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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

I agree it seems to really be this odd whirlpool of doing it for attention. I have one niece and one goddaughter who are both in middle school and want to use they and them as pronouns. Their parents comply, and are very hopeful it’s a phase. My daughter is three, and I sincerely hope in another 10 years things have changed so I don’t have to deal with this trend. [b]I’d gladly take the goth trend I put my mother through when I was 12 over this ridiculousness any day.[/b][/quote]

NP here, and an "elder millennial" that has always felt I straddle the generational divide of Gen Xers (growing up in a pre-internet world) and Millennials.

I vividly remember "trying on identities" when I was a pre-teen/HSer as many people equate the NB movement to (attention seeking, exploratory, hopefully a phase) but why is NB worse than a goth identity?  I really clung to the emo culture in HS and depression, self-harm, sadness etc were all glorified.  Now as an adult, I see how harmful that identity was to my development and I am working to un-do it.  So personally, if my child would rather experiment with more "positive" identity play with NB, body acceptance, radical self love .... that seems better to me than goth/emo.[/quote]

Why do we have to label it.  I agree with a lot of what you wrote and understand not fitting into the stereotypical girl identity but why can't that just be it - we are different, even the girly girls.  Why does being different require us to relabel ourselves?  I want to still be a woman but sometimes really want a penis, hate dresses, get annoyed by overly emotional women, work in a male field but love doing my hair without labeling myself as something other than a woman.[/quote]

Elder Millennial again  :lol:

But why is the label NB more upsetting to you than the label of "goth," "prep," "stoner," "jock" ... etc.  All of those labels were widely used without issue in the 80s and 90s, but it's just a new take on young people finding their identity. [/quote]

This version demands changes to the language I use, for one.  It’s brought demands to the rest of society that those other labels didn’t.  Additionally, the medicalization of the normal identity exploration that occurs during the teenage years is incredibly disturbing and will have ramifications for years to come.  [/quote]

+1 NP Middle school kids are getting sucked into this via social media—or access to social media via friends—and it sounds fine enough in the beginning, when they think they’re just being super accepting and open-minded. It can spiral fast though, and suddenly girls are looking into binding their chests. And anyone who questions it is automatically transphobic. It’s like they’re brainwashed. Watching a few of my DD’s friends get into this now and just trying desperately to keep my own child grounded in the real world.[/quote]

Elder Millennial again :)

But what is so scary about binding your chest? and how is that different than all the struggles of body acceptance that were common when I was growing up (eating disorders, self-harm, excessive tanning, shaving body, dying hair, piercings, etc).  It's a form of body modification that people make as they are try to find comfort and acceptance in their own skin during their formative years.  I get it's scary, I am just trying to understand why sexuality and gender identity is more scary than emotional identities (like goths/emo) to these posters.

To the PP about the "demands change to the language I use" - isn't that the same as the black population speaking out about how hurtful use of the N word is, and slowly society is realizing it's better to respect other's preferences.  There is a bigger world out there than just ourselves.  If a person's preference is to be called Jack, or Jane, or X Æ A-12, I will do my best to respect that.

Personally I think the movement towards NB is wonderful, and probably freeing for those that feel conflicted by this arbitrary societal norm (gender) that we placed on them.  I speculate we see a decrease in trans individuals as we accept that gender and sexuality isn't binary.  There is no 0/1, its a spectrum and set up made up labels to make our society easier to comprehend for the majority that fit neatly into that dichotomy, but can be very confusing and hurtful to those that don't "fit."

[/quote]

NP. I think that much of the issue is that there is a strong undercurrent of misogyny to this. When I was growing up, it was eschewing dresses and hanging out with guys and not being "like other girls". Which I now recognize as my own internalized misogyny. This is that to the extreme.

I wear pants and oxford shirts most days, play sports, love cars, etc. But I'm a woman. In my advance psych classes, we learned that transgendered (which, btw is new, it used to be transsexual, which is what they actually are, they feel they were born the wrong sex. You can be whatever the hell gender you want, most people have traits of both) means you feel that you were born in the wrong body. It's body dysmorphia. Nowadays it mostly seems like trauma that is expressing itself in the form of railing against gender norms. But the thing is, you are free to be a masculine woman or a feminine man. I think it cheapens and leads to people dismissing "real" trans people when everyone wants to jump on this bandwagon. It's so much navel gazing, just get on with your life. It's not an insult if someone calls you the wrong pronoun. [/quote]

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