Non-binary genders

[Neutraligon]

I haven't faced that issue, but then my gender expression tends to be female (at least in how I dress) so I guess they place me that way. On most forums I go to thoguh, I am always mistaken for a man and people are often shocked when I tell them technically I am a female(sex).

Ditto. It would be lovely if I had a body which reflected my internal genderlessness, but my build and features are such that it would take a tremendous amount of work to appear as anything other than a woman. And I just can't be arsed.

This is actually one of the only places online where I am "out" as being biologically female, since one of the major things I enjoy about being online is that I don't have to have gender imposed on me the way I do in meatspace.

I'm in a similar boat as far as my body goes (being petite and rather full busted is not helpful). When I come out on other forums it normally is only to friends on that forum, and only when I know how they feel about gender.

[Neutraligon]

Androgynous means some sort of combination of man and woman. I am not a combination of any gender.

Don't want to come off offensively but it does exclude you from a lot of society as many people may not know who you are. You have a right to believe what you want and all that business and I wish you luck with it. I am just glad that no one here is demanding that all these other genders be recognized by everyone else when there is a minute minority that believes in it and that it is theoretically simple to fabricate / create a gender these days. I'm happy at least that this thread hasn't become one where others are forcing beliefs.

I am far to used to people considering me either male or female, although I am a bit uncomfortable with it. People on this forum do ask that you call them by the gender they have claimed, regardless of sex.

[The Blaatschapen]

Why is it an issue? Gender is solely how one thinks of oneself. So I, who do not think of myself as a man, woman, or any other gender, am genderless.

Most people determine how they will treat you in large part based on your gender, and are profoundly uncomfortable if they aren't given gender cues to tell them where you rank in the social hierarchy.

Women on top for me

[Grenartia]

Even there being two sexes is a bit questionable.



Explain trans people, and cultures with traditional "third genders".

They are cultural or social constructions.

Like ALL genders. Even masculine and feminine.

Yes, gender is a cultural/social construct.

Indeed. But male and female are not because thats human anatomy.

Again, you're confusing sex and gender.

Ditto. It would be lovely if I had a body which reflected my internal genderlessness, but my build and features are such that it would take a tremendous amount of work to appear as anything other than a woman. And I just can't be arsed.

This is actually one of the only places online where I am "out" as being biologically female, since one of the major things I enjoy about being online is that I don't have to have gender imposed on me the way I do in meatspace.

I'm in a similar boat as far as my body goes (being petite and rather full busted is not helpful). When I come out on other forums it normally is only to friends on that forum, and only when I know how they feel about gender.

I have rather the opposite problem, in being biologically male and androgynous. I'm only out to like, all of two people I know IRL. That, combined with my naturally deep voice, makes it pretty hard for me to express my androgyny.

[Meryuma]

You realize that you are now arguing against what you just said, yes?
Gender is a social construct that has nothing to do with what genitalia you possess.
Sex is biological, and is based on your genetic make-up.

Neither necessarily have any connection to what genitalia you possess.

I would claim that gender is also biological, since the brain is biological, and what determines how we self identify.

That's pedantry, though.

Androgynous means some sort of combination of man and woman. I am not a combination of any gender.

That I just don't understand.

Just picture someone who uses a gender-neutral name, goes by gender-neutral pronouns and presents themself in a way that's neither masculine or feminine.

[Lithosano]

That I just don't understand.

Just picture someone who uses a gender-neutral name, goes by gender-neutral pronouns and presents themself in a way that's neither masculine or feminine.[/quote]

Or Andrej Pejic. Pejic seems to jump between genders like they're hats. I believe Pejic considers himself to be androgyne, but most people refer to him as male for convenience.

On a side note, I hate the singular they. It's just one more thing to muck up the already stupidly difficult English language. I'd much rather see the Spivak or Elverson pronouns than the singular they. I could also deal with co-opting the Mandarin gender-neutral pronouns.

[Linux and the X]

On a side note, I hate the singular they. It's just one more thing to muck up the already stupidly difficult English language. I'd much rather see the Spivak or Elverson pronouns than the singular they. I could also deal with co-opting the Mandarin gender-neutral pronouns.

It has hundreds of years of history, and really, it's just not difficult.

[Breadknife]

On a side note, I hate the singular they. It's just one more thing to muck up the already stupidly difficult English language. I'd much rather see the Spivak or Elverson pronouns than the singular they. I could also deal with co-opting the Mandarin gender-neutral pronouns.

Except that it isn't something recently added, but a traditionally accepted terminology. Well, 15th or 16th century, which is well before a lot of the prescriptive and proscriptive rules were created to "make English more Latin", and the like (c.f. splitting of infinitives).

