A response to allies who want to understand nonbinary gender identities
Many people don’t know what it means to be nonbinary. They see all genders through a binary lens. I can empathize with this. Most of us didn’t grow up being exposed to nonbinary identities. There’s very little representation of nonbinary people in the media, and what little there is is a recent development. I don’t remember seeing a single nonbinary character in any show or movie while growing up, nor any nonbinary person in the media in general. I was already an adult when I first came across the concept of nonbinary gender identities. Because of this, I can understand why many people can’t conceptualize what it means to be nonbinary. I don’t blame a person who can only see black and white for not being able to see colour. There’s no room for blame, because that’s not something under their control. Similarly, I don’t blame a person for being raised in a binary-normative culture, a culture that only makes them see gender as a binary. Even I, someone who has an internal experience of being nonbinary, did not conceptualize nonbinary gender identities when I was young, simply due to my lack of exposure to them.
Many binary people, when they become exposed to nonbinary gender identities, become curious. They start asking questions, to make sense of the new data, which doesn’t fit into the model of the world they have. This, in itself, isn’t a bad thing. It can’t be anything but good to seek to adjust your model when the data you have no longer fits it.
However, an approach I see people taking over and over again is that they question the data—the nonbinary gender identities—rather than the model. (To be clear, I’m not talking about people who deny nonbinary gender identities. What I’m talking about are the often well-meaning people who are genuinely curious about what it means to be nonbinary.) Oftentimes, they take the binary model of gender as a given and ask questions that put the onus on nonbinary people to prove that we deserve a space in their model. I regularly come across questions like, “Can’t you just be gender nonconforming?” and, “If some cis people are gender nonconforming, then doesn’t there have to be something else to identify as nonbinary?”
My answer to this is no. Even though some nonbinary people experience physical dysphoria, not all do, nor is this a requirement. Assuming that there has to be “something else” is cisnormative and binary-normative. It takes the binary model of gender as already justified and objectively true, and asks nonbinary people to justify a need to break this model.
I can flip this argument on its head and say that many gender-nonconforming people fit the definition of nonbinary.
If you think this claim seems odd and invalidating of gender nonconformity, I ask you to ask yourself this: Why do you take it as a given that one gender model is justified, but can’t take it as a given that another is? The answer to this is cisnormativity and binary-normativity. You take what you’ve been socialized into as self-evidently true.
The nonbinary model of gender doesn’t just ask you to expand the model of gender you already have, but rather to fundamentally change your conception of truth. I can’t tell you to accept nonbinary gender identities then go around and invalidate the identities of gender-nonconforming binary people.
So how can the two be true at the same time? How can gender-nonconforming binary people exist and nonbinary people exist?
The answer is that the language we use to talk about gender is subjective. When I talk about my gender identity, what I’m talking about isn’t just my experience of gender, but also how the language around gender that I grew up with reflects my experience.
By way of analogy: In English, light blue is called light blue—it’s treated as a shade of blue. On the other hand, pink is not called light red—it’s treated as a separate colour, rather than a shade of red. But this isn’t a universal experience. In Chinese, for example, pink is treated as a shade of red. One language isn’t more correct than the other. English can’t impose its truth onto Chinese; and likewise, Chinese can’t impose its truth onto English. The way English speakers and Chinese speakers speak is reflective of their exposure to their respective language. They talk about the same thing using different boundaries for what defines a colour, based on their personal experience.
A gender-nonconforming man might have a very similar experience of gender to my experience, and might have grown up with a definition of manhood that they fit into. I didn’t grow up with a definition of manhood that I fit into. Neither experience is more correct than the other; they’re simply different subjective truths.
At the end of the day, you don’t need to understand an identity to respect it; you just need to recognize that it exists.
An English speaker doesn’t need to understand why Chinese speakers treat pink differently; they just need to recognize the way pink is conceptualized in Chinese, and if they want to learn Chinese, use the correct terminology to communicate with Chinese speakers.
The need to respect language without needing to understand the experience is even more important when it comes to gender identity. This is because gender minorities are constantly probed about our identities, but when was the last time a cis man or cis woman was asked why they identify as a man/woman? The question itself is a product of cisnormativity—and further perpetuates it.
If you want to be an ally to nonbinary people, you need to recognize that other people have experiences different from yours, and believe them when they tell you about their experiences. The only person who truly knows you and your experiences is you, and by extension, you don’t truly know other people’s experiences. I’d even argue that respecting an identity necessarily implies not having access to it. Respecting an identity allows you to have cognitive empathy for it, even when you don’t have emotional empathy towards it. It asks you to create space for other people to share their truths, even when they don’t align with yours. Expecting an explanation from nonbinary people puts an imbalanced burden on us that binary people, especially cis people, have never had to carry.
Expecting to understand all experiences is a normative mentality. You expect to understand all experiences if you’re used to your experience being framed as universal, if you’re used to believing that you have access to all experiences because you think that they’re similar to yours.
I’ve never understood what it means to be a man. I’ve never understood why some people are so invested in masculinity. Even positive masculinity makes me scratch my head and wonder why it matters so much. Why do we need to maintain and reimagine masculinity? Why does it matter so much, that we don’t just scrap it altogether? What value does masculinity have? I’ve come to realize that I will never have an answer that will truly satisfy me. But I’ve learned to accept that this doesn’t actually matter. I’ve learned to just accept it. Masculinity clearly matters enough to some people that they’re invested in it. And I recognize this because masculinity is all around me. It has plenty of exposure. There’s no room for anyone to deny its existence. I don’t have the possibility to not accept the existence of masculinity, despite not having access to it and not understanding it, because masculinity is the norm. Masculinity doesn’t need me to understand it.
I’d like to ask you to treat nonbinary gender identities as a norm. Instead of questioning the new data, question the model of gender that you have. Don’t ask me why I identify as nonbinary, but rather, turn the question onto yourself and ask yourself why you can’t see nonbinary gender experiences. This might lead you to deconstruct your internalized binary-normativity and create space for more empathy, create space for all the gender subjectivities in the world that don’t align with yours, and recognize that your experience of your gender—as well as your experience of gendered language—is not universal.