Non Binary Starter Kit 

So happy you figured you're asexual and that you're figuring out your gender!!

Hi! 👋🏽 I’m 63 too, and came out as nonbinary and transmasculine a bit before I was 60! I’ve been out as queer since my 20s, and have been referring to myself as “graysexual” for some years now ☺️ as well. I’ve changed my name, pronouns and begun testosterone hrt… it’s all been pretty revelatory and marvelous. Luckily, my family and friends are all really supportive (and several of them are queer, nonconforming, and nb or trans themselves, so yay!). Love to see other older folks on this journey out there! Congratulations on yours!

No matter the age, queer can exist in anyone. This made me happy to read, I’m glad you found yourself

54 when I realised 🤪

Hi from Scotland… 69 and came out as non binary four years ago

@@treely6647I’m trying to figure out the pink purple and yellow one and it looks like some sort of variation of the aporagender flag? Aporagender meaning according to Google: Aporagender. Another nonbinary gender identity is aporagender. Aporagender is distinct from male, female, or any gender along the binary spectrum, but still involves experiencing a strong gender identity. Like xenogender identities, aporagender identities are connected to an identity beyond a binary. The other one looks like aromantic? Idk-? Aromantic meaning according to Google: little or no romantic attraction to others Aromantic people have little or no romantic attraction to others. They may or may not feel sexual attraction. An aromantic person can fall into one of two groups: aromantic sexual people or aromantic asexual people.

I'm so sorry

It might be my brianrot, but... Are you Uncle Iroh? "Who are you and what do *you* want" moment

@@Not_mera I don't even know who this person is, sorry.

Just curious, what are the flags on your pfp?

Love for my enby elders. It's cool knowing y'all are out there

I'm happy you figured you're agender!!

From another enby elder (63), hello and glad you’re here!

Are you saying that I’m no binary because I don’t like girly stuffs and behaviour? Wouldn’t say I’m trans but don’t care if I’m born male or female, Being no binary mean nothing to me.

@@KillerCrewmate2526 no you don't have to dress one way or not. You are only non-binary if you don't feel like a girl or a boy.

What was your thought process when you became cis

@@FzeroVaporeon Well, I've been much more exposed to the LGBTQIA+ community recently and I've never felt that sense of people saying my name or pronouns and had it feel unnatural. I also don't have any issues with my body (I think I would hate being in a woman's body), so that's why I consider myself cis male. Also, I know this isn't what the original comment is about, but I did recently find that I think I'm on the asexual spectrum since I sometimes think people are cute, but it never came to wanting to have s*x with them. Granted, I am young and haven't been in a real relationship ever, but since high schoolers are obsessed and I'm not obsessed, that's why I currently identify as Ace. Sorry for the rambling but hopefully that explains my gender/sexuality choices

Whoa, this struck a chord in me. Back when I was down bad with the Big Sad, I wore plain, concealing clothes, gestured little, and spoke less. My style and mannerisms matched the masculinity of my peers and made it easy for strangers to read me as male. Now that I have a renewed energy for life and confidence to express, I am exclusively referred to by feminine pronouns. I don't love that our culture has made sex the defining trait of a person, but have grown comfortable with my feelings towards it. I don't know who I am, but I know where I stand. Thank you for sharing your experience, as it has helped me understand mine

same here, im all for breaking male stereotypes

Yes, I thought the same.

Oh my gosh, me too! I buzzed off my hip-length hair about 15 years ago (I’m in my 60s!) and never looked back. Now I keep it super short most of the year, just letting it grow willy-nilly during the coldest part of winter, and I wear hats all the time! So easy to care for, and so much more gender indifferent.

Just so you know just because you feel comfortable being referred to as them doesn't necessarily mean you're non-binary

@@momsspaghetti-sd9sn Cool, guess I'll pay attention to this random stranger on the internet to tell me how I should identify. Thanks, internet stranger. Your contribution was highly appreciated.

Yes! I've only come to terms with my enby identity in the last year or so, but I've always gravitated towards bright coloured (usually plaid) button ups... it makes a lot of sense now lol

Didn't know this was a common thing, lol. I'm also an enby who loves those button up shirts with patterns. They're some of the only tops in my area that aren't super clingy. Also, they're just cute :D

lol, me too!!

My genderfluidity is mostly private atm... my son and niece are supportive, but my mother and sister can't come to terms with anything outside the gender binary, so I don't bring it up around them. I'm also in an area where there isn't really a queer community, and anyone over the age of 25 is quite closed-minded. So I just keep to myself, do what I want, and to most of the town I'm just the "weird, witchy, lesbian looking, identity crisis having, crazy cat lady" (all stuff I've heard or been told lol) and honestly, I quite enjoy being an enigma lol

Nah, you mean non binary is bullshit. Just a made up problem so the white & privileged can claim to be a victim 😂

this happened to me too.. my hairstylist called me "bro" when i requested to cut my hair very short😭

I tried my best to be as inclusive as I could be!

