hello!
things are a little scary right now huh?
i thought it would be a good time to talk about something that i normally keep hidden, mostly because i’m a big old coward.
i’m non-binary!
its actually really important to me, which makes it even sadder really that i feel like i can’t talk about it most of the time – mostly because of how people can react to it. but i realise, now, given that this is a time we are being made to feel small, and disgusting, and like we should be hiding, that i should probably talk about it more.
this article might be upsetting for some people, because it talks about transphobia and repression, but i tried to make it a gentle if honest read. take care of yourself, this is some rando rambling online you don’t need to read it.
i am AFAB, which, if you are unfamiliar with the term, means i was Assigned Female At Birth. being nonbinary means that although i have a body society would typically consider that of a Woman, i do not identify with the gender performance that comes with that.
dressing a certain way, acting a certain way, finding certain things and people appealing just because i was born looking a certain way is absolutely insane to me and even as a kid i did not understand why certain things were forced or expected of me. i would get punished for not dressing a certain way, for having certain hobbies, for being friends with certain people that were not proper.
in essence i was punished for Being Bad At Being A Woman. i think this is an experience that is fairly common amongst people under the trans umbrella – even when you do try and do what people expect of you, perform cis-ness, you do it the wrong way so you are punished either way.
you’re either a freak for not trying to meet these ridiculous expectations, or you’re a failure and a freak for doing them “badly”.
i find traditional femininity uncomfortable, painful even, and years of trying at it and failing somehow still never made me realise i was struggling desperately to meet the standards of people who would literally never accept who i was, that i was essentially living a fake, wholly performative life, where my interests and hobbies were either over-sold (like enjoying the colour pink and candy and sparkles etc) or hidden entirely (my love of insects, horror, video games, cross dressing, etc).
there were, and are, assumptions made about me, my personality, what i liked and would want, that were based entirely on the body characteristics i was born with, and that for me was and can still be a deeply isolating experience.
i would always feel, and be told, that i was wrong and that no matter what i did it wasn’t correct, wasn’t right, was abhorrent or weird. everything made me feel trapped in myself, that i was going to be forced to put on a performance i didn’t understand, didn’t like, forever and ever. i pushed all my feelings of discomfort and misery deep deep down, that i was just being crazy or unreasonable, that everyone else seemed to be fine.
eventually, around the age of 14-16, i got access to the internet, and learned about being transgender, and while at the time it set off complete chaos and bedlam in my head – oh my god, you can do that? i could do that? thats a thing you can just do? other people are unhappy with all this as well? – it was absolutely, deeply unpopular, and everyone i saw that was Out and Proud as a trans person was torn apart for it.
it was an eminently mockable idea, one deserving of scorn and vicious abuse, and, terrified i would be “found out”, that people would somehow magically gain an awareness of the feelings bubbling inside me, i internalised that for years.
and you would see it everywhere. everything, everyone, all kinds of media and people and places would make jokes about it, bully people to suicide and worse all while laughing, and i pushed those feelings i had deep, deep, deep down and didn’t let myself think about them.
being that way would make me a freak. and i was already a freak, trying very very very hard not to be, trying so hard to be considered normal and respectable by a society that frankly would never see me that way. and if i DID identify that way, i better fucking pass as a dude, or else.
deep down though, i realised that i also did not really identify with masculinity, and the idea of transitioning into a different gender, or otherwise changing my body, did not really appeal either.
i didn’t feel i should be forced to change my body for people to respect who i was, and i didn’t want to. i liked being me!
i didn’t want to start doing a different performance that wasn’t right for me, i wanted to stop feeling like i had to.
but i needed to change somehow, needed to fix what was Wrong with me – i desperately covted the joy and peace and freedom i saw my trans friends feel within themselves after accepting themselves and transitioning, even with the absolute cruelty people treated them with.
i needed to feel like i could be myself and love myself, and figured that people already treated me horribly for things beyond my control, i might as well at least be happy while they did so.
so eventually, many years later, when i was in my 20s, i moved out, and surrounded myself with better and more loving people, unlearned the internalised transphobia, misogyny and fear i had been drowned in, and i started pushing back a little against these feelings of Wrongness that i carried with me, of discomfort.
i was called a tomboy as a kid and that was a label i secretly loved – although it was treated as an insult by a lot of adults – and so as an adult i adopted it again because it felt better. my hobbies are, despite how i feel about them, traditionally masculine – horror, video games, comic books, insects, etc – or at least were considered to be when i was growing up, and that deeply shaped how other people saw me.
so being a “tomboy” as an adult was in essence testing what felt right for me, how i actually felt about myself, and at the time, it made sense and for a while, honestly, it kind of quieted how i felt, and i could go back to being “normal”.
it was something people could understand, and it meant for the most part they left me alone. it was “acceptable” and it was something that allowed me to be a little more myself.
but it wasn’t really enough, still. the feelings of that being Wrong still boiled inside me and i finally had to confront them.
and so, eventually, all this rambling discomfort you’ve been reading poured out of me and i realised that i was just tired of it all. tired of gender, of existing performatively, of doing things i hated just to fail at fitting it anyway.
i realised, basically, that i was non-binary. that i gendern’t. i was a woman’t. closer to a goblin or a frightened rabbit than the concept of man or woman.
and i realised i didnt have to do it anymore. i could just take a deep breath. i could let go and live as i wanted without worrying about the specifics anymore, i could just pick one, big, super generic label that just about explained how i felt and call it a day. people were either gonna get it or they weren’t.
and god let me tell you my friend it felt so good. it felt so fucking good to just be honest. to let go. to start dressing however i wanted without giving a fuck, do my hair however, go by they/them and fuck everyone else. exist by my own desires and what I found comfortable and what brought me joy.
i even came out at work and people were nothing but supportive and understanding. i haven’t really come out explicitly to all my family yet and maybe i never will, but they love me anyway even if they dont fully understand me (in their own ways at least).
my friends are loving and kind even if they dont get it.
a lot of people were shitty little assholes about it, but thats on them. it wasnt easy to see people that i thought were my friends, who accepted and cared about me, turn on me almost instantaneously because i asked to be referred to in a different way.
BUT.
it was worth it to feel comfortable with myself.
to feel Good About Being Alive.
if you are trans or non-binary or Queer, a lot of people will try and tell you that feeling good about being alive, or being yourself, is Wrong.
that you should feel bad for being the way you are or that it is somehow Wrong or “degenerate” or whatever facist buzzword they wanna throw around.
fuck those people.
they are poisoned by hatred and fear – you are allowed to be happy, to thrive, to be weird and beautiful, to be exactly as you are or want to be and literally nothing they can say or do can take that from you.
if i am allowed to be a happy little freak doing my dream career, surrounded by people that love and care about me and want the best for me, then you are too. everyone is.
if it makes you happy to be trans, to be non-binary, to be queer, be that way, and never, ever, ever let anyone hold you back. the only wrong way to be is the way you force yourself to be for the sake of people that don’t care about you.
they cannot take that from you. they might try, but they will fail.
be nice to yourself and to our trans siblings during these difficult times, but remember we will all get through it one day at a time.
mwah x