Thank you, that makes a lot of sense 
@puzzlegal - mine aren’t big enough to cause me too much trouble and I suppose a lot of gym time has helped with the support issues. I wear sports bras a lot too, that keeps things pretty well confined and out of the way.
What I’ve always been curious about is how you know that you’re feeling one gender or the other?
I mean, I’ve always identified as male, and as far as I know, felt male. I’m not sure I’d even know that I was having a non-binary moment (for lack of a better term) if I was. I don’t have a frame of reference of what feeling female (or even just not male) to know that I wasn’t feeling male, and just strange, versus feeling like maybe I’m not male.
That’s what I’ve always wondered about, myself.
Sometimes you feel like you should have nuts. Sometimes you don’t.
Welcome to the Board! I’m glad you liked my electrical signal analogy.
On the subject of attraction, does that vary with your brain state? Or, are you primarily attracted to men (given your comment about having a boyfriend), or either, or something else?
Modnote: This is a fairly inappropriate thread to make light of the subject. Please refrain in the future. Read the room if you will.
I can speak to that a little bit. @EllieNeo is pansexual. I don’t know if she particularly favors one gender over another, however.
How is pansexual different than bisexual? I know it’s different, but I don’t understand the difference. Can you give an example of one versus the other?
I believe it’s that bisexual implies there are two and only two genders to choose from as sexual/romantic interests. Pansexual identifies that there’s a spectrum of genders that one might find attractive. Like not men or women but also or exclusively feminine men and masculine women (among others).
Pan means that you’re attracted to cis, trans, enby, etc., as far as I know.
I believe @EllieNeo would say that she’s attracted to the spirit of the person and isn’t so concerned about their physical shape. (Or, at least, not their genitalia.) Growing up, she had both cis boyfriends and cis girlfriends. I don’t know if she’s ever fallen in love with anyone who’s trans or enby, but since she’s pansexual, I assume she’s open to it.
I can only testify to my own experience (but isn’t that everyone’s case, come to think of it?)…
My gender was constantly brought to my attention. Brought in and dumped at my feet, you could say. The other elementary school kids made an issue of it and pushed me to make some kind of reply.
“How come you don’t join in when we tell dirty jokes / make fun of the girls / write things on the chalkboard to get at the teacher? You don’t act like a normal boy!”
“Why do you walk like that? Keep your feet down, and walk like this, make your hands into fists. Quit bouncing, why do you skip? Are you a girl or something?”
“It’s you and the girls. Nobody else is such a teacher’s pet and all little lord fauntleroy and shit. What’s wrong with you, Alice?”
“This is the girls’ area. Why don’t you play with the boys? Anybody want him here?”
“Queer sissy homo fairy pansy. Why you act like such a girl? C’mon, I’ll fight ya. C’mon, put 'em up, prove you’re a man”
It’s not like they only did it to me. Lots of boys got this now and then. But the expected reply was an indignant shove or verbal pushback, “Whodafuck you callin’ a girl, fuckface?” and I didn’t find it so insulting to be thought to be like a girl so I was more like “Yeah, so?”
Nobody has a gender in a vacuum. If you were raised by friendly unisex critters who hugged you and fed you and told you bedtime stories that didn’t have boys and girls and men and women in them, you would not conjure up a notion of “what a boy is like” or “what being a man is all about” or “how girls are” or “what it means to be a woman”. We wouldn’t even have a notion of what humans are like, assuming the unisex caretakers were of some other species. Identities come from pattern recognition and comparison-making and seeing things we have in common with others.
Interesting… When the other boys told me I wasn’t masculine enough, I always just concluded that they were idiots, because there was nothing inconsistent between the things I was doing or not doing and maleness.
@ekedolphin you’re right that growing up, i had both cis boyfriends and cis girlfriends. my boyfriend that i have now is trans. he’s the love of my life. the descriptions i’ve seen in here about bisexual vs pansexual aren’t exactly correct… i would classify pansexual as “gender blind” more than anything else. as you said, i’m more attracted to the person’s spirit than what’s in their pants.
I always just concluded that boys are idiots, and who’d want to be one anyway? They were telling me I wasn’t one. Even a stopped clock is correct a couple times a day. I wasn’t one of the idiots. I belonged with the girls and was proud of it.
I play upright bass. I find it curious that over the past week, I have been approached by 2 non-binary 13 yr-olds who are interested in plying bass.
No, I couldn’t give a shit what their body parts and preferences are/were. It has been an interesting and welcome experience to get my aged and infirm mind around describing them as “they” instead of him or her, and just reminding myself that I really don’t need to think about whether they are/were boys or girls. It is just fun dealing w/ them as bassists.
It has been a nice reminder of the fact that you really are limited in how you CAN think of people who differ from you if you don’t have the opportunity to deal with them directly. I’m glad this opportunity has arisen so naturally.
Thank you for that explanation. I consider myself an independent voter because there are areas on both side of the political spectrum I strongly believe in and advocate for. Tying that in with genderfluid and non-binary people really helps me understand and put it into perspective because I have also been confused by the terminology.
DesertWife was still grumbling about losing a cup size – from B to A – with her second daughter thirteen years previously. I would remind her that she (the daughter) was worth a little boobage.
Is there any generally preferred “title” to address someone who is nonbinary?
In my work, I generally refer to people as Mr or Ms Surname, or Sir/Maam.
I recently had occasion to interact with someone whom I realized had nonbinary pronoun preferences. I asked the their preferences, and they said “plural - they/them.” But I realized I had asked the wrong question - I should have asked what personal title they prefer to be addressed as. My work is formal enough that use of first name seems a tad informal. But in this case, I just referred to them as Firstname Surname.
Would it offend someone who prefers they/them if I refer to them as Mx? Or do I need to ask?
Mx is the title. I have a couple of friends who go by Mx.
I pretty much never use a title. If i did, i might request Mx just to strike a blow for ungendered titles. But it’s certainly not worth my while to write to junk mailers and ask them to change my title, and that’s about the only stuff a get with a title.
Thx. Just to be careful, when the situation occurs again I suspect I’ll ask, “Is it OK if I address you as Mx Surname, or do you prefer some other form of address?”