Hopefully you will understand me (and many, many others) better after this
I had always considered myself to be a feminist, but didn’t realize like most people that gender politics went way deeper than the binary until 10th grade. That was the first time I had heard about what it is to be non-binary or transgender. I joined the “Alliance club”, run by very intelligent and knowledgeable 11th graders, where we would discuss everything related to the LGBTQ+ community (the terms, currents events, the societal discrimination that is faced… etc.). It helped me explore and understand my sexuality through hearing about others’ experiences, and I learned how heteronormativity impacts our society and perpetuates the patriarchy. I realized that people’s identity cannot be categorized into a few rigid boxes, but that things are on a spectrum and the way we are conditioned (the values that are made to seem natural and normal when they’re mostly socially constructed) makes anyone who doesn’t fit into the box seem like a freak, that something is wrong with them.
Throughout that year, I also started learning about mental disorders as one of my closest friends was battling through multiple. At first I didn’t understand why they couldn’t just stop feeling that way and I just didn’t understand how someone with so many privileges could think and feel like that. I started to investigate those issues more and learned that it’s not something you can stop having, just like physical health issues. During that time I spent researching, I discovered body dysmorphic disorder. From all my readings, I have understood it to be a mental disorder where the individual has a “perceived flaw” that they constantly worry about. It makes social interactions difficult and makes you have a very low self-esteem. It isn’t the most common one but nonetheless should be taken very seriously because it isn’t a nice way to feel, and it can lead to self harm and suicide.
When I discovered the existence of this disorder, I realized that most of the symptoms applied to the way I had felt, since about I was 12. I felt out of place in my own body and I struggled feeling comfortable with myself when I was around others. I felt so undesirable to myself that I didn’t know how I would be desirable towards others. And it wasn’t always about desirability, it was often simply feeling acceptably looking (not necessarily being sexually or romantically desirable to others but just not looking horrible). Even though other people would compliment my appearances and I would get into relationships or hookups, I just felt really gross to myself and it was a persistent feeling that would take over my thoughts. However, it never stopped me from being social and I never self harmed, and ever since I realized that it was a mental disorder, something that is probably based off a chemical imbalance in my brain I was able to rationalize it and live with it better. However, something that I thought that didn’t completely fit with the BDD descriptor was that it wasn’t a specific perceived flaw that I thought about, it had more to do with myself overall. It was just the way I moved around, the way my whole body was shaped, the way I was being perceiving myself…
In 10th grade, I had a friend that was openly non-binary and asked to use different pronouns to which they were assigned at birth. They explained that they wanted to be perceived as more male but not to the point where they felt like they were completely male. I found that something with that statement really resonated with me, as they were experiencing a type of dysmorphia with the sex that they were born with and a rejection of the social norms imposed on those that are categorized a certain way. I thought it was really brave of them to accept who they are to themselves and try to change the world around them instead of themselves, even though this put them in a vulnerable position as there will always be backlash from assholes who will tell you what you are instead of just believing you and trying to help you feel less alienated from everything.
As I mentioned earlier, there was something very relatable to me in this friend’s experience which made me start questioning my own gender identity. However, I was already experiencing a lot with my own sexuality and also during the summer between 10th and 11th grade I started getting into animal rights. Consequently, I went vegan the day before I started 11th grade and became an activist and so that year, I pushed aside the questions about my gender identity. I took global politics as one of my IB higher levels which opened my eyes to the importance of intersectionality, therefore thinking about all types of oppression. I learned about Marx and Engels and listened to podcasts, watched videos and read articles about Marxism. I went even deeper during the summer between 11th and 12th and got into anarchism and learned about groups that merged animal rights and environmental rights with human rights and a more structural/socio-economic analysis of power. Then, in 12th grade the gender question for some reason kept resurfacing. I had subconsciously realized that I did not identify as a girl but it was just this feeling of discomfort I felt when my gender was categorized. I hadn’t consciously understood or grasped it, especially as I didn’t look into it that much. I now realize that it was because life was just easier pretending to be a cisgender girl, even though the erasure had an enormous emotional toll on myself.
