Can I Date A Gay Guy As A Female Presenting NB?

[eloise1470]

I just want to clarify I'm engaged already and have no intentions of doing this, I just need help understanding the idea of NB better. I'm asking about gay men specifically because I'm bi so honestly idrc I'll date anyone so the only person not really on my list is gay men cuz duh.

 

I'm so sorry if this post/the question posed comes off offensive to anyone, I'm honestly just really trying to understand myself right now and I'm having a really hard time doing it alone and I don't really have anyone to ask so I came here to ask these questions I have. I know that this can sound so fetishizy and gross but I'm really not trying to do that I just want to have a better understanding of what/who I am and I am a big question person and I have to answer the questions otherwise I'll never be able to find peace. 

 

Anyways, to the question. I am trying to figure out if I want to start identifying as NB but I'm not really sure about what that means. I read quite a few articles and I have some knowledge about the Trans/NB community but not enough to say I can understand either in a super meaningful way. What I'm confused about most is how a change like changing my pronouns or identifying as NB will change my position in the world. 

 

This basically leads into my question which is: If I am a non-binary AFAB that still presents female and uses she/they pronouns, does that change my sexual identity too? So for example, since I would be considered NB could I date a gay man? Or because I'm female presenting and using she/her pronouns still would that be inappropriate? If I identify as NB is it inappropriate to be attracted to gay men? Would this be different if I identified as Pan instead of Bi? I know gender expression and gender identity are different but how can you separate the two? 

 

Honestly, this is so much more than one question I don't really expect anyone to answer any I mostly just needed a community like space to try and organize my thoughts but I would really appreciate it if someone could help me better understand this. Thanks in advance for your help, I hope you have a safe holiday.

[everywhere and nowhere]

Really, the thing that matters most is whether they would want to date someone female-presenting. Most gay men probably wouldn't*, but some could be "homoflexible" perhaps.

And to be honest, the kind of consideration you are having looks... strange. Why do you want to "start identifying as NB"? Does it answer some deeper need in you, or "just so"? Because... I don't want to question other people's identification, but I'm afraid that it could make non-binary gender identifications look like a "fad". And gender is not a matter of trends and fads, it's a very serious issue.

This is one of the reasons why I don't identify as non-binary. I would hate being a "womanly woman", I don't fulfill many female gender roles by the very fact of being asexual, queer and a proud spinster... but ultimately I really don't feel that I'm anything other than a not particularly gender-conforming woman. In fact, it's my asexuality which lets me feel at ease with it, to realise, for example, that I can only care about femininity on a political level, even wish I had no boobs, and still it doesn't make me "not a woman" if I feel that I'm a woman.

 

*By the way, you may want to take a look at the comic "Orientation Police", with a cis gay man and his trans boyfriend thinking "Ugh, I hope no-one thinks we're a straight couple".

[Emery.]

2 hours ago, eloise1470 said:

If I am a non-binary AFAB that still presents female and uses she/they pronouns, does that change my sexual identity too

Gay men and straight women are into masculinity and you need to feel comfortable with that to date someone who is into men. Frequently it’s the... very masculine kind of masculine. I’m not sure how to describe it. You see it in the way they respond, when they smile, when they feel attracted. So if the person was non-binary... what would it mean to this person, would they be comfortable with taking on a masculine role like that and would they make an attractive/masculine man?

[Rynn]

You can be attracted to gay men without identifying as NB. I don't see how being attracted to them is inappropriate. Same goes for straight girls. Pushing yourself on somebody who is giving signs that they aren't interested would be inaproppriate, regardless of whether you're of a gender they could be attracted to. But just being attracted to someone without acting on it, 's fine.

 

Gay guys and straight girls aren't likely to start wanting to date you just because you started identifying as NB.

 

Starting to identify as NB without changing anything about your gender expression likely won't change your position in the world at all. Realistically, people are still going to treat you like a girl.

Since there isn't really such a thing as 'passing' as nonbinary, transitioning would mostly be for yourself, not for society, so you can feel more like yourself and reduce dysphoria. (unless you transition to an extent that you'd be more likely to be read as male than female).

 

Since you identify as bisexual, identifying as NB doesn't change your sexuality either. If you'd identified as gay or straight, that would've been more complicated.

 

I don't think you should 'decide' to be NB based on sexuality though (obvi you don't 'decide' at all, you just are or aren't). So what makes you think you might be nonbinary? I think you should start there, and leave all the sexuality stuff for later. That's a separate issue.

 

I guess I'm a bit confused by the way you word things. Starting to identify as nonbinary isn't a decision you make. You either are nonbinary or you are not. You decide whether to be open about it or to hide that part of yourself, but you don't decide what to identify as.

 

Actually you know what, I'm just going to copy paste my enby explanation thingy in here. I think it'll help somewhat. Ignore any snark you find in there. It was originally written for someone who didn't believe nonbinary people were real. Also it's pretty dang simplified, because gender is complicated as hell:

 

Spoiler

Transgender:

Denoting or relating to a person whose sense of personal identity and gender does not correspond with their birth sex.

