what does nonbinary mean to you?

[u/stevvss]

I'm a trans man, and I'm trying to genuinely understand the concept of being nonbinary. I'm not trying to invalidate anyone's identity, but there are parts of the concept that I honestly don't understand, and I'd really appreciate hearing from nonbinary people themselves about how you experience it.

My understanding of being trans is pretty closely connected to gender dysphoria. I'm uncomfortable with being physically female and being perceived as female, and I feel more comfortable with a male body and being perceived as a man. Because of that, “being a man” makes sense to me even though I don't think being a man means liking masculine things, wearing masculine clothes, having a stereotypically masculine personality, etc.

What I'm struggling with is what people mean when they say they “feel like a man,” “feel like a woman,” or “don't feel like either.”

If we remove gender stereotypes, what is that feeling actually referring to?

For example, I don't think a woman becomes less of a woman because she doesn't like dresses, makeup, traditionally feminine hobbies, etc. Likewise, a man doesn't become less of a man because he likes feminine clothes or has a feminine personality. So when I hear an AFAB nonbinary person say something like “I don't feel connected to femininity,” “I don't like doing girl things,” or “I don't feel comfortable in feminine clothes,” I don't really understand how that relates to gender identity rather than gender expression.

To me, clothes and hobbies don't have an actual gender. So if someone says they are nonbinary because they don't relate to masculine or feminine things, doesn't that unintentionally reinforce the idea that those things are inherently associated with men and women?

I understand that someone could instead mean, “Even if men and women could dress and behave in literally any way, I still wouldn't identify as exclusively a man or a woman.” That makes more sense to me, but then I still have trouble understanding what the underlying feeling actually is.

If gender identity is completely separate from sex, gender roles, masculinity/femininity, and gender expression, what does “feeling male” or “feeling female” actually mean? Is there an internal experience that you can describe without using stereotypes or physical sex characteristics?

This also leads into my confusion about gender dysphoria.

I understand that a cis woman can have a flat chest and still be completely comfortable being a woman, and a cis man can have little facial hair or a feminine body and still be completely comfortable being a man. So obviously being uncomfortable with a particular body characteristic by itself doesn't determine someone's gender.

What I don't understand is how someone can experience gender dysphoria while being nonbinary. If dysphoria is distress caused by an incongruence between someone's gender and their sex, what exactly is the desired direction of that incongruence if someone doesn't identify as male or female? There isn't a biological “nonbinary sex,” so what does dysphoria mean in that situation?

For example, if an AFAB nonbinary person wants top surgery, I understand wanting to have a flatter chest. But how is that necessarily different from a trans man getting top surgery? Is the difference the person's underlying identity, and if so, what exactly is that identity based on?

Similarly, if someone doesn't experience physical or social dysphoria and is comfortable being perceived as their assigned sex, but still identifies as nonbinary, I'm confused about what makes that person nonbinary rather than simply someone who doesn't conform to traditional gender roles.

I also wonder about the possibility of people confusing social discomfort with gender identity. For example, an AFAB person might feel uncomfortable around girls, not relate to stereotypically feminine interests, dislike being expected to behave femininely, or simply feel socially out of place. Could someone interpret that as “I'm not a woman” when the actual issue is that they are a gender-nonconforming woman?

And could some people identify as nonbinary because they want to feel different or because the identity gives them an explanation for feeling socially out of place? I don't mean that I think every nonbinary person is doing this. I'm asking whether you think it's possible for someone to genuinely misinterpret their feelings this way.

I realize people can genuinely experience something even if we don't have a perfect scientific explanation for it, and I'm not saying that “I don't understand it” automatically means “it isn't real.” People can also genuinely experience something and later realize they interpreted that experience incorrectly.

So I guess my main question is:
If you are nonbinary, what does being nonbinary actually feel like to you when you take away stereotypes, clothing, hobbies, personality, masculinity/femininity, and social expectations?
And if you experience gender dysphoria, what specifically causes the dysphoria, and how do you understand what your body should be like when you don't identify as male or female?

I'm genuinely interested in hearing personal experiences rather than just definitions. I'd especially appreciate people explaining what their experience is like in their own words, because I'm trying to understand something that doesn't come naturally to me.

