 This a Useful Notes page.
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To define something that is defined by a lack of something else, we should discuss that something else first. The gender binary is pretty simple: It is simply "boy" or "girl". Now, this has nothing to do with sex. All male and female means is penis/testes and vagina/ovaries respectively and is completely unrelated to gender or personality. However, human society has long made connections between sex and what that person is like. Thus, almost as soon as civilization was created, so too came the concept of gender.
Men and big muscles, women and sewing, these and things like these are a result of the human imagination and conditioning in subsequent generations. As mentioned, sex has nothing to do with personality, but society has long thought it has, resulting in the creation of gender and gender roles.
Gender, not being an actual, tangible thing, has rightfully become something people now have the freedom to choose based on how they feel and personally identify rather than by what genitals they have. A female raised as a girl may decide he is really a man, while another may decide they are a girl who just doesn't fit the stereotype and prefers to behave in traditionally boyish ways. In other words, it's up to the individual to decide their identity based on which feelings of gender (or lack thereof) they have".
Some people may not feel like a boy or a girl, and wish to identify as something else entirely. Thus, the term "non-binary".
Non-binary, often shortened to NB or enby, is a broad term. Wikipedia lists some variations on their genderqueer (another term for non-binary) page:
- Two or more genders (bigender, trigender, pangender);
- Without a gender (nongendered, genderless, agender; neutrois)
- Moving between genders or with fluctuating gender identity (genderfluid)
- Third gender or other-gendered; includes those who do not place a name to their gender
Enby people are often derided for attempting to be "special snowflakes". A subsection of trans people who go by the term truscum (which started out as an insult initially) generally believe someone can only identify as either a boy or a girl and must feel dysphoria to be trans. Ironically, this is similar to "radfems", feminists who accuse transwomen of faking and trying to "infiltrate" women-only spaces.
Common pronouns for non-binary people are xi/xir/xirs/xirself, hi/hir/hirs/hirself, and similar things that sound similar to the he/she sets. Non-binary people have also taken to creating what are called "cute pronouns". Controversial, these are things like "bunself" or "starself". Often mistakenly cited as otherkin being transphobic by social justice warriors, the users of cute pronouns are actually non-binary and almost entirely human-identifying.
Non-binary genders actually have an interesting historical precedent. In Native American and Canadian First Nations cultures, "two-spirit" is a form of non-binary/genderqueer identity, named so because they were believed to have the spirits of both binary genders within them. According to the biographer of a famous two-spirit, the identity has been "documented in over 130 North America tribes, in every region of the continent."
As well, Australia allows people to mark their gender as X, meaning "indeterminate".
No real life examples, please; we'd be here all day.
- Undertale has a few characters who are referred to with singular they pronouns.
- The Fallen Human (The human the player names.)
- Frisk
- Monster Kid
- Napstablook