What Is It Like to Be Non-Binary? I’m Still Finding Out.
“I’m one of you, but also not.” These words kept echoing in my head whenever I played with either boys or girls at school. I was assigned male at birth, and I tried to be one of the boys on the playground, but being a boy felt like a pair of shoes that didn’t quite fit.
I felt more at home playing with the girls at recess; it was safer than the rough-and-tumble world of boyhood where I had to constantly prove I was masculine enough to fit in. Yet even though playing with the girls felt more comfortable, there was still that distance between me and the other girls. “I’m one of you, but also not.”
This was during the ’90s when words like “non-binary,” “genderqueer,” and “transgender” didn’t exist. When I first heard of the term “transgender,” it meant just folks who medically transitioned from one gender to the opposite, and since I’m fine with my body (except for my excessive body hair), I assumed I was just a very androgynous boy.