Non-binary People

While I wouldn't date one, I have no ill feelings for them. I was friends with a guy who became a girl. Only reason we stopped talking was another friend in our group started stalking her badly which created some issues. I like to think everyone's free to do whatever makes them happy long as they aren't hurting anyone else.

@Oniiai awesome! That's exciting I haven't met any other non-binary people on here yet so it's cool to meet someone else who is not only non-binary but also genderfluid too =3

@Nipplord http://nonbinary.org/wiki/Nonbinary_gender http://nonbinary.org/wiki/Genderfluid The preferred pronouns are "They, their, and them"

@MainichiMaidCafe do you mean that you're non-binary as well? @Nipplord Firstly, I would like to say that I understand your curiosity and I have taken no offense whatsoever to the questions. If anything, I appreciate your willingness to try to learn and understand that which you are unfamiliar with. I also understand that in the event you find my answers unsatisfactory or you are unconvinced in anyway, that does not affect your opinion of me as a person. I will do my best to answer your questions and to pull up some legitimate resources to link here. However, at the moment I don't have any bookmarked so it will take me a little bit to pull some up that I can cite. I just want you to know that I'm not ignoring/dodging your questions, I simply want to do my best to properly answer, especially since I don't currently have answers to the question regarding transgender/non-binary brain chemistry. As far as gender and sex being different, sex is defined as the physical genitalia of a person that denotes them as male or female. Gender, on the other hand is defined as masculinity or femininity based on cultural influence and can be either assigned by self or others, but it is usually assumed based on sex. This is why the definitions of sex and gender are often misunderstood as interchangeable and synonymous. This can be found both in dictionaries and on medical websites, medical dictionaries included. Here are some links in case you would like to check: www.medilexicon.com, http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/232363.php, and any dictionary of your choice. Gender is essentially a social construct and what we define as "masculine" or "feminine" is decided by the society and the time we live in. An example of this is that high heels used to be considered something only a man would wear. However, in our current time period, most people on the street would stare at a man who was wearing high heels as if something was wrong with him. While we assume gender is the same as/interchangeable with the definition of sex, it technically isn't. They are separate by definition, so I don't think that there are any studies that have been done on this when you could simply consult a dictionary. As I previously mentioned, I will come back to address the questions regarding brain function and chemistry when I have more information, if there is information to be had on the subject. In regard to the questions about preferred pronouns, I don't think there is really anything scientific about this to be honest, as it is really just a matter of preference and there are no rules that clearly state everyone must be referred to using the same male/female pronouns. Much like choosing clothes that you like because they suit you well, pronouns are similar. Many people don't give a second thought to the pronouns that are automatically assumed and used for the majority, however, some of us just don't feel that we fit the typical standards of what is rigidly defined as masculine or feminine in our current society. And as we don't identify solely with the gender of our sex, we don't always feel comfortable with the pronouns that are automatically assigned based on our sex. It's similar to wearing a piece of clothing that doesn't quite fit right. So, we pick something else that we like better and that we feel fits ourselves best as we see it. Now, I will admit that some of them get kind of crazy and I think that while it's all well and good that they want to express themselves with other pronouns and I don't have a problem with that, I think it is a little ridiculous to want to be referred to with *insert seemingly random word here*-self like starself or plantself or whatever they decide they want to be called. Most of the pronouns that I see used though are female, male, they/them, or some form of zi/zir which has multiple spellings when adapted to English but is originally derived from the neutral pronouns used in German, so it isn't like they are entirely made up like the starself or others of that nature. It isn't so much that we hear them and think "oh, that sounds cool, I wanna be called that instead". Albeit, I don't know how everyone thinks so maybe some people do this and I think that's fine too, but I know I didn't just up and decide I wanted different pronouns used when other people refer to me "because it sounded cool". I decided that I wanted different pronouns used when people are referring to me because I have never been altogether comfortable with people using female pronouns. I have just always felt...weird I guess when people referred to me with female pronouns. It just didn't feel right to me most of the time. It felt like people were referring to someone who looked like me rather than my actual self if that makes any sense. I didn't know there was a word for the things I was feeling or that there was an option to be referred to in a way that didn't adhere strictly to the usual male/female pronouns, so when I learned about the various ways that could be chosen, I looked at them, considered myself and them in relation to myself very carefully, and then I made the decision about what I felt fit me the best. So, those are my answers to your questions, not including the aforementioned temporary exception. I hope that my answers have afforded you some satisfactory answers and that you have gained some understanding from them. If there are other things you would also like to ask, please feel free to do so and I will do my best to answer them, although I can't guarantee a quick response haha.

@nipplord I don't think there's many studies that have been published due to the relatively new-ness of the idea of gender fluidity. But since I love scrounging on pubmed anyways, here's some studies but take them with a grain of salt. There's still a lot of work to be done in that area. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22364652 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26156113 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25378265

Ah, thank you @xueli! It seems like I won't need to look for studies after all haha but yes, there is still plenty of work to be done in this area and there is bound to be scarce findings for at least a few years to come, but hopefully these-especially the first one in the list-can give you some of the information you are wanting in regards to the actual brain aspect of this.