More than 1 million nonbinary adults live in the US, study finds

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Awesome. Probably would be more if it were more socially acceptable to identify as such.

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The "gender is a social construct" thing is an ongoing debate in the trans community, so it's just as likely that two people are saying two different things as it is that one person is being a hypocrite, but it's probably likely that some people simply haven't thought it through enough to have a coherent opinion (which is fine--not everyone thinks about this on a regular basis and no one should feel obligated to).

My view, though, is that since binary trans people exist (and this has been confirmed in neurological studies) it's pretty clear that psychological gender is "real" and that it usually corresponds, but doesn't always correspond, to biological sex (which also isn't 100% binary, but most people are biologically either male or female--even if you consider being intersex to be a "disorder", the fact is that intersex people exist). Where non-binary people fit into this isn't really known, and I think there are definitely cases where two people with the exact same inherent psychological gender might have two completely different conceptions of what their gender is, it doesn't seem like too much of a leap to assume that if male brains and female brains exist, brains that are somewhere in between exist as well. Does every non-binary person have an accurate understanding of this? Almost certainly not, because no one knows what it's like inside another person's head, so they don't really have anything to compare themselves to. However, I think that it's reasonable to assume that everyone who identifies as non-binary is doing so in good faith.

(Obligatory disclaimer that I'm not arguing with people who are only interested in religious zealotry and/or owning the libs, just countering them in the event that other people are finding themselves swayed by those people's arguments. Also trans and non-binary people, or anyone who knows better, feel free to challenge or correct anything I said.)

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Do you really think trans people, who face high rates of unemployed, poverty, and violence, are doing it because it’s “fashionable”? I understand being confused and not getting certain things absolutely the community, but callous dismissal like that is just ignorant and wrong.

(And when one wants to be perceived as a certain gender by society, one tends to confirms to what that society expects of that gender.)

Yep. Transphobes will get mad when a trans person conforms to gender norms, and then also get mad when trans people don't conform enough to gender norms. Also a lot of transphobes get mad when cis people don't conform to gender norms.

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The "gender is a social construct" thing is an ongoing debate in the trans community, so it's just as likely that two people are saying two different things as it is that one person is being a hypocrite, but it's probably likely that some people simply haven't thought it through enough to have a coherent opinion (which is fine--not everyone thinks about this on a regular basis and no one should feel obligated to).

Just as a general comment, I do think it would be beneficial if there was more understanding that 'social construct' does not mean 'this thing is not real'. A social construct is absolutely real; that's the point. The foundational text, after all, happens to be called The Social Construction of Reality...

Fair enough, but I'm not even sure what the difference is between a social construct and a non-social construct, given that humans (as a species) have been social animals since the beginning.

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I guess no one has really attempted to answer my question.  If the acceptance of transgender identity is not based in gender dysphoria, and indeed gender is just a social construct, how is this distinguishable from transracial identity, which surely is at least as much of a social construct as gender?

I actually do think that gender is something that inherently exists in people's brains, so it's not purely a social construct. Race is more of a cultural phenomenon that's loosely based on biology.