non-binary: a layover or a destination?
Published 2024-06-21
When I first came out as trans and non-binary, I was too scared to accept my own femininity. Decades of seeing myself through the lens of masculinity made everything look blurry. The only path I could see ahead was a reluctant rejection of this masculinity.
I didn't hate masculinity. I just wanted to free myself from its constriction. I wanted to breathe. I wanted to explore a more feminine expression, but it was incredibly scary to call myself a woman or a feminine person at that stage.
"What if I explore and I'm not trans?"
"What if I made a mistake?"
"What if people think I'm just looking for attention."
"What if..."
I was stuck in this swirl of self-doubt for quite a long time until one random Sunday, I finally broke out of it and decided to paint my nails. "Men paint their nails too," I justified to myself. "I don't have to explain anything." I was astounded by how much the simple act of painting my nails opened up for me—a way to see my body through a feminine lens.
The label 'non-binary' was vague enough to the people around me that I could simply refrain from providing further explanation. It felt like a layover, a transitional space, and an excuse to explore femininity without requiring me to label myself as feminine.
Looking back, allowing myself this flexibility was ultimately necessary and even healthy. As I slowly unraveled, I found myself confronting a lot of internalised misogyny and trans-misogyny. Calling myself non-binary gave me enough distance from both masculinity and femininity to allow myself to unpack this. In many ways, I couldn't have truly accepted my own femininity without this.
I was so busy running away from masculinity as fast as I could without truly exploring what it meant to be non-binary, and more importantly, what it meant to me .
Now, I find myself yearning to revisit non-binary as a label in a slightly different light: one of desire, comfort and curiosity, as opposed to haste and pain.
Self-discovery is rarely linear. It's a process that involves revisiting, rethinking, and reimagining who we are. I am grateful to have given myself the flexibility to explore these changes non-judgementally, and the honesty to reckon with the truth of how I feel.
As I continue to explore my identity, I am reminded that it's okay to change, to question, and to embrace the uncertainty that comes with it.
I started writing this on 2024-06-12.