Thanks for another thought provoking and informative article! I do feel the need to address a pet peeve. I know you were not trying to get into the whole ecology of gender terms and definitions - so I'm not directing frustration at your article. I am more generally frustrated with the term non-binary itself. Even if there is not a clearl…
Thanks for another thought provoking and informative article! I do feel the need to address a pet peeve. I know you were not trying to get into the whole ecology of gender terms and definitions - so I'm not directing frustration at your article. I am more generally frustrated with the term non-binary itself. Even if there is not a clearly accepted alternative, it can be helpful to at least name the inherent limitations of the term. We are defining a group of people by what they are not - that in and of itself reveals biases at play here and feeds a sense of conundrum or unknowability. We do need to keep working to build a term that embraces what "gender expansive/creative/etc" people are and communicates acceptance and a desire to see them in their beautiful wholeness for who they really are.
Yeah, that's the whole curse of imprecision of terms, whether it's nonbinary or transfeminine/trans masculine or even trans itself! Any time you want or need to talk about large, widely varied groups of people, the language *by necessity* gets so vague and mealy-mouthed as to brush up against meaninglessness or to call out a single thing that the larger group isn't as it's one common trait.
It's annoying every damn time. The worst part is that it's still usually the best way, out of many rough options.
Thanks for another thought provoking and informative article! I do feel the need to address a pet peeve. I know you were not trying to get into the whole ecology of gender terms and definitions - so I'm not directing frustration at your article. I am more generally frustrated with the term non-binary itself. Even if there is not a clearly accepted alternative, it can be helpful to at least name the inherent limitations of the term. We are defining a group of people by what they are not - that in and of itself reveals biases at play here and feeds a sense of conundrum or unknowability. We do need to keep working to build a term that embraces what "gender expansive/creative/etc" people are and communicates acceptance and a desire to see them in their beautiful wholeness for who they really are.
Yeah, that's the whole curse of imprecision of terms, whether it's nonbinary or transfeminine/trans masculine or even trans itself! Any time you want or need to talk about large, widely varied groups of people, the language *by necessity* gets so vague and mealy-mouthed as to brush up against meaninglessness or to call out a single thing that the larger group isn't as it's one common trait.
It's annoying every damn time. The worst part is that it's still usually the best way, out of many rough options.