I had for a long time labeled myself as a gender-non-conforming cis man, then as a binary trans woman, then as a non-binary trans woman, but I can’t exactly back up those labels “rationally”. There is really nothing that I do or want to do right now that I could not do as a cis man or as a binary trans woman, in fact it was the comfort of being able to do those things “as a cis man” or “as a binary person” that led me to eventually feel comfortable enough with myself to change my labels… So I honestly don’t think I ever really was that concerned about “stereotypical behaviors and expectations” or “gender roles”, because I always was able to transgress those regardless of how I identified. In fact non-binarity comes with its own stereotypical behaviors and expectations, so if people only identify as non-binary on the basis of wanting to avoid others’ expectations, then that doesn’t even work — I’ve had other non-binary people say or strongly imply that I’m not “valid”, because I don’t understand or perform non-binarity the “right way”, ridiculous as that might sound. And I’m sure that a lot of other enbies can attest to how cis people always seem to assume that non-binary is basically just “(Cis) Woman Lite”, and immediately disregard any enby whom they can clock as AMAB, or assume that all non-binary people want to be androgynous they/them chloveks.

I remember at the time when I first started labeling myself as non-binary, actually, that it legitimately sort of bothered me how little rational reason I apparently seemed to have to use that label, in a sense it almost felt like “betrayal” since I’d been presenting myself as an example of how a binary trans woman could disregard even very firmly established gender roles… There was just some sort of inner force compelling me towards non-binarity is the best way to describe it. I guess we could say that even labels are a form of compulsion that are subject to the same laws of entropy as anything else. But a thought that keeps coming back to me is that of history and community, that by declaring myself non-binary I was tying myself to those. So I guess that’s my best answer insofar as I can’t really think of anything else: non-binarity represents a specific group of people chosen by entropy to inherit a specific history.

Why call yourself anything?

It allows you to find other people who feel the same way as you, togther as a collective your voices are always much louder.

To make it more clear, their question was: What is difference between being non binary and between having no gender norms tied to being a man/woman?

honestly, not much; non-binary is pretty much the rejection of gender norms being tied to a man/woman, and it is the outward projection through aesthetics that signal this to others; the aesthetics arent a requirement, but they do help identify with one another.

Think of non-binary as being the dialetic between male and female gender roles.

Where does abolshing gender norms end and being non binary start?

Where does building a house start? With the first brick.

It starts when you start trying to do it; housework is a good place to start, reading femininist socialist ideas on how housework and childcare should be conisdered labour too.

Last thought but it is a large part of it for me, is rejecting the notion fash put forward that only people who have the highest potential for things should engage with it; this usually manifests in sports; the idea that only tall men should play basketball for example, which is used to discourage women from participating, after all if you cant be the best why try?

I reject this notion, we dont all need to be micheal jordan; most people are average. This applies to labour.

To qualify all of this, i’ve read a lot of femminist socialist lit, but I also considered myself androgynous for most of my life, which would be a different conception of non-binary.

Nonbinary is to gender abolition what socialism is to communism.

Achieving gender abolition would end the need to identify as nonbinary, but until that happens recognition of the nonbinary identity is part of the path to abolition.

Although where the analogy differs is that someone who wants socialism but not communism is lacking in theory education, wheras someone who doesn’t feel comfortable letting go of their nonbinary identity has experiences abolitionists can learn from.

Being non-binary just means not wanting to be identified with one of the binary genders. It doesn’t matter how one presents or acts, or even their pronouns. In your hypothetical world with equal norms you still have two categories.