@@lynnsaga1397 it's pretty good so far. I think Pinterest is not as useful to be.

​@@lynnsaga1397 I think I've watched the videos at the end, I think I might have watched them but I think I may be found the style of talking a bit a bit too intense. Maybe it's an autism thing with like different voices, or it's just me getting a bit overwhelmed with someone who shares so much of my experience talking about it. To be honest I kind of feel like I'm never really going to be as good as those two in my transition.

@@PlurCo Your transition is unique, just like it is for everyone. I know it's hard, but try not to compare your transition to that of others, or at least try not to evaluate or judge it. As long as you feel comfortable with your transistion, everything is great. I think that if you transition with the mindset of "I want my transition to be like [whoever]" you're setting yourself up for disappointment. Your transition is about YOU. And you are a wonderful unique person, so your transition cannot be like somebody elses.

I feel like there are both universal aspects to enby transitions regardless of sex assigned at birth, and other aspects that vary between individuals. Other than some gender presentation differences, from what I’ve seen, AMAB, AFAB and AIAB enby people all seem to have very parallel experiences, if not exactly the same.

Same, I really struggle to present masculinely, but the thought of cutting my long hair that I just spent the last 3 years growing out to my natural salt and pepper colour is sacrilege to me...

Why do people use masculine and femenine as labels for arbitrary things as clothes

@FzeroVaporeon honestly, I don't really get it either, I'm just using the language of the society I'm stuck with. In an ideal situation, I'd just give up on the whole concept, but a lot of people have their identity tied up in it, and I know what it's like to have my identity disregarded... it sucks. Clothes are a way to express identity, and although I agree it's arbitrary in itself, it's more about how we're using them to portray who we are to others. for someone like me who fluctuates, it's useful in a descriptive way even though it's pretty dumb when you actually think about it.

@@TheCagedCorvid let's say the concepts of masculinity and femininity are phased out. Assigned sex becomes nothing but a arbitrary thing that really only matters in a medical setting. You could use any pronouns in a post sexist world. You could still have hormones to shape the way your body grows. No one would judge you as unnatural for wearing any type of clothes or any activity. You know you can use other words that don't reinforce the gender construct that oppresses us. I don't know what you're really talking about with some people have their identity tied up with it. You could still do all of the same things.

☺️

IDK if this helps but I'm also nonbinary, been out for a decade. Shortly after I realised I wasn't cis I found I just... couldn't wear some stuff that I'd been happy in before. It was definitely a mix of dysphoria I hadn't realised was there, and that being made worse by misgendering from the general public. Now I've been on hormones a few years and had top surgery in 2020, I'm very much assumed to be a cishet man unless/until I say otherwise. (This occasionally leads to hilarious misunderstandings.) In the last ~6 months I've started playing around with adding things-read-as-femme back into my wardrobe, and it's not been a dysphoria problem at all. Not saying this will be the case for everyone, of course, but just wanted to share in case it helps.

@@GaraksApprentice this is reassuring to hear, thank you. testosterone dose is due to go up and i should hopefully have a top surgery date by the end of the year so fingers crossed a more ~traditionally masculine~ physical appearance will give me some confidence to start getting back into some of those sorts of clothes in future. always happy to hear stories of fellow gnc trans people living their lives well!

Full length hooded coat, big scarf, then whatever is underneath doesn't really matter until you get inside. I love winter, I actually find clothes much easier than in warmer weather.

As someone with like 70 hours on Ow2 and been taking a year's break, it's nice to see an enby rep for that game too. and as for people saying too scared to show any gender presentation? that's in a way great. like some nonbinaries feel both genders to some extent while others just don't or refuse to identify with either binaries. it'll be interesting to see where they go with them skin-wise. like as long as its not hyper into one direction, then it'll be an alright presentation and not really limiting.

Gender labeling is cringe

Pronouns have a lot of sexist baggage that goes with them so it makes sense to want to be called different ones.

Why gender labeling...

@FzeroVaporeon hey, I'm not gender labeling. It's a way to describe the kinds of clothes. I know it's confusing. Feminine and masuline are words that describe the clothes as traditionally from them. If it fits me and I look good, I'll wear it

@@earacloud1878 you are gender labeling. Using the words masculine and feminine, that's gender labeling. It describes the clothes solely by relying on the reader's understanding of sexist stereotypes. Thus it reinforces sexism.