 

There are a lot of different aspects to gender.

• Gender roles/norms/expectations are unwritten rules society has for how men and women should behave. (Men can't wear make-up. Crying is for girls. Women shouldn't be too assertive.) These are not part of an individual's identity. They are part of a society's culture.
• Gender expression is what your gender appears to be to other people. (Includes gendered things like clothing, colors, make-up, mannerisms, tone of voice, way of walking, gestures while talking, how intensely emotions are expressed etc)
• Gender identity is a very complicated concept and it is the core of what we are talking about when we’re discussing trans issues. Before you can know what ‘transgender’ is, you need to know what ‘gender identity’ is. 

So there are two main theories on what 'gender identity' is.

 

First you've got the (in my opinion outdated) theory put forward by Judith Butler, Simone de Beauvoir and the like. They resist the idea that any aspect of gender identity can be innate. As de Beauvoir says "One isn't born a woman, one becomes a woman." This basically means that you feel like a woman because it's what you're used to. You behave like a woman because that's what's socially acceptable. In this view people act how they're supposed to act according to the gender roles in their culture. The constant repetition of doing what they're supposed to do gets etched into their brains and becomes their gender identity. For Butler and de Beauvoir, gender identity is the internalization of culturally imposed gender norms and expectations.

 

Then there's a newer theory about gender identity. This one builds on the first one and accepts it as partially correct, but asserts that gender identity is also partially innate. If it wasn't, then it would logically follow that trans people simply can’t exist, because your gender identity would entirely depend on what you were raised to be.

Joan Roughgarden, a transgender evolutionary biologist who wrote a whole book on the science of lgbt identities, is a proponent of this one. According to her, ‘gender identity’ is a deep-seated sense of self that's been established from the time you were born. In her book 'Evolution's Rainbow', she writes:

 

I envision gender identity as a cognitive lens. When a baby opens his or her eyes after birth and looks around, whom will the baby emulate and whom will he or she merely notice? Perhaps a male baby will emulate his father or other men, perhaps not, and a female baby her mother or other women, perhaps not. I imagine that a lens in the brain controls who to focus on as a “tutor.” Transgender identity is then the acceptance of a tutor from the opposite sex. Degrees of transgender identity, and of gender variance generally, reflect different degrees of single-mindedness in the selection of the tutor’s gender. The development of gender identity thus depends on both brain state and early postnatal experience, because brain state indicates what the lens is, and environmental experience supplies the image to be photographed through that lens and ultimately developed immutably into brain circuitry. Once gender identity is set, like other basic aspects of temperament, life proceeds from there.

 

So a cisgender female baby instinctively emulates women, a transgender baby with a female body instinctively emulates men, and a non-binary baby instinctively emulates both. Simple. 

Quote

 

The innate part of gender identity is the part that decides which of the two genders (or both or neither) you will instinctively emulate during your life. The behavior of that group of people then supplies you with the learned aspect of your gender identity. So the innate part tells you which gender(s) to imitate and the learned part is what kind of behavior you're actually imitating and internalizing.  

 

Gender identity as Roughgarden describes it, is a deep-seated, immutable sense of belonging or kinship to a gender (either to the social construct or to the group of people). A sense of "I belong with those people, or the other group, or maybe both or not really with either."

 

You can't change this sense of belonging by raising someone differently. There have been cases where a doctor made a mistake while circumcising a baby boy and then cut off the entire penis. For example, there’s David Reimer. That boy was raised as a girl instead, from birth, but still always felt like a boy.

 

Gender identity is at least partially innate and biological, not just cultural, so the argument that your gender identity can't be anything but 'man' or 'woman' because that's the only two genders that exist in our culture is not applicable. Gender identity =/= gender as a social construct. Gender identity is to which degree you instinctively identify with those two culturally established genders.

 

Some brains are simply somewhere in between male and female. Some people feel a sense of belonging to both genders, and others to neither.

 

My guess is agender people don't feel at home in either group, genderfluid babies could emulate their dad during some activities (like boxing) and their mom in other situations (like socializing), and neutrois people sort of feel stuck in between the two groups, but I don't know. The only way to know is to ask them. Our neurobiology science skills aren't advanced enough to read people's minds yet.

Gender Identity versus Gender Expression

Of course everyone has a feminine and a masculine side, but that's not what we're talking about here. For example, a man can be feminine, he can like wearing make-up and dresses, talk in a stereotypically feminine way, and still identify as a man. Is his feminine side a 'deep-seated sense of identity', 'a cognitive lens that determines which gender(s) a baby will emulate from the minute they're born'? I doubt it. I think it's gender expression, not gender identity. For a nonbinary person, that's different.

 

A nonbinary person is not someone who simply dislikes the gender role they're put into. A guy who likes to break gendered expectations by wearing dresses is a crossdresser, a drag queen or a gender-nonconforming person, not a nonbinary person. Those are terms for people who have non-standard gender expressions. A nonbinary person is a person who has this innate, deep-seated, unchangeable sense of belonging to both genders, or to neither. If their body or the social role people ascribe to them doesn't line up with their inner sense of what they are, this leads to dysphoria. Dysphoria is an integrally important sign of ‘transgenderness’.

