Changes in my thinking.

[ativan]

While I can appreciate the thoughts and information provided by those who are not non-binary,
it still comes from a binary point of view or perspective.
I can understand that it is hard to put yourself into a true view of what it is to be non-binary.
After all, I have been watching and listening to you being binary all my life.
On the other hand, I doubt very much if you have anywhere near the perspective of a lifetime of non-binaries.

From a binary point of view, it is typical to look at gender and sex as a having a line that binds them together.
That's logical. We are humans and there are females and males. Everything else must be in between.
That even makes sense to me, and that's how I would look at it if I was binary. It's a binary world.
Except I'm not. There's a lot of us who aren't. A lot.
Virtually almost everything revolves around binary gender.
When it doesn't, binaries even have words for whatever it is, when it doesn't.

There isn't a spectrum or line or continuum (the worst way to put it). It simply isn't there.
To imply that I am something in that middle of what you think is the answer is wrong.
I'm sorry, but that has as much sense as saying that born a male you are always male, regardless of what you do.
We know that's not the case.
There are many different species of animals that share many characteristics.
Doesn't make any of them in the middle of two other species. The term 'different species' comes to mind.
You could say they are pretty damn close as an example.
But you would be wrong in thinking that they are the same.
*A Zebra is not a horse with stripes on it. It's a different species.*
*Tigers have stripes. Darn. Different there, too.*

I am not in the middle of anything. It is really that simple.
I know this because I have watched and learned things about you for 60 yrs.
True, there is a range of males that have female characteristics. And vice versa.
Non-binary doesn't mean in the middle. It means not being binary. It's that simple.
I am not male, I am not female. I might share characteristics of both, but that doesn't mean I am in the middle of them.
I am a separate gender. Non-binary is simply a way of saying that in the language that we use, that is binary.
There isn't a non-binary language that would make sense to binaries. Sorry, that's just the way it is.

The term Androgyn is thrown around a lot. This is in a large part because binaries like to use it to define us.
The problem is, is that you don't have a definition. So you make one up that fits your world.
The binary world. So I just go along with it. We go along with it. But reality is...it's a binary word.
At least it's a start of the understanding that you, the binaries,
aren't the only genders in the world and anything else is in between.
We are a different gender. That's hard to conceive, I know.
Because virtually everything is a construct of a binary approach to how things work.

It's a binary world, but you don't own it. You just occupy your part of it.
And since it is most of it, we go along with the rules you have for your part of it.

This holds true in the same sense for sexuality. There are different kinds. Separate.
Not in the middle of anything.

Seriously, people have to get rid of the idea that somehow,
because we are different, we must be in the middle of other things.

Life could just as easily regard Transsexuals as in between, too.
Never male, never female. But we know this isn't the case.
So why would you think that any of the non-binaries are in the middle of something?
Male and female are not the ends of anything. Think about this, it's important.
They are considered to be the ends, because somebody decided they are.
They could have just as easily decided they are so close together that they are the same thing.
And non-binaries are the ends of a spectrum.
Does this make a spectrum sound pretty stupid? It does from my point of view.

We use the term Androgyn here on this forum as a tradition as much as a way to keep it simple.
Because there are more terms and ways to describe us than there is space and time to do it justice.
It's a pretty big range of characteristics, or combinations of them.
It's pretty easy to think one way, get some more information, and then think another way.
Most stuff in the world is like that. The same holds true for any gender, Trans* or not.
We change our minds so often that we are surprised to find out we did, sometimes.
And we also hold on to bits of information as if they are sacred.
We do this, it's our way of coping with the world. Which is always changing, too.

It's totally realistic to expect yourself to change your idea of what your gender is.
Just because you thought about it. Schrodinger told me this is true. 
If we didn't do this, we wouldn't grow and learn more about ourselves.
So, of course we change our thinking. To what works for us best, at the time.
We can change our view of the world anytime we want to. We own it.
Ativan

[BlueSloth]

Brains are so much more complex than the rest of the body, with so much more opportunity for subtle variations.  It makes sense to me that if bodies can have more variety than just male or female, brains definitely can.

I had no shortage of opportunity and ability to be a man, and the only reason I'm not is because I'm just... not.

Hmm, I guess I could still be the kind of androgyne "who identify as androgyne who are trans who haven't developed, or are developing, an identity opposite to their birth sex"...  I guess it's true that I haven't developed an identity opposite of my birth sex, but when you put it that way it makes it sound like I'm supposed to.  I'm going to keep thinking of myself as MTA rather than a half baked MTF, even if I can't conclusively prove that that's the right way to think of it.

Because I had a certain type of physicality in my nether regions I was swaddled in blue, called he not she, played with action figures, not dolls, couldn't wear skirts, etc. I was conditioned to fit into a cultural mold that was called masculine or man and is vaguely synonymous with male.

If gender is largely a cultural construct, then what makes you different than all the people who were raised like that and turned out to be men?

[Metroland]

If gender is largely a cultural construct, then what makes you different than all the people who were raised like that and turned out to be men?