Then, through one of my favourite podcasts Revolutionary Left Radio, they had on Zoe Samudzi who among many things did research on medical sociology, specifically with transgender people. I started reading and learning about the trans community and the question of gender started to resurface my mind once again. The volcano only exploded when I was chosen to sing at a choral festival in the Women’s choir. I always found the idea that higher voices will mean women and that lower voices will mean men to be completely absurd. It is true that most people that identify as those genders do have those voices, but where does that put non-binary people? Surely, we are a not only a social minority, but a minority in numbers, and we are probably even less as that is the way the mainstream world operates in, with a gender binary. You have a vagina, you are a girl. You have a penis, you are a boy. You have both, we will choose one for you or else you will be an intersex freak. Before you can question your identity, all these labels and perceptions are imposed on you and then that dictates the expectations of your performance of those identities, which you most likely will try to live up to, as that is how you survive. However, if we are going to use the argument that we non-binary people are minorities (in numbers, not regarding how much power they have), that logic that since there are less of us in the world, then why is the world ruled by the white man? Why are white people so overly represented and have so much power?
(That’s another topic I’m not getting into.)
At the festival, our conductor, who was a very lovely woman that taught me a lot and I had a wonderful time being conducted by her mostly picked pieces written by women. It did feel great and was amazing to be around so many talented female singers. However, the whole time I had this inexplicable feeling everytime she would call us “ladies” or “girls”. It felt like a punch in the stomach. It didn’t fit. I didn’t fit. I didn’t see myself as the people around me. I was experiencing erasure and my body dysmorphia grew immensely. I didn’t enjoy singing on stage one bit. They made us all wear floor length dresses, covering our shoulders and I felt trapped. Not that I didn’t want to wear those things, but that because of my sex and my perceived/imposed gender, that I would have to dress a certain way. I enjoy wearing what is perceived as more “feminine” as often I feel as though I can express myself in a more artistic manner than if I wear what is perceived as “male”.After the performance, I talked to another queer person in the choir and they were also non-binary. We shared our feelings and frustration with one another. At that moment, the gender queer erasure bothered me so much, because I’ve always found it easier to stand up for others than for myself – because I’ve grown up with this self hate.
When I returned home, I experienced multiple identity crises as that is a common thing to happen to oneself after a trip. You leave your everyday life, see how others live and return with a different reference point to examine oneself and lifestyle. You see all the other possibilities of the way of life. I realized that I had to be open about my non-binariness and embrace it. I had to stop hiding and act like I was okay with the way I was living. I had to stop telling myself that I had to live up to this gender that I didn’t choose. I didn’t want to operate within a binary framework. I didn’t want to amplify or embrace the femininity in myself, because that’s not how I feel the most comfortable. I officially started labeling myself as non-binary which played a part in my acceptance of myself and telling others about it. I told my close friends, my parents, my councilor and my teachers. Nobody was opposed to it, half of the people I told were very supportive and the other half didn’t really care – which to a certain extent has been nice, but I haven’t heard them make an effort to use my pronouns or to learn about how to perceive me and treat me. This is what I feared. If I were going to put my gender onto the surface of my mind by coming out to myself and others, I wanted it to be taken seriously because everytime people clearly treat me within the categorization of “girl” or “woman”, or say she/her instead of they/them (which felt more androgynous to me), it feels like that punch in the stomach again. It’s a constant reminder that I live in a binary world and that I am not being perceived the way I want to be. I don’t blame the individual people who make these mistakes, as for many people I understand that it’s something new and with so many centuries of this conditioning that it’s hard to escape these tendencies or classifications. However, from listening to the Gender Reveal podcast that was recommended to me by my school counselor, lots of cultures have more than 2 genders in their society. As one of the interviewees, La Tisha Rico, a Diné (Navajo) non-binary person (who