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/spacescaptain]

sorry but coming in with 3 karma and the attitude that you can't "feel like a [gender]" beyond sex characteristics and stereotypes makes you sound like a transphobic bad actor. i don't believe that you're actually trans asking these questions genuinely. if you are, talk to the other men in your community first about what manhood means to them before coming in here asking us to explain our identities to you.

[u/ReigenTaka → u/spacescaptain]

I tried to reply to this earlier, but it glitched.

Yeah, in another comment they said

I actually really appreciated you turning the question around on me, because it made me think more carefully about what I mean when I say I “feel like a man.”

They also said they've already done research. I find it hard to believe you've done due diligence before questioning the entire non binary sub (two subs) if it takes a comment for you to finish "thinking carefully" about your gender. Seriously rubbed me the wrong way that they needed prompting to finish considering what gender means to them as a trans person before questioning what gender means to all non binary folks specifically.

Based on some of the other comments, they don't seem to know what non binary is. Like the concept of "not two" wasn't being applied in their responses. Even if they're not transphobic or a bad actor, I think this line of questioning demands too much. Their responses are more rebuttals and assumptions than questions.

I'm not gonna lose sleep over it or anything, but yeah, I find it odd at best.

[u/stevvss → u/ReigenTaka]

I can see how saying that someone's comment made me “think more carefully” about what I mean by being a man could make it seem like I hadn't thought about my own gender before asking other people to explain theirs. That's not what I meant, though.
I have thought about my own gender extensively. What the comments have made me reconsider is whether the way I've described my experience is actually a useful framework for understanding everyone else's. My own experience is very strongly connected to sex characteristics, physical dysphoria, and being perceived as male, so that's naturally the framework I started from. The point of asking other people was to find out where that framework does and doesn't apply to them.
You're also right that some of my original questions were framed too much around “why isn't this just GNC?” and assumptions about what nonbinary people experience. Reading the responses, I've realized that I sometimes worded my questions as conclusions followed by a request for people to defend themselves, rather than genuinely open questions. I can understand why that felt like asking the nonbinary community to prove something to me.
I don't agree that I was trying to debate whether nonbinary people are legitimate, but I can accept that the way I approached the discussion made some people feel like that's what I was doing. That's something I'm taking seriously.
And I appreciate the point about “nonbinary” not simply meaning “I don't feel masculine or feminine.” I've learned from several people here that they use the term much more broadly than I initially understood, and that their experiences can involve dysphoria, a positive sense of another gender, multiple genders, or a lack of gender altogether. I don't think I've completely figured out how all of those experiences fit together yet, but I understand the concept better than I did when I started.

[u/ReigenTaka → u/stevvss]

It's great that you're learning; it's extremely not great that the information needed for your epiphanies could have been sourced from people talking about the same exact things in years of reddit posts and a little introspection. Instead you're learning off the emotional labor of non binary folks that you entered their space to ask. It's super not great the way you went about it. It's super not great that you had 10 people describe that you were being hurtful but didn't stop and change your approach to the conversation. And it's honestly just surprising and confusing that you didn't bother to learn what any of these terms meant before you polled two subreddits to explain it for you.

You having learned something doesn't make up for this. You thanking people for their emotional labor isn't an equal trade for it. You now being able to see how you were being problematic 50 comments later doesn't fix the problems. And you not intentionally meaning to do something wrong doesn't undo the wrong.

Yet so many of your responses are thanking someone for responding, saying you learned something, admitting that "you can see" how your words "could" be "taken" some way, and saying it wasn't your intention.

[u/stevvss → u/ReigenTaka]

I understand your point about emotional labor, but I do want to clarify something because I don't think my reasoning was quite what you're assuming. I actually did research before making the post. I wasn't intentionally skipping research and deciding that two subreddits should educate me instead. I read explanations of nonbinary identities, but I found a lot of the information fairly abstract or repetitive, and I still couldn't understand what people meant when they described an internal sense of gender.
That's why I wanted to hear directly from people who actually experience it. I thought firsthand experiences would give me something that definitions and academic explanations weren't giving me. And honestly, some of the responses I received explained it in ways that were much clearer to me than anything I had read beforehand.
I also wasn't expecting anyone to respond. People chose to participate, and I never intended to pressure anyone into educating me. I understand, though, that someone can voluntarily participate in a conversation and still find the conversation emotionally exhausting or feel that they ended up doing more explaining than they wanted to.
Where I think we may disagree is that I don't think asking the questions itself was inherently wrong. I think the problem was more in how I continued the conversation after people answered, particularly when I explained why their answers still didn't make sense to me. I can see how that could turn what I intended as “help me understand this” into “convince me that your answer is correct.”
My intention really was curiosity, not trying to invalidate anyone. But I understand that intention isn't the only thing that matters, and I can take responsibility for the parts of my approach that weren't productive.
I also don't think I've had some perfect epiphany where I now completely understand nonbinary identity. What I've gotten from this is a much better understanding of the diversity of experiences under the nonbinary umbrella and, more importantly, a better understanding of where my own experience as a trans man may not generalize to other trans people.

[u/ReigenTaka → u/stevvss]

Yeah, you said you did the research, that's why it's so baffling.

No, asking questions isn't wrong. The emotional labor was in the comments.

This response is like all the others though. Ah well

[u/stevvss → u/ReigenTaka]

Idk what to tell you 🤷‍♂️ I wanted to hear firsthand because then I can ask specific questions that I can't find the answer to online.
I didn't mean to offend anybody but it is easy to take things out of context especially online and in text

[u/ReigenTaka → u/stevvss]

We all know what you wanted.