Schrondinger's cat is both alive and dead at the same time, so it's wrong to call it non-binary, it is binary, just both states at once. Well at least until you observe it and it collapses into the dear or alive state.
Somebody should make an online test rating how male or female you are based on your interests? I wonder how I'd rate, I ride a motorcycle, but I listen to Mitski and play Sims.
Doesn't that mean the cat is non-binary until observed? It is both dead and alive at the same time, meaning it exists within a binary but somehow also on both ends.
It's not a third thing, though. It's dead and it's alive. I get what you're saying, I think. You're conceiving of the cat's state of being as a combination of dead and alive, which is a third state of being.
I think.
"Non-binary" in the cat's case isn't meant to describe a state outside of the binary. It describes one within the binary but that does not adhere to the rules of the binary.
Schröedinger’s Cat always reminds me of the 1958 version of the movie The Fly, specifically when the scientist tries to teleport a cat and it fails to rematerialize, leaving it in a permanent state of potentially between two locations.
Yes, it has horror icon Vincent Price in it! And granted the special effects were pretty basic in 1958, it still has quite a few viscerally creepy moments, including the famous final scene where the fly with the human head is caught in the spider web and is crying “help me! Help me!” As the spider approaches for the kill. Really creepy, creepier than the 1986 remake with Jeff Goldblum & Gina Davis. And the short story by George Langelaan which is the basis for both movies is worth a read, too! I mean if you like sci fi-horror
I would say it's still part of the binary. And it adheres to the rules of the binary, quantum superposition is a regular thing after all. Ahahaha. Sorry I'm being an arsehole.
Quantum superstition is definitely a thing but a cat seemingly does not exist in more than one state of life and death at once. That's the whole reason for the example - to show how ridiculous it is and that there is this disconnect between quantum mechanics and the world we experience.
The problem with a points-based boyfulness-vs.-girlery quiz in 2026 is that it would be taken both seriously and literally—especially by the i'm-not-a-Girl-or-boy set, absolutely all of whom would alrdy have a predetermined answer in mind before starting the quiz. The quiz would therefore be "transphobic" because it would fail to "affirm" anybody who scored the "wrong" way.🫥
Ofcourse You could just post the quiz on a TERF or TERF-adjacent site where the readership would appreciate the satire. I mean, ••IF•• You could live with Yourself after committing yet another genocide against a historically marginalized, woefully oppressed group of people who alrdy experience an average of 2.7 genocides a day.
.
As for the cat: It's just N percent likely to be alive and (100 – N) percent likely to be an ex-cat. Live cat and ex-cat are still mutually exclusive possibilities, though. You can't be both at the same time.
"What if you put me in a fancy double-corrugated box and asked somebody else to guess?" This changes nothing. You still can't be both at the same time.
By way of analogy; Say the chance of rain tomorrow is 50% (or any other probability that isn't 0% or 100%). In this case we'll have to wait until tomorrow to reveal a concrete outcome—where "wait until tomorrow" takes on the functional role of "open the box and look"—but I suspect you'll agree that "Tomorrow's rainfall will be both zero and nonzero" is wrong because it's objectively impossible. We won't know until tomorrow, but it's going to be one or the other.
(n.b.: The sentence with "zero" and "nonzero" isn't the most elegant thing ever strung together, but the clunkiness is the cost of precision. I was originally going to write "It's going to rain tomorrow and it's not going to rain tomorrow", but that wording is sloppy enough to prompt time-based objections—"oh yeah, well what if it rains all morning then the sky's clear all day? then what?"—which are irrelevant and which break the analogy because cats don't cycle between dead and alive. The "9 lives" objection is denied.
And it was only despairing that I wrote "n.b." in front of this. Why, O prankster deities, why?😅😅)
They entirely ignore how absolutely unreasonable that is, because they only see themselves and no one else matters. They don't care about other people's fellings or right of self-expression, they only care to dictate how other people see them without having to do the work and actually deserve being seen in a better light. They want to be special without actually being special, stand out without merit, be affirmed for being not just normal and boring, which would be bad enough, but insufferable and egoistical, only thinking about themselves.