I agree with this and also add that I don't believe that only one factor can explain the phenomenon of androgyny.

You might be absolutely right but this is only a part of the picture. Factors include, psychological, religious, cultural, biological, social, genetic, educational background and many more.  They all take part in creating a complex phenomenon such as androgyny.

I am also not really sure what you mean by normal.  Is there such a thing as normal?  One situation can't apply to another.

[ativan]

Normal: conforming to the conventions of ones group.

Now, normal becomes a question of what or which group.
And do you conform to it. 

Also a city in Illinois 

[Kia]

If gender is largely a cultural construct, then what makes you different than all the people who were raised like that and turned out to be men?

You kind of answered it yourself

the only reason I'm not is because I'm just... not.

I don't know what it is that makes me not a man. All I know is that there is a dissonance between my identity and my body, and how my society perceives my body. Androgyne is the only label that can attempt to capture my identity relative to a binary culture. 

[BlueSloth]

I don't know what it is that makes me not a man. All I know is that there is a dissonance between my identity and my body, and how my society perceives my body. Androgyne is the only label that can attempt to capture my identity relative to a binary culture.

Yeah... so, I still don't get why you said gender is largely a cultural construct.

[Kia]

We aren't (or at least myself and those I know were not) raised and taught that individuals have power over their bodies and their identities. I was conditioned to be a boy taught what I had to do to become a man and berated for doing things which are considered unmanly. If I wanted to wear skirts, play dress up or do "girly" things my brother and other boys would harass me emotionally if not physically. Binary culture provides two distinct social roles for people to play based on their bodies and sexual potentiality. Men and Women but on close analysis the biological basis for this isn't as concrete as the culture wants us to believe. Some people are born intersex, some have chromosomal dispositions which don't match their sex characteristics, and there's the trans* phenomenon. Culture creates gender as a way to define and contain individuals. People feel comfortable when life is understandable and easy, the binary provides that.  At a glance there is sufficient evidence to support a "girls and/vs boys" scenario, girls have breasts and vaginas boys have penises and hairy arms. That just isn't the case in actuality; we are a network of individuals with the power to self-determination. meaning despite my body I may culturally express myself however I like; I may augment my body in anyway I like as well. Bepenised individuals are free to be women and uterine individuals are free to be men the only thing standing in their way is the culture.

As many people can attest the binary status quo can be pretty brutal. Ignorance, discrimination, and their ugly cohorts reinforce the binary on those who stray to far; they are a feedback system that impose cultural cohesion. If individuals can be what or whoever they want the status quo will fall apart. So to prevent this we condition children to be men and women; the majority of people are okay with their conditioned cultural role applied to their bodies thus "cis". But those of us who fit into the trans* or "other" categories are not happy with the way our bodies are labeled and the way we are conditioned to be. I often ask myself if I would still feel dysphoria, if I would still want hormones, still want to break and burn every masculine thing about myself if I didn't live in a binary culture. Though the fact is that I do so instead of wallowing in depression and finding liberation in suicide or alcohol I have to wander out into the unknown territory beyond given gender identity to create my own as a self determined individual. 

I remember when I came out to brother I asked him how he knew he was a man,  his response was that he didn't know. His gender was given to him and for some reason unknown to him and I it clicked and fit. I was given the same gender but for some reason it caused friction and dissonance and drove me to some f@cked up places until i realized that "man" was not what I was but what I was told to be so I decided to be something different. If gender were a merely biologic or psychological state then I would just be a mentally unstable freak (not that I'm not), but because gender is abstract, is dynamic (as this online community is evidence to) then it must formed from something a little less concrete such as culture; culture is dynamic as well it changes and evolves as time goes on taking gender roles with it. Now we are redefining gender as a whole which will therefore require a reassembly of our culture.

[BlueSloth]

Kia:  Hmmmmm....  ok, I think I'm starting to get it... basically you're calling the labels gender and I'm calling the underlying reality that's being labeled gender.  Sort of.  Right?  We agree on so much, it's got to be just an issue of semantics or definitions.

[Kia]

Ya I think that sounds about right I tend to confuse myself sometimes so...

My issue is really with the labeling yes, as the way I see it the being is to dynamic to contain in things like gender, race, sexual orientation, etc.

All those things are just ways that we understand and make sense of generally nonsensical existence and they tend to consume our identities and prevent us from experiencing a truer self.

[Jamie D]

[ativan]

All those things are just ways that we understand and make sense of generally nonsensical existence and they tend to consume our identities and prevent us from experiencing a truer self.

*Because we tend to hold on to bits of information and hold them sacred*

The rate that information is changing on a lot of topics, even ones not discussed here, is monumental.
People who share some information together as a group, do so as a way to make sense of everything that is changing in their world.
When that group is the majority, confronting that information with something different or new, is upsetting and goes against their view of the world as they see it, and thus want it to be. It's hard to except changes, sometimes.
When a group of people come along and upset that status of information, they are viewed as someone who is trying to take their world apart and put it back together as something different. Different is then viewed and interpreted as a lie, or something along those lines.

