How to be Non-Binary (throw away the rule-books)
I am a transgender woman, though I have the lived experience of ‘soft-launching’ my transness with being non-binary for two years and trying to affirm that identity within my family and the corporate job I was working at the time. Combining my own lived experiences and the work I do with my non-binary clients, I can say a lot of folks will follow a similar two step program:
Step One: Realize that you are neither a man or a woman, nor a binary trans masculine person or a binary trans feminine person - none of those roles describe you, you are something in-between or outside of that spectrum…
Step Two: ….now what??
This is the difficult question at the center of an identity that is defined by what it isn’t - if you aren’t a man or a woman… What are you?
Larger society loves to prescribe stereotypes to everyone in order to ‘understand’ (or more accurately, categorize) what people’s identities are. I’m sure you’ve heard the harmful stereotypes that non-binary people are “woman-lite”, they have blue hair, they dress masculinely, they get top surgery, they need to be perfectly androgynous, and will always aggressively correct you on their pronouns. This, of course, is completely dismissive of non-binary people who are Assigned Male At Birth, and the “woman-lite” angle is also extremely dismissive of people who are Assigned Female At Birth. Yet these stereotypes persist.
Humans love to categorize things in a binary way to make sense of them, they have a mental box for things that are ‘Male’ and one for things that are ‘female’, but it seems borderline impossible for them to imagine a third box. “You can either be a man in a dress with a beard, or a woman who is masculine, you can’t be neither”. “You can’t use they/them as pronouns, those are plural! If you ask the general public to use the correct pronouns for a non-binary person, it would just confuse THEM”.
If I rolled my eyes any harder, I’d have a fucking aneurysm.
When I came out as non-binary, I was still figuring myself out. I still had a beard, I still dressed fairly masculinely, I sounded masculine on the phone (Which, let me tell you, was a nightmare working in a call center); for all intents and purposes I was regarded as a man. But I just knew I wasn’t one. I was uncomfortable dressing femme because it didn’t feel like I had the right to do so, I had internalized that it would be “too confusing” for the general public and would lead to harassment. A big part of my lack of femininity was that I was still ignoring the fact that I was actually a woman, so it was hidden by a curtain of willful ignorance and not being ready to admit that to myself yet. All of my progress was hindered by the fear of external perception and judgement.
So what if I was “too confusing” for the general public?? Let them be confused! At least my inner circle sees me and uses my pronouns… right? …sigh….
One of the biggest obstacles to feeling empowered in your identity is having it seen and embraced by those closest to you. I’ve seen time and time again the frustration and despair that comes from a family actively invalidating a non-binary member. Even if they’re ‘trying’, there’s only so many times that you can grin and bear it when you hear “she/he… I mean they” and not have it affect you on a deep level. It hits you in the heart and it makes you doubt yourself, right? No wonder we wrestle with the concept of taking up space and affirming ourselves when those who are supposed to love us unconditionally are suddenly being very conditional with how they see and interact with us. If you don’t have that baseline of acceptance from those around you, it makes the battle for self-acceptance and then self-affirming that much harder.
I’ve talked to clients who have believed it might be easier just to transition in order to be accepted - not because they want to be a trans man/woman, but because they are sick and tired of having their non-binary identity invalidated and having their AGAB wielded like a weapon against them: “Maybe if I get top surgery, people will stop seeing me as a woman”, “Do I need to cut all my hair off or something??”, “If I get one more gift that says “I love my daughter”, I’m going to lose my fucking mind!!”.
While for some people, like me, being non-binary is a step on their journey to realizing a binary trans identity, I absolutely believe there are people who are completely non-binary. They are entirely valid in that being their journey. You could declare that you are non-binary and that’s it, no other changes, and you would still be valid. There’s external pressure to perform gender in one of two ways, and there’s also pressure to prove that you’re non-binary enough to warrant being a ‘special’ third thing and then MAYBE people will respect your identity (which is fucking disgusting).
Let me clear: You do not need to visibly transition in any way, shape, or form, to be valid as a non-binary person. You can if you need to, but it should be for you. Not due to external pressure or chasing acceptance.
When we tear up the rule-books of “What it means to be a Man/Woman”, it leaves us with an absence of direction. That direction needs to come from within, here are some questions to help:
Who do you want to be and how do you want to show up in the world?
How do you want to be seen by those closest to you?
How do you want to present, regardless of what the public might think or how they interpret you?
How will you stand up for yourself if someone invalidates you?
How will you know which battles to pick in order to be safe?
If you feel like you aren’t ‘queer enough’ - how will you know when you are?
To that last point, I know a lot of my non-binary siblings are expert gatekeepers. They let everybody else through the gate but keep themselves firmly on the outside. Enough is enough. I’m rocking up with my bulldozer and knocking down that stupid fucking gate, and I’m installing a rainbow balloon arch (for some added whimsy).
You are queer enough, come on through this arch and let’s talk as siblings. I see you and I’m so fucking proud of you for being here and for being YOU.
Me bulldozing the gate so no-one can keep it anymore
(if you recognize where this image is from, I love you)
Please consider joining my private Discord server, Queer Peers, and come join your community! We have free support groups every second Saturday, where we talk about anything and everything that’s going on in our lives, I truly hope to see you there!
If you need more one-on-one support to help answer any of the questions I asked earlier, it would be an honor for me to help you in your journey! Please reach out or schedule your free session with me and let’s talk about all of this and what it means for you. Who YOU want to be, how to be resilient in the face of misgendering, how to come out safely (or not), or how to define your gender for yourself are all topics I have helped clients with and I’d love to help you with them too. Most of my clients are non-binary and helping them grow in confidence and inner strength is a privilege I truly treasure.