They look at talented people and envy them for supposedly being handed fame and admiration without effort, blind to the sacrifice and hard work of those people. They envy a selfless person who is praised for doing something for others, and always are the ones screaming loudest that anyone who expects even just a thank you for their hard work and generosity is 'entitled' and not really generous just to turn around and demand the highest praise for 'being their true selves' while being useless weight on the shoulders of society.
The whole movement is driven by envy and narcissism, by the bitterness of not being in the spotlight, no matter what the other person gets attention for. Any form of support that's not for them is attacked with vitriol, no matter who the beneficiaries are. They don't even stop trying to injecting themselves in survivors groups and aids for terminal ill people. My first real life confrontation with a self declared non-binary was a tantrum throwing teenager berating her poor grandma who couldn't remember that her beloved granddaughter had chosen to change her name for attention while her grandmother suffered from Alzheimer and died in hospice.
Non-binary people are the most selfish and narcissistic people I've ever met in my life. So far I haven't met even one who was able to consider anyone's needs besides their own, or who would do anything that wasn't aimed to make them more visible and made a drama out of even the slightest issues.
Okay, that anecdote about the teen chewing her grandmother out is heartbreaking. I would never dream of such a thing, and especially not when I was younger.
Have you ever met an adult with a non-binary identity? I'm not sure if they're worse or better.
Sadly I've met far too many people, until recently, I've helped organising events, in part for work, in part privately, and they mostly draw 'progessive' people. Like fandom conventions etc. I personally have the impression that the whole idea of being non-binary is profoundly self-centred in a very unhealthy way. It's focusing on being special without having anything to build up on, so people try to elevate their mere existence.
The adults are worse than the teens. The teens usually still have other things going they can focus on, and they still have topics to talk to that are not connected to identity. They really want to be someone, and I get the impression they're just really insecure and don't trust that people like them as girls, since they are mostly girls.
The adults have only that, and absolutely every single dialogue always is forcefully reduced to their neo-pronouns and self-made problems that all boil down to being unable to force people to see them as they want to be seen. One was a person who once was someone truly remarkable in the fandom community, well known for her astonishing cosplay. The last year I volunteered, before the scene became too much to stand, there was nothing left of her, she had literally eradicated herself and there was nothing left but her non-binary excuse to no longer enjoy what she was doing, because she lacked the self-esteem to be herself without total approval. She reduced herself to weird side characters and heavily curated costumes to avoid 'sexism', and you could see she was absolutely miserable in those costumes. There was nothing left but the total focus on carrying a 'message', as if having fun was something dirty and juvenile she had to avoid at all cost.
Sure, I know a few nonbinary adults, they seem to come in two varieties and they are all women. One type is a woman who is not conventionally attractive, has self esteem issues, latch on to multiple nerd countercultures, and signify their nonbinary ID with brightly dyed hair, lots of piercings, disdain for normies.
The other type is an outgoing self assured woman who is naturally drawn to androgyny is usually bi or lesbian, seems mentally healthy, are conventionally attractive but are into accessorizing their self expression to show their love of androgyny and calling themselves bon-binary is mostly just another accessory, and they generally don’t care if you slip up and she/her them.
The very existence of "nonbinary" is a demonstration of the total absurdity of this ideology. If you are "non" something, then aren't you proving that the something you are rebelling against is real, FFS?
Another binary example in addition to life or death is that no one can be a little bit pregnant; you either are or you aren't, there is no in between state. (And note to all the NBs out there: if you choose to have unprotected sex with someone who has differently appearing genitalia to yours, only one of you risks becoming pregnant and you can't choose which one of you it will be.)
Re the Western privilege that all those SJWs share: if nonbinary or transgenderism was real than all those Afghan women would be using this tactic to overcome the misogynistic violence that is baked into their lives.
