I’m reading through papers, books and reports related to queerness, the environment, and occasionally other topics. As I read, I’m taking notes so I can refer back to my old readings and remember their key points more easily. Why not post my notes here, so you can all learn with me?

Each article will open with my reflections on the paper, after which will follow a summary of the reading, which is usually the bulk of the piece. Square brackets throughout the summary indicate comments from me.

Schudson, Z., C., & Morgenroth, T. (2022). Non-binary gender/sex identities. Current Opinion in Psychology, 48, 101499. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2022.101499

Reflections

Interesting that the study mentions non-binary people and transwomen have feelings of not feeling trans enough, but not transmen. Do transmen have an easier time passing? I wonder if there’s anything about that, out there? Something to look into. I don’t think it’s a case of this specific study ignoring transmen as they’re mentioned throughout alongside transwomen and non-binary people, but it could be a reflection of exclusion in the studies they looked at. But if so… why would they not mention that? Hmmm. Wonder what’s up, here.

Discussions about the importance of community are so real, too. Part of the reason I write is to tease out my feelings, both for myself and any non-binary readers feeling as lost as I do. And also to, maybe, make my own little community here. I’ve been so happy to find a local climate justice group filled with non-binary, trans people and allies, even if I don’t interact with them as much as I want to.

I didn’t know that “gender euphoria” originated from the community rather than clinicians, but it makes sense. Colonial cisnormative patriarchy wants everybody to be the same, never question anything, not think, and fall in line like good little workers. This means that anyone falling outside its “norms” – demonstrating an ability to think for themselves and question their lot in life – has to be pathologised and “corrected”. Cisnormativity perpetuates deficit discourse – a focus on our limitations, negative experiences, and what makes us different from the arbitrary “norm”. This is a deliberate tactic to make sure that our deviation from their constructed “norm” only results in harm.

What is better is to focus on our strengths; in the case of gender, to not bang on about how it’s harmful to deviate from our assigned gender at birth and the irrational gender roles constructed and enforced around those. And so, “gender euphoria” was born as a way to talk about how amazing it feels to live the way we want to, outside of the rigid gender binary. You can find a primer on deficit discourse here.

The discussion around the inadequacy of current measures of gender dysphoria resonates. I feel like it’s built around wrong-body syndrome, which, as I discussed in the article for the last paper I read, doesn’t apply to me most of the time – but does sometimes. I don’t feel gender dysphoria by these standards, and definitely not all the time. I figure there must be something negative lurking in my mind given how much better I feel when wearing a sports bra or binder or calling myself a guy (which I do not consider a gender neutral term), but it’s not all-consuming for me like the diagnostic criteria would have you believe. I think this also related to the point about non-binary people identifying later then many trans people. I think my lack of strong feeling of dysphoria meant it wasn’t imperative for me to figure out my gender; I didn’t even realise it was something that might be bothering me until I had my brain chemistry changed by the phrase “he/him lesbian.” It was only after sorting through other, more pressing issues (aftermath of child sexual abuse, complicated feelings about my parents, moving around so much growing up, finally feeling truly secure at home so my nervous system could start to settle for the first time in my life, having my own space, career getting off the ground) and calming the issues around those that the gender stuff started to come up. Though that last one, about career, has been worse again for the past year and a half due to my last workplace stuffing me around.

The gender trouble framework is, presumably, named after Judith Butler’s work. I adore that there is a framework named after them. Outstanding.

“Non-binary and/or trans participants report valuing measures with options that allow them to communicate their identities with greater precision than binary-focused measurement practices.” I always notice and appreciate when a survey has a good range of gender options, and try to go out of my way to let them know. It’s so important and really helps me feel seen and included.