 

Gender dysphoria is either a feeling of discomfort/distress with gendered aspects of your body (meaning you'd feel a need to change your body = transition) or a feeling of discomfort/distress because of what gender people perceive you to be (meaning you'd want to take steps in order to be perceived differently = transition).

 

Gender euphoria is the opposite of dysphoria, it's feeling extremely 'right' when you're seen by others as how you perceive yourself. Euphoria can also be the thing to clue people in on their gender identity, sometimes instead of dysphoria.

 

Gender expression includes gendered things like clothing, make-up, mannerisms, tone of voice, way of walking, gestures while talking etc.

The innate part of gender identity doesn't have anything to do with any of those things.

Are NB’s trans?

                                                                Trans people

                                                       ↙                                  ↘

                                    binary trans people                nonbinary trans people

They're all trans.

 

Nonbinary people can transition, so even if you were (in my opinion incorrectly) basing your definition of ‘transgender’ on whether or not transition is possible, you still wouldn’t have a reason to say NB’s aren’t trans. NB’s can transition medically (through hormone treatment and surgery) as well as socially. Social transition isn't easy. It should be taken seriously. http://gender.wikia.com/wiki/Social_Transition

 

An NB transitions for the same reasons a binary trans person transitions, in order to have their body reflect their inner selves more, and in order to be perceived differently. It's true that in this culture NB's won't 'pass' as their true gender, because not enough people know that nonbinary identities exist, so they won't automatically recognize someone as 'Oh, that person doesn't look quite male or female, they're probably nonbinary,' as they would (most of the time) correctly recognize a woman to be a woman and a man to be a man. However, that's a problem with our culture, not with nonbinary people.

 

'Binary trans' and 'nonbinary trans' are two different types of being trans. If individual nonbinary people don’t identify as trans, then there's probably a personal story for why they don't, or maybe they just aren’t aware that nb’s are trans, or maybe they’ve made the common mistake to confuse gender expression with gender identity and they’re actually gender-nonconforming. You won't know until you ask them.

 

NB's not identifying as trans is kind of like black feminists not identifying as feminists. Some black feminists don't identify as feminists because they don't feel represented by white feminism. They feel white feminists aren't committed enough to ending all forms of oppression, instead of just to ending sexism. I believe they call themselves womanists. They're feminists, but refuse to identify as such for personal or political reasons.

 

That's what it's like with nb's too. They're trans, but some refuse to identify as trans for personal or political reasons. These reasons are very diverse. For example, indigenous folks don't conceptualize their genders in the same way western societies do. It's not as medicalized or othered. Personally I could understand why they'd rather identify with the concepts they had before ours came along.

 

[Karekare]

I don't think it's an issue of can or can't. Anyone can date anyone they want, provided it's consensual and mutual. But I also have some thoughts, as a gay trans man.

 

As a gay man, if I was able to achieve a strong strong emotional bond with a feminine presenting enby person and ended up developing romantic feelings, I'm not going to shut those down because they aren't a man. But I will say I won't be aesthetically or (potentially) sexually attracted to that person at all, which might hurt their feelings. 

 

As a trans man, as many people above me stated, you don't "start" becoming a gender somewhere down the line. I've had many people inadvertently say offensive things to me like "you identify as a man" or "you decided to become a man" or "you wish to be a man" and none of those are true. I don't "identify" as a man, I AM a man. I've known I was male since elementary school. Clear and simple.  

 

Finally coming out as trans was a completely separate issue from figuring out my sexuality, those things don't go hand in hand. I was more attracted to men before, so I was considered "straight". I came out as trans, so now I'm gay. Bi people can be attracted to enby people too, pan just means to be attracted regardless of gender (they tend to be known as "gender blind"). 

 

TLDR; your gender doesn't affect your sexuality in any way, those are separate issues, and reiterating what those above me have said about gender

[Sarah-Sylvia]

Why would it matter who you're attracted to? You can be attracted to anyone.

But. gay man = he's interested in men. So it probably wouldn't work out.

[Star Crossed Loner]

You are so intuitive it looks cute, hopefully you'll find where's your place in the world in the spaces of the queer community, just don't stress yourself if that self discovery philisofical journey take more time than you have expected.

 

Let's break this down in parts, first:

 

-Gay men don't find themselves attracted to people who they socially read or believe to be women.

 

-The only instance I can think of a gay man feeling attracted to a non-binary person is if this non-binary person is genderfluid and is sometimes a man.

 

-But anyway, you can still date man as a non-binary person even if you are  not genderfluid, but in that case these men can't be gay or hetero.

 

Second:

 

-Gender identities are just words that give name to the sociocultural gender group you identify as, in other words, the one you feel represented by, a part of or connected with at a given moment.

 

-Gender expressions are the things others can perceive more easily about you, basically behaviors and appearance and gender estereotypes and gender roles, like body type, pronouns, etc.