Shifting times

[talkswithwind]

This week I found out that the gender-weirdos channel on the work-Slack was named enby and not some variation on trans like it has been just about everywhere else I've been for the last 15 years (replace Slack with the time-period appropriate communication channel). When I first realized I had a somewhat non-standard gender the terms of the time were best summarized as trans* for the three variations of trans-something that people used. When genderqueer showed up in the mid 2000's it was a big change, and one that meant a lot to me since that word didn't bring along the assumptions that transgender did.

I now find that non-binary is occupying more and more of the spaces that genderqueer once did, and I have feelings. This is the first time a term I have identity with has started to shift out of the mainstream.

Comments

[ahunter3]

Yeah I prefer genderqueer. I'll use nonbinary but it has started to mean "people who don't want to be perceived as male OR as female" Whereas genderqueer is more unspecified: "something somehow atpical, genderwise, going on here".

[talkswithwind]

The thing I'm having to think of now is when I'd use nonbinary as a way to easily communicate what kind of person I am, and then work my listener into genderqueer.

[cbrachyrhynchos]

I really like genderqueer. For me, it connects to historic gender/sexuality intersectionality. What I do is informed by things like butch, gay femme, drag, inversion theory (which never really went away), radical faeries, bi androgyny, radical queer, and gender-inclusive paganism. I personally cannot separate anti-bi/gay violence I've experienced from the violent enforcement of gender norms, because they have usually been the same thing.

Nonbinary is superficially apolitial, which has its uses. I'm mildly uncomfortable with enby because I think the perceived diminutive associations play well with the pervasive ageism surrounding nonbinary trans issues.

[alexseanchai]

yeah, genderqueer was never in the mainstream, I think, because it is queer, and nonbinary (like for instance 'gay') not so much

the one thing 'enby' has, in my opinion, over 'nonbinary' and 'genderqueer'—the one thing—is it works as a noun as well as an adjective. one can say 'an enby' like one says 'a woman' without it sounding the way it sounds when someone says 'a female'. can't say 'a nonbinary' or 'a genderqueer' without that implied sneer.

—wait no, two things: the word is a third as long.

[icecheetah]

I have the same feelings as you about the word "enby", though I wonder what happened to people who spelled it "nb".

[alexseanchai]

people using "nb" to mean "nonblack" got there first, I understand

[icecheetah]

Huh!
I don't remember ever seeing it be used that way. But, like, I somehow doubt I've never seen "nb" be used to mean "nonblack".
I'll have to keep an eye out.
Thanks for telling me!

[cbrachyrhynchos]

Those are good points. I don't mind sacrificing a few more characters for clarity though.

[talkswithwind]

The never in the mainstream thing is a lot of why I picked it when I did. At the time transgender was mainstreaming in ways, and brought in implications of The Trans Narrative (always knew, kept it repressed, bloomed in late teens, etc). Non-binary is mainstreaming now in some ways, but not as centered as transgender was 10 or so years ago. Will have to see how this plays out.

[soc_puppet]

I'm also awarding "enby" a few points for giving me "femby" (femme/feminine enby), though I don't know if there's a widely used masculine version. If I'm not using that, though, I feel like genderqueer fits me better.

[icecheetah]

For me, I kinda came into the identity in a community that primarily used nonbinary and it took me a while before I came across the word "genderqueer".

Though thinking about it, I guess I like the feel of "genderqueer" more?

[izzet_bedtime_yet]

Huh. See, to me genderqueer implies a relationship with the concept of gender, while nonbinary implies a relationship to the concept of binary gender but not to gender as a whole? Like there's... values in them, and the values implied by nonbinary are broader.

(I tend to ID with nonbinary rather than genderqueer I think partially because "queer" is such a central part of my identity that adding genderqueer feels redundant? Also because "nonbinary" is easier to stick qualifiers on to make it more precise and I like to qualify the shit out of descriptions.)

[satsuma]

Yeah I have mixed feelings about both genderqueer & non-binary as a personal label for myself, but I've been really sad to see the way genderqueer's been fading

I thought it added a lot to the community, so I hope it doesn't fade completely