Non-binary gender

Announcements

• Study guide for midterm is at Canvas
• We will discuss the Dembroff article about driver's licenses next time. Rebecca Reilly-Cooper optional. 
• We are also going to discuss the Aimee Stephens Supreme Court case, which will be heard on Oct. 8. 

Non-binary genders

• Non-binary, genderqueer, bigender, agenders
•  Non-binary vs. gender-free

Article #1: "Which Box Do You Check?" (Amy Harmon)

• non-binary options on driver's licenses (discuss next time)
• profiles of non-binary people
• pronouns--singular "they"

Gender neutral vs. non-binary

• gender neutral "they"
• talking about one person with unknown gender: "The whistleblower made their life much more complicated."
• talking about many people with different genders: "If a student has a question, they should feel free to ask."
• non-binary "they"
• speaking about Robin Dembroff: "They are a Yale philosophy professor"
• Merriam Webster defends non-binary "they"
• Is it hard?
• AP story about Sam Smith (later retracted and rewritten)

Article #2: "Why Be Non-Binary?" (Robin Dembroff)

Their main claims:

1. On existing theories about gender, non-binary gender isn't even possible or can't be coherently understood
2. Being non-binary is a "political stance"

Theory #1 (rejected): gender kinds are identical to (reproductive) sex kinds

1. On this view only intersex people would be able to be non-binary
2. But most non-binary people do not have intersex conditions, and most people with intersex conditions are not non-binary
3. And anyway, the gender=sex view is false

Theory #2 (rejected): gender is the social interpretation of sex

1. Haslanger--your gender depends on whether you're marked for subordination or privilege by your actual or perceived sex features
2. Many non-binary people don't seem to be "marked" in this way or are marked "female" or "male," so they wind up classed as gender-free or women or men.  

Theory #3 (rejected): the spectrum view, where non-binary people are "in the middle" and androgynous

1. Many non-binary people are not androgynous (people in NYT article and this video are not all androgynous)
2. Many androgynous people are not non-binary (Alison Bechdel, author of the great graphic novel Fun Home)
3. The spectrum view is actually binary, in a way (two poles)

Theory #4 (rejected, discussed in "Beyond Binary", p. 9-14) being genderqueer is having a genderqueer gender identity

• Let's discuss next time

Theory #5 (Dembroff's proposal): non-binary is a "political identity" 

"Rather than insist that men and women can be and can do anything, I and other nonbinary persons question why we categorise people as women and men at all." (Aeon)

In what sense does this create a gender? 

Article #3: "Beyond Binary: Genderqueer as Critical Gender Kind"

Two types of resistance  (p. 16)

Three things that can be resisted

Critical Gender Kinds

1. Genderqueer--existential resistance to the binary assumption
2. Trans man or Trans woman--existential resistance to the genital assumption
3. Butch lesbians, femme gay men--existential resistance to the social assumption