NB

I am non-binary.

When did I make this “switch”?

I am not entirely sure I was ever in the space to be labeled as a “man”. I had always felt out of place with the idea. Like I was doing it wrong. As if the ways I was told to act, present myself, dress, talk, and live my life were an eventuality. How I was born to be. How I “SHOULD be” was determined for me. I felt trained to be a certain way.

Over the past few years, I felt as if I had finally realized that the words of others saying my attempts of trying to “intentionally be different” or “going against the grain for attention” were indeed what I knew them in my heart as — an insult to me. Whether ill intentioned or a misunderstanding of what it means to be outside of the binary space. Are you man or woman? No further questions allowed. Yes or no. Black and white.

This coming out may come as a surprise to some of you. Maybe I’ve already told you. Maybe you could tell by the way I exist. It doesn’t really matter. I think I wanted to write this so I could tell you, “Hey, I do not want to be seen this way, because I never have felt like I have truly lived that life.” In other words, I would appreciate not being labeled as a man. It just isn’t who I am.

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Does this suddenly fix everything for me? Of course not. It realistically makes things difficult in another dimension. I will still exist and struggle as anyone else does. I am not changing, really. It is just a matter of: “I want you to know me as I am.”

I liked this “gender cone” diagram by Olivia Paramour. While it doesn’t fully place all my feelings and the experience of humans, I think it sort of shows how it feels to me.

You see, I am here stating that I am not a part of the two-decision tree of man or woman. I am saying that I do not want the cultural burdens of either of them. You can just do that. Because it’s all made up. The most natural feeling thing to me is that my gender is unaligned with current norms (Gender is a construct etc., etc.). Of course there are assured struggles with being queer or non-binary.

Anyway, my sexuality hasn’t changed. I still am attracted to feminine people. That’s just how I’ve always been. I think I see gender as a spectrum of like masculinity, femininity, and queerness. I think I would place my attraction along the lines of a mixture of queerness and femininity. So no, I am not attracted to masculine people suddenly. I hope that clears things up for you, because for some reason that is the hot topic whenever I tell people about my gender.

I’m probably most aligned with the greenish — purple color of this diagram made by the Trevor Project.

Regardless, now you know. I prefer they/them. I know it’s not an easy thing to get used to. Hell, I’m not even used to it. But it feels better for me. Feels natural. I hope you can see/respect that. I won’t be offended if you misgender me, but I will think twice about you if you continuously and intentionally do it lol. Just a natural response to someone not listening or respecting me.

thanks, bye :)