[Albion] Sam Smith Non Binary

[hart's shirt]

At UoB we can wear a badge with our preferred pronoun.

My preferred pronoun would be 'we...hate palace'.

 

[maltaseagull]

Porcupines have pricks don't they?

More than one, I think!

 

[narly101]

Non-binary people have always been around, as a very small section of the population.

The fact that some people don't know, or don't want to know, what it means, or don't like the idea, doesn't make it any less of a reality. Nor does the fact that a few people will use it as a means of attention seeking make it less real.

Ignoring or denying it just means a small percentage of the population end up having unnecessarily sh*t lives. Why not change that if we can? And we can.

Why is this so scary to us oldies? Young people seem perfectly able to understand and accept it. But many seem to be desperately keen to get outraged about something that will have almost zero impact on us, whilst also openly admitting we don't understand it. Odd.

Good lord! A sensible post amongst all the outrage. There's still hope for NSC yet.

 

[Easy 10]

People often seem to mistake the word "outrage" with "weary grumpy irritation".

 

[highflyer]

Well put Highflyer. But i'm still bloody confused. Is he saying that some days he feels his gender is male and some days female? I thought he was telling the world that he was schizophrenic, with a male and female personality, now I simply have no idea what he is talking about. By the way, im not outraged, I just dont understand.

I don't pretend to be expert, I guess we are all catching up!

I understand it in two ways:

1. That what we know ourselves to be in terms of male/female is mostly, but not always aligned with what we have between our legs.

2. That the two options of 'male' or 'female' are not as simple and as 'binary' as we tend to try and pretend. In reality, many people sit somewhere in between. To be able to see this as possible you have to be able to understand, and believe in, the first point, that it is not just about what you have between your legs that makes you one thing or the other.

So, putting aside the attention seeking aspect, what they are saying is that, whatever the physical body might be, they do not believe themselevs to be either 100% male or 100% female. And the evidence is that this is not something that they have any control over. and it's real. As real as me knowing that I am male.

It's different from sexuality. Which is about who you fall in love with/want to have sex with/fancy, not whether you are a man or a woman. But there are parallels. because for so long we tried to pretend (while ignoring the evidence) that sexuality was all neat and tidy and nothing existed beyond what was seen as 'normal'. But of course that's rubbish and we know it's all pretty complex and very few of us are not open to ideas one way or another...

Personally I find it fascinating, as it says so much about what we really are (not just defined by our physical bodies) but I am also capable of imagining what it must be like to feel that way - how difficult it would be. So I find it pretty easy to have some empathy.

 

[BadFish]

I agree that it is pretty intresting. Many things that are scoffed at these days as attention seeking often turn out to be next level understanding of ourselves as human beings. Sometimes such emergence can me clumsy and awkward but if we give them a chance and seek to further our own understanding then often they start to make sense.



Sent from my Redmi Note 7 using Tapatalk

 

[Withdean11]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtftZPL-k7Y

 

[Lenny Rider]

It’s like the Life of Brian has become a manual for this decade. Every decade sees young adults seek change, nothing new there, (I was CND in the eighties) however social media has turbo charged it now and given what would have been “right on” students pissed in the pub with an organised voice. Scary. Looking back now I was nowhere near the rounded intelligent ‘adult’ I truly THOUGHT I was in 1988.
I fully expect in 20 years time that tattoo removal and ‘gender change reversals’ will be growth industries, along with kids suing parents/doctors/tattooists for not ‘warning’ them properly.

I went on a CND march in 1981 when I was 16, years later I found some of their literature, talk about brainwashing.

 

[Icy Gull]

Every time I see a picture of Sam Smith I think of Glenn Murray

 

[The Wizard]

Every time I see a picture of Sam Smith I think of Glenn Murray

Are you saying THEY look like a man? Sexist pig.

 

[theboybilly]

What an utterly moronic concept, to demand that people now refer to him as they / their.

So you're gay. Fine, big deal. Why start twatting around with grammar ? I'll keep it simple and just continue to refer to "them" as 'that bellend'.

I think if people actually started doing this is might eventually stop this sh*t.

 

[father_and_son]

What an utterly moronic concept, to demand that people now refer to him as they / their.

So you're gay. Fine, big deal. Why start twatting around with grammar ? I'll keep it simple and just continue to refer to "them" as 'that bellend'.

Exactly the sort of uneducated bigotry that causes problems in the first place.

Sexuality and Identity are not the same. Whether or not they are gay is immaterial. They do not identify sufficiently as male to be happy being 'he' or female and 'she' and so, in order to describe their IDENTITY, they have chosen to use 'they' as it implies neither (or both).

