Again, there are non-binary people out there, and they’re just as legitimate and have just as many rights as any of the rest of us. But “trans” is not an accurate description for those people, any more than “cis” is. “Trans” means “on the other side”, and you’re not on the “other side” if you’re not on any side at all.
Yeah, it’s easy to get confused with labels that span gender as well as sexual orientation, and maybe the whole “trans” thing is complicated by the term having been coined back when people were used to thinking of gender being only male or female. I was thinking that although I’ve heard of trans-male and trans-female, I’ve never heard of trans-intersex or trans-asexual. But I guess there is no reason to assume such a category might not exist, which of course assumes we need a category for everything in the first place.
And as regards the rules of this MB, I think we should focus on whether a person is being sincere, is genuinely ignorant, or is trying the mock people. That’s what matters rather than insisting everyone always get their genders and sexual orientations precisely correct.
Concur completely with this, which is why I said I had no concerns with the moderating decision.
And it’s why I highlighted my own comment as being more pedantic (in the good sense of the word) with respect to the issue.
I’m not an expert, but I have talked to people online who identify as trans but not gender binary. They still “transitioned” in the sense that they stopped identifying as their birth gender. One I know got top surgery to remove the obvious indication that they were born female.
On the other hand, I’ve also seen some rants by trans* who thought they were muddying the waters and leading to people seeing trans men and trans women as not really men and women, respectively. (Though they are far more upset by crossdressers taking on the label, even though they acknowledge there are some overlap in issues for both.)
Either way, I am 1000% with Bricker on this, and in fact refused to join a set of message board until I found out they were going to add an “other” option to their required gender identification. (I presume for advertising purposes.) If it isn’t required, I don’t care. But requiring gender and enforcing the gender binary? I do not support that, and I told them so.
I’m not sure I agree that this is a useful categorization. “Trans,” can refer to “the other side,” of one’s biological sex, one’s expected gender identity, or one’s expected gender expression - at a minimum.
That is to say, an individual may be trans by virtue of a gender expression that differs from from one’s assigned sex at birth, but be genderqueer with respect to gender identity.
Perhaps the bias is unexamined because the explanation is too simple and obvious: heterosexual men and women have contributed to the propagation of the species in the obvious ways, by siring and bearing children; others have not. But now medical science has improved to the point where that latter is changing.
What better reason to re-examine long-held assumptions, then? 
Classic physics worked fine for dropping stuff off Italian towers, but ultimately, as our understanding of the world grew, it became clear that the traditional models were insufficient.
That’s interesting. I’d always been led to believe that gender-queer, as a nomenclature, specifically referred to people who identified as cisgender, but whom rejected social and cultural gender norms.
I’m not sure that’s wrong. The point I was making was that Q encompasses more than just gender-queer. It includes people whose sexual orientation does not fit comfortably within a category, among other things.
Honest question: How can you identify as cisgendered and also reject social and cultural gender norms?
AFAICT because “cisgendered” is biology and “male/female/man/woman” is social and cultural. The nomenclature “cisgendered” is misleading, IOW, because having a penis or a vulva isn’t a gender. It is similar to the notion that a person who comes out as a transwoman isn’t changing genders - ‘I was always a woman, now I am admitting it.’
Regards,
Shodan
Yes. “Cisgendered,” can mean that your biological sex at birth matches your gender identity but is not related or consistent with your gender expression.
OK. That’s even more confusing than the statement that generated my question, but I think at this point I’ll just drop it.
The simplest, albeit crudest way I can think to express it: say you’re a cis male who identifies as male, but you prefer to wear traditionally women’s clothing, and/or feel more comfortable performing in traditionally/stereotypically ‘feminine’ roles, you would be gender-queer.
I think they’re making it too complicated. Try these examples instead.
Even though I am a cisgender male, I could choose to reject the male gender norms. For example, I could go around wearing dresses and feminine-looking makeup.
I’d still be male. I’d still identify as a man. But I’d be rejecting the cultural/social gender norms that say I have to avoid those things because I’m a man.
Not everything has to be that absolute, either. A cisgender woman could just choose to be an engineer. Sure, female engineers aren’t that uncommon. But it’s still a role where the “norm” is that it is a man’s job. (And, if you disagree, substitute some other job traditionally held by men.)
And, finally, there’s just the idea that I might not be talking about myself. This is actually my position. I reject gender norms. I follow a lot of them myself, but only because I choose to. I reject the idea that I should see that guy wearing a dress and makeup as “weird” and “wrong.” I reject the idea that men must be tough and women must be delicate flowers.
It’s similar to how someone can be a feminist, but also want to be a traditional housewife with no outside job and who basically lets the husband take the lead on everything.
You can even have, for instance, someone born with ambiguous physical sexual traits, raised as a boy, who becomes an engineer, who’s attracted to women, and who still describes herself as female.
EDIT: I hope that I’m not intruding on her privacy by saying that, but she’s made all of that known publicly on the board.
Do you mean me?
Chronos, you didn’t mention a name or hint at anyone in specific until you made the disclaimer that suggests your example is a poster on this board. Mighta just left that out.
It’d be surprising if we had two members by that description, wouldn’t it? I think I got it accurate. And again, my apologies if it was inappropriate to say so.
Neither inaccurate nor inappropriate. I just wondered. I’ve been very scarce for a while so for all I knew there was…another.