Goodbye Non-Binary, Hello Transsexual
Working through the reasons that I held onto non-binary as I become a woman
Quick housekeeping - I am changing the name of my publication to Trans Poetics. While I feel that I am and will always be an out and vocal advocate for trans people, this substack has become a space for my creative works. There are some really amazing trans advocates writing full articles about current events / politics and I don’t need to try to cover the same ground that they are covering. I can cover poetic and creative works!
With that said, enjoy this essay about self-discovery through the non-binary lens. I’ve been calling myself a non-binary trans woman for a while now and spoiler alert, I’m really just a trans woman.
And, importantly, absolutely do not take this essay as a cause to trash people who are non-binary. They exist and I am just working through the process of identity construction within myself.
Why am I holding onto the term “non-binary”? As I transition male to female, it becomes increasingly clear that I am not non-binary. I desire to be seen and feel like the woman that I have always been. In fact, over the past few months, I have leaned into the term transsexual as a means to explain that I am indeed changing my sex through the marvels of modern medical technology. AND, I just read an incredible (and flawed in many ways) essay from 1994 about the term transgender vs. transsexual. It fills me with joy that 31 years later to be here discussing the utility of non-binary in my life.
Gender is complex and cannot be fully understood through common colloquialism. Anyone, that is not a PhD in biochemistry that claims they know what they are talking about, is fooling themselves.
It’s important to begin by admitting that I have lived a significant portion of my life as male presenting while simultaneously feeling that I was not ever a man. People just saw me that way. And, I went along with it.
I grew facial hair because my body could do it. I had a deep voice as I went through male puberty. I allowed myself to be dressed in male garb like a nerdy ken doll. I had sex like a man* (and as a woman for badly misplaced validation).
But, that whole time and now, all of those facts are quite painful and I am transitioning to lessen the dysphoria. I don’t think I, the intrinsic me, the homunculus inside my head driving the ship, ever really wanted any part of masculinity.
Additionally, I must admit that I was also in love with straight women and felt like I HAD to present that way to feel desired or wanted romantically.
Please, for the love dog don’t ask me how that works with being bi-sexual. Probably some 90s internalized homophobia is the root cause. Internalized misogyny, transphobia and homophobia makes the very human brain that is me; I’m clearly working on it in and need more therapy.
So yeah, I am complex and so is everyone else but let’s start simply:
What is non-binary in the first place?
Please note before we begin that intersex is a completely different biological reality so don’t mix those up!
From the A4TE page on understanding nonbinary people:
“Most people – including most transgender people – are either male or female. But some people don’t neatly fit into the categories of “man” or “woman,” or “male” or “female.” For example, some people have a gender that blends elements of being a man or a woman, or a gender that is different than either male or female. Some people don’t identify with any gender. Some people’s gender changes over time.
People whose gender is not male or female use many different terms to describe themselves, with nonbinary being one of the most common (sometimes spelled with a hyphen, as “non-binary”). Other terms include genderqueer, agender, bigender, genderfluid, and more. None of these terms mean exactly the same thing – but all speak to an experience of gender that is not simply male or female. If you’re not sure what a word means, you can usually just ask politely.”
This quote does a good job of summing up the basic definitions of non-binary. It contains a few terms that I used before deciding to transition MtF: gender queer and gender fluid. Plus, there is one that I was VERY fond of that I stole from a 2015 NYC pride flyer, gender gifted.
I took that to mean that I could BE any gender I wanted at any time. I could present however I wanted and was good at the performance of gender itself.
I know that many will disagree here and say that gender is a feeling not a performance.
Well, to me it is both. I have acted out gender in what everyone expected me to be with the scarlet letter “M” emblazoned on my chest. And, I have felt like a girl or woman for a long time, holding that secret “F” label under the male mask.
Clothing is just the costume that the underlying character would wear to express their gender.
One thing I am realizing while writing this is that maybe even describing my transition as “MtF” male to female is a bit wrong. I haven’t considered myself a man for a very long time, if ever. So it’s more accurate to say something like “nonbinary to female”, “NBtF” if you will. It’s only MtF in so much as I was assigned male at birth or AMAB.
Ok, phew, then the definition and even some realizations are out of the way. I just need to understand why I hold onto non-binary. There are a few key reasons:
Feminism
Nostalgia
Gender Confusion
Nonconformity
This is by no means an exhaustive list but really just the greatest hits.
The F Word - Feminism
I cite this beautiful ideology as the primary reason why I hold onto non-binary as part of my identity. I’m a feminist and have been since my political inception.
All Women deserve and should demand complete equality in society.
Point blank that is a true statement that anyone should get behind, no matter what gender they identify with.
Then by the nature of complete equality, there is no one right way to be a woman. A woman can look and feel how she wants. She has complete autonomy of her body. She most certainly IS NOT required to shave her body or wear makeup to fit some misogynistic standard.
She most certainly IS able to choose what clothes she wants to wear whether they are from the men’s, women’s or even the junior’s section (shout out to big and small women alike, I love you).
So in terms of how a woman presents herself, the combinations are as infinite as the human imagination allows.
But, writing this, I notice an incongruence in my thinking:
If I am a woman, then being a feminist allows me any mode of presentation, I don’t NEED to be non-binary to feel this way. I can be a butch, dyke lesbian and anyone that doesn’t like it can get fucked.
Nostalgia like It’s Cool
As a writer and a poet, I do feel some nostalgic connection to the term non-binary. It marks an important re-awakening of my transgender identity. It was one of the first re-stirrings almost 14 years ago when I talked to Miggy about feeling like I didn’t fit into the gender binary and years later we talked about actually using the term.