All obstetric violence is sex based because only natal females need obstetric services, regardless of how they choose to "identify". The same applies to workplace sexual harassment and all the other issues that feminism has worked to mitigate.
Well said. It does send the wrong message. As though being a woman is something you can opt out of. No you can't. You can opt out of performing femininity, but you can't opt out of how you're born.
Puberty is tough. Lots of boys hate seeing hairy bits etc and wish they were streamlined like girls. It’s natural and how they discover what they love.
Lots of boys hate how they lose their neotenous cuteness, the acromegaly that testosterone causes turns their bodies into hulking ungainly things that make them
Intimidating just by existing, hate that they lose their sweet child voices, hate that their emotions are overlaid with a constant unpleasant horniness, absolutely hate it, and the worst thing is they aren’t allowed to express any of this pubertal despair, lest they be mercilessly mocked and shamed.
"When you opt for a non-binary identity, you are more likely to feel comfortable ignoring feminism as you may feel protected by how you identify." I think this is why society is 'encouraging' it! I think this whole deal is a backlash to feminism.
This piece strikes directly at the heart of reality and cuts through the modern distortions surrounding sex and identity. True biological sovereignty cannot be opted out of or replaced by abstract labels, because the reality of the terrain remains unchanged. Rejecting corporate or cultural stereotyping in favor of recognizing our actual physiology is where true autonomy and power begin.
I just subscribed to your project because thinking together is how we think better. Let's keep building.
Why are you acting like using they/them is so “ hard”? You use they/them in conversations everyday because it’s basic English. This whole thing is just transphobia, and if anything holding up the patriarchy instead of abolishing it. You aren’t a “feminist” if you continue to dehumanize trans people and trans identities. If feminism is equality for all genders, would that not be equality for all gender identities also?
Despite being a man I frequently feel like a woman myself – generally every time I turn over in bed and don’t find one beside me. 😉🙂 Though things are improving of late.
But I think you’re more or less on the right track here with this thought-experiment of yours:
QUOTE; MadFem:
Man [Masculine] Traits: strong, has short hair, likes sports
Let us say that I am a female who loves shopping and wearing lipstick [feminine traits] but also sports [masculine trait]. If I have only three traits, am I a woman? Does my love for sports make me non-binary? Do two woman traits outweigh my one man trait? UNQUOTE
Though I think you need to clearly differentiate between sex and gender, and specify exactly what you mean by each term. Generally, I think it is useful to differentiate between “Man Traits” and “Woman Traits”, as you have done, although I think you’re better to call them “Masculine Traits” and “Feminine Traits” as I have done. And that is generally typical; from Google’s AI Overview:
Gemini: Masculine means having qualities, traits, or appearances traditionally associated with or expected of men and boys.
Gemini: Feminine is an adjective describing attributes, behaviors, and roles traditionally associated with women and girls.
But “masculine” and “feminine” are the two genders – a clear binary which is dependent on and derived from the two sexes since they are, by definition, the traits typical of each sex. However, as you’ve indicated with your example, those two gender each consist of a range, a collection, a spectrum of quite different traits, mostly psychological and behavioural ones.
On the other hand, male and female denote, at least to a first approximation, only the presence of either testicles or ovaries, respectively. Consider the standard biological definitions:
" Male: Biologically, the male sex is defined as the adult phenotype that produces the smaller gametes in anisogamous systems."
Female: Biologically, the female sex is defined as the adult phenotype that produces the larger gametes in anisogamous systems.
The upshot of which is that those two types of gonads – testicles and ovaries – should be considered as the essential properties of the categories “male” and “female”, respectively. Whereas those masculine and feminine traits should be considered the “accidental" properties of the categories “male” and “female”.
Bit of an obscure principle, or poorly defined, but I think it helps to separate wheat and chaff. But a more or less coherent differentiation from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP):
SEP: The distinction between essential versus accidental properties has been characterized in various ways, but it is often understood in modal terms: an essential property of an object is a property that it must have, while an accidental property of an object is one that it happens to have but that it could lack.