Oh, I like language rules, but this one is an unnecessary construct of an 18th-century teacher, and irregular components to a language show give it an organic flavour that one ought not to weed out. (On the other hand, I detest "could of", and similar forms where "of" should be "have", arising from the abbreviated "'ve" suffix after sufficient bad diction. But that's something relatively new, not traditional at all.)

[Trollgaard]

I would claim that gender is also biological, since the brain is biological, and what determines how we self identify.

That's pedantry, though.

That I just don't understand.

Just picture someone who uses a gender-neutral name, goes by gender-neutral pronouns and presents themself in a way that's neither masculine or feminine.

I still don't understand.

[Rocopurr]

That's pedantry, though.



Just picture someone who uses a gender-neutral name, goes by gender-neutral pronouns and presents themself in a way that's neither masculine or feminine.

I still don't understand.

What specifically don't you understand?

[Trollgaard]

I still don't understand.

What specifically don't you understand?

Non-binary gender itself.

Doesn't make a lick of sense to me.

It makes sense that everything would just be a variation to degrees of masculinity or femininity. Degrees of androgeny, or however it would be said.

Not something entirely different or for goodness sake not gendered. That just boggles the mind.

[Luveria]

Or Andrej Pejic. Pejic seems to jump between genders like they're hats. I believe Pejic considers himself to be androgyne, but most people refer to him as male

I refer to Andrej Pejic as female, because that's what Andrej's boyfriend exclusively refers to her as. That indicates to me Andrej prefers being referred to as a she, so that is what I do. Andrej considers herself a feminine androgyne.

[Zweite Alaje]

On a side note, I hate the singular they. It's just one more thing to muck up the already stupidly difficult English language. I'd much rather see the Spivak or Elverson pronouns than the singular they. I could also deal with co-opting the Mandarin gender-neutral pronouns.

Except that it isn't something recently added, but a traditionally accepted terminology. Well, 15th or 16th century, which is well before a lot of the prescriptive and proscriptive rules were created to "make English more Latin", and the like (c.f. splitting of infinitives).

Oh, I like language rules, but this one is an unnecessary construct of an 18th-century teacher, and irregular components to a language show give it an organic flavour that one ought not to weed out. (On the other hand, I detest "could of", and similar forms where "of" should be "have", arising from the abbreviated "'ve" suffix after sufficient bad diction. But that's something relatively new, not traditional at all.)

I think it's funny how everyone thinks English is such a flawed language and needs to have all these foreign aspects added to it, or that it "isn't logical". There is no such thing as an illogical language.

[Hetalian Indie Rio de Janeiro]

On a side note, I hate the singular they. It's just one more thing to muck up the already stupidly difficult English language. I'd much rather see the Spivak or Elverson pronouns than the singular they. I could also deal with co-opting the Mandarin gender-neutral pronouns.

Irrelevant, and probably gonna make some people pissed off, but...

We Latin Americans also hate the word "American" (since saying you are from your continent is surely a central part of your identity; it gets worse if all the other people recognizing your continent as our continent are more or less of the same ethnic group, and those doing it in the reverse way are from the more or less only other ethnic group), but Americans get at bit mad or at least greatly puzzled if we co-opt our nationality terms based on translations of 'United States' into the English language.

[Hetalian Indie Rio de Janeiro]

Except that it isn't something recently added, but a traditionally accepted terminology. Well, 15th or 16th century, which is well before a lot of the prescriptive and proscriptive rules were created to "make English more Latin", and the like (c.f. splitting of infinitives).

Oh, I like language rules, but this one is an unnecessary construct of an 18th-century teacher, and irregular components to a language show give it an organic flavour that one ought not to weed out. (On the other hand, I detest "could of", and similar forms where "of" should be "have", arising from the abbreviated "'ve" suffix after sufficient bad diction. But that's something relatively new, not traditional at all.)

I think it's funny how everyone thinks English is such a flawed language and needs to have all these foreign aspects added to it, or that it "isn't logical". There is no such thing as an illogical language.

Agreed, but...

I wonder what a Wikipedia in Pirahã would be like.

There would be LOOOOOOOOOOTS of effort explaining concepts that to us seem silly.

[Susurruses]

That's pedantry, though.



Just picture someone who uses a gender-neutral name, goes by gender-neutral pronouns and presents themself in a way that's neither masculine or feminine.

I still don't understand.

Have an explanatory picture: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4ASgQrmMt0U/U ... ad-2.1.jpg

[Trollgaard]

I still don't understand.

Have an explanatory picture: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4ASgQrmMt0U/U ... ad-2.1.jpg

That doesn't help.

[Furious Grandmothers]

Have an explanatory picture: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4ASgQrmMt0U/U ... ad-2.1.jpg

That doesn't help.

