I was with most of this but perhaps also consider that some traits might be bimodally distributed, and that surely most ways we could come up with some bundle of mostly-correlated traits that we'd then call "traditional western gender spectrum" would be one of these? This would give "non-binary" slightly more obvious "bite" as a category (though I agree some people do just mean "not right down one end of the distribution or the other" and this is silly - perhaps more so if the distribution is bimodal than if it's unimodal actually).
I felt very certain while reading this that sooner or later it was gonna try threading the needle between Scylla's gender and Charybdis' sexuality, and then hit Part IV and was like yep. Not the first to make the argument, but making it Tim Urban-style with simple graphs and a smattering of math makes the pill go down easier. There's no easy way to gently nudge an ideology and be like...please just take the W, there's no need to keep railing against (increasingly-invented) stringent social norms that we were well on our way to relaxing anyway. Tabooing things has the unfortunate side effect of reviving contrarian interest - like pink-haired enbys are a dime a dozen, but now tradcaths or whatever are the hot new way to be heterodox. (Scott's old post "Right is the New Left", since you're familiar with that blog. Didn't really pan out politically, but culturally? Yeah...)
I encounter a lot of nonbinary (or whatever other precise term) folks in SF, and it...always kinda bugs me slightly? Like I'm not gonna call the kettle black when I'm a pot myself, being nominally trans or whatever...people gotta live their truths, find some sort of scaffolding to build an identity on. You do you. But as you say, it adds very little or possibly less than zero information to proclaim one's flag is firmly planted somewhere in the mushy middle. Similar to the argument that "bisexual" has seen the biggest rise in LGBT identification, since it can't really be disproven and requires no real commitment: https://betonit.substack.com/p/lgbt-explosion
Within that giant range, I meet people who are masculine, people who are feminine, people I'd formerly have categorized "butch" or "bishonen" or whatever...and very few who are legitimately androgynous/confuse my first-impressions, which I think does have the explanatory power "ambivert" or whatever lacks. Opposing a binary, or declaring oneself outside of it somehow, is confusing when they seem to fall within it just fine? Since so much of gender depends on the reaction of observers, rather than an internal felt sense...feminism spent a long time elucidating that gender is performed for the benefit of others more than the individual, and I'm not sure where that got lost. I'll still refer to someone in whatever way makes them comfortable, but it does cause me a little guilty ouch inside, as all polite fictions do...raising the costs of interacting with someone makes me want to do so less. Aella's write-up of this: https://knowingless.com/2019/06/06/side-effects-of-preferred-pronouns/
Also, I didn't understand the joke of Footnote 2, which is maybe the point?
Came across this publication today and checking out some of the other articles. I am saddened to think that the "extremes represent the trait" thinking the reason for self-categorization of "neither" has risen so much.
I get the presentation you're going for, I'd however expect that the Normal distribution curve probably doesn't apply to gender conformity, or gender identification. Gender Identification would largely be two poles I think, and gender conformity, man what would that even mean?
I think your model works for things which truly exist on a bell curve, but traits such as gender presentation almost certainly look more like bimodal distribution. I wonder if "ambiversion" comes from an assumption that sociability also looks like a bimodal distribution, with most being moderately introverted/extroverted and a smaller number of "moderates"? Might also explain why most people don't identify as centrist.
In my experience, people who identify as nonbinary don't simply identify as "somewhat more masculine than most women/more feminine than most men", but have genuine discomfort or hostility toward one or both gender roles and treatment associated with them.
I’m willing to suggest that this sort of linguistic misapprehension can be taken a logical step further. Even a polarized distribution of gender - as you suggested for your interpretation of the matter - does not easily account for how transsexual people map onto gender presentation, for example, but that is because gender does not truly exist. Similarly to how race is a non-scientific construct used to categorize people, descriptions of “introverted, feminine, vegetarian, tan” (and vice versa) are simply observations of personality and biology. I think people are mistaking personality and biological affects for identity and demographic statistics, and all accounts of “ambiversion” or “non-binary” are logical category errors.
