I never really felt different growing up, which is weird cause I was certainly bullied for it. Fuckin kids man, world class ability to detect and trigger insecuritieis in others, gotta hand it em. I always thought of myself as normal, or whatever close approximation seems most apt.
Mainly I just assumed that a lot of my experiences were universal, weird idiosyncratic thoughts and moments alone that I shared with everyone else, perhaps not the exact details but the overall trend. And many where, I learned I was not the only 12 year old to make shampoo mohawks in the shower, that my crush on the foxes from Disney’s Robin Hood was shared by multiple generations, and that hearing your full name yelled out by parents remains one of the more singularly terrifying experiences possible. What I did learn however as well is that some things were not shared by all those around me, it apparently was not the case for many to be terrified of the thought of any social interaction, that getting overwhelmed by the prospect of a single deadline in the future to the point of incapacitation was not shared by friends. These two combined to make school a truly wonderful time for me.
Importantly to this story however I always had assumed that all boys wanted to sometimes be girls, and that the reverse was also true. That for moments we would all look at ourselves in the mirror and imagine the other version of us, the one that didn’t exist through nothing but chance (unsuprisngly as a young teenager was not aware of the distinctions between sex and gender). It’s not that I longed as a young boi to instead have had that coin flip go the other way, I was just hyper aware of a different me that was so close to existing and yet never would. I can obviously see now the clear links these moments have to my identity as Non-Binary, but growing up I had no sense of gender being different to sex, I thought I was stuck with my lot through. Unlike many others in the Trans and Enby community whose stories you read and hear, I didn’t feel uncomfortable in my assigned gender, that was still to come, I just felt robbed. Like a life that could be lived was taken away from me before my own started, it felt like I should have had a say in the matter!
Like I said I assumed these were all just standard thoughts for kids and teenagers, we’re going through puberty. Turning from these androgynous blobs of flesh, only really defineable by presentation, girls wore dresses and had long hair boys didn’t. But its not like we had choices in the matter, schools prescribed uniforms, parents haircuts and invisible societal pressures our interests. Then puberty comes along and booom! We are all now physically shaping into those gendered descriptions we’ve seen, there finally seems to begin a true difference between those assigned male and female, things finally click into where we’ve been prescribed to go our whole lives. I like a naive fool thought that the uncomfortableness I felt with this was shared by peers, I mean no one enjoys being told what to do by an authority, whether that authority is visible or not, so I assumed we all must question our gender in some way. It kinda blew my mind a bit when I discovered that to not bet the case. It weirdly took discovering the trans community existed for me to realise that my feelings weren’t even close to universal though. I never stopped feeling cis during that point though, even as I learned more about gender identity and all the people who defined themselves in ways different to what they where assigned at birth. I can’t fully say why though, I guess I don’t really know why. Tip though, if you find yourself constantly browsing NB & Trans meme pages you might not be cis (shoutout r/egg_irl).
Until I discovered and accepted my bisexuality I was surrounded not just by cis-het people, but the media I consumed, the activities I did where all, while not necessarily hostile to queers, undeniably coded straight and definitly cis. When my sexuality changed I felt I had missed out on so much in a culture that I had just ignored before and felt I almost had to prove my queerness to others and myself. Now thats obviously nonsence, no one needs to prove how queer they are to be a part of the culture and community, and is a toxic mindset to have. It’s a one way ticket to imposter syndrome coming and ruining your days. Eventually though I became comfortable in that queer identity, and the way I was percieved and interacted with others where of me as a queer male. The queer part of that though was the most important, I still identified as male, but not as masculine, and so when I returned home to friends and family whose relationships with me where formed as a straight male in earlier years the queer part of that was removed. Leaving me in those moments as male, and I realised that was no longer how I saw myself, I had changed in my own self image.
I didn’t initially make the jump to I’m Non-Binary, I assumed going back to where I was perceived as queer would be enough, and I just needed to run away from the straights, but no. I had broken that camels back with more than enough straw and had to reset my entire self identity. Realising that I no longer identified as the gender I was assigned, and had performed for over two decades, but I didn’t (and still don’t) know what I then was. I always expected that every non-cis person had a strong conviction of what they where and knew with certainty their identity (even those who were gender fluid), and so I kept waiting for and expecting this realisation to come and strike me on the head, and for me to awake one day with glee and loudly announce “I’VE GOT IT” and no longer be left looking for answers. But unsurprisingly that day didn’t come and it took experimenting and some amazing support from people close to me and others who have already gone through it to feel comfortable in my not knowing. I genuinely do not know if I will ever feel certain, and have got some big challenges to face around it (hello old friends and family this is gonna be fun), but I feel comfortable expressing myself in a variety of ways I never did before and am relieved to no longer be longing to be normal, or wishing that coin flip went the other way.
Feeling inspired? If you’d like to share your true life story with the stozzys.com community, you can do so here.
Or, you can head back to the Read Stories Homepage