• Couldbealeotard@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    Isn’t the idea of binary having two socially defined entities: man, woman. Having someone who defies either definition is non binary. Opposing the idea that you can only be one or the other.

    Conchita dresses half way between man and woman. Dresses, skirts, long hair, make up, beard. Even the name Conchita Wurst is a wordplay for “vagina penis”.

    The example of a male presenting as female or somewhere between those two seems within the exact definition of non binary.

    • jeffw@lemmy.worldOP
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      6 months ago

      Non binary means violating the binary. Drag is predicated on a binary existing. It plays with the idea of the binary. The point of drag is poking fun at the opposite gender. The opposite only exists because of the binary.

      A trans person isn’t non-binary either. More importantly, a drag queen isn’t an identity. It’s someone who dresses like a woman as a joke. Conchita is a character, not the same as the person. If I get on stage and play Othello, am I now Othello? No, I played the character. That’s not me.

      • Tryptaminev@lemm.ee
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        6 months ago

        I think you cannot conflate the notion of binary existing with the personal identification as fitting into one of them or not fitting into them.

        Like being gay doesn’t require to reject the notion of straight people existing. And as for violating the binary, feminine makeup and dresses with a long beard is a quite strong violation of those binary notions. Just having an androgynous look does not. There is plenty of “buff” women who fully identify as women just as there is very “feminine” men that fully identify as men.

      • Couldbealeotard@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        I’m afraid I don’t understand what violating the binary means, and it still seems to me that presenting female with a beard does not fit what I thought the binary of gender was supposed to mean.

        • triptrapper@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          You can’t speculate about someone else’s identity. If Conchita identifies themselves as nonbinary, then they’re nonbinary. (I’ve never heard of this person, so I don’t know if they do or not.) Identifying as NB is like saying, “I see the two options that society is offering me, and neither of them neatly describe how I feel inside.” Some cultures refer to a nonbinary “third gender” while others see that as just creating another box to limit people’s options for how they identify and express themselves.

          It’s okay if you think that drag queens could be referred to as NB, but they don’t fit the typical definition.