As part of non-binary awareness week, I am taking it upon myself to be a proud-and-out-non-binary-person, with all the hyphens that entails.
What does it mean to be non-binary?
It means not fitting neatly into the box of "are you a boy or a girl?" The answer, "no" comes to mind. Of course, the answer, "yes" also comes to mind. And the answer, "it depends why you are asking" comes to mind. And, finally, "why the fuck does it matter?" comes to mind.
Imagine a world where you ARE who you ARE, and you LOVE whom you LOVE, and that is the end of it.
Imagine a world where People are just People.
Imagine a world where the first question someone asks a new parent isn't about what is between their baby's legs.
Imagine a world where what your job is, what your interests are, what your paycheck looks like, and whether you prefer to drive or passenge doesn't depend on something as inconsequential as how you pee.
Gender was, is, and will always be, the first and most important way that society is divided. No matter what other racial, tribal, or religious descriptors you adhere to, there is a division based on gender that defines everything from how you dress to what you are expected to do with your life.
Imagine throwing that all out the window.
Imagine being free to be who you are. Imagine being free to wear what you please. To shave -- or not -- where you like. How to adorn your body. Which shoes to wear. How you sit. How loud you sneeze. How you are expected to communicate with others. What you are encouraged to do with your free time.
Imagine a world where little girls do as well in math as little boys, where little boys also sell cookies, and little girls also go camping, and everyone just gets to experience life without the primary restriction placed upon them whilst in the womb.
Imagine being judged for who you are, and what you do, and how you make your unique mark in the world without care or concern for whether and how you procreate.
This is the world that I inhabit by dint of the fact that I have a vagina and a deep voice and a beard: no one knows WHAT I am, so they judge me by WHO I am. Warts and all.
Who *wouldn't* want to live in that world?
I am so very lucky to have been born to be the person I am. I am so lucky that I grew up without internalizing the tropes my mother tried so hard to instill in me: how to attract and keep a man; how every girl dreams of her wedding day; how being a mommy is the most important job a woman could possibly have or want.
I am so glad that I am the proud non-binary person that I am, because I grew up without anchors tied to my ambitions, and knowing that my horizons would only grow as I rose.
Shouldn't EVERY child grow up this way?
Happy Non-Binary Awareness Week.