In which case and relative to Shannon Thrace’s “18 Months”, her ex-husband, Jamie, was rather desperately trying to claim membership in the “woman” category – as “adult human female” -- by exhibiting more and more of those “accidental” properties – those feminine traits. However he wouldn’t ever qualify as an "adult human female" since he lacked, would never have the essential property of “ovaries”.
I feel slightly conflicted over this article. I'm new to this particular brand of feminism (coming from choice feminism, queer theory, and the like), though it resonates with me very deeply based on my own experiences of rejecting my gender as a teenager and then accepting it later on. I just hated myself and had a lot of internalized misogyny. I'm a woman.
On the other hand, I'm perhaps not ready to agree that there's no one in this category. If the claim was "96% of folks who claim to be non-binary aren't" then I would agree with that. But I do think it's important to acknowledge that there are (small) cultural differences in gender across history.
I don't know the answers. I appreciate this perspective, though.
I LOVE this article. And as an elder woman who had to put up with the societal shit pre-feminism, you are so right about the duty of these privileged, narcissistic young women to join the fight.
I love your writing and philosophical musings - probably because they mirror my own thoughts. Just more eloquently and amusingly expressed.
Thank you so much for the kind words, Isobel! That makes my day.
Schrondinger's cat is both alive and dead at the same time, so it's wrong to call it non-binary, it is binary, just both states at once. Well at least until you observe it and it collapses into the dear or alive state.
Somebody should make an online test rating how male or female you are based on your interests? I wonder how I'd rate, I ride a motorcycle, but I listen to Mitski and play Sims.
Yes. You should.
Ahahaha, I'm far too lazy to put any effort into anything.
Doesn't that mean the cat is non-binary until observed? It is both dead and alive at the same time, meaning it exists within a binary but somehow also on both ends.
Yes, but it's still binary, it cannot be a third thing.
It's not a third thing, though. It's dead and it's alive. I get what you're saying, I think. You're conceiving of the cat's state of being as a combination of dead and alive, which is a third state of being.
I think.
"Non-binary" in the cat's case isn't meant to describe a state outside of the binary. It describes one within the binary but that does not adhere to the rules of the binary.
Schröedinger’s Cat always reminds me of the 1958 version of the movie The Fly, specifically when the scientist tries to teleport a cat and it fails to rematerialize, leaving it in a permanent state of potentially between two locations.
I've never seen it. Is it worth a watch?
Yes, it has horror icon Vincent Price in it! And granted the special effects were pretty basic in 1958, it still has quite a few viscerally creepy moments, including the famous final scene where the fly with the human head is caught in the spider web and is crying “help me! Help me!” As the spider approaches for the kill. Really creepy, creepier than the 1986 remake with Jeff Goldblum & Gina Davis. And the short story by George Langelaan which is the basis for both movies is worth a read, too! I mean if you like sci fi-horror
I would say it's still part of the binary. And it adheres to the rules of the binary, quantum superposition is a regular thing after all. Ahahaha. Sorry I'm being an arsehole.
So, what about the zombies?
Zombies aren't real, unless we go with the stories of voodoo practitioners using drugs and burying people, in which case they're alive but drugged up.
I took all the fun out of your examples, ahahaha.
Quantum superstition is definitely a thing but a cat seemingly does not exist in more than one state of life and death at once. That's the whole reason for the example - to show how ridiculous it is and that there is this disconnect between quantum mechanics and the world we experience.
Its in an unknown state which is one of the 2 binary states. I think.
