Today is international non-binary awareness day! Despite recent gains in visibility, our community continues to be misunderstood, scapegoated, and dismissed. We are accused of “making up” our identities when in fact the gender binary — the political division and regulation of billions of people into two, opposite genders — is a recent Western historical invention. We did not cross the gender binary, the binary crossed us.
Living a visibly gender non-conforming life is one of the most difficult things I have ever endured. I am constantly at risk. There are few places where I can look like myself without fear. I am made into a repository for everyone else’s projections. I am so exhausted, in so much pain.
But it has also been one of the most meaningful experiences of my life. I am part of a vibrant legacy of people who have persisted despite attempted erasure for hundreds of years, I have found beauty in so many places where I was taught shame, my friendships are deep and vulnerable, I know firmly and irrevocably who I am.
Gender and sexual diversity are fundamental parts of humanity. We are not the problem, the gender binary is the problem. It’s not enough to support non-binary people, all of us need to work together toward ending the gender binary.
Because of the ongoing project of disappearing being outside the ambit of western gender binary, information about non-binary people is sparse, absented from school curricula and mainstream media.
That’s why i wrote an accessible book for all ages called #BeyondTheGenderBinary ! I have been moved by how non-binary people have championed this book, but it’s also so important that cisgender people learn this information and join us in creating a world that values people beyond gender norms.
You can order a copy here.
