in their own words

Here are just a few of the messages I’ve heard people say about me -- that is to say, about those who don’t identify as male or female: I’m crazy. I’m confused. I’m ugly, gross, unlovable. I’m evil -- satanic, actually. I ignore science and reason. I’m buying into a trend. I’m faking because I just want attention. I don’t even exist.

I read these beliefs and assumptions in the dark, stinking depths of Twitter. I see them in quotes and think-pieces by doctors, journalists, judges, and elected officials. I hear them from strangers on the street.

Sometimes, they even come from inside.

I only started identifying as nonbinary about a year ago. But ever since I hit puberty, it was obvious that the relationship I had to my body was different from my peers. When the girls at my school were getting in trouble for wearing tank-tops and shorts, I was trying to disappear underneath shapeless sweaters. I rejected everything stereotypically feminine because all that stuff made me uncomfortable. Since being a girl felt so wrong, I started pursuing what I thought was my only option: transitioning to male.

Just before I left eighth grade, I cut my hair (even though I liked it long) and started going by Desmond so that I would be “under the radar” at my new high school. I wasn’t necessarily super masculine; I just understood myself to be a man. So starting freshman year, my confidence depended entirely on whether others understood me to be a man, too.

Rumors would still spread about me at school. Occasionally others asked me point-blank if I was transgender. And unless they were a nurse or a counselor, I said no. I was terrified that people would treat me differently because they’d think I was freaky and gross for being trans, largely because I felt freaky and gross myself.

There were many mornings I couldn't bring myself to go to school because my dysphoria was too intense.

Instead of seeking out friends who could empathize with this problem, I projected my own self-resentment onto other queers -- particularly transmasculine people who weren’t afraid to embrace “feminine” clothing and makeup. I almost found their presentation offensive, as if failing to fit seamlessly within the boundaries of conventional maleness undermined “authentic” transgender men. After all, why would someone go through the effort of coming out and transitioning if they don’t want to look or act like a guy? If everyone around them perceives them as a woman, what difference does it make how they identify?

In that spirit, I surrounded myself with straight, cisgender teenage boys who had no knowledge of my history. Their friendships allowed me to further distance myself from my transness, like bro camouflage. But I never felt able to tell them about what I was struggling with.

Approaching my transition in this way was scary and isolating. I thought it would be liberating to escape the label of “trans” and the stigma it came with. But I was forcing myself into a strict, yet totally arbitrary standard of masculinity, thus letting other people determine who I was allowed to be.

Still, it was hard to really internalize that manhood is constructed, nebulous, and flawed. It felt like admitting defeat, like having to accept that I would never be a “real man,” even though there was never any such thing in the first place.

Surgery and hormones helped to relieve my gender dysphoria. Having a flat chest and a deeper voice meant I could wear whatever I wanted and still mostly be seen as male by others. But I was still clinging tightly to my insecurities-- that is, until the election of Donald Trump.

After all the guilt I’d felt for admiring the rich colors and textures of the makeup in Seventeen magazine; the discomfort I swallowed because I hated using the restroom or taking off my jacket while at school; the fear that one day my best friends would learn that I was born different from them and ditch me…

I suddenly became sick and tired of giving power to prejudice by letting my internalized transphobia dictate what I could say and do.

And what surprised me is, I felt more comfortable exploring androgyny knowing I wouldn’t always be mistaken for a woman. Armed with makeup, crop tops, glitter, nail polish, and jewelry, I started waging war on the beauty norms that limited me by reclaiming the space between male and female that had once been so scary to inhabit.

Don’t get me wrong. There are still times when I wish my skin was clay, so I could sculpt away the feminine qualities I see in my face. But I present in the way that I do, in part, to spite my previous self: the one who was ashamed to “look trans.”