Non-Binary Awareness Week

This week has been Non-binary Awareness Week, with International Non-binary Peoples Day mid-week, on the 14th July. Nevertheless, I felt that articles celebrating this week still didn't quite capture and explain many aspects of what it means to be non-binary. This makes me wonder how cis people are meant to understand the various ways in which people are non-binary and how to be an ally, given that articles keep skating over important distinctions and definitions or over-focusing on only some ways to be non-binary. As a non-binary person, I can fill in the missing information for myself, but cis people cannot because they need to appreciate and empathise with the feelings and experiences of non-cis people, without simply relying on understanding what they are saying through their own life experiences. However, the slant of most articles is not just unhelpful for cis people and allies. As a non-binary person myself, the angle of most articles makes me feel unrepresented and misunderstood. There are some good articles, blogs and websites but even so, some key concepts can be so briefly summed up in just one sentence that I wonder how others are meant to grasp vital aspects of non-binary people's gender identity. So I shall try to address these issues over the course of several posts, including today. Here, I shall briefly focus on one issue I've seen perpetuated repeatedly this week. 

Gender Identity or Gender Expression? Is It Down to Clothes? 

I've noticed that gender identity and gender expression are often conflated and that gender expression is oversimplified down to clothing. The stereotypical example of a man wanting to sometimes put on female clothing is wheeled out, while examples of women who cross-dress, non-binary women and a myriad of other scenarios are ignored. 🙄 How does this raise awareness of what it means to identify as a non-binary? One, it just plays into the hands of TERFs who have a habit of reducing all non-cis people down to men temporarily dressing in women's clothing to try to excuse why they are arguing against trans and non-binary people's human rights. Binarism (reducing everything down to two opposites) about biological sex and gender identity has everything in common with Patriarchy and frankly nothing to do with Feminism, so the latter should not be used as an excuse to construct arguments against LGBTQIAPD2S+ rights. Two, we almost never read about women who dress in menswear. What about their experiences and perspective? Three, it causes confusion by conflating basic concepts which in turn can generate misinformation and myths. 

One way to conceptualize the difference between gender identity and gender expression is that identity is an internal sense of self whereas expression is how you externally present yourself e.g. clothes. The link between the two is that people often express their internal sense of their gender identity/identities through their clothes and their manner. Thus, simply wearing clothes designed for the so-called opposite sex does not make someone non-binary in terms of identity, because wearing it does not reflect how they feel about themselves on the inside. It also would not count as non-binary gender expression if they did not also feel that they were expressing themselves while wearing it. If the person feels that wearing it helps them express themselves while their gender identity remains fully the same as the one they were assigned, then this is gender expression, not identity. Society constructs such narrow descriptions and expectations of what male and female gender expression should look like that many cis people will feel the bar is too high and unrealistic so will often not conform to these societal expectations. 

So, what am I referring to when I say gender identity? How does this inner sense of self manifest itself? The general description given on the internet is good but very general: it incorporates not only clothes and appearance but also mannerisms, expressions of behaviour, interests, hobbies, mentality, mindset, outlook, social interactions. However, articles rarely explain this fully so I'll convey it through my personal experience as a non-binary woman, without using terms and labels which at the moment could distract from my point. I identify with the sex I was assigned at birth / my biological sex of female, but I am non-binary because female/woman is not my only gender identity, meaning I am not cis (those who only, fully identity with their assigned sex). Furthermore, I shall be talking from my perspective as a lesbian who is non-binary, which gives me a different angle and experience from heterosexual non-binary people. In addition, I'm non-binary in a genderfluid way, not in an aporagender way. To clarify, apora meaning separate so referring to a separate gender identity ie. not feeling male, female or anything along the spectrum between the two yet have a sense of a gender identity nonetheless. In ancient and indigenous cultures, this is often seen as third gender. Therefore, I don't feel misgendered when people refer to me as she/her and I'm happy to use female pronouns. Nevertheless, as a genderfluid non-binary person, I'm comfortable with a range of pronouns. Hence, I'm not especially bothered about my pronouns so don't write my preferred pronouns on my social media etc. 

Here's some examples of my experiences of being a non-binary, genderfluid woman. I find I relate to the so-called opposite sex, ie. men, differently from cis women. I'm much more matter of fact with men and don't actually feel as though I am relating to someone who is the opposite sex. Sometimes I feel as though I'm having a man-to-man conversation with them, but not in a way which makes me want to become a trans man. I don't feel as though they are an especially different sex from me. But I often don't feel either the same sex or a different sex from men, just quite gender neutral or blokey with them but without becoming a man. As a lesbian who has never had any sexual attraction to men (which is not true of many lesbians) there's no flirtiness between me and men so that enables me to communicate with them as a non-binary person. I see men only as mates I might have a beer with 🍻. But that doesn't mean I feel like or try to be a ladette. And I can have a good man-to-man chat with various types of men from differing backgrounds, jobs, who have different masculine identities and expressions along the masculine gender spectrum. For instance, it's not just chats with male academics, I've had blokey chats about DIY with various tradesmen e.g. a window fitter and a plumber. 

I have been the only woman in a larger group setting but I don't feel as though I am the only woman there, physically or mentally. I don't feel self-conscious that I have a female body and the men don't and I often find I identify with the way some men think and feel about things. I often cannot identify with the way (cis) women think and feel about things, in fact, it can even do my head in! I can't always relate to many cis women's stories of their experiences e.g. most women in philosophy say they struggle with what they call the male culture in the philosophy world of doing contras and presenting adversarial arguments. Whereas this doesn't bother me at all. Perhaps unlike men, I don't look for opportunities to be adversarial and argue against theories or papers. But I'm perfectly happy to engage with other philosophers in this style, whether it is raising a contra myself or defending my theories/papers/books against contras from others. I'm also comfortable asking questions, commenting or providing critical but constructive peer review, unlike many women. I am also baffled why women think analytic thinking and logic are male skills or traits while labelling cooperative, collaborative approaches female. Perhaps because I'm non-binary, I find both so-called female and male approaches come naturally and don't gender either style. 

Conversely, I attended what turned out to be an all female philosophy conference and felt very at ease and identified as a woman amongst the other women. I was very happy there were no men about for a change - a rare thing in philosophy, which it shouldn't be! 

Why is any of this important? Because people need to know who they are to be able to understand themselves. It's basic to psychology and wellbeing and is the main journey everyone goes through in life. People can't go around being confused by themselves or others around them. It helps so that people don't make wrong choices for themselves or misjudge others in society. So it not only benefits individuals but also society otherwise you cause harm to those who are outside of the gender binary. Thus, awareness weeks need to provide necessary information, including concepts, terms, information and a wide variety of labels and identities, to help people be sensitive to those around them in society. And for those who live outside the gender binary in some way, if they don't understand the complexities of gender identity, they won't understand their inner feelings and life experiences and might think they are just a weirdo, a misfit, or erroneously think they have some mental issues or illnesses they don't possess.