Is "Nonbinary" all Nonsense?

 Is “Nonbinary” all Nonsense?

After Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble, I discovered the origins of “nonbinary” identity:

“Although Foucault's genealogical critique of foundationalism has guided this reading of Levi-Strauss, Freud, and the heterosexual matrix, an even more precise understanding is needed of how the juridical law of psychoanalysis, repression, produces and proliferates the genders it seeks to control. Feminist theorists have been drawn to the psychoanalytic account of sexual difference in part because the Oedipal and pre-Oedipal dynamics appear to offer a way to trace the primary construction of gender. Can the prohibition against incest that proscribes and sanctions hierarchial and binary gendered positions be reconceived as a productive power that inadvertently generates several cultural configurations of gender? Is the incest taboo subject to the critique of the repressive hypothesis that Foucault provides? What would a feminist deployment of that critique look like? Would such a critique mobilize the project to confound the binary restrictions on sex/gender imposed by the heterosexual matrix? Clearly, one of the most influential feminist readings of Levi-Strauss, Lacan, and Freud is Gayle Rubin's "The Traffic of Women: The 'Political Economy' of Sex," published in 1975.44 Although Foucault does not appear in that article, Rubin effectively sets the stage for a Foucaultian critique. That she herself later appropriates Foucault for her own work in radical sexual theory45 retrospectively raises the question of how that influential article might be rewritten within a Foucaultian frame.”

“That gender reality is created through sustained social performances means that the very notions of an essential sex and a true or abiding masculinity or femininity are also constituted as part of the strategy that conceals gender’s performative character and the performative possibilities for proliferating gender configurations outside the restricting frames of masculinist domination and compulsory heterosexuality.”

Butler argued for “proliferating gender configurations” outside of the “binary gendered positions” of male and female. The word “nonbinary” has its origins in this ideology.

Although they often frame themselves as victims, the nonbinary population is the majority group. 

Pay close attention to the findings from the US Trans Survey Early Insights Report: 

“Thirty-eight percent (38%) of respondents identified as nonbinary, 35% identified as a transgender woman, 25% identified as a transgender man, and 2% identified as a crossdresser. When considering sex assigned at birth, 35% of respondents identified as a transgender woman, 30% identified as nonbinary (assigned female at birth), 25% identified as a transgender man, 8% identified as nonbinary (assigned male at birth), and 2% identified as a crossdresser”

The majority of “nonbinary” are biological females, to the extent that they outnumber trans men. Additionally, they are mostly under age 29, urban, and white. As borne out by statistics, these are mostly white teenage girls and college students, who are just going through a phase. This trend is deserving of criticism for several reasons.

First, it misleads young women with mental disorders into believing they are trans. One of these mental disorders is borderline personality disorder, which is characterized by “identity disturbance”. Another is histrionic personality disorder, which is characterized by “excessive attention-seeking behaviors”. It is also common for girls with autism spectrum disorder to mistakenly adopt trans or nonbinary identities. This might not be a big issue, if these women weren’t being prescribed testosterone and given irreversible surgeries. This is harmful to the women themselves, as this has major consequences on their bodily health. It is also harmful to trans men, who now have to wait in a longer line to receive treatment for their medical condition.

These “nonbinary”-identified women are also gender critical feminists in waiting. They already believe in Queer Theory, which is one step away from gender critical feminism. Once they realize that biological sex is not a social construct, many will stop identifying as “trans” and join the movement that is actively fighting against the trans community. 

For the most part, “nonbinary” identity is rooted in ideology, and has parasitically attached itself to the LGBT community. But does this mean I am entirely opposed to the concept? Actually, no. At least, not for the trans masculine community.

To an extent, I agree with the concept of a “nonbinary” category. Many people in the transmedicalist community frame transsexuality as a binary phenomenon, where there are only two genders: male and female. This does not seem to have any basis in science. The formation of male gender identity (transsexuality) in a female is caused by elevated prenatal androgen levels. This is not comparable to a binary switch, but a spectrum, due to the dose-dependent effects of androgens on the developing brain. 

In the past, transsexuality was heavily gatekept, where one had to meet overly restrictive standards in order to be considered “transsexual”. Buck Angel is one of the most outspoken transsexuals, but even he would have been excluded on the grounds of being sexually attracted to men and not wanting genital surgery. A strictly “binary” model of transsexuality runs the risk of being regressive.

Although his model is outdated, Harry Benjamin and his predecessors did not describe the trans phenomenon as “binary”, but a spectrum. It makes sense for there to be word(s) to describe someone with incomplete transsexuality. This is who I would consider to be a “true nonbinary” person.

Perhaps we should stop referring to this as “nonbinary”, as that word has its origins in Queer Theory. Instead, this group of people could be referred to as “partial transsexuality”, or simply “gender non-conforming”.

As a side note, it is true there are many non-Western cultures that have gender categories outside of “male” and “female”, including certain Native American cultures. However, these do not map onto the identity category “nonbinary”, which is rooted in Western ideology (Queer Theory). For this reason, I consider this irrelevant to the discussion. I have no criticism of cultures that have more than two genders, but white people using words like “Two Spirit” to describe themselves are practicing cultural appropriation.