Non-Binary & Binary: A Binary
A binary that says it’s “not like all the other binaries”
There are supposedly two kinds of people in this world, binaries and non-binaries. Non-binary people allegedly transcend the traditional gender binary (masculine-feminine) while binary people exist within it. However, by categorically distinguishing themselves from binaries, so-called non-binaries have created a new social binary.
The language is confusing because “binary” is used in two very different senses. In the first sense, “binary” refers to a dichotomous, as opposed to continuous, type of abstract category. In the second, “binary” refers to a mode of cultural expression. The purported opposite of “binary” in this second sense is “non-binary,” but “non-binary” is often used when “anti-binary” is more appropriate. To simplify things, I will refer to the categorical sense of binary by its synonym “dichotomy” and use the terms “binary,” “anti-binary,” and “non-binary” to refer to modes of cultural expression.
Ironically, most people who self-identify as non-binary have a stereotypical look and feel. They often talk the same, dress the same, and hate the same stuff. This isn’t surprising given that most people lack the creativity necessary to actually transcend traditional social dichotomies. They merely negate them. This is why many people who self-identify as non-binary are actually anti-binaries who are just as unimaginative as the binaries. If it’s binary to have natural-looking hair, then it’s anti-binary to dye it an unnatural color. That’s reactionary negation, not creative transcendence. Together, anti-binaries and binaries form a new dichotomy that desperately claims to be “unlike all the others” despite being thoroughly predictable.
True non-binaries actually transcend traditional social dichotomies. These individuals, by definition, do not fit in anywhere for they are neither with the crowd nor against it. They live artful lives that resist social classification. They prefer to fit out with other weirdos who do not attempt to categorize themselves according to mainstream vocabularies. They do not style their lives after anyone but create novel styles of living. A stereotypical artist is not a true artist because stereotypical people haven’t creatively transcended established ways of living. Stereotypical non-binaries do not actually exist outside of mainstream dichotomies for the same reason. They fit in with a group of people who, in trendy meta fashion, call themselves “non-binary.”
Language is socially constructed. You can make up a sound that signifies a meaning to you, but, unless others use it the way you do, it is not a word. There must be at least a two-person social consensus for a sound to become a word. This means language lags behind existential artists, individuals who create art out of their lives. An artful person lives life in a singular and therefore socially strange way. If people notice and admire this strange life, they will socially construct language to discuss and replicate it. However, there is no way to talk about an individual’s existential art as she is living it for her art pre-figures language about it. True individuals individuate, after all. They create things that are new and therefore necessarily beyond immediate socio-linguistic categorization.
Individuals who artfully transcend social dichotomies are the true non-binaries. They are not part of an anti-binary group that labels itself “non-binary.” If they were, they’d exist within the established social dichotomy consisting of binaries and anti-binaries.
When anti-binary people label themselves as non-binary, they are attempting to shortcut individuality. So many people today reach for labels like drugs. They crave “quick fixes” for their boredom with themselves. These syllable addicts recite jargon like Bible verses and curse you to hell if you mock their spectacle. Online conservatives are inventing atrocities like “anti-identitarianism,” while their progressive counterparts are spewing torrential streams of vomit like “a masculine-presenting person of color currently experiencing homelessness.” If they used existing words and spoke directly, they couldn’t pretend to be as creative and interesting. They invent new language for old things in the false hope that doing so makes them individual.
Big corporations are happy to oblige this existential laziness and commodify fake individuality. They sell common uniqueness and advertise it with trendy buzzwords whose marketability is proportional to their superficiality. They love it when letters are added to the already insultingly long rainbow acronym because that means they can expand their advertising campaigns. “Inclusivity” and “diversity” are capitalist as fuck.
The “non-binary” paradox fits an old pattern. People name themselves something evocative and then they and others confuse their actions for the name’s connotations. They follow North Korea’s lead, which is a hereditary dictatorship that hilariously calls itself the “Democratic People's Republic of Korea.” You see this everywhere. Anti-Fa is a mob of self-righteous authoritarians. The Proud Boys exemplify male insecurity. Pro-Choicers despise women who choose not to abort, while Pro-Lifers push religions that portray death as utopia. Socialists make millions and mansions, and Small-Government Conservatives make speech codes and wars. Science Believers deny evolution by rejecting biology, and God Believers concoct self-serving moralities. Victims are profiting off victimhood, Rebels are echoing party lines, Professors are supporting book bans, Priests are raping children, Activists are lining their pockets…
If you think people are who they say they are, you haven’t met them. Every group is suffused with insincerity. If one can get attention and money for how oppressed he or she is, many will choose oppression. It’s absurd to think that it’s possible to determine someone’s sincerity based solely on what they say is oppressing them. As long as people can feel special for a moment and profit off others’ attention, they will be oppressed by the law, the mainstream media, the patriarchy, the woke mob, capitalism, the devil, racism, and, yes, the so-called gender binary. I’m not saying certain people can’t actually be oppressed by these things, but that, since people lie when it benefits them, you have to actually look at the evidence instead of gullibly taking their word for it. People tend to forget about human hypocrisy when it benefits them.
I hope I have shown that I do not especially dislike people who self-identify as non-binary. I am critiquing the abuse of language to shortcut creativity and individuality. I chose the “non-binary” example because the label’s meta-irony epitomizes this phenomenon so egregiously, not because self-styled non-binaries are uniquely hypocritical.
I’m sick of ironic detachment and the hypocrisy it breeds. I want to live in a world of authentic adventure and conflict. The more skeptical people are of others’ self-descriptions, the more actions are prioritized over words, then the more actually non-binary, creative, and transcendent the culture.