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Notes -
One way to square the circle that might not be appealing to LGBTQIA+ Ally-types, but that may be consistent with their actual mental model of the world is believing that trans is a real category that accurately describes some people, but that non-binary isn't a legitimate category. From there, you could group people who identify as NB into one of two categories, either someone that's just not ready to fully transition and come as trans or someone that's a narcissistic weirdo looking for attention. If Sister of @Folamh3 used such a model, she could evaluate the NB male that she meets and try to determine if this person is on their way to being a woman or just a narcissistic weirdo looking for attention; since she perceives this NB guy as just a guy, she settles on the latter. Of course, being a good ally, she's not going to outright say that there is no in between state, so here she is articulating part of it without articulating all of it.
This is not necessarily an accurate description of her model of the world, but it's one that would be consistent with the available facts. Someone employing that model that is pressed on it to agree with more right-wing views regarding the actual stability of gender identities and their consistency with biological sex isn't likely to acquiesce and say, "yeah, you're right, this is pretty obviously bullshit" even if they kind of think that's the case about non-binaryism.
You get in trouble saying something isn't a 'real' category, but absolutely they're qualitatively different 'types' of categories, and it's much more possible to 'fail' at being nonbinary than at being binary trans (so long as you are making some efforts along the established binary transition pipeline).
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