dekedangle_rpfanon | #29 – Lay, Lie, or Laine?

This is the twenty-ninth post of Deke Dangle RPF Anon, a community for all your ice hockey anon meme needs.

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na

i really hesitate to write this because i know it could come across as wanky and potentially offensive so i'm sorry and freeze me and tell me to go to hell if this is awful, but why does it seem like there are so many young people in the hockey tumblr/twitter community who say they are nonbinary and/or gender nonconforming or something else ask for the use of different pronouns (i see they/them a lot but also he/him)... but then still present a really strongly feminine gender presentation? like i guess i know this extends outside of hockey, there's a girl i used to coach who is now a senior in high school and they haven't changed anything about their actual presentation but now requests from time to time on facebook that people use they/them pronouns but i don't even think anyone does that. i'm confused. i'm cis and i want to better understand. i also understand i'm probably an asshole for asking this so, yeah. i noticed it again with this person so this at least seems like a semi-related space to ask instead of bringing it up out of nowhere

This is probably somewhat oversimplified, but I think part of it is that society tells you that "feminine" is a pretty constrained set of X things, whereas "masculine" is Y things, and society clearly values masculine over feminine, and Y things individually over X things. If you think about how media is marketed, women are expected to be interested in and identify with media about men, but media about women is "feminine," for women. So it might be easier for someone assigned female at birth who's comfortable having a very feminine gender presentation to nevertheless be extremely conscious of how they interact with gender and to get to the point where they want to say, "I'm non-binary, not a woman," than it might be for someone assigned male with a very masculine presentation to say the same thing.

ayrt

thank you for your swift and concise reply! that makes a lot of sense. i wonder how amab, masculine presenting people who have those same sorts of feelings but don't feel comfortable expressing it in that way regard themselves.

i think my lack of understanding (as in like comprehension not acceptance) is because i am just so stuck on the binary bc i feel so comfortable being cis that i can't really imagine what a third (or more) option would be? i probably just have to unequate masculine/man, feminine/woman and androgyny/somewhere in the middle. i just feel like im in math class again or something where its like 'yes i believe that this is the answer but no i don't understand the steps you took to get there'.

i'm a cis woman, i have a friend who's non-binary, and basically i tend to treat non-binary and varying "it's complicated" IDs as "okay, i'm not going to get this entirely for roughly the same reasons i'm never going to know what it's like to be black (i'm white and look it), but that doesn't mean i can't learn enough to have SOME idea how it feels for people in those shoes and minimize the amount of uneducated and/or hurtful shit i say". (let's just say i've gotten better on at least trying to word stuff as inclusively as possible over the last few years, in particular.)

basically, it's entirely possible that you WON'T ever completely understand, but that doesn't make you a horrible human being or anything, it just means that this may be a thing you sort of have to take on faith. (i occasionally want to rant "GENDER (or lack thereof) DOES NOT EQUAL PRESENTATION" because people frequently conflate them, and they are *not the same*.)

(i suspect amab masculine-presenting people probably have their own set of issues, but i am SUPER non-qualified to talk about them and don't have any good links offhand that you couldn't google yourself.)

Being out online isn't the same as being out IRL isn't the same as transitioning. More specifically, each of those puts the person in more danger of violent transphobia. Tumblr fandom is a very low risk place to test out their gender identities. Some may realize that this is what's right for them, and slowly work that into their actual life, or realize their identity as a woman has more wiggle room than gender essentialism originally thought, as was the case with me. Yeah, there are probably a few sociopaths who do it for points, because the internet is very large and has next to no rules, but that's far from the default, IMO.

It would benefit you to read up a little on nonbinary gender and gender presentation- off of tumblr, because they can get screamy and radical to the point of absurdy, which can undermine a useful societal concept. It's mainstream enough nowadays there should be some decent sources easily found on Google.

ayrt

thank you! i definitely haven't expressly considered before that just because someone is trying something out in a 'safe space' it doesn't mean it isn't genuine, even if it doesn't stick. i definitely don't believe people do it for points but understanding 'motivations' (not the exact word i want to use but i don't think i have a word for what i want to say).

i was raised in a super conservative home and while i've been able to shake nearly every other "this is weird and wrong" thing (like sexualities and interracial relationships, etc) and grow into an accepting and understanding person my brain just seems so stuck on the binary. it's been fairly easy to push out of my mind too because i don't know anyone irl who doesn't fall into the binary, but i want to understand. so thank you for the recommendation on research. i will do that.

It's more exposure than anything. Nonbinary genders outside of queer theory and ancient societies has only really been gaining traction for a few years, compared to a few decades.

Nonbinary genders outside of queer theory and ancient societies

And non-Western cultures.

Fa'afafine and sworn virgins are current/recent examples of third genders, although I'm not sure how well they map onto non-binary. (I mean, pedantically of course a third gender is non-binary, but I'm not sure if they're conceptualised the same way. Anyway, maybe reading some anthropology on those groups might help OP get their head round the concept?

(Tumblr) can get screamy and radical to the point of absurdy, which can undermine a useful societal concept.

I would buy this tshirt.

ayrt

I would feel better about that if I had spelled absurdity right, lol.

Everyone's given you really good answers. But I also think that being a teenager is a time when a lot of people are unsure of who they are and will try out different things to find what fits them. It's not uncommon for average teenagers to want to go by different names, for example. The person you mention may want to try out pronouns online and figure out if that feels right to them. Depending on how young they are, they may not even have the option of changing their presentation due to school rules or parental ones about how they are allowed to dress, etc.

#29 – Lay, Lie, or Laine?

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