The problem with a points-based boyfulness-vs.-girlery quiz in 2026 is that it would be taken both seriously and literally—especially by the i'm-not-a-Girl-or-boy set, absolutely all of whom would alrdy have a predetermined answer in mind before starting the quiz. The quiz would therefore be "transphobic" because it would fail to "affirm" anybody who scored the "wrong" way.🫥
Ofcourse You could just post the quiz on a TERF or TERF-adjacent site where the readership would appreciate the satire. I mean, ••IF•• You could live with Yourself after committing yet another genocide against a historically marginalized, woefully oppressed group of people who alrdy experience an average of 2.7 genocides a day.
.
As for the cat: It's just N percent likely to be alive and (100 – N) percent likely to be an ex-cat. Live cat and ex-cat are still mutually exclusive possibilities, though. You can't be both at the same time.
"What if you put me in a fancy double-corrugated box and asked somebody else to guess?" This changes nothing. You still can't be both at the same time.
By way of analogy; Say the chance of rain tomorrow is 50% (or any other probability that isn't 0% or 100%). In this case we'll have to wait until tomorrow to reveal a concrete outcome—where "wait until tomorrow" takes on the functional role of "open the box and look"—but I suspect you'll agree that "Tomorrow's rainfall will be both zero and nonzero" is wrong because it's objectively impossible. We won't know until tomorrow, but it's going to be one or the other.
(n.b.: The sentence with "zero" and "nonzero" isn't the most elegant thing ever strung together, but the clunkiness is the cost of precision. I was originally going to write "It's going to rain tomorrow and it's not going to rain tomorrow", but that wording is sloppy enough to prompt time-based objections—"oh yeah, well what if it rains all morning then the sky's clear all day? then what?"—which are irrelevant and which break the analogy because cats don't cycle between dead and alive. The "9 lives" objection is denied.
And it was only despairing that I wrote "n.b." in front of this. Why, O prankster deities, why?😅😅)
They entirely ignore how absolutely unreasonable that is, because they only see themselves and no one else matters. They don't care about other people's fellings or right of self-expression, they only care to dictate how other people see them without having to do the work and actually deserve being seen in a better light. They want to be special without actually being special, stand out without merit, be affirmed for being not just normal and boring, which would be bad enough, but insufferable and egoistical, only thinking about themselves.
They look at talented people and envy them for supposedly being handed fame and admiration without effort, blind to the sacrifice and hard work of those people. They envy a selfless person who is praised for doing something for others, and always are the ones screaming loudest that anyone who expects even just a thank you for their hard work and generosity is 'entitled' and not really generous just to turn around and demand the highest praise for 'being their true selves' while being useless weight on the shoulders of society.
The whole movement is driven by envy and narcissism, by the bitterness of not being in the spotlight, no matter what the other person gets attention for. Any form of support that's not for them is attacked with vitriol, no matter who the beneficiaries are. They don't even stop trying to injecting themselves in survivors groups and aids for terminal ill people. My first real life confrontation with a self declared non-binary was a tantrum throwing teenager berating her poor grandma who couldn't remember that her beloved granddaughter had chosen to change her name for attention while her grandmother suffered from Alzheimer and died in hospice.
Non-binary people are the most selfish and narcissistic people I've ever met in my life. So far I haven't met even one who was able to consider anyone's needs besides their own, or who would do anything that wasn't aimed to make them more visible and made a drama out of even the slightest issues.
Okay, that anecdote about the teen chewing her grandmother out is heartbreaking. I would never dream of such a thing, and especially not when I was younger.
Have you ever met an adult with a non-binary identity? I'm not sure if they're worse or better.
Sadly I've met far too many people, until recently, I've helped organising events, in part for work, in part privately, and they mostly draw 'progessive' people. Like fandom conventions etc. I personally have the impression that the whole idea of being non-binary is profoundly self-centred in a very unhealthy way. It's focusing on being special without having anything to build up on, so people try to elevate their mere existence.
The adults are worse than the teens. The teens usually still have other things going they can focus on, and they still have topics to talk to that are not connected to identity. They really want to be someone, and I get the impression they're just really insecure and don't trust that people like them as girls, since they are mostly girls.
