Challenges of Invalidation
One main challenge for those who are gender non-conforming is that they are often invalidated through acts of misgendering, dead naming, etc., as a part of their daily life. For example a person that uses they/them pronouns may go to a store and an employee incorrectly refer them as “ma’am”, and a classmate may call refer to an individual as “he” or “him” or their dead name despite that person preferring she/they pronouns and their correct name. This is sometime intentional, but often times unintentional because non-cisgendered individuals may be afraid to correct others out of fear of rejection or even aggression. This phenomenon of misgendering/deadnaming often occurs because people have socially predicated biases that make them associate pronouns with an individual upon seeing them and without asking their preferred pronouns or name first. This is a harmful heuristic that is spread across life and media causing distress and discomfort for non-binary individuals. On top of this challenge, many often struggle with representation even further if they fall outside of the non-cisgender binary.
The Ideal Sterotype
A study examined in “Invalidation Experiences Among Non-Binary Adolescents” found that many participants were frustrated with a typical trans narrative (that non-binary individuals are often grouped into) that consists of distinct stages “from feeling “trapped in the wrong body,” to identifying as the “opposite” sex, to starting hormones, to changing one’s legal name and gender marker on all personal documents, and finally “completing” one’s transition by undergoing gender- affirming surgery” (Johnson 227). This stereotypical version of the non-binary and/or transgender identity makes it complicated for genderqueer individuals to understand their experience and negates the fact that gender is a spectrum and everyones experience of their identity is different. Similarly harmful stereotypes exist across social media, in music, in the news, in education, and throughout most aspects of life. These uninformed examples of non-cisgendered people are wide spread making invalidation a constant issue for non-binary individuals leading to challenges sharing, or even understanding, their identity.