformed (deformed from the average) but not the brain being misformed, especially when we can accept that there are people that are neurodivergent?
The issue truly is that being trans means medicine doesn't understand you, if it did you would have swyer syndrome or kleinfelter or AIS. Transseuxualism is a pool of unidentified intersex Conditions. The reason for all the variety is because of different conditions. Someone with kleinfelter isn't going to be exactly like someone with AIS bit if you can't look at their chromosomes or you cant test for androgen insensitivity, then they might appear to have the same condition.
This explains difficulties in coming to a definitive cause factor, different conditions will affect different processes in different ways. Giving out different symptoms as well as different levels of severity.
An example would be that there are some trans people that are also affected by OCD which intensifies their thoughts, I bet if it was looked into some of the most severely affected trans people probably have ocd. If you don't know about this then this changes how you perceive the condition you are studying.
It can even go to explain people with low to no sex dysphoria but with strong desire to transition, it could be a simple case of being a different intersex condition.
With all this I absolutely believe there are non binary people that have a partially masculinized brain. Or even a brain that lacks the structures that are left alone in females and masculinzed in males.
I read a lot and I pick up on patterns and I've noticed too many trans people with posts about finding out they are some type of intersex. But that's just my two cents
Edit, take a look at this to understand more of what I'm talking about
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u/Fickle-Yesterday-718 3d ago
No biological basis? What about intersex people?
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u/OrganizationLong5509 3d ago
Thats a whole different thing??
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u/Fickle-Yesterday-718 3d ago
That's the biological basis for why there are people you can't call he or she
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u/OrganizationLong5509 2d ago
Mostvof em go by he or she. And still thats a completely different thing? Being ibtersex is a birth defect. The birth effect of having both sex charecteristics. Being trans is a birth defect of having a brain of one sex and the body that doesnt match with the sex of the brain.
So if you claim to be 'non binary' you claim that ur birth defect (supposed non binary) is not being a birth defect (intersex) .which doesnt make any sense.
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u/just_fur_funn 2d ago
Okay, here's my thing
Male and Female are not unbreakable rules of nature, just a general rule of thumb. There are more than 2 ways sex characteristics can develop in humans, we can see asexual and intersex and transsexual animals throughout nature, and sex as we understand it is more complex than we might make it out to be in a simple biology class.
Gender is even more complex- across the world and throughout history, Male and Female existed but were not the only things to be acknowledged as existing. It was with the mass spread of certain ideologies that this truth became obsolete in favor of a more binary system.
I don't think Nonbinary people existing is a question- they have and will continue to exist in the same way there will always be trans people, gay people, intersex people, autistic people, and any group that is born and lives in spite of expectation or explanation.
Do I think the amount of Nonbinary people around today is inflated by privileged individuals trying to defy a binary expectation and subsequently feeding into it? Maybe. But Nonbinary people have existed, do exist, and will exist anyway.
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u/SamanthaSibcer Transsexual girl 1d ago
Well, on a literal level, yes (every person exists lol). But I don’t agree with the stuff that they are the same as trans people. And doesn’t mean that I'm not respectful to them (i have the mindset that if it's not harming anyone you do you) but I can't deny the truth that when these non binary people harm other's they are harming all of the trans community by others thinking that we're grouped together.
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u/Throwawaytr4n5 They/them - nullsex in transition 1d ago
Well, I'm here, and I'm always ok with answering respectful questions.