You may find this article interesting and relevant to the topic at hand:
I was with most of this but perhaps also consider that some traits might be bimodally distributed, and that surely most ways we could come up with some bundle of mostly-correlated traits that we'd then call "traditional western gender spectrum" would be one of these? This would give "non-binary" slightly more obvious "bite" as a category (though I agree some people do just mean "not right down one end of the distribution or the other" and this is silly - perhaps more so if the distribution is bimodal than if it's unimodal actually).
I felt very certain while reading this that sooner or later it was gonna try threading the needle between Scylla's gender and Charybdis' sexuality, and then hit Part IV and was like yep. Not the first to make the argument, but making it Tim Urban-style with simple graphs and a smattering of math makes the pill go down easier. There's no easy way to gently nudge an ideology and be like...please just take the W, there's no need to keep railing against (increasingly-invented) stringent social norms that we were well on our way to relaxing anyway. Tabooing things has the unfortunate side effect of reviving contrarian interest - like pink-haired enbys are a dime a dozen, but now tradcaths or whatever are the hot new way to be heterodox. (Scott's old post "Right is the New Left", since you're familiar with that blog. Didn't really pan out politically, but culturally? Yeah...)
I encounter a lot of nonbinary (or whatever other precise term) folks in SF, and it...always kinda bugs me slightly? Like I'm not gonna call the kettle black when I'm a pot myself, being nominally trans or whatever...people gotta live their truths, find some sort of scaffolding to build an identity on. You do you. But as you say, it adds very little or possibly less than zero information to proclaim one's flag is firmly planted somewhere in the mushy middle. Similar to the argument that "bisexual" has seen the biggest rise in LGBT identification, since it can't really be disproven and requires no real commitment: https://betonit.substack.com/p/lgbt-explosion
Within that giant range, I meet people who are masculine, people who are feminine, people I'd formerly have categorized "butch" or "bishonen" or whatever...and very few who are legitimately androgynous/confuse my first-impressions, which I think does have the explanatory power "ambivert" or whatever lacks. Opposing a binary, or declaring oneself outside of it somehow, is confusing when they seem to fall within it just fine? Since so much of gender depends on the reaction of observers, rather than an internal felt sense...feminism spent a long time elucidating that gender is performed for the benefit of others more than the individual, and I'm not sure where that got lost. I'll still refer to someone in whatever way makes them comfortable, but it does cause me a little guilty ouch inside, as all polite fictions do...raising the costs of interacting with someone makes me want to do so less. Aella's write-up of this: https://knowingless.com/2019/06/06/side-effects-of-preferred-pronouns/
Also, I didn't understand the joke of Footnote 2, which is maybe the point?
Came across this publication today and checking out some of the other articles. I am saddened to think that the "extremes represent the trait" thinking the reason for self-categorization of "neither" has risen so much.
I get the presentation you're going for, I'd however expect that the Normal distribution curve probably doesn't apply to gender conformity, or gender identification. Gender Identification would largely be two poles I think, and gender conformity, man what would that even mean?
I think your model works for things which truly exist on a bell curve, but traits such as gender presentation almost certainly look more like bimodal distribution. I wonder if "ambiversion" comes from an assumption that sociability also looks like a bimodal distribution, with most being moderately introverted/extroverted and a smaller number of "moderates"? Might also explain why most people don't identify as centrist.
In my experience, people who identify as nonbinary don't simply identify as "somewhat more masculine than most women/more feminine than most men", but have genuine discomfort or hostility toward one or both gender roles and treatment associated with them.
I’m willing to suggest that this sort of linguistic misapprehension can be taken a logical step further. Even a polarized distribution of gender - as you suggested for your interpretation of the matter - does not easily account for how transsexual people map onto gender presentation, for example, but that is because gender does not truly exist. Similarly to how race is a non-scientific construct used to categorize people, descriptions of “introverted, feminine, vegetarian, tan” (and vice versa) are simply observations of personality and biology. I think people are mistaking personality and biological affects for identity and demographic statistics, and all accounts of “ambiversion” or “non-binary” are logical category errors.
You may find this article interesting and relevant to the topic at hand:
https://aeon.co/essays/the-idea-that-gender-is-a-spectrum-is-a-new-gender-prison
Now do "demisexual."