Comment by whistling-wonderer on 15/01/2025 at 04:07 UTC

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View submission: Do non-binary identities reenforce gender stereotypes?

In case another person’s two cents might help—

I am nonbinary and was a lot like you growing up—non-stereotypical interests, not interested in fitting gendered expectations for dress and grooming, etc. I do *not* think that’s why I would call myself nonbinary. I know plenty of people who are like that and don’t have any question marks about their gender.

I did however have other experiences growing up that were more specifically about gender identity itself than about social gender expectations/stereotypes:

growing up, when the class was split into boys/girls, I never felt like I actually belonged in one or the other
starting young, I disliked my (very gendered) name and also gendered pronouns
I wished all children were raised completely gender neutral (including pronouns and names) and got to “opt in” to gender later, only if they wanted to
as soon as I learned what intersex was (middle school I think?), I started wondering if maybe I was intersex, if that might explain why I felt like this
when thinking about gender, it seemed to me as though other people had some sort of internal picture and I had a blank sheet. I don’t feel the need to fill in the sheet, but it is odd for it to be blank when other people each have their own picture

All of the above happened before I ever heard the word nonbinary or knew there was a name for it. Hell, I barely even knew there were trans men and women.

As a young adult, I had an experience where someone asked if I was a boy or girl, and the delight I felt caught me totally off guard. I wasn’t going for that ambiguity, it’s just how I’ve ended up looking. I knew I had that blank space but I had kind of avoided looking at it; that experience brought it to the forefront. I know most of my social circle wouldn’t react that way. Most people, even if they say they don’t feel a strong sense of gender, get pretty bothered at being mistaken for a different gender, called by the wrong pronouns, etc. Or if their bodies started doing things they felt were wrong (e.g. breast development for men, beards for women). I should note that my body does naturally have some secondary sex characteristics that “clash” with my biological sex. I don’t mind these. I like them as much as any part of my body (which I like!), despite some of my family expressing distaste.

Anyway, there was a lot more time and thought and mapping things out that went into it before I finally settled on the label “nonbinary” as shorthand for “I don’t have a strong sense of gender.” I don’t know how else to explain that because it’s a lack. If I hadn’t been taught gender identity was a thing then it simply wouldn’t be a thing for me.

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