Essay: On Gender

I am so angry and I am so tired. I’m tired of walking into spaces I expect to be the most accepting of my existence, only to have it denied with a casual “she” from the most prominent drag queen in the city. Tired of watching my classmates jump to correct the professor when she misgenders a classmate, only to hear myself misgendered and wait for the correction – and wait – and wait – until the discussion has moved on and I have to admit to myself, “you’re just not trans enough for them.” I am tired of being misgendered by a gaming friend and thinking “well, maybe he’s just not good at they/them pronouns,” and then hearing him a second later smoothly referencing a non-binary character, the pronouns rolling off his tongue so fluidly and so in contrast to my own stuttering attempt at correction. I am tired of being praised for wearing men’s shorts, as though this is some huge step in my transition, when it is nothing more than a facet of how I choose to present myself.

I am especially tired of feeling the joy of having a non-binary sibling alongside me in any situation sour into resentment. They are not an ally anymore. They are competition, because this class, this group, this team, this room only has room for one non-binary person, and it isn’t me. They have a deep voice and boobs, or smooth skin and a defined jawline, or big muscles and gorgeous hair, so they are a threat to me and my body that will not be crushed into so-called androgyny no matter what haircut I get or how tightly I bind my chest. I am so desperate for solidarity and connection, but how can I find it when all I feel is bitterness when they stand next to me?

Once my (trans) girlfriend (now ex) asked me if I identified as more masculine or more feminine. I hedged, unwilling to answer because to pin myself to one word is anathema to a gender identity that is so fluid, so ambiguous, so far beyond simple binaries and scales and the definitions imposed on my body. But that wasn’t good enough. She asked again. And again. And again until finally I answered “masculine,” because a lie was better than irrevocably chaining myself to the femininity that clings to my chest and my hips and my jaw, no matter how much I try to shake it off, that rears its head in “ladies” and “ma’am,” “girls” and “she”. Only the lie was only another weight on my chain, because from then on everything she said was laced with an assumption of masculinity. “Well, you’re the more masculine one in the relationship,” she’d say. “You don’t have to shave because you’re masculine.”

The very worst, the thing that still haunts me years after ending that relationship, is the time that she told me I was lucky. After all, she told me, I was capable of passing as female. Of course she was struggling with her own identity and trying to pass more easily as female herself. But that notion lodged in my chest and still bothers me. Yes, if people look at me and see a cisgender woman, I am less likely to be attacked than a visibly trans woman (and, in general, trans women are at much higher risk of violence). But at the same time, to describe me as “passing” as female? Given the way the word passing is used by the trans community – referring to being perceived by others as the gender one identifies with – it felt like an accusation. That I’m not really non-binary. That to misgender me is better than misgendering another person. That being misgendered is less painful to me than to her. And it isn’t and it’s not. And I have spent years making excuses for people who misgender me but not other people and buying into that idea, and I am done with it.

I’m now dating someone who has made every effort to respect my gender, to ask questions about what I’m comfortable with and what language I prefer, to bend over backwards to make sure I am happy in the relationship. And yet. The problem still comes up, not with her but with the people who perceive our relationship. Recently she was talking about our relationship with some acquaintances and mentioned me being non-binary. And their response was not to accept that fact and move on; it was to ask her what my assigned gender is. As though they had any right to that knowledge, as though it had any bearing on our relationship, as though my medical history is up for grabs for anyone who wants it.

And the worst part, of course, is that these people would probably consider themselves allies. They’d probably jump to correct a binary trans person’s pronouns, and they’d probably make a point of being overly, performatively supportive. But when it comes to non-binary people like myself, well. Their entitled curiosity will always outweigh their concern for actually respecting the people they claim to care about. 

I just want everyone to do better. I want everyone, especially cis people, to abandon the idea that they can somehow tell who’s trans. I want people to stop looking at me as not really a real trans person and thinking that misgendering me is not as awful and cruel as it would be to misgender a binary trans person. I want to feel solidarity with my trans siblings, and I want to stop feeling obligated to compete for the recognition of cis people.

If I have one request coming out of this writing, it’s this: please, just take three seconds to think about your words and the way you talk about people. That’s all. Please.