things i say no to as a nonbinary person
"can i use binary terms for you?"
i don't accept any binary-gendered terms like bro, girl, dude, sis, queen, king, he, she etc. an extra fuck you to the people who use those terms for me without even asking. all of them are misgendering.
"are you just saying this for attention?"
i say i'm nonbinary because i'm nonbinary. most of the attention this gets me is negative; i'm not gaining anything socially by saying i'm nonbinary. i am extra loud about it in certain contexts though because nonbinarity and the issues we face do desperately need more attention from our allies and even our own communities. this is attention i want on the cause though, rather than on me as an individual.
i'm way too much of an anxious mess to come out to everyone. especially in interactions with people i'll never see again and i wasn't misgendered, i don't see the point of coming out. heck, i never even came out to a lot of my doctors or my first 0&m instructor, people i see/saw somewhat regularly. and especially in germany, i sometimes correct people on my name but don't bother doing anything else because pronouns in german suck. i want to get better about this though, i want to be out to people i interact with regularly and i want to correct anyone who misgenders me. but even with that, the answer would still be no.
"do you feel closer to one side of the binary?"
i'm nowhere in between, and i'm as far away from womanhood as i am from manhood. my gender has nothing to do with masculinity or femininity either.
there are individual parts of my body that i hate, and it's easy to turn that aggression, anger and frustration into a blanket "i hate my body", but that's not really true. there are way more things about my body that i love or feel neutral about than i hate.
"isn't this how everyone feels sometimes?"
maybe *you* just happen to feel this way and are projecting your feelings onto everyone else, in which case i have some news in yellow, white, purple and black for you. i do believe that there are way more nonbinary people out there than currently identify that way, but it's definitely not everyone - many people who have examined and explored their gender deeply have come to the conclusion that their gender is binary. the assumption that "everyone is a bit nonbinary" stems from misunderstandings of what nonbinary means in the first place.
"do you present this way because you're nonbinary?"
most of my presentation isn't about my gender but about other things like vibes, sensory intolerances or executive dysfunction. i have short hair because i can't stand the feeling of hair in my face. i have a lot of colourful clothes and bold earrings because i love being extra. i have some clothes from the 80s and 90s because i love the aesthetic. i don't do more with clothes, hair and makeup because i don't have the energy. not every part of a nonbinary person's looks are related to their gender.
"are you nonbinary as a rejection of gender roles?"
my nonbinarity has nothing to do with gender roles but rather with my actual gender. if don't think anyone should be forced into a role just because of the gender they are or are assumed to be. that doesn't make me nonbinary, it makes me a feminist. ironically enough, i unintentionally follow quite a few gender roles associated with my AGAB.
"does this mean you don't have a gender?"
quite the opposite. i'm the kind of nonbinary person who has an abundance of gender. there are many ways to be nonbinary.
"are you just a trans man in denial?"
one of the things that kept of from realising i was trans sooner was knowing that i definitely wasn't a trans man and not having other options. as a gender-nonconforming teen, this is something i was sometimes confronted with, and while i didn't know who i was because i didn't know there were more options, i always knew i wasn't a trans man.
"are you male or female?"
this is never meant as a yes/no question but i choose to interpret it this way because it's the only way i can answer it.