@FzeroVaporeon I don't really understand this if I'm honest

@@earacloud1878 what makes clothes femenine or masculine?

Relatable. I’m amab but with an intersex condition, and though I present as male for the most part, I have genital dysphoria and prefer to dress androgynously, but I don’t really have social dysphoria when people refer to me as male, so I’m not sure if I qualify as enby

@@SarastistheSerpent I'm a transfem but I also want short hair and wouldn't mind being referred to with they/them pronouns too

Sounds about right... my son is actually trans masc, but still wears some very fem stuff some days, and I spent most of my life trying to be female, but it never worked for me, until I came across the term non binary, and subsequently genderfluid. I spent so long not knowing what I was, it's a process, and it changes, and ultimately, you just have to be what you feel at any given time ❤

I double-checked and he lists his pronouns as "he/they/them/elle" on TT. It wasn't a mistake.

nonbinary people can use binary pronouns and still be nonbinary

Phytoestrogens don't work the same way as animal estrogens. If you do want boobs, you should consider going on actual estrogen. More doctors are open to nonbinary people medically transitioning now.

Oh nice, i haven't really liked seeds or nuts so good to get motivation to start eating them

informed people dont use it as a slur anymore, the meanings of words can change

That’s not a slur anymore and even if it were, lgbt people reclaim it

it's reclaimed since people got tired of saying the entire "LGBTQ+ person" phrase, so its easier to say that. i get that its been more of a slur in the past though.

Queer is not a slur anymore. It has long been reclaimed. Generally people who consider queer a slur are anti-LGBTQ (and especially anti-trans) ideologues who _want_ being queer to be something shameful

Cause it's not about who she wants to be. It's about escaping yourself ..

@@PRINCESS-zz3wq umm... no?

@@PRINCESS-zz3wq no, definitely not. some nonbinary people literally dont want to call themselves trans because of the backlash. a strange amount of people, even in the trans community dont see nonbinary ppl as trans, but a “secret third thing”. i am nonbinary and i think of myself as trans. some people dont. its that easy

a lot of times its because when a nonbinary person claims themselves as trans they will get backlash. if you go further in this comment section, someone literally says that saying you want to express yourself as androgynous, is sexist and still enforcing gender norms. we cant win

dont know why my comments keep being deleted when im not saying anything bad….. ill censor myself ….? anyways….. a lot of the times nonbin@ry ppl will recieve b@cklash for identifying as tr@ns. even in the tr@ns community, ppl will call you $exist and still conforming to gender norms for wanting to just look @ndrogynous, someone says it in this comment section. this also goes hand in hand with transmedicalism, nonbinary ppl who dont want to surgically transition will be b@shed for calling themselves trans cus they arent “real” tr@ns.

While I agree, I feel like it would be very uncommon to find cis non-binary people, as up until fairly recently it was standard medical practice to assign intersex infants as a binary gender rather than as X. I have seen some debate as to whether intersex people assigned a binary gender after birth but who identify as non-binary as adults would qualify as cis, since they were technically reassigned as a binary sex rather than strictly assigned, as medically they are intersex and therefore not strictly a binary sex.

I recognize that some people do identify as nonbinary but not trans. I have never really understood why. For me, being nonbinary is very solidly under the trans umbrella. Whenever I have talked to nonbinary people who do not identify as trans, they usually associate being trans with binary gender, medical transition, and/or dysphoria. But this is not the case. This is also what you seem to be implying -- that being trans is about modifying you body through hormones and/or surgeries. But it's not. Some trans people do choose to modify their bodies if it's right for them and they have access to it. Other trans people do not choose to modify their bodies either because it's not right for them or they don't have access. They're still exactly as trans as people who do. I won't say that you have to identify as trans if you identify as nonbinary but the definition of "transgender" is simply "not identifying exclusively as your assigned gender". So I would say that if you are non-binary, that very clearly means you're trans. If you don't identify with the trans community, that's fine, but neither do many binary trans people and they're still trans. You don't have to identify as trans but if you identify as nonbinary, I would suggest you reconsider why you don't.