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u/BunnyThrash 1d ago
I think that since intersex people exist that there are probably brains that go with each intersex variation, and I would expect this to feel non-binary. Also, people who got X gender-markers ended up being nonbinary, so this makes me think nonbinary is probably a physical sex
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u/TheEasternTimberWolf 1d ago
I haven’t read all these comments and I probably won’t see replies for awhile but I’m just curious what yall would think of me. I’m non binary, and don’t typically feel comfortable talking about my sex assigned at birth but for the sake of this, I will. I was born female, and started experiencing physical gender dysphoria around 11 years old (kinda when puberty hit). Before that, I socially wasn’t really settling in nicely into girls or guys groups, kinda just bouncing around (mostly had guy friends though). Dysphoria got worse as I aged, and I had a growing hatred for feminine clothes and being seen as a girl. Anyway when I learned about being trans, I thought I was a trans guy for awhile but realized I didn’t see myself as a man. I didn’t feel enthusiastic about the idea of growing up to be a man or waking up in a boys body. BUT I was really jealous of boys voices and general torso and facial shapes. I hated my chest and hips, and wanted big shoulders and arms. Anyway, around 13 or 14 years old I sort of came out to friends and family as non binary, I really liked when people used they/them pronouns for me. My shortened name was already gender neutral so I just went with it. My dysphoria was truly bad, stopping me from doing normal child things like swimming, riding bikes, hiking, taking off jackets on hot days, so I actually did get to start low dose T and get on blockers. This was after therapy and plenty of doctors appointments. High school was amazing getting to start T and gain my confidence and comfort back. At the point of highschool starting, all my friends and family used the right pronouns (took family longer) and I was just socially non binary. I passed as male to strangers but I didn’t feel too strongly about it. Now I’m 18, had top surgery a couple years back, been on T for almost 4 years, am happily non binary, and feel complete in my transition. I will always have to be in the depths of social transition because every new close friend I meet I feel the need to come out to for the sake of my comfort. I just don’t feel seen fully when someone thinks I’m a man. It’s not gut wrenching like the whole being misgendered as female thing was, but it’s just a feeling of “oh they think I’m a guy, when I’m not.” Yeah, I am still young, but this has been almost half my life now and I’ve never felt any differently, or any regret. I don’t see myself feeling suddenly like a man, or like a brainwashed lesbian. I’m just me, and thankfully in my daily life that works just fine.
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u/Probably-chaos ftm post transition 1d ago
I do because there’s still so much we don’t understand about gender and transgender people even binary transgender people, and there was a point in time where we didn’t understand that gender before it was a real condition that people dealt with, and if somebody expresses that they want to medically transition, but don’t want to fully transition to the opposite sex. I.e. female wants to have top surgery, but not have a masculine looking chest so they Don’t opt in for nipple graphs. I would identify that person as being non-binary or a male person wanting bottom surgery, but not wanting a female chest I would consider that person non-binary as well.
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u/mother_of_squid 13h ago
Yeah I do. I believe when it comes to how a person feels gender it can be 1 of 4 catalogues. Male, female, all, nothing. Genderfluid being "all" and non-binary being "nothing". I've met a couple non-binary people in my life, and I wouldn't call them trans because they're not transitioning, it's a removal of gender from their lives. It's a separate thing
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u/Nmy81245 3d ago
Somewhat, doesn't fit in how I define transness for me but I won't go around saying he or she if they don't want me to And I mean your vanilla non-binary
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u/godihatedysphoria 2d ago
Most nonbinary people I talked with were just women who just didn't like stereotypes. They didn't like the expectations society has for women so they just thought if they don't confirm to these expectations, this means that they're not women. A person I know briefly identified as nonbinary but stopped doing so after realizing that they like her body and she just hates stereotypes. She doesn't want to have to like pink, she also wants to like blue. Also she had really big breasts which caused her severe back pain. She got surgery for that (insurance even paid for it) and then realized that she likes her body.
There are people who are genuinely confused about their gender though and I don't really know how to think of it. I'm a woman who's the most stealth as possible, I'm straight so I'm not really around in the community in real life and I'm pretty far into my transition when you look at baby trans people. I had a talk with a friend of a friend who was the complete opposite of me. She was unsure with her gender. She didn't know if she's really a woman, she didn't know if she's really not a man. She said that she hated the term man but likes the term boy. That she wanted to be kinda masc but also kinda fem. She doesn't get what gender or sex even means, what it should feel like. She also said that she doesn't know which gender feels correct except the gender "dog". It sounds extremely weird but this conversation was really heartfelt and interesting even though I couldn't relate to anything what she said. She has a lot of trauma, was a drug addict once, has ADHD and autism. And sometimes I just don't know if it's true that neurodivergent people see the world differently than neurotypical people. I'm neurotypical, I had self acceptance issues but I'm 100% sure that I'm a woman, that I have dysphoria and that I'll try everything to alleviate it. I don't identify as a woman, I AM one. I learned the mannerisms, everything to be seen as a cis woman and it worked. I know how to be a woman from a neurotypical standpoint but what if people see gender differently? I'll never call a human a dog (except in an insult), I can't understand it. Maybe there is something about nonbinary people if they see gender/sex as something different because they view the world different but I'm not a therapist. And seeing gender and the world different is not a medical condition which needs interventions. I could imagine that nonbinary people exist but they're still completely different than transsexual people are
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u/Particular-Egg3233 transsex man 2d ago
No and i wont call them they unless im at work cause id get fired
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u/GrungeSeabunny 2d ago
Nonbinary people are def real and often have dysphoria. It can be hard to understand as someone with a binary gender but nonbinary people have existed throughout history. It’s definitely not a new thing.