Just look at how many people interpret the bible literally. As if God really spoke like the King James court did. That version of the Bible being the one most quoted, at least in this country. And how taking information from it out of context has been viewed as OK. By some accounts, it defies the information that is available to be able to view it differently. Look at how adamant some are that science is false information because it defies the literal interpretations and out of context thinking.

This same thing is what has happened with information about gender and sexuality. Modern Psychology is how old? Doesn't it come from the 1800's? Yet it is taken as seriously as if it is unbending truth. But at the same time, Psychologists working in the fields of gender and sexuality have taken some big strides in current knowledge. And still there are those who hold on to old and outdated information as being something sacred. Because it holds together a greater majorities view of the world as correct.

It is hard enough to keep up with current knowledge, let alone accepting that it replaces what you know to be true.
Accepting the truth is a hard thing to do.
It means having to confront your fears that your truths may not be true after all.
There are many people out there who use that fear to justify their own fears, because they start to feel left behind.
They are unwilling to accept a new truth, despite the overwhelming evidence that it is a new and different truth.
It is one way of looking at the bigotry that we face as the truths about gender and sexuality become more evident.

For some, changing your thinking goes against the majority. That puts you in a position of being outcast.
For others, it just confirms what you already really knew. New knowledge flows around that rock of past truths.

Labels are nothing more than shorthand ways of stating a definition.
When we can't accept a change in those definitions, the labels become false, stale at the least.
Labels are as dynamic as definitions need to be.
To be changing our thinking is to think dynamically, and the definitions of those labels have to change along with it.
Or stop using labels that have outgrown their usefulness. Just like old truths.

*We need to stop holding on to some labels as if they are something sacred, also.*

Ativan

[ativan]

LOL! You still have to open the box to confirm what you think has appeared in the window.
Any good scientist will tell you that is the only way to truly confirm whether it is true.
Unfortunately, Schrodinger's box didn't come with a window. Makes me wonder if he had thought about that...
Ativan

[Kia]

Ativan.. I think I love you 

[Brightest After Dawn]

I think there might be something to your theory, or it least it might hold true for a lot of people. For me, it's a lack of identification with most forms of masculinity that leads me to reject that gender identity. I just don't relate to it, in general.

Still, even when I was a kid, before I knew that it was possible to do HRT or transition or anything like that, I used to think some weird hormonal thing had gone wrong in the womb, like I had almost been born a girl or something. Though there was less dysphoria about it back then; it was more of a casual observation.

[foosnark]

I think that the androgynous gender identity akin to bi-sexuality on the sexual orientation axis.

Ativan already adressed this, but I will also add:

In some respects I consider myself male without hesitation.
In others I tend toward what is commonly considered feminine, and consider myself a girl "in spirit" as it were.
In others I find I don't really identify with gender at all; it's not a paradigm that I can find relevance in.

I suspect Pica Pica and Ativan are both on to something here.

I was just reading a book that presented the idea that language is inherently dualistic, and reinforces dualistic thinking.  While there are words for moderation and in-between states, the concept of being in the middle has its antithesis too in the concept of being at the extremes.  And so certain kinds of experiences of non-duality cannot be communicated very well in language.  Granted the book was talking about mystical experiences, but I immediately saw the application to gender identity.

To be fair, sexuality is not so simple either.  It's not just one spectrum -- there is attraction, preferred role(s) and so on -- and each aspect of it is not really a spectrum.

The question about being "temproarily gay" misses something: the act and the identity are not the same.  A virgin can identify as straight, gay, bi, asexual, etc.  A woman who's had sex only with men can still be bi.  Someone who experimented with gay sex may in fact be straight even if they enjoyed it.

Sorry to ramble. Back to the idea of development.  I strongly feel certain gender-related taboos and am kind of embarrassed by them.  I don't want to be perceived as effeminate.  I have mostly been unable to shop in womens' sections of stores.  I am afraid of the idea of trying to present myself as anything other than a man, though I do push at the boundary just a little sometimes because the non-masculine aspects of my consciousness demand it.  At the same time, I am very much opposed to the competitive, dominant, "strong" and "tough" and warlike paradigm of masculinity *and* to the simpering, approval seeking, traditional feminine paradigm as well.  They both strike me as wrong and harmful and uncomfortable.

When I was a child I thought nothing of putting myself into other female roles in play, though, and post-adolescence that came back to me along with an inner voice that seems female.  (I'm waiting for the first roleplaying game where you can be an androgyne without also being some really odd/ugly race.  I've faked it fairly well a couple of times.)

I spent the majority of my life thinking I was male, and only in the last couple years finally it occurred to me that there is something not cisgender and not "fully" transgender.  Though I would argue it's not on the halfway point of another damned spectrum, either

I don't know how that fits the idea of "development."  I clearly got the early  social messages about gender roles and presentation.  Somehow that did not turn into a static gender identity, but it imitated one between roughly ages 6 through 39.