Binary privilege

I've been reading up on binary privilege a bit, as I had heard someone mention it. It did not feel like a very credible concept, but it's important to keep an open mind to things. I think there is certainly a thought behind this concept, but I feel like it is probably not something that qualifies as an actual privilege. My personal opinion is that the only binary privilege is cis privilege.

So, here’s what I’ve gathered so far:

It can easily be said that binary genders are viewed as real and credible. However, this does not mean binary trans people’s genders are actually viewed as real, even if cis people’s binary genders are viewed as valid. Cis genders currently being male and female. Just because the cis person's gender is valid, it does not mean that a trans person's maleness or femaleness is viewed as any more genuine at large than non-binary people's non-binary genders. Being binary trans or non-binary trans does generally not make much of a difference for cis people. 

It does not change much more than the specifics of its manifestation, which is the things they say and do to dehumanise, discredit and mistreat trans people. There are many aspect of this though, where people's experiences with transphobia are very different. People often refuse to use gender neutral language, not acknowledging singular they/them and neopronouns as valid, which is more about the manifestation than anything, it is however a non-binary specific issue of transphobia. Which is not something we should ignore just to discredit the concept of binary privilege. None of this equates to binary trans people being respected.  

There are many things binary people can achieve by being binary, which non-binary struggle with. Non-binary people have to be closeted about their non-binary identity to access hrt in many countries. Often trans is defined as “wanting  be accepted as someone of the opposite sex”, a very cissexist and intersexist statement, however it is one unfortunately commonly accepted. It would easily be argued this definition of “transsexuality” is excluding non-binary people. And therefore many non-binary trans people can not get the sort of sex reassignment and therapy they want. Since you need to be either assigned male or female and because of these strict definitions.

Power dynamics and privilege is usually only applicable to one group or category within every aspect of society where there’s power imbalance and inequality. A power ladder is generally not accepted as a valid concept. There is men generally for gender, cis for gender identity, and dyadic for sexual aspects. It does not make sense to create more aspects than this as far as gender and sex goes, leaving out sexual orientation. It implies trans women have the same privileges as their oppressors. It implies trans women and trans men are properly represented, treated properly by society at large, or that binary trans people’s struggles are not as bad as non-binary trans people’s struggles. There’s no privilege without oppressing another group, so this would imply that a large portion of non-binary specific transphobia was created by trans binary people, more than people in general just perpetuating it from internalised transphobia.

I think the term "binary privilege", could potentialy be harmful, not just that, it seems fairly useless. It could spawn negative sentiments against binary trans people, but also against non-binary people to use terms like these (like what happened to ace people due to the heavy usage of allosexual). Thus it could lead to a further split of communities. Trans people already are excluded and feel unsafe in various spaces. It puts some sort of blame on binary trans people. Trans people are not to blame for the binary. They exist within, but don’t reinforce it, and did for sure not create it. Not being in a minority, or having a different identity does not equate to oppression or privilege. Binary in itself is not a privileged category (women are not privileged for being women, being female is an aspect of the binary). So I feel like, maybe the term binary privilege should be avoided, and maybe we should change some of our perspectives on how this power dynamic works. Both acknowledging the struggles of any trans person, but also specificly acknowledging the struggles that non-binary trans people face.