This has not impacted YOU in any way at all so why the hostility?
You stand as almost the textbook reason why people struggle with the labels available. Both identity and sexuality are not black and white, yes or no, male or female, straight or gay questions, but both are spectrums where a person can be a little bit of one but also a little bit of the other, or mostly one but not completely or move from one position to another as they feel.
It has always been this way. But the relatively recent freedom from neanderthal attitudes (and religious suppression) has stopped people trying to pigeon-hole themselves just to suit the uneducated's view.

Leave them to do/be whoever they want to be and crawl back into your Daily Mail sponsored cave to bemoan the collapse of civilisation because some over-rated musician said something that offended you!

 

[Knocky's Nose]

I won't go into any great detail as I really can't be arsed, but my initial thoughts are to respect his wishes as a human being.

My seconds thoughts are he's a massive twunt.

 

[zefarelly]

Most tame limp-dick James Bond theme song ever.

Even Shirley Bassey sounds tougher ....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jzDnsjYv9A

that is utter gash. mentioning Shirley Bassey in the same sentence is doing her a massive disservice.

this makes my ears feel a good bit better. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHLQMGA9R0E

 

[beorhthelm]

Sexuality and Identity are not the same. Whether or not they are gay is immaterial.

too bad they tagged "T" onto the end of LGBT, forever associating the two areas of concern.

 

[Easy 10]

Exactly the sort of uneducated bigotry that causes problems in the first place.

Sexuality and Identity are not the same. Whether or not they are gay is immaterial. They do not identify sufficiently as male to be happy being 'he' or female and 'she' and so, in order to describe their IDENTITY, they have chosen to use 'they' as it implies neither (or both).

This has not impacted YOU in any way at all so why the hostility?
You stand as almost the textbook reason why people struggle with the labels available. Both identity and sexuality are not black and white, yes or no, male or female, straight or gay questions, but both are spectrums where a person can be a little bit of one but also a little bit of the other, or mostly one but not completely or move from one position to another as they feel.
It has always been this way. But the relatively recent freedom from neanderthal attitudes (and religious suppression) has stopped people trying to pigeon-hole themselves just to suit the uneducated's view.

Leave them to do/be whoever they want to be and crawl back into your Daily Mail sponsored cave to bemoan the collapse of civilisation because some over-rated musician said something that offended you!

Here we go again. I'm "offended", I'm "outraged" blah blah. Actually I'm neither. I just find this kind of twattery to be tiresome and irritating. He can call himself whatever he wants, he can describe himself however he wants, but broadcasting to the world that he now wants everyone to refer to him not as 'him' but as they/them is, in my opinion, textbook bellcheesery of the highest order. You can cast down your pious virtuous views from atop your high horse all you like, but it doesn't make your opinion any more right or wrong than mine or anyone elses on the matter.

I'll quite happily leave he/it/they to be whatever he/it/they wants to be, as I'll most likely have forgotten all about 'them' by the time I've finished this bag of Maltesers, so the impact on me, and them, is thankfully negligible. But forgive me if in the unlikely event I refer to Sam Smith at any point, I'll probably end up saying "him". I know, shocking bigotry, but what can you do.

 

[Norman Potting]

I will just throw this into the mix and then get back to doing work.

[video]https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-bristol-49693983/the-parents-keeping-their-child-s-sex-a-secret[/video]

 

[Lenny Rider]

Sexuality? This is about his gender identity not his sexuality.

Is it not all linked HT?

As someone who grew up in the 20th century don't you find this all a bit strange?

The BBC website stated last week that there are now 100 defined genders, back in the 1980's there were only 2, are the additional 98 now classed as progress?

 

[Hamilton]

I appreciate being 55, I am going to get left behind with some things in life, but this Sam Smith business is all a bit confusing.

He's a great singer, and like most level headed people I've no issue with his sexuality, but now I see on the TV that he's not only non binary, but refers to himself in the plural on his Instagram.

Funnily enough he's got a new album out at the moment, and the cynic in me thinks this publicity might be more than a coincidence, but how does this affect the Brit awards next year and beyond that?

Does he go in Best Male singer or best female?

Or will the Brits end up having a gender neutral award to appease the PC brigade?

I refer you to 'the artist formerly known as Prince'. It's nothing new.

That said, if people want to be non-binary or gender fluid then what's the problem? As long as you aren't hurting anyone. I can't promise to start referring to everyone as 'them' and 'they' etc. but at the end of the day, it's just words and 'they can never hurt you'.*

EDIT: * although they can be wrong e.g. racism, bigotry etc. I was just referring to the well-known saying.

 

[father_and_son]

too bad they tagged "T" onto the end of LGBT, forever associating the two areas of concern.

The mathematician in me would have defined it in a coordinate system of sexuality on one axis and identity on the other so that you can define yourself and prospective partners by either a point or an equation.