Which specific part of the concept are you trying to understand/having trouble understanding?

[Breadknife]

I think it's funny how everyone thinks English is such a flawed language and needs to have all these foreign aspects added to it, or that it "isn't logical". There is no such thing as an illogical language.

I always¹ say "don't trust a language that doesn't have strange forms of the 'to be' verb construction".

I am, you are, he is, I was, I will be, they were / Je suis, nous sommes, ?ils etres? / Ich bin, du bist / etc.

If the verb-forms are regular then it's either an artificial language or someone's managed to overturn the historic irregularities. I'm not sure which is worse, but either way one is at the whim of probably just one person.


When new patois languages are formed from newly mixed populations of differing mother tongues, it is said that the adults bring forth the words (perhaps consciously choosing which source to use, perhaps unconsciously, c.f. the origins of "pork" and "ham"), but the children take what is essentially a 'pre-pidgin' language and create the grammatical rules to bind them together. Must say something about the human brain (pattern-forming at an early age, etc).

(If I was actually any good at languages I might have had the opportunity to study this sort of thing. But unfortunately I remain on the sidelines.)

edit: fixed messed-up BBCode

¹ FCVO "always".

[Grenartia]

I hate the singular they. It's just one more thing to muck up the already stupidly difficult English language. I'd much rather see the Spivak or Elverson pronouns than the singular they. I could also deal with co-opting the Mandarin gender-neutral pronouns.

Do you also hate how "you" is both singular and plural, depending on context? That's the only logically consistent way you could possibly hate singular they.

On a side note, I hate the singular they. It's just one more thing to muck up the already stupidly difficult English language. I'd much rather see the Spivak or Elverson pronouns than the singular they. I could also deal with co-opting the Mandarin gender-neutral pronouns.

It has hundreds of years of history, and really, it's just not difficult.

^this. Also, I don't even want to think about conjugating "spivak" or "elverson". Much less be called either of them.

[Bottle]

I hate the singular they. It's just one more thing to muck up the already stupidly difficult English language. I'd much rather see the Spivak or Elverson pronouns than the singular they. I could also deal with co-opting the Mandarin gender-neutral pronouns.

Do you also hate how "you" is both singular and plural, depending on context? That's the only logically consistent way you could possibly hate singular they.

I sure as fuck do. I consider "y'all" to be one of the few truly brilliant contributions that the South has made, and I use it fastidiously.

[Bottle]

^this. Also, I don't even want to think about conjugating "spivak" or "elverson". Much less be called either of them.

PS:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spivak_pronoun

[Grenartia]

Do you also hate how "you" is both singular and plural, depending on context? That's the only logically consistent way you could possibly hate singular they.

I sure as fuck do. I consider "y'all" to be one of the few truly brilliant contributions that the South has made, and I use it fastidiously.

I use both interchangeably. Why do you hate plural you?

^this. Also, I don't even want to think about conjugating "spivak" or "elverson". Much less be called either of them.

PS:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spivak_pronoun

Still stupid. Most of them sound like you're just saying one of the forms of "they" with the "th" dropped off. What's the fucking point? In normal conversation the "th" gets shortened (often to the point of indistinguishability) anyways, making the new pronouns effectively sound exactly the same as singular they.

[East Sashimi]

Personally I believe there are only two genders. If you don't think you are either of them you are either confused or trying to be a special snowflake.
However what you identity as is none of anyone's business apart from your own, and by identifying as something other than male or female, although it's incorrect, your not causing anyone else harm or problems. You can call yourself a third gender and ask for me to call you xe, zhe, zhem whatever you want, as long as what you are doing isn't causing harm to others I'm happy to accept you and let you live your life believing that you are whatever you want to think you are.

Obviously if you are intersex or trans that's a totally different issue, but from what I know most intersex people happily identity as either male or female, and the only trans person I know in real life thinks that everything queer that isn't either l, g, b or t is completly made up, tumblr first world problem nonsense.

[Grenartia]

Personally I believe there are only two genders. 1. If you don't think you are either of them you are either confused or trying to be a special snowflake.
However what you identity as is none of anyone's business apart from your own, and by identifying as something other than male or female, although it's incorrect, your not causing anyone else harm or problems. You can call yourself a third gender and ask for me to call you xe, zhe, zhem whatever you want, as long as what you are doing isn't causing harm to others I'm happy to accept you and let you live your life believing that you are whatever you want to think you are.

Obviously if you are intersex or trans that's a totally different issue, but from what I know most intersex people happily identity as either male or female, and the only trans person I know in real life thinks that everything queer that isn't either l, g, b or t is completly made up, tumblr first world problem nonsense.

Hi, I'm androgynous, and I'm neither confused nor "trying to be a special snowflake".