This reminds me of a time when software at a previous workplace appeared progressive on pronouns at a glance, but once I actually tried to use it, realised it was unhelpful. Employment Hero gives people options of he/him, she/her, they/them, or other for pronouns. I of course selected “other”, and… promptly realised it was useless. There was no way for me to enter my preferred pronouns (any/all). So anyone looking at my profile looking for my pronouns would not find them. As an admin, I was able to create a custom field and stick them there, but that appeared on a different page of my profile. So for people to see what my pronouns were, they’d have to know that custom field existed, know where to find it, and then click through to it. This meant the pronouns part of the profile failed in its function, creating a disaffordance; that is, exclusion due to coders and designers not recognising relevant user identity groups. In this case, anyone whose pronouns lie outside he/him, she/her or they/them would experience the disaffordance and possible accompanying microaggression. This could be solved by simply allowing users to self-describe via a new text box once we select the “Other” option, or just providing a free-form text box in the first place.

Introduction

• Non-binary identities are sometimes considered part of the trans umbrella. But this does not suit all non-binary people.
  • Some do not identify as trans at all.
  • Some identify as cis to some degree. 
  • Some identify as neither trans nor cis.
• Not everyone who is located outside the binary use “non-binary” to describe themselves.
• Non-binary identities are not new. They have existed throughout history across a range of cultures.

Beliefs and attitudes about non-binary gender/sex

• Cissexism is “prejudice and discrimination toward non-cisgender people”.
  • Associated with endorsements of essentialist statements about gender.
  • Conversely, beliefs that affirm gender and sex diversity are associated with beliefs about the fluid and multifaceted nature of gender and sex.
  • Some essentialist beliefs are associated with trans and non-binary affirmation. Specifically, beliefs holding that non-cis ways of being are natural and immutable.
  • Beliefs about gender and sex diversity are negatively associated with prejudice towards androgynous expressions.
• “Until recently, research on cissexism and transphobia mostly focused on prejudice against transgender people in general without specifying particular subgroups.”
  • Studies have increasingly desegregated data on prejudice towards transwomen and transmen, and also begun to examine prejudice against non-binary people specifically.
  • Attitudes towards trans and non-binary people are strongly related.
  • People’s own sex and gender identities affect their prejudice towards non-binary people.
    • “Cisgender men typically report greater prejudice toward non-binary people than cisgender women, mirroring the pattern of cisgender men’s greater cissexist attitudes toward transgender women and men and greater heterosexist attitudes.”
• Non-binary people and binary-identified trans people face different kinds of prejudice.
  • Non-binary people are more likely to be told their identity is “fake, invented, only exist in online contexts, or are the result of confusion about gender/sex.”
  • “As such, some non-binary people report facing stigma for being perceived as not “trans enough.””
  • Transwomen also report stigma about not being “trans enough.”
  • Cissexism towards trans people also invokes ideas of their identifying a particular way and not the other is fake or inauthentic, even if they believe the identities themselves (“women” or “men”) are real.
    • [So. Non-binary identities are fake all the way down. Whereas binary-aligned trans people are told they’re identifying with the wrong side. Is what the paper is saying?]

Non-binary people’s self-concepts

• “Psychological research has historically excluded non-binary people’s self-understandings, and has often failed to identify non-binary participants in a sample due to binary-focused gender/sex measurement practices.”
  • Focusing on a gender dichotomy has been a common impediment to studying non-binary people.
  • “Each time researchers measure gender/sex in binary-focused ways, it reifies a distorted image of gender/sex that erases non-binary people’s self-understandings and lived experiences.”
• “Recent research has explored non-binary people’s self-concepts through their identity narratives, including how they describe their own gender/sex identities and how they understand gender/sex more broadly.”
  • Unintelligibility – Struggle to describe and communicate identities due to the domination of the gender binary.
  • Managing stigma through challenging oppression – Fighting back against the binary is instrumental in resilience.
  • Connection beyond mainstream LGBTQ communities – Building communities outside of “dominant, cisgender, binary-focused queer contexts.”
  • Other research looks at how non-binary people navigate social contexts that deny their experiences of gender and sex.
  • Some research has focused on non-binary community building that allows people to craft new language and articulate self-concepts.
• “Some research has examined similarities and differences between the experiences, identities, and perspectives of non-binary people and binary-identified trans people.”
  • “…non-binary people have less essentialist beliefs about gender/sex than either cisgender people or binary-identified transgender people.”
  • Non-binary people report becoming aware of their identities later in life than binary-identified trans people.
  • “Overall, research has suggested non-binary and binary-identified trans people experience cissexist denial of the legitimacy of their self-concepts similarly, albeit not identically.”

