‘Non-binary’ is not real

Men and women are free to call themselves what they like, but there is no third sex.

The University of Oxford is at it again. Somehow forgetting that its function is the pursuit and production of knowledge rather than ideological propagandising, its authorities have decided to modify the Latin passages of the degree ceremony to be gender-neutral. Bye bye, magistri (masters) and doctores (doctors); instead, graduates will be referred to as vos (you). One presumes this is to avoid causing offence to ‘non-binary’ students who happen to specialise in the classics.

On a purely theatrical basis, this stripping away of grandeur is disappointing. One of the most enjoyable aspects of matriculating at Oxford was that we had an excuse to dress up in black capes, and when I later graduated I was permitted to wear the flowing bright red garb of the doctor philosophiae. If I had climbed up to the top of the cupola of the Sheldonian Theatre on that day, I might have been mistaken for an activist from Fathers for Justice.

These anachronistic touches are surely part of the appeal of studying at Oxford. And although a slight modification to the Latin won’t harm anyone – let’s face it, barely anyone would have noticed – it does point to a deeper societal malaise. Like asking someone for one’s pronouns, it’s a little reminder that we are expected to truckle to this intolerant, regressive and identity-obsessed new state religion.

And let’s not forget that the entire notion of ‘non-binary’ is, for the most part, a status symbol for middle-class narcissists. Why should an 800-year-old ceremony be tweaked to satisfy the demands of these little Veruca Salts who wants the whole world to contort in accordance with their preferences? At the time of my graduation at Oxford I was a huge fan of Madonna, but I didn’t insist that the Vice-Chancellor intone: Modo virginis. Tum primum tactae.

Up until relatively recently, ‘coming out’ as ‘non-binary’ was a means by which uber-privileged celebrities could claim some degree of oppression. It was this generation’s most fashionable label, and was embraced by the likes of Sam Smith and Demi Lovato. It was only marginally less ridiculous than Danni Minogue claiming she was ‘queer’ and then later clarifying that she wasn’t interested in women sexually, or Michaela Kennedy-Cuomo – daughter of the former governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo – announcing that she was ‘demisexual’. This is defined as someone who only feels sexually attracted to someone if they have an emotional bond, which means that Cuomo had effectively ‘come out’ as an old-fashioned heterosexual.

One cannot ‘come out’ as non-binary. The metaphor of ‘coming out’ is specifically related to the revelation of an innate characteristic that one has kept hidden due to societal disapproval. Up until the 1990s, coming out as gay involved a degree of personal risk; gay people were disowned, disinherited, fired, and sometime physically attacked or killed. Coming out as non-binary, a fashionable and celebrated identity, bears no such risks.

Moreover, homosexuality is a verifiably innate characteristic. It is remarkably easy to determine someone’s sexual orientation by scientific means, and to measure degrees of arousal on the basis of erotic stimuli. There is no apparatus in the world that could measure ‘gender identity’ any more than one could hope to measure where someone falls on the spectrum of mods to rockers. And yet we are expected to treat belief in this will-o’-the-wisp as the equivalent of an inherent sexual orientation or racial group. It’s remarkably insulting to minorities who have been persecuted throughout history.

For the sake of the literal-minded, I should point out that when I say that to be non-binary isn’t real, I do not mean to imply that people who call themselves non-binary do not exist. I am pointing out that identity is not the same as material reality; it is all about self-perception. The claim of being non-binary is not even synonymous with ‘intersex’ (not a third sex or evidence of a ‘spectrum’, but rather a developmental condition that results in sexual ambiguity in males and females).

The identity of ‘non-binary’ is based on the notion that one does not feel aligned with stereotypes of male or female. And so it amounts to a reinforcement of traditional ideals of maleness and femaleness. Rather than acknowledging that men and women can behave and dress as they like, to claim to be ‘non-binary’ implies that if men don’t behave like ‘real men’ and women don’t behave like ‘real women’, they are somewhere in between. It’s an oddly conservative form of rebellion.

This is why the Globe Theatre’s 2022 production of I, Joan, based on the life of Joan of Arc, was so reactionary. It presented Joan as ‘non-binary’ because she was powerful, courageous and wore men’s armour. For the woke, female strength and independence is not to be celebrated, but to be explained away. The same goes for the essay on Queen Elizabeth I that appeared around this time on the Globe’s website, referring to the monarch with ‘they/them’ pronouns on the basis that she rhetorically claimed to have ‘the heart and stomach of a king’.

So when former Coronation Street star Shobna Gulati last week claimed to be ‘non-binary’, she was not ‘coming out’; she was simply declaring her belief in a quasi-supernatural creed. Of course she is entitled to do that, but that doesn’t magically stop her from being a woman. But just as a friturier may announce his fealty to Ukobach, the demon in charge of frying souls in the underworld, there’s no reason for the rest of us to play along.

---