I assume you're coming at this from something like a "gender abolitionist" terf angle that just replaces "gender" with "(assigned) sex". The issue is that you're confusing gender expression with gender identity. Nonbinary is not the same as gender non-conforming or androgynous. Some nonbinary people do dress more androgynously to avoid looking and being perceived too much as either binary gender. Others dress more flamboyantly to show a clash against social norms of having a beard and wearing a dress, for example. Other nonbinary people do not dress androgynously. They may dress and be okay being perceived in public as their assigned gender or they may dress and be okay being perceived in public as the "opposite" gender. Their nonbinary identity may be something that is mostly important between them and their friends. Their friends know what pronouns to use for them, strangers may just assume they're binary. Other nonbinary people, such as bi/pan/poly/gender or genderfluid people may dress more masculine some days and more feminine other days, depending on their mood. They may be dysphoric about masculine traits one day and feminine traits another day. Being nonbinary means not identifying exclusively as either a man or a woman. That's it. There's no particular "look" someone has. Gender non-conforming people identify as only a man or a woman but choose to present in a way that is not the norm for their gender. This is not only true of cis people. I personally know butch trans women and fem trans men. Their gender identity and their gender expression are not the same. I dress more feminine than the average woman. I took my conservative upbringing and that style of femininity and made it my own, picking and choosing what I liked. I am not really gender non-conforming if you perceive me as a woman. And yet I am not a woman. That's what makes me nonbinary, not the way I choose to dress. Being nonbinary doesn't imply androgyny. Being androgynous doesn't imply being nonbinary. You want to present in a gender non-conforming androgynous way but don't identify as nonbinary? Sure. There's a *ton* of people who do that. That doesn't mean nonbinary people are just like you. You're just highlighting the distinction.

​@@asongfromunderthefloorboards I don't think there is really such a thing as dressing androgynous, masculine, or feminine. It sounds really old fashioned and sexist.

What's sexist about someone figuring themselves out? Sex and gender aren't the same thing, gender is a social construct, and as such is a spectrum and isn't fixed. It can even fluctuate within a single individual. Being somewhere in the middle of that spectrum doesn't diminish those on either end.

Being non-binary is primarily about gender identity, not style or stereotypical hobbies or anything. There are many cis people who don't conform to stereotypes or gender norms, and there are many NB people who aren't visibly different from gender norms. What Lynn is saying is that gender expression is important to many NB people, not that that's what makes you nonbinary. It's about your innermost sense of self as neither exclusively male or female.

These are tips on how to alleviate non-binary dysphoria and feeling more comfortable in androgynous gender presentation. Having short hair doesn’t make someone non-binary, but a non-binary person might feel more comfortable sporting short hair as it’s more versatile and can be styled in a more gender ambiguous way than long hair can. It’s only sexist to those who believe in rigid gender norms and insist others adhere to them, and only doesn’t make sense to those who are misinformed or willfully ignorant. In your case I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and say that you’re simply misinformed, but the video made clear that contrary to what you’re claiming, having short hair≠non-binary. People who say “dress as what you like” are also typically ideologues who lash out at people who dress how they like, especially gender non-conforming men or amab non-binary people, accusing them of being predators for dressing in a feminine way.

@@TheCagedCorvid it feels like it’s reinforcing gender stereo types by being like short hair on a girl & not dressing hyperfeminine leads someone to believe they aren’t a girl and are instead non-binary, because “girls don’t do that.” I’m a girl and dress how I want and it makes me feel weird when people assume I’m not a girl because I’m not wearing the “girl uniform” idk I’ve done so much research and listening to NB people a lot and I still don’t get it /: not trying to be willfully ignorant. I am a person who happened to be born a girl. That’s always how I viewed myself, but to me that doesn’t mean I must be something else. To me it feels like being alive as a human and I relate to humans so never felt like I’m something so different because I was born a girl. But yeah I guess I don’t have to get it. I have tried though & im not gonna be rude to anyone. Still open to understand one day.

Gender non-conformity is not the same thing as being nonbinary. Gender non-conformity is about not adhering to the norms associated with your gender. Being nonbinary is about being a different gender. The gender expressions of nonbinary people vary widely, it's their gender identity that matters. Being gender non-conforming does not make you nonbinary for the same reason that a cis man who is a drag queen on Saturday night is fundamentally different from a trans woman. Butch women are fundamentally different from trans men -- even if they look identical at some point in their life. In fact, the majority of trans men I know are not even that masculine, especially when they pass consistently and feel more free to express themselves in a feminine way without being misgendered. Being nonbinary is about not exclusively identifying as either a man or a woman. Some nonbinary people may include "man" or "woman" in their identity, such as bigender, genderfluid, or demiboys/girls. That may or may not be their assigned gender. Other nonbinary people do not. Nonbinary people may have dysphoria, same as many binary trans people. Being nonbinary is not about gender stereotypes. Being gender non-conforming is about not adhering to gender stereotypes. These are not the same thing. A gender non-conforming man or woman still identifies as a man or a woman, they just re-evaluate what that means to them, as I think everyone should.

🤨?

@@runeisatherian Hello, female.

@@KryptoBeatz Hello, other human being. How are you doing this fine day?

@@KryptoBeatz why are you calling random people “female”?

@@SarastistheSerpent Truth ☺️