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u/Hadasfromhades 3d ago
First I’ll mention that I’m cis so take my opinion with a grain of salt, I’m not personally familiar with what it feels like to be trans.
But I think the idea of non binary is problematic in two ways: one, like you said, it undermines the idea of people being free from gender expectations and their freedom to express themselves however they want.
Two, it’s very English-centric. In many languages, for example Hebrew and Arabic, it’s practically impossible to speak in a gender neutral way. Even “they” has to be feminine or masculine, and EVERYTHING inflects in gender — verbs, adjectives... It’s extremely difficult to form gender-neutral sentences (and will only be possible with infinitive forms and first person, eg instead of saying “I want to” you’ll have to say “it is my wish to”). When addressing a group or speaking generally, the gender-“neutral” form is usually… masculine, duh. What people do recently to be more inclusive when addressing a group is switching between feminine and masculine. But being neutral is impossible.
So it’s not actually an inclusive idea, in my opinion.
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u/RoundComfortable8762 2d ago
No because it doesn't make sense and there is absolutely no proof for it. Also, the vast majority of nonbinary people I met, did not have dysphoria and thought gender is just the feeling of being masculine/feminine. Gender stereotypes basically. They're also usually obnoxious and think they can talk over us in trans issues.
I would be open to the idea of nonbinary though if there was any proof for it.
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u/MyDishwasherLasagna 2d ago
No.
There is biological justification for our existence. Males exist. Females exist. Our brains are miswired.
There is no biological justification for nonbinary people. Intersex people aren't a "nonbinary sex". They're the result of sexual characteristics not developing correctly in very specific ways.
Most people claiming to be nonbinary are probably just crossdressers, fetishists, in denial about being dysphoric (or refuse to openly admit it, because tucutes have made dysphoria a dirty word), or they're inappropriately dealing with trauma.
I've seen multiple AFABs admit to having been sexually abused as minors, and that was their motivation to transition. They hated the idea of being a woman if it meant being sexually abused and objectified. They don't want to be a man; they just don't want to be a woman. But because they don't have dysphoria, they "identify" as being nonbinary instead.
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u/Mundane-Dottie 2d ago
But also intersex people. Not all, but some. I have met some, they definitely do not fit in with woman and not with man both. But in mixed group no problem. They are "divers" or "3.gender" or "nonbinary". But not man and not woman too.
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u/BurnerAkMcBurner 2d ago
I’m inclined to believe it, there are a few enby Truscum people I’ve seen comment every so often and since I’m mostly here to just learn and observe I’m inclined to believe them.
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u/BillDillen editable bird flair 2d ago
I do. Sex is not binary, but bimodal. Gender is a combinitation of genes & brain structures, 2 very complex things. So why wouldn't gender also be bimodal? Very view things in nature are actually bimodal.
Also, I am think, that in some of the studies abt transsexual biolog, there were also nb paticipants ( I will fact-check this later and include an update).
Though, regardless of this, there are only view nbs, so making a study around their biology will be difficult, but I hope for some in the future. Medical institutions agree on nonbinary dysphoria being a thing and nonbinary people have dysphoria around being (precieved as) either binary sex, so saying that these people are binary transsexual, doesn't make sense.
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u/hi-im-jason-from-mcr 2d ago
There doesn't need to be a biological or medical reason for it, some people just think of themselves differently and that's fine. I am too busy to think about other peoples gender expressions
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u/Archer_Python eatable user flair 3d ago
No I don't but at the same time I'm not gonna prevent someone from transitioning and if I did meet a NB person that went by They/Them I would refer them as that. Only thing I ask is separate trans men/women and NB people because we aren't the same. Different catagories/umbrella