Non-binary people’s wellbeing

• Use of minority stress model to examine how systemic cissexism, binarism and power can “explain mental health disparities between non-binary people and binary-identified cisgender people.”
  • Some of the research suggests non-binary trans people might experience more minority stressors than binary-identified trans people.
  • Trans adolescents who do not identify as non-binary experience more stressors (such as discrimination) than non-binary adolescents.
  • “Gender/sex minority stress has been linked to a number of negative mental health outcomes for non-binary people, including experiencing an eating disorder, depression, anxiety, and suicidality, among others.”
• Sources of resilience and joy for non-binary people. Article focuses on gender euphoria.
  • Term originated from the community rather than from clinicians.
  • Some non-binary people and binary-identified trans people do not experience dysphoria.
  • “…scholars have critiqued the overemphasis on dysphoria in trans health care as part of a broader problem of pervasive medicalization and pathologization of non-binary and trans identities.”
  • Current measures of gender dysphoria resonate with non-binary people the least, amongst all non-cis groups.
• Medicalisation is evident when looking at research focusing on medical transitions rather than pleasure, intimacy and wellbeing.
  • Medical transitions produce positive outcomes for people who desire it.
  • “But, medical transition status has not been found to be significantly correlated with sexual satisfaction among non-binary people, regardless of sex assigned at birth.”
  • Gender-related sources of pleasure and sexual satisfaction for non-binary people include:
    • Having partners who are also trans and/or non-binary
      • [Yeah, this rules.]
    • Having partners who engage in gender affirming sexual behaviors with them
    • Experiencing positive effects of medical transition on sexual arousal and orgasm

Gender-inclusive theory and methods

• Increased attention in how psychologists can “develop theories and methods that study gender from an inclusive and non-binary perspective.”
  • Gender trouble framework – “Morgenroth & Ryan [10] integrated queer, feminist, sociological, and psychological theories to describe gender/sex as a metaphorical theatrical performance, consisting of an actor who plays a character (gender/sex identity), wears a costume (gender expression), and performs lines from a script (gendered social norms) on a stage (social context).”
    • “Social psychological manipulations of one aspect of the performance can be fruitful for understanding how it shapes other aspects.”
    • Non-binary is not just a description. It is also a way of understanding and studying gender and sex as a “multifaceted system of social power”.
• Researchers have been developing inclusive ways of measuring gender and sex that include assessing whether someone is trans and/or non-binary.
  • Two-step method of asking about current gender and sex assigned and birth, separately.
  • “Multidimensional measures of gender/sex have also become increasingly common, such as the Multidimensional Gender/Sex Measure (MGSM) and the Gender/Sex 3 × 3.”
    • [I need to check these out.]
• “Inclusive gender/sex measurement practices are popular with people of all gender/sex identities, including cisgender, binary-identified people.”
  • “Non-binary and/or trans participants report valuing measures with options that allow them to communicate their identities with greater precision than binary-focused measurement practices.”
  • Cis, binary-identified people learn more when they see these measures.
  • Antipathy towards these measures is associated with essentialist, cissexist beliefs.

I’m reading through papers, books and reports related to queerness, the environment, and occasionally other topics. As I read, I’m taking notes so I can refer back to my old readings and remember their key points more easily. Why not post my notes here, so you can all learn with me?

Each article will open with my reflections on the paper, after which will follow a summary of the reading, which is usually the bulk of the piece. Square brackets throughout the summary indicate comments from me.

Continue reading PAPER: A scoping review of non-binary research in “Australian” social sciences →