Non-binary seems like it could have several non-compatible meanings, so I wanted to list some of those meanings and see if there are any others out there I don’t know.

One way I could think of non-binary is as being a kind of third gender category, like there are men, women, and non-binary people. In this sense of non-binary a butch woman who considers themselves a woman would not be non-binary because they are a woman.

Sometimes non-binary is used like “genderqueer” is sometimes used, as a generic description of anyone who doesn’t fit perfectly in the narrow confines of the binary genders (i.e. men and women). In this sense a butch woman could see themselves as a woman, but also as genderqueer and non-binary, as they do not conform to binary gender norms for women.

Another way non-binary seems to be used (related to genderqueer in its historical context) is as a political term, an identity taken up by otherwise cis-sexual and even cis-gendered people who wish to resist binary gender norms and policing. In this sense even a femme cis-sexual woman might identify as non-binary. Sometimes this political identity label might come with a gender expression that cuts against the gender expectations for the assigned sex at birth, but it doesn’t have to. (I recently met two people whose gender expressions matched their assigned sex at birth but who identified as non-binary in this political sense.)

I was wondering what other meanings of non-binary are out there, and how they are commonly used.

Note: gatekeeping what is “really” non-binary seems pointless to me, since I agree with Wittgenstein that “language is use”.

I know people get heated about policing what a word means (and I am guilty of this myself), but in the interest of inclusion, pluralism, and general cooperation in our community I think we can find a way to communicate with overlapping and different meanings of a shared term.

  • 🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 ℹ️English
    5•8 months ago

    Someone who is the opposite gender than the one they were assigned at birth.

    Trans man: I was born a woman, but I feel like a man.

    Trans woman: I was born a man, but I feel like a woman.

    NB: I was born a man/woman, but I feel like something else.

    • zeaEnglish
      4•8 months ago

      I would call that binary trans, and define “trans” more generally

      • 🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 ℹ️English
        3•8 months ago

        No, that’s why they have a unique label. “Trans” as a prefix means “across” or “of the other side.” Non-binary fall completely outside of the traditional binary gender terms. They are only similar in that they concern how one feels on the inside, despite what they may look like on the outside.

        For the whole movement of gender identity, though, I would think it’s okay to categorize them all as trans simply for the sake of brevity, though. Some may feel like that’s enabling erasure, though.

        • @[email protected]OPEnglish
          6•8 months ago

          It’s interesting because when I talk to people, the most common meaning of trans that is used is more like what you are saying, usually it means someone who has transitioned to another gender from the one they were assigned at birth.

          Check this out from Susan Stryker’s Transgender History (from 2008):

          Transgender entered widespread use in the early 1990s, although the word has a longer history that stretches back to the mid-1960s and has meant many contradictory things at different times. During the 1970s and 1980s, it usually meant a person who wanted not merely to temporarily change their clothing (like a transvestite) or to permanently change their genitals (like a transsexual) but rather to change their social gender in an ongoing way through a change of habitus and gender expression, which perhaps included the use of hormones, but usually not surgery. When the word broke out into wider use in the early 1990s, however, it was used to encompass any and all kinds of variation from gender norms and expectations, similar to what genderqueer, gender-nonconforming, and nonbinary mean now. In recent years, some people have begun to use the term transgender to refer only to those who identify with a binary gender other than the one they were assigned at birth—which is what transsexual used to mean—and to use other words for people who seek to resist their birth-assigned gender without necessarily identifying with another gender or who seek to create some kind of new gender practice. This book usually privileges the 1990s version of transgender, using the word to refer to the widest imaginable range of gender-variant practices and identities. It also relies on abbreviated variants such as trans or trans* to convey that sense of expansiveness and breadth given that contemporary connotations of transgender are often more limited.

          It’s interesting to me because Stryker and other authors have opted to use trans and transgender as an umbrella term similar to how genderqueer is used (which includes drag queens, cross-dressers, etc.). It’s a politically savvy move to maintain a big tent, but it can be confusing sometimes when talking to someone, it feels like I have to essentially sniff out what meanings they have for different labels.

          For example, I tend to consider non-binary people as definitionally trans, but that’s because I think of trans as just meaning almost “gender-illegal” or something like that.

          Still, I understand what you mean, as trans does literally mean across and implies a binary setup. Before I realized I was trans, I definitely did not think non-binary meant trans, it’s only after a lot of reading and thinking that I have found these meanings have shifted under my feet (to my obvious detriment sometimes).

        • Norah - She/TheyEnglish
          4•8 months ago

          The labels “trans femme” and “trans masc” do exist to describe some non-binary identities. I identify as trans femme. I’m AMAB and am on feminising HRT. I am really happy with it’s effects, I had a lot of dysphoria about not having breasts. But every once in a while I’ll wear a binder. I don’t really have any bottom dysphoria though. You can be both, though you can definitely be non-binary and not trans as well.