Let me say it as / a poem so as not to / overcomplicate.
The word genderqueer first appeared in print in 1995. I was born in ‘93, which means that I predate the word I use to describe me.
Growing up, I was a tomboy. I played rough at Recess and hated wearing dresses. My Mom did my hair every morning before school, and it was a ragged mess every afternoon when I got off the bus. I didn’t have much time for dolls, but I collected Rocks and Pokemon Cards, and I lived for backyard wiffleball games with my brother’s friends from Little League.
The pressure to mold came for me around 4th/5th Grade. I’d invited six friends to my 8th birthday party—two girls and five boys. But by the time I turned 10, it seemed, boys and girls did things separately. In Middle School, we all learned to shave. I resented the chore, right away. Around age 12, I was asking myself what made my hairy legs so ugly when my brother’s were fine, just as they were. Even still, I attended to my dolphin skin, for fear of other kids’ disgusted looks in Gym.
As a teen, I knew I was different. I just didn’t know how. I didn’t want to be seen as a Tomboy forever. I wanted to fit. I wore makeup religiously—I wanted to be pretty. That’s what a girl, what I, was supposed to be. I tried to reflect the Joy that other women in my life shared in all the plucking, dressing, and doing-up. I really loved the relationships forged while standing side-by-side with a friend in the mirror, blow-drying hair, applying eyeliner.
In college, I played Quidditch. For those who don’t know, that’s the game from Harry Potter played on broomsticks. But for me, Quidditch was the co-ed community I’d been seeking. Men and Women played on the same team, and these were the folks who embraced me with the brother-and-sisterhood that I so desperately missed.
In 2015, I learned there was a word for my unassuming, masculine-feminine quality—genderqueer. It was an umbrella for someone like me, who felt stuck outside of the traditional binary.
I started by saying that I predate my label—and that’s what I love about language. It changes as we, collectively, seek ways to better communicate with one another. When I first decided to publicly express that I’m nonbinary, the reactions were a mixed bag.
Love, pride, and support from many; curiosity, confusion, and questions from some; rejection, invalidation, and condescension from some too. More than I’d like, I’ve been told things like, That’s not a real thing, and, Respectfully, there’s only TWO, and you ARE one and NOT the other, after sharing this piece of Who I Am—my Gender Identity.
But I believe that Words are Power. And I think that’s why new words are often met with some resistance. They exist in the space between the known and the unknown, and discussing unknowns can be… uncomfortable. As a writer, I’m always challenging myself to practice effective, adaptive language.
So when someone tells you Who They Are, let the first goal be to understand. Knowing comes, in the course of community building, through connection and conversation. Remember that nonbinary people are as diverse as one woman is from another woman, one man from another man. And while introducing ourselves with pronouns may be a relatively new social/cultural norm, I take it as a hopeful sign that we are making progress toward better understanding and knowing each other.
May the Spirit of Life inspire you to step out of your comfort zone in the days ahead… Thank you.
🜬
HEDERA READS 
Leave a comment