I'm back! I haven't had time for this blog (or my other blogs, or my music writing) since about mid September. Before NaNoWriMo even got in the mix, my freelance work really started to pick up toward the end of September, so that I was pulling 18 to 20 hour days for a while. Now things have calmed down a little so that when I do get freelance work, it usually only means a 15 hour day (yay O.o) and when I don't, I sometimes actually have free time! (It's been so long that when I do have it, I don't know what to do with it. Chores? Sleep? Eat chocolate and stare at the wall in a daze?)
I have been thinking about things and about writing, though. I want to write about Zella Ziona, the Transgender Day of Remembrance, and Seneca Valley High School's production of The Laramie Project (and I'll probably cram those all into one post, just because). But I got inspired to steal the time to get back on here because over the past few days I've read pieces about non-binary identity by two of my favorite bloggers (Sam Dylan Finch and Pax Ahimsa Gethen), and I thought it was time to throw my hat in the ring.
In his post about creating spaces that welcome non-binary folks, Sam talked about how he was kicked out of a non-binary group because he had identified as transmasculine and therefore someone in the group considered him a trans man and thus not non-binary.
As Sam goes on to explain, this shows a fundamental misunderstanding of non-binary identity and the fluid nature of gender in general. And I think it also shows a lack of understanding of the term "transmasculine," which is a much broader term than "trans man" and can include anyone who is AFAB (assigned female at birth) but leans toward masculinity.
It also struck home with me because I myself identify not only as transmasculine, but as both a trans man and a non-binary, genderqueer person. I identify as a trans man because I am part of the group of people who were assigned female at birth, but have taken steps to change their lives to live as male instead. Even though I don't think of myself as "being a man" as strongly as some other trans guys might, my experience of transitioning to and living as a man are so much in line with theirs that I do see myself as a trans man.
At the same time, I've known for a while that my internal sense of gender is unclear and/or nonexistent, and lately I've been thinking more and more that I really do not have a gender. I'll have moments when I see myself just as a person, with no gender, and that's how I feel most comfortable thinking of myself.
I am actually genderqueer (non-binary), even though I live largely as a binary-appearing trans man.
In his post, Sam talks about how non-binary identity can include fluidity and uncertainty, and may not look like how cis people expect it (ie. androgyny and complete disavowal of the binary genders). That is, non-binary identity can include elements of the binary genders, and non-binary folk may even look or act like binary gendered people.
That doesn't make their non-binary gender identity any less valid.
I want to add that non-binary and binary shouldn't be mutually exclusive. That would be setting up another binary, between the completely androgynous or genderless, and the completely male or female, and leaving no room for anything in between. I don't see myself as completely male, and definitely not as female. But I do identify a lot with masculinity, to the point that I'd generally rather people call me by male pronouns and perceive me as a man. I'm living in the binary, but not of it.
After reading and reflecting on Pax's post, though, I also discovered that I seem to lean a lot more toward non-binary than I thought.
In their post "Be a Man," Pax, who also presents masculinely while identifying as non-binary, wrote a line that resonated with me strongly: "I cannot “Be a Man.” I can play the part of a man in public..."
I identified a lot with that line. As I've written before, I present as male, ask people to address me as male, and hope to be perceived as male, while not necessarily actually feeling that I am a man. And Pax's post led me to think about whether I do that because it's what I really want, or because it's easier to be accepted that way, as a trans man, than to try to explain to people that I actually have no strong sense of gender at all, and easier to not be seen as female if I clearly present as male.
I'm pretty sure I do like presenting masculinely - wearing big cargo pants, having a flat chest, well defined muscles and a deep voice, playing "the guy" in a relationship. But thinking about Pax's post made me wonder: do I really want male pronouns, or would "they" be better instead? Do I like being my girlfriend's boyfriend, or would I rather be her partner? Do I really want to be called "Mr." and "sir"? I'm constantly telling people - everywhere from the bank to the dentist's office to organizations I volunteer with - to call me Mr. not Ms., because it's a concise and effective way to get the point across and get them to stop doing something hurtful (ie. addressing me as female). But is it what I really want or just the easiest way to avoid what I don't want?
If I were to tell people to use 'they' pronouns and refer to me as my girlfriend's partner and not to use any formal titles at all, I'd probably get a lot less cooperation, a lot of arguments about how 'they' can't be singular, and a lot of misgendering since people might default back to female pronouns and forms of address rather than neutral ones. Part of the reason I swung over to living as male rather than as genderqueer was that I could not get away from being seen as female while living as genderqueer. I couldn't get people to stop treating me as female until I gave them a "valid" reason by coming out and living as a trans man. A binary trans identity is given a lot more credence and respect that a non-binary one.
This isn't something I was really consciously aware of when I came out as transmasculine in September 2014, though. I was just doing what I thought I needed to do to live authentically and have my wishes respected. At the time, being seen as a man was something I definitely wanted, and it's hard to say whether I wanted that for its own sake, or because that would mean definitively not being seen as a woman. Around the time I made my appointment to start HRT, I even identified as a man, no trans prefix attached. But funny enough, the further I go with my physical transition, the less I feel like being a man. When not being seen as a woman was founded entirely on my insistence that I'm not, that I'm trans and a man, then it was an important point to make. Now that my muscles, facial structure and deep voice help make the point that I'm not female, I no longer need to belabor my identity so much.
Not being seen as female has freed me up to consider what and who I really am. Male? Agender? Something in between? Sometimes one thing and sometimes another?
After a few days of thinking about it, I still don't know. But I don't necessarily have to know right now. Something Sam talked about in his post, and which is an important but often overlooked aspect of non-binary gender, is being open to uncertainty and fluidity and questioning and exploration. This is a struggle not just for binary people, but also non-binary people who are figuring themselves out. It's hard to live with uncertainty. But seeing as there is no obvious answer, it's something I have to learn how to do - to "hold the questions," as Pema Chödrön says.
Carving out one's identity as a tran person isn't easy in the first place. There will be times of feeling like you don't belong simply because you weren't socialized or don't have the same physiology as cis people of your identified gender. For a long time I've longed to be "one of the guys," yet when I try, even now when I "fit in" a little better after 9 months on testosterone, I don't always feel like I belong or am doing it right. And I don't know if that's simply because I haven't yet learned how, or because the type of guy I am isn't quite traditional, or because I actually am not totally male.
I don't know if I'll ever know. The moments of genderlessness I've been feeling lately, which tend to happen when I'm alone and stem from how I see myself rather than how others see me, seem to indicate that genderlessness is a key part of my identity. But what about being male sometimes too? I don't know about that part. The only thing I can do, though, is keep on going with my gender journey, trying on new hats (to borrow that metaphor from Sam), seeing which ones fit and feel good and which ones don't, keeping the good ones and discarding the uncomfortable ones. And if some hat fits for a little while - whether the reason is my own identity or how I am perceived - it's ok to keep it as long as I need, and then discard it if a time comes when it no longer fits.
After all, there are no rules or boundaries to being non-binary. That's what it's all about, transcending a limited view of gender where you have to be definitely one thing or the other - even to yourself.
