Snow Best (they/she)
CW: Queerphobic language
I don’t want my gender anymore. I don’t want to be told what and who I am. At some point non-binary people are forced to reckon with the fact that our personal identity only goes so far. Is it possible to exist void of gendered language? I think that the depressing fact is probably not. Not right now.
What does it mean to be non-binary? I think it is to exist in terms of the oppressor. Non. Not. Other. Weird. A fucking queer. A Tranny faggot. As the gendered subject experiences it: something that isn’t normal and doesn’t apply to me. Boys. Are you really boys? Girls. Are you really girls? We aren’t all fully masculine or feminine. We all exist within a spectrum of different aspects of masculinity and femininity. Some cis men have bigger chests, have long hair, might be short, have less muscle mass and “feminine facial features” while some cis women are buffer, have short hair, flat chests or a more “masculine facial structure” just to name a few. Along with that, we all hold ourselves differently and we all interact with others differently. Those acts are part of gender. They are part of the habitual performance that constructs our gendered living. (Thanks Judith Butler <3)
Non-binary peeps. Are we really just non-binary? Does that word encapsulate the beauty of our lives? Are you okay with conforming to the 3rd tick box that constructs us as homogenous? I know I’m not. I understand the process of representation takes time to change, but this is a direction that I could see as totally opposed to our political project. In insisting to uphold this linguistic simplification of our existence, we are doing the fascists job for them. It’s a huge catch 22. Our identity as other is constructed by the oppressor as a justification for violence, and we take these identities on to organise our political resistance. At some point, queerness may need to be an idea of the past; I’m scared that a liberal queerness, a permanent social identity, will just support the ping pong between liberal capitalist democracy and fascist autocracy that we’ve seen unfolding over the last century. We as non-binary people need to remember how we want our futures to look. Cis people have to be made aware of it, and why it’s important for everyone. Non-binary people are not the gender diversity. We all are!
Finally, my attraction to non-binary people feels really different to my attraction to binary people (as far as that seems to exist lol). The act of rejecting gender is in itself hot as fuck. I’m then put in the position that to express aesthetic attraction, I am forced to default to gendered language. The fact that most of the people I’m attracted to are considered feminine places them into a binary framework without either my or their active intention. My current partner is more masculine, but even in using that word, it essentialises their existence as being relative to the oppressor’s frame. What is the solution to this? My proposition is that we redefine our queer identities and fundamentally reject gender as a relevant notion.
I identify as a lesbian. Not as a queer person who is mainly attracted to femininity, but as someone who embodies an anti-gender anti-femininity. It’s an embrace of emotional closeness and intimacy. An embrace of politics and ethics of care (ooo philosophy buzzword :p) and a desire to love freely in the ostensibly gender abolitionist anti-femininity I embody. It’s an embrace of any mode of being I choose while being aware of and attentive to those who deserve my time. True non-binary lesbian queerness. “Male lesbians” are possible. Aro-ace lesbians are possible and valid. We don’t need to keep things the way they are. Make of yourself whatever the fuck you want. Call yourself whatever the fuck you want. Just remember to care for those who care for you.
Dear reader:
Hear us. She doesn’t want gender. He doesn’t want gender. They don’t want to be masculine, feminine or androgynous. To all my binary queer siblings out there: do you want to uphold the system that fundamentally causes our otherness? I understand, especially for binary trans people, that secure gender categories feel good to assimilate into, but they don’t for a lot of us, and I believe it would do every single person good to question why social identity matters, and how it constructs your perception of the other. How does the way you’ve lived so far influence your conscious and unconscious biases?
Consider this a call for everyone to inspect their relationship with gender. That goes especially to cisgender, heterosexual people. Understand that those of us who don’t want such a rigidly gendered existence are at your mercy. Understand that, to a lot of us, gender and those who perpetuate its fundamentalism are inherently violent. I won’t sugar-coat this, especially now that the American trans-genocide is slowly encroaching on our political system. Our ideals are radical, but deserve legitimacy. Say it with me. Say it with strength and life. KILL THE GENDER BINARY!