Origin myth
So now you want to know all about Katje Van Loon, right? Obviously. You’re in luck, because the BBC explained about her exactly one year ago, on that previous International Non-Binary Day.
Ten years ago, Katje van Loon wrote a blog post calling for the creation of International Non-Binary Day on 14 July – exactly half way between International Women’s Day and International Men’s Day. Katje tells BBC gender and identity correspondent, Megha Mohan, why it is important that the day has become a reality.
Well thank fuck the BBC has a gender and identity correspondent, or we might never know about these things.
Katje explains all:
My grandmother had just died and I was at her apartment organising her things. Trying to distract myself after a while, I fell into an online rabbit hole and stumbled to the Wikipedia page for gender identities. It was here that I first read the definition of “non-binary”. In those paragraphs, I learned about people who do not follow binary gender norms, people who feel they exist in an intermediate space outside the definitions of male and female.
It was 2012. Until that day she was unaware of people who don’t follow gender norms?
In some ways I was like my mother. People called my mother a “handsome” woman, which I realised much later was designed to be an insult referring to her perceived lack of femininity.
She was a single woman, a lawyer and educator. She wasn’t like the other mothers from school. She would be as comfortable fixing things around the house as she was while teaching her students, or caring for me.
I was like her in my embrace of non-traditional gender roles. But unlike her I existed somewhere else. It wasn’t just that I didn’t feel “girly”, or was taller, and larger and less feminine. It was more than that: the label “woman” just didn’t fit me.
Because of course she’s more special and interesting than her mother. Obviously. We all are.
As an older millennial, I grew up online. In chat rooms, I found communities of people who talked about sexuality, and came out as bisexual at the age of 14.
Ah yes. Artymorty was just talking about the growing up online aspect this morning:
It’s easy to see how this is fueled in part by the increasing amount of time we spend online. Young people growing up are so focused on their digital lives, they’re beginning to find their actual bodies frightening and alien. Or if not quite frightening and alien, at least inconvenient and wrong.
Behold Katje Van Loon.
Amusingly she’s grown up since then.
Now, things have changed in my life. I’m more comfortable in myself. It matters less to me when people call me a woman or use the “she/her” pronouns. I used to be really in favour of having a third gender marker on IDs like passports or driver’s licences like they have in Argentina, Australia and India – and are proposing in South Africa. But now I’m not so sure. Do I want gender-minority data collected somewhere that is easily accessible for governments? Definitely not. I don’t have faith in bureaucracies. I can see why it may be important for some people in certain countries, but not for me.
Please notify the BBC and the Human Rights Campaign.
Gender Critical: “Whether your sex is male or female doesn’t mean you have to adhere to the supposed gender roles assigned to masculine or feminine. But there are only two sexes, male and female, and this is important.”
Gender Studies Grad/TRA: “So, you’re a biological essentialist? Forcing people into rigid gender binaries??”
Gender Critical: “Wha-? I just said …”
Gender Studies Grad/TRA: “Sex is a spectrum. Sex is a social construct. Gender is what is real. Gender is fixed, immutable. Unless it isn’t. In which case it’s fluid. There is no specified way to perform gender. If a person with a beard, huge muscles, hairy body, sporting an erection, is towelling off beside you in the women’s change-room, they’re probably TRANS and have a right to be there. Of course, if you’re AMAB and you like feminine things you’re probably female. And if you’re AFAB but you like wearing pants, having short hair, and don’t like make-up, you’re probably male.”
ENBY: “Unh, dahhh, … I don’t conform to the most stereotypical behaviour of EITHER gender. Duhhh, … Sometimes it’s a little of this, a little of that. Sometimes right down the middle.”
Gender Studies Grad/TRA: “How endlessly fascinating! A new category of human being! Stunning and brave! VALID!!! Let’s celebrate you for a day! Around the world!”
How you feel is what is real. Today I feel that I am a giraffe. But I don’t feel this way except on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. So I must fall into a special sub-category of the trans-giraffe category. Maybe I could get a job in a university somewhere as Professor of Trans-specific Studies.( Day-of-the-Week Trans-specific Studies of course. That is, DotWTSS. (+)
Welcoming all students interested in LBTQTG+.! I suggest that you demand that your nearest university give me a chair in it.!
‘People called my mother a “handsome” woman, which I realised much later was designed to be an insult referring to her perceived lack of femininity.’ A ‘handsome’ woman is by no means an insult. It’s an old-fashioned and respectful way of referring to a woman as attractive without being ‘pretty’ (typically an older woman, no longer ‘pretty’ like a girl or young woman).