Comments

1
So if you're not male .... and you're not female...you're non-binary?

Does that mean that your genital area is all smooth and blank like a Barbie? Lol
2
Making shit up to feel good I suppose. Fuck science and all of that stuff!
3
Science agrees that gender isn't binary. Nice try, though.
4
@3. Except the box you check on the form doesn't say gender, it says sex. Nice try.
5
Oops. Sex isn't binary either, so... google can be your friend. There are lots of really great articles explaining it.
6
On a happier note, I'm very excited to see a friend of mine show up in the Stranger. So excited for them.
7
Not entirely relevant, but what's with all the double letters in their names? Schiff? Zee? Adriaan Dippenaar??
8
@7: Some people take their Star Wars fandom way too far. Just wait till they start adding unnecessary apostrophes.
9
@5. Sex isn't binary? Tell a biologist that dummy.
10
Some people joke about it. Some people complain that it doesn't fit their own concept of sex and/or gender. But who fucking cares? If it helps some people express themselves better, and it does no harm to anyone else, why not allow it?
11
this article has an interesting take. basically either we are all non-binary or no one. it's a little long but very interesting imho. https://aeon.co/essays/the-idea-that-gen…
12
"Making shit up to feel good I suppose"

You mean like the Thanksgiving holiday? Like the heroism of Christopher Columbus? Like how the pilgrims wanted a country with religious freedom? Like the genius of Thomas Edison? That the battle of the Alamo was fought in the name of freedom? Etcetera.

In America, we make shit up to make ourselves feel good. Well, make cis white Christian men feel good. Anybody else wants any little thing, even a symbolic thing, to make themselves a little less shitty and suddenly the cis white xtian dudebros are all about keeping everything all scientifically technically accurate because they're soooooo intellectually honest. Like they even know or give a fuck what is scientifically accurate.
13
@10: Always my first thought.

@12: You are simply portraying the human condition. You are honestly just describing yourself too, merely using a different class of person for your boogeyman.
16
"The fact is that the presence or absence of a Y chromosome determines maleness or the lack thereof."

Hey, welcome to biology, please Google "CAIS". Odds are you've met someone at least in passing who's XY female and you didn't follow your rule of demanding they be male, because how would you know.

Next step you may be able to start learning about intersex people in general. You don't even have to deal with gender to complete this intro sequence.

Then you can come back and say everybody's nitpicking and they should know you OBVIOUSLY meant to add a few disclaimers like "usually".

And then you can say this program only affects a minority of people, why is everyone talking about it, and you can execute a nice low-key ghost flounce.
17
There are a lot of very confused people in this world. Parenting fail. What a shame.
18
#16, the young man dressed like a girl at the perfume counter last week certainly was not "passing". But sure, let's pretend he was. We can all pretend his big male body looked great in that dress and the earrings and make-up looked awesome with the facial hair. You bet. Rock on.
23
@9 There are a thousand, more detailed articles than this but it seems important to link to a source you can't argue with.
http://scopeblog.stanford.edu/2015/02/24…
24
@18 Is "passing" relevant to this issue? Do most people agree you look good in the style of clothes you wear?
25
@19. Not a biologist at all, numb nuts, but I know better than to include a .05 percent of examples as anything other than an extreme outlier and not valid in a biological discussion about what the fuck to put on your drivers license. So to humor all the "scientists" swarming this conversation...

M/F/H. For hermaphrodite.

And if you were a biologist you'd know that sex, gender expression, and sexual orientation are so tightly correlated that a gender discussion without that fact at the outset is basically a fantasy camp circle jerk. Or have you not gotten that far in your studies yet?
26
@19. You also obviously. didn't read anything other than the title of your link.

Read the article. Show me where it says sex isn't binary. It doesn't. It says mosaicism is a thing and there are rare cases of intersex. Males can carry female genes and vice versa. Doesn't disprove binary sex theory at all. It just says there are very rare instances where some people have both xx and xy.

Biologist my ass.
27
@23's link. My bad.
28
lord, such confusion ...

Of course sex is binary. Every person that has ever existed (1) was created when a sperm fertilized an egg and (2) gestated in the uterus of the egg-haver (absent medical intervention). Sexual reproduction is a thoroughly binary process.

Every person that has ever existed has lacked either the capacity to fertilize or the capacity to gestate. (Some lack both, but only as a result of illness or injury.) Again, binary.

Whether a person conforms to gender stereotypes isn't binary, but it also doesn't belong on a driver's license.
29
@26 Yes, I read the entire article, please do so yourself (especially the closing paragraphs). You might disagree with the author's conclusion that legal institutions will have to play catch-up as our understanding of biology evolves, that is your right, but to imply you have a deeper understanding of the issue... c'mon.
30
@29. "As our understanding of biology evolves". What did this article contribute to the furthering of our understanding? It had a few interesting tidbits about fetuses infused into one another and the rarity of hermaphrodites. Did it state that sex is non binary? No. Is it even on the verge of disputing this biological fact? No. That last paragraph is the authors OPINION AND PREDICTION. Neither of which are useful when you're trying to fill out a form at the DMV. Your reading comprehension is remedial my friend.

This kind of bullshit is the left's equivalent to climate change denial. It just makes you look SOOOOO fucking stupid.

@28. Thank you. Finally a person who isn't drinking this insane koolaid. Does what you wrote mean you hate transgender people? Or that you feel non binary gender expression is somehow unacceptable? Personally I don't give a fuck what you call yourself, but for the sake of some semblance of a pragmatic society, let's keep biological sex expression within the parameters of what's been proven thus far.
31
The only reason The State is concerned with matters like this is to ensure that a specific "individual identity" can be correlated with a specific individual member of our species - and is not to be confused with another individual member of our species. Period. They do not care about your emotional state -- documents like birth certificates and driver's licenses simply help them do their job.

In the future, State Identity documents will rely on more sophisticated biometrics such as fingerprints and/or iris scans, and will have nothing to do with genitals or how one 'feels' about where they are on the gender identity scale.

What non binary people will do to make themselves feel good in the future is anyone's guess.
32
@23, about your link. It says this: "Anatomy, hormones, cells, and chromosomes (not to mention personal identity convictions) are actually not usually aligned with one binary classification."

This is false. In over 99% of persons, primary sex characteristics, chromosomes, and gametes are aligned with a male vs. female classification. The only exceptions are intersex people, who manifest some combination of male and female sex characteristics, chromosomes, and gametes. But the existence of intersex people doesn't establish the lack of a binary; it reinforces that binary. Intersex people have some combination of male and female characteristics. There's no third sex thrown in there that makes people intersex; there are still only two. Two = binary.

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