The adults have only that, and absolutely every single dialogue always is forcefully reduced to their neo-pronouns and self-made problems that all boil down to being unable to force people to see them as they want to be seen. One was a person who once was someone truly remarkable in the fandom community, well known for her astonishing cosplay. The last year I volunteered, before the scene became too much to stand, there was nothing left of her, she had literally eradicated herself and there was nothing left but her non-binary excuse to no longer enjoy what she was doing, because she lacked the self-esteem to be herself without total approval. She reduced herself to weird side characters and heavily curated costumes to avoid 'sexism', and you could see she was absolutely miserable in those costumes. There was nothing left but the total focus on carrying a 'message', as if having fun was something dirty and juvenile she had to avoid at all cost.
Sure, I know a few nonbinary adults, they seem to come in two varieties and they are all women. One type is a woman who is not conventionally attractive, has self esteem issues, latch on to multiple nerd countercultures, and signify their nonbinary ID with brightly dyed hair, lots of piercings, disdain for normies.
The other type is an outgoing self assured woman who is naturally drawn to androgyny is usually bi or lesbian, seems mentally healthy, are conventionally attractive but are into accessorizing their self expression to show their love of androgyny and calling themselves bon-binary is mostly just another accessory, and they generally don’t care if you slip up and she/her them.
The very existence of "nonbinary" is a demonstration of the total absurdity of this ideology. If you are "non" something, then aren't you proving that the something you are rebelling against is real, FFS?
Another binary example in addition to life or death is that no one can be a little bit pregnant; you either are or you aren't, there is no in between state. (And note to all the NBs out there: if you choose to have unprotected sex with someone who has differently appearing genitalia to yours, only one of you risks becoming pregnant and you can't choose which one of you it will be.)
Re the Western privilege that all those SJWs share: if nonbinary or transgenderism was real than all those Afghan women would be using this tactic to overcome the misogynistic violence that is baked into their lives.
All obstetric violence is sex based because only natal females need obstetric services, regardless of how they choose to "identify". The same applies to workplace sexual harassment and all the other issues that feminism has worked to mitigate.
Absolutely love this- give me hope, sister!
All they've done is rebrand "androgyny" by removing the "andro-" and the "gyn-"!
Leaving us with "(wh)y?"
Well said. It does send the wrong message. As though being a woman is something you can opt out of. No you can't. You can opt out of performing femininity, but you can't opt out of how you're born.
Puberty is tough. Lots of boys hate seeing hairy bits etc and wish they were streamlined like girls. It’s natural and how they discover what they love.
Lots of boys hate how they lose their neotenous cuteness, the acromegaly that testosterone causes turns their bodies into hulking ungainly things that make them
Intimidating just by existing, hate that they lose their sweet child voices, hate that their emotions are overlaid with a constant unpleasant horniness, absolutely hate it, and the worst thing is they aren’t allowed to express any of this pubertal despair, lest they be mercilessly mocked and shamed.
"When you opt for a non-binary identity, you are more likely to feel comfortable ignoring feminism as you may feel protected by how you identify." I think this is why society is 'encouraging' it! I think this whole deal is a backlash to feminism.
This piece strikes directly at the heart of reality and cuts through the modern distortions surrounding sex and identity. True biological sovereignty cannot be opted out of or replaced by abstract labels, because the reality of the terrain remains unchanged. Rejecting corporate or cultural stereotyping in favor of recognizing our actual physiology is where true autonomy and power begin.
I just subscribed to your project because thinking together is how we think better. Let's keep building.
Pre listen: I’m so pumped!
Post listen: Coming soon…
Why are you acting like using they/them is so “ hard”? You use they/them in conversations everyday because it’s basic English. This whole thing is just transphobia, and if anything holding up the patriarchy instead of abolishing it. You aren’t a “feminist” if you continue to dehumanize trans people and trans identities. If feminism is equality for all genders, would that not be equality for all gender identities also?
