# Help me understand non-binary gender **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 2, 2022, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-understand-non-binary-gender/970826 "2022-09-02T17:31:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![ekedolphin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ekedolphin/32/10003_2.png) [@ekedolphin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ekedolphin)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2022, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-understand-non-binary-gender/970826/21 "2022-09-02T18:55:01Z")
> [@ekedolphin](#): > > I’ll see if I can convince my sister to sign up for the Dope and do an AMA . She might! And she’d be a good addition to the Dope besides; she’s a good egg. ---
**Author:** ![EllieNeo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/65b543/32.png) [@EllieNeo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllieNeo)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2022, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-understand-non-binary-gender/970826/22 "2022-09-02T19:05:13Z")
i’m here now. i saw the analogy about electric circuits, and it seems kinda accurate. ask away. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2022, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-understand-non-binary-gender/970826/23 "2022-09-02T19:07:34Z")
On the [pronouns and idiot fascists](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronouns-and-idiot-fascists/970369/294) thread running concurrently, many of the people who posted said they do not have a gender identity – that gender isn’t a component of their identity, that they don’t identify with the gender associated with their sex OR a different gender. Many nonbinary people describe their own situation in almost exactly the same way. They consider the world to be constructed around “the binary”, i.e., either you’re one of the girls/women or you’re one of the boys/men, and they feel they don’t fit either. That they are _agender_ or _neutrois_, that gender does not apply to them, they don’t have one. So if the folks who say they don’t get gender make sense to you, you already understand nonbinary at least in part. Not all nonbinary people are specifically agender though. It’s another umbrella term, so it covers more than one way of not fitting the either/or of binary gender identities. Other flavors of ninbinary include being gender_fluid_ (people who have boy days and girl days; or who had boy decades but have been having a few decades of being girl since then, or whatever) and also people like me (I’m femme, which is binary, but my sex is male, and the binary assumes your sex and your gender are a matched set; mine are not). ---
**Author:** ![ekedolphin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ekedolphin/32/10003_2.png) [@ekedolphin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ekedolphin)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2022, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-understand-non-binary-gender/970826/24 "2022-09-02T19:14:34Z")
Y’all, this is my sister. 😃 Welcome to the Dope! ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2022, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-understand-non-binary-gender/970826/25 "2022-09-02T19:15:11Z")
Welcome to the Dope. ---
**Author:** ![filmore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7993a0/32.png) [@filmore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmore)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2022, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-understand-non-binary-gender/970826/26 "2022-09-02T19:16:58Z")
Using politics as an analogy, some people don’t want to be thought of as being Republican or Democrat. They don’t feel like either party accurately represents their political beliefs and they don’t want to be viewed as belonging to either party. These people may say that they are politically independent. That’s kind of like being non-binary in a political sense. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2022, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-understand-non-binary-gender/970826/27 "2022-09-02T19:17:08Z")
I’ve read the thread and I guess I am enlightened at least somewhat. I have a 15 yo grandson (I will call him that until I am told what he wants to be called) who has just declared himself NB, without explaining what that means. I haven’t been enlightened as to his pronouns. I have a 27 yo grandson who describes themself as asexual and their parents use “they”. I am unsure what that means. I mean, if I were uninterested in sex, I would still use “he”. Any help would be appreciated. ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2022, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-understand-non-binary-gender/970826/28 "2022-09-02T19:23:35Z")
@EllieNeo welcome! In my example of Eddie Izzard it would seem that their gender expression, at least in two instances, is tied to the job they are doing at the time. When appearing as herself, the famous person, she’s going female. When doing an acting job, she is presenting male. @ekedolphin mentioned that you “switch” how you present like Izzard. Are there settings or jobs/tasks where you always decide one way or the other? ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2022, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-understand-non-binary-gender/970826/29 "2022-09-02T19:28:28Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > At risk of being another fish flopping about and wondering what it is like to drown, I have long wondered if it is more bodily dysphoria or societal gender roles that are being rejected by non-conforming gender types. As someone who has, only in recent years, come to understand that I am not strictly cisgendered, for me, it’s more of the latter than the former (and has been since childhood). ---
**Author:** ![EllieNeo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/65b543/32.png) [@EllieNeo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllieNeo)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2022, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-understand-non-binary-gender/970826/30 "2022-09-02T19:38:12Z")
i don’t “decide,” exactly. my brain decides it for me. certain thoughts and actions will make it switch, but i have no control over what makes it switch. my brain switches between “girl brain” and “guy brain” all the time. i also have a large amount of time where i’m somewhere in between. i noticed my brother mentioned my binder, which i wear during guy brain. i had to pick a brand that is easy to get on and off, because i often switch several times in a day. i wish my job made it so that i was stuck in one gender for the day, but it doesn’t. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2022, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-understand-non-binary-gender/970826/31 "2022-09-02T19:40:19Z")
Thanks for starting this thread. Non-binary is the area that has been most confusing to me, and I was afraid to ask for fear of being accused of being a TERF or something. Sometimes, I’d see it described more as an agender thing, and other times are more of a gender fluid thing. So, it’s both? There are no agender folks…just non-binary who sometimes don’t feel like either gender, but sometimes do? ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2022, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-understand-non-binary-gender/970826/32 "2022-09-02T20:15:36Z")
