Non-binary is basically an underlying desire to escape gender norms, and I think, considering how common it is among biological females, that might include wanting to avoid being sexualized (by cishet men).
The truth most radfems don't want to accept, however, is that complete gender abolition is unattainable. It's as realistic as persuading everyone in the United States to embrace communism. It ain't happening. Even if we could do the transhumanist thing and change our sex at the cellular level (which the radical feminist Shulamith Firestone advocated, by the way), the trappings of gender would continue to exist. It's a permanent feature of human social organization, and it's especially true of a culture like ours that just can't let anything gender-related go. Trans/non-binary identity, however misguided or misattributed, is the inevitable pushback, even if it seems counterproductive.
I do think more people will detransition (hopefully more socially than medically) as the dust settles, so to speak, but no one can pressure, psychoanalyze, or medicate all transness out of existence. There will always be some people who really do find fulfillment in living and presenting as the opposite sex. I'm not sure how long non-binary will persist or what it will entail in the future, but I guess it's here to stay. People will do as they like with their bodies, and I have no problem referring to anyone as they/them.
I just wish wanting others to take medical risks and psychological motivations into account wasn't considered TERFism. I'm not an ideologue championing either side.
What do we need on this site? More controversy, I guess
Any thoughts on the label "non-binary"? What does it mean? Why has it become so ubiquitous? Am I missing something? I genuinely do not understand this phenomenon at all.
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Totally agree that gender abolition is an unrealistic fantasy. Yes, gender is social and baked into human civilization, but there are also biological reasons that people behave in gendered ways as well.
Trans identities make sense to me--rejecting certain parts of your body, desperately wanting to be in another body, liking some parts but hating others--this is all familiar to me. This is not totally analogous, but when I was in my 20s I was diagnosed with a very serious, debilitating autoimmune disease, and so my relationship with my own body has been...complicated, to say the least. I recognize that this is a huge bias on my part, but it has informed a lot on how I think about many issues, especially when they touch on health.
Because of all that, I am very skeptical of the medical and surgical procedures that trans people undergo, and I am especially wary when it is children getting them. Making a permanent alteration on your body when you are an adult is one thing; it is totally different when we are talking about pre-pubescent kids.
Non-binary on the other hand, I really struggle to understand. While I get wanting to escape the highly gendered world we live in --and perhaps, the restrictive expectations and judgments that come with being A Man or A Woman -- non-binary just seems like androgyny to me. Which seems more of a stylistic choice than an identity or a feeling in your body.
Regarding pronouns: I can handle using they/them pronouns when I am speaking just fine. But for some reason it really throws me off when they/them is used in, say, a newspaper article. It's too bad we don't have gender neutral pronouns like the Chinese "ta."
This article was peculiar in a way that bothered me. The author says they used to feel like a person rather than a woman. It’s a feeling. Then, after their ex transitioned, they have a revelation that their ex could never have the same experience natural born women have.
The author then goes on to use a number of purely logical arguments for why any other woman considering being non-binary should not. It feels completely ineffective to me.
The original position she had was based on a feeling, not logic. Constructing a logical argument for why others should now feel the same as her seems like the wrong form of argument. I think it would have been more interesting to hear the feelings which led to her changing her opinion, rather than logical arguments, because logic did not seem to be the basis of her original opinion.
This piece very much has the feeling to me similar to when someone is against gay rights, but then changes positions when their child comes out as gay. The logical arguments made after the fact feel like backfilling an argument for something which is actually an emotional reaction and expecting other people to believe it now. If the logic stands on its own, as they argue, why did they not believe it before?