MadFem: You Cannot “Not Feel Like a Woman”
Despite being a man I frequently feel like a woman myself – generally every time I turn over in bed and don’t find one beside me. 😉🙂 Though things are improving of late.
But I think you’re more or less on the right track here with this thought-experiment of yours:
QUOTE; MadFem:
Man [Masculine] Traits: strong, has short hair, likes sports
Woman [Feminine] Traits: nurturing, wears cosmetics, enjoys shopping
Let us say that I am a female who loves shopping and wearing lipstick [feminine traits] but also sports [masculine trait]. If I have only three traits, am I a woman? Does my love for sports make me non-binary? Do two woman traits outweigh my one man trait? UNQUOTE
Though I think you need to clearly differentiate between sex and gender, and specify exactly what you mean by each term. Generally, I think it is useful to differentiate between “Man Traits” and “Woman Traits”, as you have done, although I think you’re better to call them “Masculine Traits” and “Feminine Traits” as I have done. And that is generally typical; from Google’s AI Overview:
Gemini: Masculine means having qualities, traits, or appearances traditionally associated with or expected of men and boys.
Gemini: Feminine is an adjective describing attributes, behaviors, and roles traditionally associated with women and girls.
But “masculine” and “feminine” are the two genders – a clear binary which is dependent on and derived from the two sexes since they are, by definition, the traits typical of each sex. However, as you’ve indicated with your example, those two gender each consist of a range, a collection, a spectrum of quite different traits, mostly psychological and behavioural ones.
On the other hand, male and female denote, at least to a first approximation, only the presence of either testicles or ovaries, respectively. Consider the standard biological definitions:
" Male: Biologically, the male sex is defined as the adult phenotype that produces the smaller gametes in anisogamous systems."
Female: Biologically, the female sex is defined as the adult phenotype that produces the larger gametes in anisogamous systems.
https://web.archive.org/web/20221214064356/https://academic.oup.com/molehr/article/20/12/1161/1062990?login=false
The upshot of which is that those two types of gonads – testicles and ovaries – should be considered as the essential properties of the categories “male” and “female”, respectively. Whereas those masculine and feminine traits should be considered the “accidental" properties of the categories “male” and “female”.
Bit of an obscure principle, or poorly defined, but I think it helps to separate wheat and chaff. But a more or less coherent differentiation from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP):
SEP: The distinction between essential versus accidental properties has been characterized in various ways, but it is often understood in modal terms: an essential property of an object is a property that it must have, while an accidental property of an object is one that it happens to have but that it could lack.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/essential-accidental/
In which case and relative to Shannon Thrace’s “18 Months”, her ex-husband, Jamie, was rather desperately trying to claim membership in the “woman” category – as “adult human female” -- by exhibiting more and more of those “accidental” properties – those feminine traits. However he wouldn’t ever qualify as an "adult human female" since he lacked, would never have the essential property of “ovaries”.
I feel slightly conflicted over this article. I'm new to this particular brand of feminism (coming from choice feminism, queer theory, and the like), though it resonates with me very deeply based on my own experiences of rejecting my gender as a teenager and then accepting it later on. I just hated myself and had a lot of internalized misogyny. I'm a woman.
On the other hand, I'm perhaps not ready to agree that there's no one in this category. If the claim was "96% of folks who claim to be non-binary aren't" then I would agree with that. But I do think it's important to acknowledge that there are (small) cultural differences in gender across history.
I don't know the answers. I appreciate this perspective, though.
I make less of a generalized point in my essay, but I would really appreciate if folks checked out my related work. https://petraclay.substack.com/p/questioning-it-for-a-reason?r=74h4we&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Thanks :)
Good essay, I really enjoyed it!
Post read: WELL DONE! Non binary women are women . They’re just like the other girls. I love being like other girls. You ain’t special.
I LOVE this article. And as an elder woman who had to put up with the societal shit pre-feminism, you are so right about the duty of these privileged, narcissistic young women to join the fight.