Establishing a Baseline for the Nonbinary Experience

Well, hello again. I have lost count of the times I’ve introduced and reintroduced myself to OFM readers in my three-and-a-half year tenure at the magazine, but here we are again. I’m Keegan; I’m the copy editor and a regular writer at OFM, and my pronouns are they/them/theirs.

I wrapped my 2021 column “OFM Mods” in December, frankly feeling like I would be doing a disservice to readers if I pressed on with the niche topic of queerness and body modification. I’m moving into 2022 focusing my attention on another facet of myself, and an abundance of people in the LGBTQ community: my nonbinary gender.

This month marks the one-year anniversary of my coming out as a nonbinary person, and for this first column, I aim to establish a baseline for the term “nonbinary” and the context of my experience as the writer of this column.

Nonbinary is an umbrella term that refers to gender identities that are neither female or male, genders falling outside of the binary; as the name implies, it more describes what one’s gender is not. I find the widely-circulated graphic, which literally shows three umbrellas, to be one of the more helpful in understanding—nonbinary and binary trans genders (trans women and trans men) sit next to each other under the larger trans umbrella.

Not all nonbinary people consider themselves trans. I do. The term transgender, while often thought to reference “transitioning” gender, truly recognizes “transcending” gender; “trans” is a prefix meaning “across” or “beyond.” I empathize with nonbinary folks who feel fraudulent using the label; I’ve been there. However, my gender is different from what I was assigned at birth, and my experience with gender does not fit with my binary birth assignment, so it fits.

One element many often misunderstand as more nonbinary people come out and live authentically in the world: It is not a “third gender,” but rather a rejection of the binary altogether. Nonbinary people are far from a monolith. I’ve phrased it to cis family and friends, “If I asked you what it means to you being a (man or woman), or how you know you ARE your gender, without referencing your anatomy, your answer is going to differ than that of another person of your same gender.”

The same holds true for nonbinary people. If I were to explain my gender, I’m sure it would be far different than what another nonbinary person would say about theirs.

I have lived my whole life not feeling like I fit into either binary category. I was assigned male at birth, though it always felt fraudulent as I identified as a boy, or later in life, a man. For a while, I thought it was just part of my queer sexuality, though the feeling didn’t go away as I explored life as a queer man in predominantly male-dominated spaces. If anything, I was frustrated that I still didn’t feel like I was in the right spot.

It took me a while to come out, in part because I only sometimes experience gender dysphoria. While I love to flirt with androgyny, femme fashion, and makeup, I also like sporting a mustache and frequently feel most comfortable in elements of my presentation society codes as “masculine,” and I am regularly cis-assumed.

(Fun side note and mental exercise, when you really break down what we consider “masculine” and “feminine,” you start to realize it’s ALL a construct. Cis women grow facial hair. Most bodies produce body hair unless we shave. Why do we consider a dress feminine, or a short haircut masculine? Why is makeup gender-coded? It’s all fake. Not to mention that the sex binary is also fabricated, but let’s not bite off more than we can chew.)

Let’s remember that binary and nonbinary transgender folks sometimes experience dysphoria, for which they might look into gender-affirming surgeries or hormone replacement therapy to live more authentically and comfortably in their bodies. Though, some trans people have dysphoria only about parts of their bodies, fleeting dysphoria, or little dysphoria at all.

The misconception that all trans people are looking to transition began when trans people looked to access gender-affirming care, and at a time when these conversations were fresh in the medical field, those institutions needed a baseline to allow for treatment. So, “transgender” was associated solely with gender dysphoria because it was a measurable requirement for trans people to seek the care they needed.

We are moving beyond that, though the new assumption in regard to nonbinary people is that we are all androgynous aliens, exclusively using they/them pronouns, with names like “Spronk.” Of course, no expression is incorrect; that’s my point.

Gender identity and gender expression are not mutually exclusive for cis and trans people. I’ve met cis men and women who defy gender expectations all the time—the same is true for binary trans people—and in that same way, being nonbinary does not mean all nonbinary people are just smack dab in between male and female in their gender expression. It’s far more expansive than that.

I’ve seen a sentiment that suggested, rather than looking at gender as a straight line between male and female with nonbinary in the middle, a more accurate representation is looking at a color spectrum, like when you’re in MS Paint or photoshop and drag and drop to find any color of the rainbow.

How can we encourage the embrace of authentic gender-expansive expression and then scold people for not performing their gender identity “correctly?” There is no right or wrong answer.

There are nearly 8 billion people on this Earth, so how is it that we are still trying to frame all of those vastly different individuals and experiences on the basis of two categories?

We’re conforming to this rigid set of modern, arbitrary rules that are a product of colonialism and Westernization, and when we look globally and historically, we can see that humans have  regularly embraced genders beyond the binary and continue to do so.

I know. I’ve crammed an abundance of ideas and concepts into this debut column. But, if reading this taught you something, made you think about gender in a way you hadn’t, or if you are just interested in reading more, keep up with me as I explore these topics and more.

My hope is to create a better understanding of nonbinary and gender-nonconforming people and how we show up in the world, and I encourage all people, gender aside, to look at themselves and the world at large to examine these constraints and how we can collectively break free from them.