I came out as non-binary almost four years ago and there is no way that I, as a baby enby (non-binary person), would have believed how much I would learn and how much would change in four years. 


When I first came out as non-binary I could not truly pinpoint the cause of my deep necessity to stop identifying as a woman; all I knew is that I was no longer comfortable with she/her pronouns and being in the category of ‘woman’ . Though time has helped me to understand why the change needed to happen, I don’t think I’d ever be able to articulate those feelings without time spent in the they/them dimension.


It would be impossible for me to put down in writing all the lessons learnt over these past few years, but I do think that there are a couple that will (and should!) stick with me for life. The biggest and most infuriating lesson I learnt from transitioning to non-binary was: that identity crises, wardrobe, pronoun or name changes will not cure you from the binarised programming you’ve participated in and received your whole life. Our whole world is binarised: our ways of thinking, often our emotions, our clothing, even our questions and answers. A change of pronouns is often just the first stop in unravelling the binarised structure of our minds.


When I was a baby enby, I felt deeply insecure about presenting as femme, partly because I didn’t want to be perceived as a woman, but also because I worried that I wouldn’t or couldn’t be taken seriously as a non-binary person if I still dressed feminine and that perhaps if I wanted to dress feminine then I wasn’t truly a non-binary person. So I started to look at the way that others presented themselves in the community and modelled myself after them; adopting an androgynous uniform lacking colour, not wearing makeup and shaving my hair off. The irony of all of this, I realised long after it had taken place, was that despite the fact that I had changed my pronouns to escape being defined by binary gender ideals and norms, I was still desperately looking for norms to model myself after. I was terrified of not looking the part of non-binary and ‘letting down my community’ that I practically lost sight of the fact that I was now in an existence that, by definition and intention, does not have a rulebook or uniform. But my desire to be perceived as non-binary by presenting as androgynous did not come from nowhere: it was rooted in the reality that non-binary people’s identities often aren’t validated unless they present a certain way.

"A change of pronouns is often just the first stop in unravelling the binarised structure of our minds."

There is a pervading belief that if you were so desperate to escape the gendered world you wouldn’t dress in ways that present as a specific gender, especially the one you were born into. We unfortunately cannot change the perceptions of others all the time, but none of us owe anybody any sort of aesthetic so that they can better identify us. This is often the exact sort of oppressive gendered expectations most of us are desperately trying to escape.


While I naturally started to interrogate my new gender identity as time passed, I found myself constantly having to remind myself that there would (and should) be no guidelines for how I present my physical body or model my behaviour. While I had long resented and recently rejected the rules of the gender construct, I still found myself searching for rules on how to be ‘non-binary’. As I began to unravel the mess of black and white thinking this patriarchal society had left me with (one that I will be unravelling until my last breath), I started to gather the confidence and understanding of and in myself that I now had the freedom to define who I was – a definition that would not come from my reproductive system. Masculine and feminine became feelings that would fluctuate with my mood, sometimes affecting how I would dress or act on a certain day, without touching my core self that I now understood to be its own unique alien; one that I could not and would not wish to put into words.


A few months ago I changed my pronouns to be open to all. He/him, she/her, they/them: it no longer mattered that much to me. I realised that they/them had started to feel like a binary to me, and that when people made mistakes in gendering me, their apology irritated me more than the mistake. Before I made the change I needed to interrogate what had changed since I first transitioned to non-binary.


I realised that at the beginning, I was so unsure of my identity and myself that I needed it to be they/them because being perceived as they/them strengthened my own wobbly perception of myself. In the lead up to transitioning, I’d also spent a lot of time feeling like a ‘failed’ woman; that because I didn’t fit most constructed definitions of woman, continuing to be viewed as one would mean continuously being viewed as a failure.

"I realised that I no longer cared how people perceived me because now, finally, my own perception of myself was so strong and so centred that whatever other people saw me as in a moment couldn’t sway the knowledge of self that I now possessed."

Femininity started to feel like a weakness to me. As I started to feel into the idea of accepting feminine pronouns again, I was worried that I would become a failed ‘non-binary’ person; that I would look like a trend and nothing more. The foolishness of this is that to be non-binary is to exist in constant gender fluidity. That being non-binary actually enabled me to define my own gender and expression at any time in my life. I needed to allow myself the freedom to exist as I felt, and that this feeling may continue to change throughout my life. So I granted myself that freedom, and with it came a long sigh of relief. That I couldn’t ‘fail’ a gendered existence when I wasn’t in one. I realised that I no longer cared how people perceived me because now, finally, my own perception of myself was so strong and so centred that whatever other people saw me as in a moment couldn’t sway the knowledge of self that I now possessed.


However, being a non-binary person does not mean that we have all easily wiggled free from the gender construct. The conditioning we receive our whole lives creates a great deal of internal mess to clean up. We are constantly in the process of navigating the gender binary. It is also constant emotional labour to have to explain your identity to others, so that they can understand you do not represent all non-binary people. You cannot use one non-binary person as a blueprint for understanding all in the community. It is intentional that there is no blueprint. And although it is only natural that our brains try and categorise things into binaries in order to better understand them, I do not represent a collective.


I represent myself and my own identity as it has evolved over the last four years and continues to evolve. I cannot say for sure that I will not change my pronouns again, as gender is endlessly fluid, and I cannot predict where that fluidity will lead me. I think that what we can learn from the non-binary community is that all people and genders should have the chance to articulate their identity as its own unique entity, entirely separate from others.


Being non-binary gave me the confidence to construct my own identity, and it pains me to think back and know that when I identified as a woman, I didn’t feel like I had the space to explain what being a woman meant to me and what my definition and presentation of woman was. Most of all, being non-binary has given me room to breathe, with the space to let myself truly feel fluid, to feel okay that my gender identity might change many times throughout my life. I love being non-binary and I love my community. What I hope everyone can learn from the community is the freedom to construct their own gender identity; something completely unique and separate from the constructed ideals, no matter how they identify. 


Feature image supplied by Fin.