As a non-binary person, I’ve come to realize how erased we are more and more each day. I’ve come to realize that people will go through extreme lengths to put us in a gender binary no matter how much we refuse it

It seems like the default assumption for non-binary people is that we are “functionally cis,” merely being funky variants of cis people of our assigned sex at birth. Many people assume that we identify as non-binary merely to make a political statement or be edgy/contrarian. Many people assume that we identify as non-binary to signal that we’re simply GNC cis people. Many people assume that, even though we are non-binary, our essence in this very binary society should be tied to the sex we were assigned at birth.

To give a really disgusting example of that last point: I was talking with a bisexual man online who asked me if I’ve ever been in a gay relationship before. I said “I really don’t know what would count as ‘gay’ for me because I’m non-binary,” and then he just said “Oh, just assume I’m asking if you’ve ever been with someone who is the same as your assigned sex.”

That was insanely disturbing. Binary trans people do not get this same kind of treatment as often, I noticed. I’ve seen people describing their sexual orientations in enbyphobic, generalizing, and essentialist ways too, saying things like “I’m a lesbian which means I’m attracted to cis women, trans women, and AFAB non-binary people!” 🤮 This is, once again, insanely disturbing.

I am transfeminine. It’s just very unhelpful to conflate me with cisgender men simply because I was assigned male at birth. I have an androgynous gender presentation. I’ve had moments where people assumed I was a cis woman. I’ve had moments where people assumed I was transmasculine of some sort. But you know what bothers me the most? You don’t have to assume anything about my gender. My gender doesn’t matter. I am a person navigating through life, and I seldom go through instances where my gender actually matters, and the instances where it does matter are because of cisgender people and binarists refusing to let me breathe.

I’m in a relationship with a queer cisgender woman. Our relationship is extremely queer. Hell, my lovely partner says she doesn’t even generally find men as attractive as women, and she more or less identifies with being bisexual but emphasizes being sapphic a lot more nowadays. Of course, this is validating for me, but it’s also kind of sad when she tells me how ways I treat her with basic human decency were things that she couldn’t get from her last relationship which was with a cisgender man. Bottom line is: it’s very clear that our relationship is not straight. We call ourselves a queer couple, but “gay” or “lesbian” couple? Nah.

I also hate how even if people don’t view me as “spicy cis” and actually accept me as a trans person, they still try to cram me into a transgender binary. People see me as the same as a binary trans woman in so many instances. Although I can relate to binary trans women regarding a good deal of things, like the fact that I’m taking estrogen and am seeking some feminizing surgeries, there are a lot of real-world differences between me and your typical binary trans woman. I don’t care about “passing” as a woman at all, I go by any and all pronouns and have indifference to how people refer to me with terms (like man, woman, human, etc.) and titles (Mr., Ms. Mx.), and I don’t want to have my “womanhood” validated because I don’t have womanhood. In a lot of instances, I can relate a lot more to a non-binary transmasculine individual on the basis of us both being non-binary than I can relate to a binary trans woman on the basis of us both being transfeminine.

I could even go on how all these issues are amplified by my intersections with me being a black, neurodivergent enby born into an immigrant family, but I think I’ve said enough for now.

All I truly want to do is exist in a way that makes me genuinely comfortable, but we are living in a binary world, and I’m so not a binary girl.

/rant