Non-binary simply mean that you do not identify with the two currently accepted gender identity or that you do not perceive gender as a binary system but as a spectrum. That's it. It does not mean that the person suffers from gender dysphoria or that they want to transition. For many, it's simply a way to describe their existing social behavior. It is also an umbrella word that houses many other identies.
I'd also challenge the "50%" number you advance.
Canada asked the question in last year's census and it was under 1%. 50% would be enormous.
"Younger generations had larger shares of those who were transgender or non-binary. The proportions of transgender and non-binary people were three to seven times higher for Generation Z (0.79%) and millennials (0.51%) than for Generation X (0.19%), baby boomers (0.15%) and the Interwar and Greatest Generations (0.12%).
Together, over 1 in 6 non-binary people described their gender as "fluid" (7.3%), "agender" (5.1%) or "queer" (4.1%). Other responses included "gender neutral" (2.9%), "Two-Spirit" (2.2%), "neither man nor woman" (1.3%) and "gender-nonconforming" (1.1%)."
"Non-binary" is commonly described as a trans identity, and the word "trans" is etymologically related to "transition". If there really was nothing else to it than the truism that "gender is not merely a binary system but a spectrum", no one would be talking about non-binary as an identity of its own - since this has been a consensus POV for decades.
It is not tran[sition]gender. It is the "trans-" Latin prefix meaning "across", "beyond" or "on the other side of" + gender.
In other words, people who moved on from the gender assigned to them at birth.
Some non-binary people identify as transgender but not all of them do. Just like non-binary is both an umbrella term and a spicific gender identity, transgender is both an umbrella term and a specific gender identity. You'll often see the shorthand "trans*" to describe the umbrella term and the shorthand "enby" to describe the specific gender identity.
Examples of clear gender identities that are not used as umbrella terms are: trans women, trans men, genderfluid, agender, demigirl, etc.
> In other words, people who moved on from the gender assigned to them at birth.
Yes, and the Latin word trānseō (nominal form trānsitiō → English: transition) means exactly to "go on across", "go beyond". Trāns ("across, beyond") + eō, it ("I go, he/she/it goes") + tiō (→ English: "-tion"). It's a distinction without a difference.
My point is that they share a source and are siblings, but one is not the parent of the other. Being transgender is not about the medical or social transition, it is about how the person identifies.
What does it mean to "identify" with a claim about what society is like - namely that "binary" gender might be more of a spectrum, with weird liminal stages in-between? You've said that this is what "non-binary" is about. How does this even begin to square with all those other notions about gender identity being something exceedingly clearcut, that someone can base major life decisions on?
That 50% number is anecdotal, from a friend whose a teacher in a middle school (norther Virginia) ... My guess is 100% of these children are on Tiktok/Snapchat, ingesting whatever content is being fed to their impressionable minds. Its certainly an internet driven phenomenon.
Then it is meaningless and hazardous to build an opinion upon it.
> My guess is 100% of these children are on Tiktok/Snapchat
TikTok usage is at 32.2% for children aged 10-19. Snapchat usage is at 59% for children aged 13-24. That would be unlikely. Those two platforms also share little in term of features and functionality. How are they relevant here and why single them out?
I’m sorry, but if you think TikTok and Snapchat have little overlap in their user base and feature set, you shouldn’t be speaking so confidently about teens issues because your perspective is woefully outdated.
I worked at Snapchat. Nearly every new feature we made was to compete with TikTok and drag eye ball time back from them into Snap. It sounds like you just googled “TikTok usage teens” and are using that to advance your (very shaky) argument about gender ideology.
I have teenage sisters and we talk frequently about how different discourse has become in their classrooms than it was 10 years ago when I was in high school. The 50% anecdote claimed doesn’t surprise me at all, after what I’ve heard.
Yes, just as Facebook and Instagram are also chasing a piece of the TikTok pie.
But they are not the same, they just share some features that have been added as updates. They are used by the same demographic, which is why I provided the stats for both. I wrote them in response to the claim that 100%, not 50%, of the class uses them which is unlikely. The 50% figure refers to the claim that 50% of the class identifies as non-binary, which is even more unlikely.
Ultimately, we are debating anecdotal exaggerations. Your response to that? You add another anecdote from a third party. Again, this has little value before actual polls and censuses.
You're also confusing two parts of this conversation: one is about gender identities, the other is about app usage. The two topics were brought into the picture with bogus statistics, so I brought them both up. However, they have little to do with each other.
I'd also challenge the "50%" number you advance.
Canada asked the question in last year's census and it was under 1%. 50% would be enormous.
"Younger generations had larger shares of those who were transgender or non-binary. The proportions of transgender and non-binary people were three to seven times higher for Generation Z (0.79%) and millennials (0.51%) than for Generation X (0.19%), baby boomers (0.15%) and the Interwar and Greatest Generations (0.12%).
Together, over 1 in 6 non-binary people described their gender as "fluid" (7.3%), "agender" (5.1%) or "queer" (4.1%). Other responses included "gender neutral" (2.9%), "Two-Spirit" (2.2%), "neither man nor woman" (1.3%) and "gender-nonconforming" (1.1%)."