> [@DocCathode](#): > > I’m looking forward to learning from this thread. Likewise. I think maybe I sorta understand it but I might well be wrong. Lurking. (other than this, obviously. And hi, @EllieNeo!) ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2022, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-understand-non-binary-gender/970826/33 "2022-09-02T20:42:30Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > Not all nonbinary people are specifically agender though. It’s another umbrella term, so it covers more than one way of not fitting the either/or of binary gender identities. Other flavors of ninbinary include being gender_fluid_ (people who have boy days and girl days; or who had boy decades but have been having a few decades of being girl since then, or whatever) and also people like me (I’m femme, which is binary, but my sex is male, and the binary assumes your sex and your gender are a matched set; mine are not). In general, I don’t care much about anyone’s gender identification or sexual orientation. I’d just as soon have everyone be as happy or content as they are capable of. If someone I cared about told me they were nonbinary - and if our relation was of a certain intimacy, I’d ask them, “What does that mean.” But in the vast majority of situations, I really don’t care if anyone is cis, gay, nonbinary, or whatever. It just doesn’t have any relevance to our interaction. Ad I don’t care who uses which bathroom! 😃 Is it fair to analogize being nonbinary to my being atheist? It can be irritating the extent to which so much in society is geared toward belief. But there really are few places that I NEED to express my atheism. What are situations in which a cis person ought to really even think about persons being nonbinary? That is - unless a friend/family member/loved one tells you they are. Then, since I don’t really see that many situations where I need to know about anyone’s gender identity, how concerned ought I be about getting the terminology correct? I acknowledge my ignorance in this area (and many others). As I said, I truly wish to avoid inadvertently offending others, and I really wish more people were more content. ---
**Author:** ![Charlie\_Tan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/charlie_tan/32/12582_2.png) [@Charlie\_Tan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Tan)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2022, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-understand-non-binary-gender/970826/34 "2022-09-02T20:47:48Z")
I am one of those fish drowning. @EllieNeo I hope I’m not being too nosy but are you comfortable with your co-workers? I know only one trans person (F-\>M) and while I’m sure there have been quite a few around me, they certainly didn’t announce their situation. What I do know is that if a co-worker, back in the 80’s, had switched from guy to gal during the workday, it would’ve have caused… I can’t find a single word that expresses all: chaos, alarm, bewilderment, disgust, anger, disbelief. Sadly. And, of course, this is why they did everything to stay under the radar. ---
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2022, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-understand-non-binary-gender/970826/35 "2022-09-02T21:04:57Z")
> [@Buck\_Godot](#): > > THIS IN NOT THE THREAD TO DISCUSS WHETHER NON-BINARY IDENTITY EXISTS OR IS REAL. Ah, but _ **is** _ it the thread? ---
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2022, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-understand-non-binary-gender/970826/36 "2022-09-02T21:06:26Z")
> [@EllieNeo](#): > > i noticed my brother mentioned my binder, which i wear during guy brain. i had to pick a brand that is easy to get on and off, because i often switch several times in a day. Why do you feel a need to wear it? ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2022, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-understand-non-binary-gender/970826/37 "2022-09-02T21:35:52Z")
> [@Buck\_Godot](#): > > my general feeling was that most of my gender identity came from the fact that I have been socialized to be a male for my entire life I don’t think this is quite correct. The details of gender _presentation_ (conventions of male/female behavior and appearance) are obviously socially constructed. In other words, the way you choose to _express_ your identity is socially construced. But your underlying gender identity itself, your internal sense of self as male/female/nonbinary, is not socially constructed. The evidence for that claim is simply that trans & nonbinary people exist, and have always existed, and are usually persistent in their internal sense of who they are _despite_ (historically) massive social pressure to conform to cis-binary norms. It makes little sense to suggest that people identify as trans or nonbinary because _society_ made them that way, when in general society has marginalized and persecuted people for being that way. So I think the same is true of your cis-binary identity. That’s just who you are, it’s not a social construct, it’s your brain’s firmware - you would not have been trans or nonbinary if you had been socialized differently. Just as being gay or straight is not a choice, social conditioning does not determine your gender identity. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2022, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-understand-non-binary-gender/970826/38 "2022-09-02T21:58:25Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Do we have any good figures for what percentage of the population reports as non-binary? I dunno if they’re good figures, but [this June 2021 survey report sez:](https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/press/lgbtq-nonbinary-press-release/) > [@](#): > > An estimated 11% of LGBTQ adults in the U.S.—approximately 1.2 million people—identify as nonbinary, according to a new study by the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law. The majority of them are under age 29, urban, and white. That would be somewhere under 0.4% of the US population. Of course, those numbers seem a bit iffy in terms of demographic distribution, unless there is some reason that nonbinary identity would inherently be disproportionately young and/or white and/or urban. It seems likely that those are just the groups most willing to articulate and claim that identity. Another hello and welcome to EllieNeo! Etiquette question: Ellie, your sibling ekedolphin said that you use female pronouns; is that how you’d like us to refer to you here on the Dope, or does your preference change depending on whether you’re in “girl brain” or “guy brain”? (If so, I don’t really know how we could tell, but that’s why I’m asking you, since I’m guessing you are well experienced in navigating this issue!) ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2022, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-understand-non-binary-gender/970826/39 "2022-09-02T22:16:55Z")
I think what @Buck_Godot is talking about is a little different - what I’m understanding him to say ( and I could be wrong) is that if he had been exactly the same person born into a body with female parts, he believes that person would have been a “tomboy” lesbian ( as that person would still be attracted to women) but would not have identified as male because perhaps if someone doesn’t strongly identify with male or female they will just default to whatever matches their body as an identity regardless of what society thinks about their traits and interests. There are plenty of people with female body parts who identify as women even though most of their personality traits and interests would be seen by society as “masculine” ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2022, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-understand-non-binary-gender/970826/40 "2022-09-02T22:30:39Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Of course, those numbers seem a bit iffy in terms of demographic distribution, unless there is some reason that nonbinary identity would inherently be disproportionately young and/or white and/or urban. It seems likely that those are just the groups most willing to articulate and claim that identity. It would be interesting to see how the survey explains that. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-understand-non-binary-gender/970826.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-understand-non-binary-gender/970826.md?page=3)