We talked about being they / them.
If you don’t know, I came out as transgender when I was 19. I tried to transition for a few years but it was just too hard. There were too many barriers at the time and all I could afford was a college student counsellor. I didn’t have a real therapist to work through all of the childhood trauma and work through the feelings of wanting to be a girl / woman.
So I “resolved” the feelings of dysphoria with 6 sessions of counselling but in all reality, I just buried them. I still felt the ugly D word her little head up everyday when I put on my pretty girly underwear and saw the unsightly bulge. And, I felt gender euphoria when I did allow myself the moments of full, transvestite level “crossdressing”, tucked and all.
It’s a hard psychological realization to think that I fetishized myself.
That fact is poignant. I solved my identity by simply being a crossdresser. It allowed a simplistic answer to the pesky dating question and HOW MUCH I needed love. It was a driving force in my life that superseded everything else at the time. SO, I was willing to compromise myself for some kind of narrative that I could tell myself and my straight partners.
I’m sorry to my spouse G that I was suppressing myself without even knowing it.
But, I do know that the rejection of manhood came quite easily.
Being non-binary allowed me to hold space for myself as a woman in a way that I didn’t even know I was doing. It was definitely sub-conscious.
Yet, this really doesn’t seem like a reason for claiming I am something that I am not. I can feel this type of nostalgia for the term non-binary without telling everyone I am non-binary. The people that really get close to me can know these things.
It’s a good story to tell.
Gender Confusion but Not Like You Think
I am not so confused in that I think I am on the wrong track in alleviating my dysphoria through medical transition. No, I know I am doing the right thing. But, the fear of pain, the paperwork and administrative bullshit, the societal pressures, the monetary costs, the loss of family, the entire gamut of what it means to change my public personal mid-life, now that I’m 40, is absolutely daunting.
It’s down right fucking scary.
So please excuse me if I feel a bit confused at times.
And, in those times, one of my persistent thoughts is that I could just remain non-binary. I could live in this space where I don’t need painful interventions like electrolysis or even surgery. But, then I look in the mirror and I feel a sense of dread that I will be “clocked”.
That I won’t pass.
THAT, passing bit, is not as important to me as it used to be. Maybe, it’s because HRT has feminized my body significantly and that has relieved some of my dysphoria. Yes! HRT is very effective at changing our sex which in turn relieves dysphoria and well that would mean that medical transition is working!
Yay. But.
Then there are the times when I am exhausted and find it hard to continue working toward the goal of changing my sex, changing the M to F fully, or in as much as I can reverse the disastrous effects of male puberty.
I really wish I had some kind of answer for why I fall into such confusion other than the laundry list of internal and external pressures. Other than pure exhaustion. But, to call myself non-binary has at many times over the last decade made coping with the confusion a bit easier.
That might not be a good thing in the long run.
At this point in my life, I need to work every day toward the actionable steps to realize my full self. Life is way too short to live in such pain any longer. I must heal and become the woman I want to be; non-binary was one important step in my healing journey but not the end destination.
My Ravenous Desire for Nonconformity
I believe that at heart, I am a nonconformist. After I left the Christian church at 19, I went on a lifelong quest to fuck with the minds of normal people. It became a pastime for me. I would wear the most ridiculous outfits, say outrageous things and party Thursday through Monday until I was riding the train back home with stiffs in suits.
Haggard and Obliterated vs. Well Kempt and Sober
A Model of Androgyny vs. The Binary Gender
A True Free* Being vs. A Slave to the System
*Freedom is indeed an illusion
I loved it but it wasn’t balanced. And, it conflicted with this other side of me:
I have an intense desire to be liked so there is this war within me. The chaos monster wants to fuck with everyone’s head and the needy little kid wants to be liked by everyone. So I guess you can say that I have been tip-toeing up to the line. I have been causing trouble WITHIN REASON but it certainly hasn’t all been fulfilling.
The desire and acting out in non-conformity certainly did not get me much REST, true unadulterated time to just be me.
So I grew up.
Now, I am causing trouble for the right reasons. I am helping to protect my community and I am flourishing within myself. The thing that I should have realized all along is that I am a nonconformist because of who I am intrinsically. I don’t need to be EXTRA to show my dedication to the cause of nonconformity.
All I need to do is be myself.
Maybe, that’s because society is just so fucked.
The trans community is under attack from so many angles because we have become the marginalized community du jour. Big oil is attacking us because they want a distraction from the very real dangers of climate change. Conservative religions worldwide are attacking us because we represent the breakdown of traditional, misogynistic power structures. Our own allies attack us because they are cowards and afraid of an easily manipulated populace. And, that populous attacks us because they get fed viscous propaganda from the above groups.
But, ok this is about me not them.
So what do I do here? Do I hold onto this label of being non-binary as I transition in a binary way? No, probably not. Just the fact of using they / them has confused things for some of my family and I wish I had just used the pronouns she / her from the beginning.
Over these past few years, I have been reconstructing my identity from the ground up. In a lot of ways, it’s a re-playing out of the 19 year old me, just with a little more help resolving the childhood trauma and a little less self destructive behavior.
I am absolutely grateful and humbled by this process AND having a job where I can think this much is not to be taken lightly. It’s a great privilege in life and I will keep working hard to construct the right identity for myself.
I am doing it for ME, for the first time in my life.
So, thank you for the time and thank you for holding space for the non-binary me as a term and a community. I think I am leaving the land of the non-binary for now to be a transsexual on the path to being the woman that I want to be.
With love and care,
Summer Dylan
Trans Poetics
PS - Bert dog doesn’t really care what you call him but he does love to be a good boy!