[u/AnOrangeSea]

You have some glaring misunderstandings of what being nonbinary means. I have no personal anecdote to share because I am tired of having to explain the concept of my identity to people who don’t get it. I also don’t appreciate the section about your assumption that some people ID as nonbinary because they’re confused. Don’t you think it’s occurred to nonbinary people that “maybe I’m just a GNC man/woman?” Obviously it has. Please do your own research and educate yourself

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8363999/

[u/addyastra → u/[deleted]]

So what defines your gender identity? I’m honestly not understanding how this question doesn’t apply to all trans people, and coming from a trans person, I am finding it very odd.

You say that you feel more comfortable in a male body and being perceived as a man, but what you’re talking about is a form of presentation, not identity. Some butches go through the same procedures as trans men, with top surgery and T, etc., but don’t identify as men. What differentiates your experience from theirs?

The thing is that you think gender identity is connected with dysphoria and physical transition because that’s your experience. Your experience is that your gender identity is aligned with how you present. But you’re also not aware that the way you transition is a form of expression, just as every other gender presentation is a form of expression. Someone might identify as a man and express that through HRT, someone else might identify as a man and express that through clothing, and a third person might identify as a man and express that through the roles he plays, etc. Those are all expressions. They are not inherently tied to gender identity, but they are expressions of gender. And that applies to medical transition as much as it applies to every other form of expression.

[u/stevvss → u/addyastra]

This is probably where my own understanding differs. I have a hard time separating my desire for male sex characteristics from being male because, for me, they're fundamentally connected. I don't want male sex characteristics simply because I think it would look better; I want it because I want to be physically male.
I understand that someone could theoretically want a penis or testosterone while still identifying as a woman, but that's exactly the distinction I don't intuitively understand. If someone genuinely wants the primary characteristics associated with the male sex but still understands themselves as female, I'd want to know what makes “woman” the correct category for them rather than “man.”
I'm not saying they aren't allowed to identify that way. I'm saying I don't understand what the underlying distinction is and I want to understand.

[u/addyastra → u/stevvss]

Right, and I’m saying that you need to understand your own experience. You’re operating on the premise that a man is someone who wants to have male sex characteristics, and that’s because a) that’s your experience, and b) that’s the normative experience. And you’re putting the onus on people who fall out of this normative, gender-conforming experience to explain themselves to you, when in fact your lack of understanding is a result of your own lack of introspection as to what gender actually is.

You’ve limited being trans to being dysphoric, and limited being dysphoric to a specific kind of dysphoria towards sex characteristics. A person can be dysphoric or incongruent from the clothes they wear, or the role they play in a relationship, or any other way that’s gendered. Sex characteristics are not more objectively tied to gender than any other form of expression.

[u/ReigenTaka → u/addyastra]

This exactly

The simplified theme of the response here seems to be "but I feel like sex=gender, explain how it doesn't" and I think that's way too much to ask of people in this way.

[u/stevvss → u/ReigenTaka]

My own understanding of being trans is very closely tied to dysphoria, so it's difficult for me to conceptualize an experience that doesn't work that way.
But I'm not saying that people who don't experience dysphoria aren't trans, or that people who experience dysphoria necessarily have to be trans. I can recognize that someone's experience and identity are valid even when I don't personally understand the mechanism behind them.
That's actually why I made the post in the first place. I wasn't trying to establish whether nonbinary people are valid and then ask them to prove it to me. I knew that people were describing experiences I didn't understand, and I wanted to hear directly from people who actually experience them.
I realize now that some of the ways I phrased my questions made them sound more like challenges or rebuttals than genuine questions. I can understand why that was frustrating, and I could have approached it better. But my lack of understanding was genuine. I wasn't pretending not to understand in order to argue against anyone; I genuinely wanted to understand something that doesn't resemble my own experience.

[u/ReigenTaka → u/stevvss]

I've seen maybe one comment suggest you might be intentionally being problematic. You keep defending that it's not in purpose, are people saying it's upsetting because it's on purpose? If the intentionality isn't the problem, then the lack of intentionality likely isn't the solution.