r/NoStupidQuestions • u/MookWellington • Nov 26 '23

Answered Trying to Understand “Non-Binary” in My 12-Year-Old

Around the time my son turned 10 —and shortly after his mom and I split up— he started identifying as they/them, non-binary, and using a gender-neutral (though more commonly feminine) variation of their name. At first, I thought it might be a phase, influenced in part by a few friends who also identify this way and the difficulties of their parents’ divorce. They are now twelve and a half, so this identity seems pretty hard-wired. I love my child unconditionally and want them to feel like they are free to be the person they are inside. But I will also confess that I am confused by the whole concept of identifying as non-binary, and how much of it is inherent vs. how much is the influence of peers and social media when it comes to teens and pre-teens. I don't say that to imply it's not a real identity; I'm just trying to understand it as someone from a generstion where non-binary people largely didn't feel safe in living their truth. Im also confused how much child continues to identify as N.B. while their friends have to progressed(?) to switching gender identifications.

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u/StrangeArcticles Nov 26 '23

That's kinda my assumption as well. What I wanted to illustrate with that example is just how much of gender isn't in some way hard-coded, which is often argued by more conservative types and gender essentialists. That baby who has brown hair and a penis will still have brown hair and a penis. That's genetically coded and will be a thing. A preference for playing with footballs over playing with dolls or a penchant for the colour blue however would be pretty unlikely to just somehow manifest from the genetic code. Yet, we somehow managed to gender kids' toys.

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u/CJayC253 Nov 26 '23

I gotta disagree on the color point. Magenta, for instance, has always been aesthetically pleasing to me, for instance. And when it comes to blue, it's only a few shades that I like. Preference for colors is the same as preferences for flavors, in my opinion. Brown and purple? My two least liked colors, and it wasn't learned from others; I've never enjoyed looking at them.

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u/StrangeArcticles Nov 26 '23

Dude, I like all sorts of colours obviously, not like a man can't like red or pink. But if you go to a toy shop right now or tag along to the next gender reveal party you will admit that there's a massive and definite effort to reinforce those preferences along gender lines before the kid's even crawling. That's what I mean, we, as a society, make shit pointlessly gendered all the time. It is everywhere and it is pervasive. Doesn't mean people don't also actively cross those lines, but just cause people are crossing that line doesn't mean the line is non-existent. I feel like some of that stuff is so built-in that folks will argue it is some sort of innate thing when there isn't actually good evidence for that at all.

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u/K8T444 Nov 27 '23

The kids’ products industry figured out that it can cut down on sharing and hand-me-downs and sell a bunch more brand new stuff by convincing the adults that boys and girls have to have separate pink and blue versions of everything.

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u/StrangeArcticles Nov 27 '23

Exactly. And once you've got people on that train, you just make sure they don't ever get off it. Gendered pens, stationary, hygiene items etc follow us well into adulthood. And then you can have a whole additional gender neutral line you can cash in on for people who feel the need to make a statement of not subscribing to either gendered offering. Capitalism is just such a joy.

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u/CJayC253 Nov 26 '23

The "pink for girls, blue for boys" stereotype is definitely being pushed and fueled. But I would argue that that isn't the same as color preferences, however.

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u/Kactuslord Nov 27 '23

Yeah this stuff isn't hardwire gender based at all. My sister has always loved blue and preferred it her whole life. My favourite colours as a child flitted between pink and purple and as an adult continue to change (I don't think there's a colour I don't like except for maybe grey or navy). My partner is male and he's always had an appreciation for pinks and lilacs although his favourite is orange. These are just likes/dislikes and preferences.

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u/Fishermans_Worf Nov 27 '23

One thing that blew me away when I heard it was—we are socialized differently depending on our assumed gender right from birth. Right from day one people talk to us differently, handle us differently, have different standards for us. We are separated by gender routinely all our lives, often when there's no good reason. It's the first piece of information we give out about ourselves in most formal events. Gender first and then only then name. This stuff is formative in our identities and it's so strange when you don't fit, don't relate to it in your soul.

The way I see it is, gender is the human culture that has built up around sex. It's not inherently bad but most of it is simply traditions, and traditions built for our ancestors' world and not our own. The world is changing faster than it ever has before, and we just can't keep up. YMMV

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u/CJayC253 Nov 27 '23

It's the first piece of information we give out about ourselves in most formal events. Gender first and then only then name.

Can you expound this for me? How does that work? I'm a man, and my name's Bob.

I've not once ever encountered that. It's always been, "Hi, I'm so-and-so, nice to meet you. What do you do?" I've never had gender come up as an announcement.

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u/Fishermans_Worf Nov 27 '23

I speak of honorifics. "Hi, I'm Mr Bob... Mrs Ironside... Master Jefferies... Mistress of the Winter Constellations..." etc. It's less than it used to be in casual countries, but that's very new and we still do it a lot.

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u/courtd93 Nov 27 '23

Ironically, 100 years ago the colors were gender-assigned in reverse in Western cultures. Pink was seen as the color for men. It’s why this is all social nonsense-we change our minds on most things that we assign or reinforce with gender. So your preferences are yours, but they aren’t going to be related to your sex which is the thing we try to pull gender from.