is also vegan!) explains that their non-binariness is a form of decolonizing gender, as their societies had/have/will have more than 2 genders. This just shows that the gender binary is a social construct (not saying that the two genders are non-existent, but that there are more than two). We have to rigidly categorize everyone and then construct a hierarchy just so that one group can have the most power. We impose these categories on others and tell others what they are and have these expectations of they should perform those identities. Why can’t we start listening to how people identify and just accept it? We need to start believing others more for how they want to be and be perceived, and help them feel comfortable and safe within social spaces. Feminism’s definitions is debated by many people and like many “-ism’s” the core ideas are clouded by what we associate with them. However, most feminists I know, like myself define it as striving for gender equality. Clearly, we need to take into account how other intersections play into it (an obvious one is race, as Zoe Samudzi emphasizes) but my point is that if we want to be feminists, considering the LGBTQ+ community is part of it. Many women are part of that community. Therefore, on just a level of an acceptance of non-heterosexuality, not supporting the community is not feminist. The community also includes people that do not conform to the gender binary, therefore sustaining and being complacent to a rigid gender binary is not feminist. By disregarding the importance of how I perceive myself and want to be perceived by others, even if it is not an explicit attack on my gender, it is not putting my identity on an equal level of acceptance to the other genders. Therefore, this is not gender equality. This is not feminism.
After I started accepting myself for who I truly am, my body dysmorphia completely shriveled away. I realized that what I had been experiencing was gender dysphoria, which I still experience, but not the grossness I felt about my own body no longer was there. I feel it in the sense that I feel disconnected to my sex, however I’ve felt so much more comfortable about myself overall since, and I never thought that day would come. I had started to just accept it as part of me, as I thought it was myself that I had to change, and not the world around me. But I would never want anyone else to feel the way I did, which is why I thought it was important for me to be open about my identity, just like my friends and so many people are. They helped me learn to accept and understand myself, and to see another flaw the world we live in has. By being out as who I really am, I hope that it will help other people who are going through a similar experience and also to help people have a critical lense of the gender binary and social norms. However, exposing myself to be this vulnerable and officially dedicating myself to another fight comes with tolls. I’ve had arguments with people and am constantly reminded by the shitty state of the world every time that I put myself in social situations. I have many instances when I don’t want to get out of bed, finding myself to be less motivated to go out into the world and interact with others. This feeling isn’t completely new, but my acceptance of my gender identity has amplified those feelings. I need to prepare myself for even more erasure, even more disconnect and alienation from myself and the world around me. That’s just a hard cold fact that I have to embrace, while at the same time fight against and hopefully find accepting people and others like myself.
Note: I’m not a psychologist so I can’t officially diagnose myself but from all of my readings I have noticed parallels in the symptoms I’ve found in the articles/journals and myself.
Last point about my pronouns… I know that there are lots of people that think that I am “impinging their freedom of speech” if I force them to use the pronouns that I want them to. So I won’t do that. But I hope that they understand that using my correct pronouns is a way of making me and my identity feel more accepted, and I will feel more comfortable and more safe with who I am and who I am around. If I could have chosen my gender, this isn’t one that I wouldn’t have chosen. So why would I go out of my way to put myself through all of this? I’m the only person that knows who I am and what I feel inside.
Resources for further understanding some of the terms I used:
LOTS OF HELPFUL TERMS: http://www.transstudent.org/definitions
Great podcast about non-binary gender called Gender Reveal: http://gender.libsyn.com/
Wikipedia Genderqueer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genderqueer
“A Guide to Non-Binary Gender Pronouns and Why They Matter”: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/non-binary-pronouns-why-they-matter_us_5a03107be4b0230facb8419a
Non binary dysphoria: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-kzYxkgbBw
The Anti-Speciesist Leftist 