Non-binary: create your own option
Photo family archive. Me as a kid, around 10/11 years old.
I am fascinated by the word non-binary. The idea of it. A while back I was having a conversation with my 13 year old niece. I can’t exactly remember what it was about. But I was mentioning boys and girls in a sentence. To which she added, or non-binary. And I was happy to hear that it’s part of her world growing up. Of course I’ve heard of the word, but knowing it’s in her daily life growing up got me even more intrigued. I love that that’s part of her system. When I was growing up, we didn’t even question that there could be another option. You had all these forms where you could only check the box of male or female. Binary, you only had two options. Whether these forms were literal papers or lived out in society and in your homes. I love that, on her forms and in her life, she knows there’s also another option, non-binary (which means not just two). Non-binary is fluid, you can be whoever you identify as or don’t even want to name it or literally be fluid from one moment to the next. Non-binary means all options are open in every moment. Doesn’t that sound so wonderful and free? You have the option to be whoever you are at this moment, in every moment. I want to live non-binary. It sounds like everything I’ve ever dreamed of.
Create your own option
I’m so excited for my niece to grow up like this, knowing there’s an option out there to choose to be non-binary, as in the option to create your own true option. If one of the options out there fit you, wonderful as well. For the moments the options out there don’t click with who you are, you have the option to create your own option!! How cool is that! And her knowing this from a young age excites me so much. I’m so excited for her to go through life with this in her back pocket.
Girls should be sweet
I remember when I was about 10-ish, my mom pulled me aside to talk to me about my behavior. I was getting in fights with my younger brothers, being wild and not obedient. And my mom said to me that my behavior wasn’t suitable for a girl. A girl should be obedient, do as she is told by her parents, well-behaved, calm, sweet, and not get into trouble. And I replied, “but the boys get to do this, why not me?” And she said,”that’s just the way boys are. They’re naughty.” It seemed then that the boys got to have all the fun, for a super stupid reason as that’s just the way they are. What if that’s just the way I was!
I don’t want to be held back because of these rules. I don’t want being a girl stopping me from doing or saying things I want to, just because society feels a girl can’t do certain things. I don’t want that for my little nephews either. I don’t want them to think that because they are boys they should always toughen it out and not cry.
Binary: Fitting into two options
We’ve been looking into the world with mostly binary eyes. Two options for life: boy/girl, good/bad, right/wrong, pretty/ugly, like/dislike, love/hate. I don’t know about you, but to me it’s so tiring. All these binary judgements. All the labeling and boxing in of things, experiences and people.
Yearning for a third option
I yearn to see the world non-binary. I’ve been fascinated with this word. It captures this feeling for me, the yearning for freedom. A way to see and live. Non-binary, as in pick your own adventure, you have every right to be your own unique blend of person, which can even be fluid from moment to moment.
Seeing through non-binary eyes, seeing without a binary label, but actually taking the person, thing or situation in as it is. Can you even imagine the freedom of all, if you can see without a label, without putting someone in a box, without the judgement of good or bad, right or wrong. What freedom. I love it when I have those moments when I can see the world, myself and all with non-binary eyes. It makes me feel that I am alive, really here, really experiencing life. Being life instead of labeling life and kinda miss out on the experience of it.
I always loathed rules
Non-binary captures for me a sense of freedom. Not being trapped into a set box. Where you’re supposed to be, as once was chosen and accepted in the culture. Girl is this. Boy is that. Love is this and not that. Rules for friendship. Rules for success. Martyrship for parents, moms in particular. What is good and what is bad. Good gets you, supposedly, love. Bad leads to rejection, aka loss of love supposedly. So many boxes, so many rules.
I always loathed rules. I have been seen as a rebel because of that. But I don’t want to break rules, that’s always been the misunderstanding. I’m not a rebel. I don’t love going against something just to make a reactive point of being against somebody or something.
I always just yearned for the freedom to live beyond rules. To make life my own, to be my own person and expression, beyond rules someone somewhere made up and it is felt we should uphold these without even questioning them.
Create your own adventure
I simply don’t want to live by anyone’s rule. I’m simply saying: no thank you. I’d like otherwise. I want to allow my heart to choose what’s true for me. And preferably not be rejected because I don’t follow anybody else's rules, but that’s up to everybody else. I’ve been rejected many times cause I couldn’t follow prescribed rules of culture, family and society. And damn did that HURT. Cannot say otherwise. I’ve been asked to change my hairstyle, change my vocation of choice, change my boyfriend, change where I live, so other people could live with who I was, too. And rejected, in big and small ways, because I couldn’t. But that is beyond my influence.
What I can choose is not to abandon myself. I can stand with my heart. I got my heart front, back and sides. I don’t have to reject myself because some people are. I get to create my own adventure in life. This I know for sure I have to do, to keep my sanity, health and happiness.
I feel non-binary captures the feeling of allowing each to be human. The unique way of you being human. No boxes, no rules. As a friend of mine likes to say: You do you, boo.
With love,
An-na
