When I first pitched this article, I had a very different idea for what it would look like. I wanted to write something that told my story of coming out, but the truth is, I am still coming out.
That’s something I wish I knew before, that coming out is a process. It’s a constant in my life, always having to explain that I’m not a girl. I am often met with confused looks, and sometimes I am just too goddamn tired to explain to another person who I am. Honestly, it’s not their business, but sometimes I can’t stand the thought of being perceived as a woman.
I knew I had a weird relationship with gender for a while. I have always been more attracted to “men’s” clothing, but I also still really loved wearing dresses and putting on makeup. I have a few non-binary friends and while I supported them without question, I never really took the time to think about if I was non-binary.
For a long time, I found pride in my identity as a woman. But now, it doesn’t feel right. I don’t know how to explain it. What I do know is that I am more of an aunt than an uncle, but more of a grandpa than a grandma.
I see my non-binary identity as, not an absence of gender, but an abundance of it. I often find myself thinking I’m stuck in this idea that “I don’t look non-binary enough”, but there is no enough. I am non-binary.
When I first came out, my family was confused. Many of them had never even heard of the term before, let alone known someone who identified as nonbinary. It’s been a process but they’re slowly starting to understand. Coming out to my family meant finally letting go of who I used to be, and allowing them the time to get to know the new me.
I hadn’t really thought about what my coming out would mean to them. Although they love and accept me, they didn’t understand me.The truth is, I didn’t understand me either. Because of their confusion, they had a lot of questions. A lot of them I didn’t know the answer to.
I didn’t think about what a chore it would be to come up with alternatives to the endless names that I would now need to replace because our society is so ingrained with the binary of gender. I didn’t have to think about it, because I just knew, I’ve always known that I was non-binary. It just took a pandemic for me to do anything about it.
I feel like at this point it’s kind of a joke that everyone is coming out of lockdown queer, and if they were already queer, then they came out as non-binary. It took a virus infecting the entire planet and shutting down society for me and many others to self-reflect enough to realize we weren’t living life as our true selves. While that sentiment is beautiful, it’s kind of fucked up. What does that say about our society, that we needed to shut down the entire world to understand who we are meant to be?
But also, what does that say about ourselves? That we feel the need to distract ourselves to the point of completely losing sight of who we really are. Doomscrolling can only get us so far. This forced self-isolation has made us confront the feelings we’ve been running from our whole lives.
But confronting these feelings doesn’t give you all the answers. So I just want to say, if you have recently come out or are planning to come out in the near future, you are non-binary enough.
You are queer enough. No one knows you better than yourself. Give yourself time.
I recently read The Black Flamingo by Dean Atta, and I wanted to share a few excerpts that really validated my experience as a queer, nonbinary person. I hope they bring you as much joy, and validation as they have brought me.
Some Men Have Vaginas
He said he was a gay man
with a vagina and I, penis heavy
and light of food, wondered
if gay meant the same to him
as it did to me, wondered
if man was in mind or body.
Because I wear my man,
strip down bare to my man.
in the mirror, there I am.
For me, man has merely been
a matter of circumstance,
not a journey or discovery.
I rarely had to fight for it,
rarely want to fight against it,
never wanted to shed skin
to reveal somebody else.
I never questioned it until
he said “some men have vaginas.”
I understood it to be true
but it left me feeling nothing
more than a tool, who knew
nothing about being a man
outside his own body.
And this performance performed by Dean Atta of his poem “How to Come Out as Gay”
Even though these poems are centered around the gay community, I think they’re applicable to the non-binary experience. Sometimes we all need a little reassurance that we are where we are meant to be at this moment in our lives. Be patient with yourself. Be kind to yourself. But most importantly, be true to yourself.
