My non-binary identity
The non-binary flag, four equally-sized horizontal bars: yellow, white, purple, and black. | Wikipedia
If you’re wondering what ‘non-binary’ means or would like to know more about my gender identity journey, you’ve come to the right place! I'm thrilled to finally share my story openly after spending so many years in the closet.
⚠️ Content Warning (CW): This post discusses suicidal ideation and gender dysphoria.
To ensure we're on the same page, let's start with some definitions and further reading resources (courtesy of Scarleteen.com). Familiarizing yourself with these terms will help you better understand my experiences and the language I use to describe them.
Gender: Characteristics that are seen or presented as distinguishing between male and female in a society. Gender may or may not include assigned or chosen: social roles, feelings, behaviors and/or presentation or appearance.
Sex: A way people, animals or plants are classified based on their chromosomes, genitals or reproductive organs.
Transgender: Describes people who find that the gender applied to them because of the sex they were assigned at birth is incorrect.
Non-binary: A gender identity that is outside the gender binary.
Queer: In the context of sexuality, a broad term for sexual orientation that can describe any number of orientations which are not heterosexual. People who identify as queer may be bisexual or pansexual, gay or lesbian, questioning, asexual or more.
My story
As a child, I didn't give much thought to my gender. I was a girl and that was it. I knew I was supposed to be one, just as I knew my name. But that was it. I knew that I was born a girl but I didn’t feel like it. I felt like I was a ‘genderless’ person; if I was born the opposite sex, it wouldn’t have changed at all how I felt about myself. I didn’t have the word for it.
I vividly remember feeling a sense of injustice at being born a woman when I was around ten. I wished I was a boy, not because I felt like one, but because I believed it was the "superior" choice. I could play and talk with boys my age without any second thoughts or weird looks from girls. I even felt a surge of energy when strangers mistook me for a boy, thinking it must be an answer to my prayers.
Puberty was a difficult time. It was around then that my depression started to grow, along with deep self-hatred. I hated my body and every change it went through. It felt like a reminder that I was stuck in a body I didn't choose, and it was incapacitating. A close friend told me I looked like a boy in a skirt, which wasn't a compliment. It pushed me to overperform femininity to "prove" I was a girl. I wore skirts and dresses to "fit in," but it felt fake. I felt fake.
That's why Mulan was my favorite Disney movie as a kid; I believed the only way to restore my sense of worth was to be a man, because I failed miserably at being a woman.
When I was 13, I read "What You Can Change and What You Can't" by Martin E.P. Seligman. I vividly remember it because the book's preface stated that its intended audience was me (within the age bracket), and that statement couldn’t be more truthful.
When I read the depression and anxiety section and did the tests, I was very surprised to score highly. I thought the book was defective, so I measured my score and drew charts to track my mood evolution. For the first time, I learned that I was suicidal; I frequently daydreamed about being run over by a car and wishing it would end me in a single blow when walking home. For the first time, I've learnt that this was not a normal thought for a kid to have. When I talked about these feelings with my parents, despite their best interest at heart, they dismissed them, telling me “children don’t feel stress, their sadness is small. Wait until you grow up” or “Don’t say horrible things/don’t talk about death.” This books gave me the vocabulary for many things I’ve experienced… and was the starting point of my self-exploration, including my non-binary identity.
It was the first time I’ve learned about what being transgender means. I wept profusely. I frantically read as much as I could online about it. Because a) it explained what I was going through and I wasn’t alone, and b) It’s a sin and I’m going to hell for it. It pushed me through a rough religious phase where I prayed for two things: a quick, painless, peaceful death in my sleep and to make me “pure” before I die; ie, to make me a girl on the inside as much as I was on the outside. My self-hatred was still persistent, and with nothing to help me manage it, I reached out to the metaphysical for solace, praying for an instant cure.
Then, at around 16, I began to find acceptance. Though I was still suicidal, I gave up on “fixing” myself. I acknowledged that I was not a girl, no matter how hard I had tried to be one. I asked myself why Allah made me the way I am, why did he burdened me with such a curse of feeling inadequate in my own skin. I was starting to feel fatigued after struggling for so many years.
To protect myself, I never used the term non-binary publicly, I kept this new-found acceptance to myself. My diary (since I was 7) has me experimenting with different gendered grammar in English, Arabic and French. I couldn’t deal with explaining myself or justifying if the word came out, so I conformed to the feminine mold I had been assigned, hoping no one would question it.
After excruciating years of self-hate, I enrolled in prépa, rigorous a French-system competitive cram school after high school. To my surprise, I met (in person) a few non-binary and queer folks, who were comfortable in their own skin. It made me felt confident in who I am. On online spaces where I used to pretend I was a boy, I started going with they/them pronouns and it felt validating in being addressed the way I see myself.
I am writing this to finally be true to who I have always been. I have made the decision to come out publicly, despite the fact that my community struggles to understand and accept gender and sexuality as fluid concepts (they are extremely taboo subjects).
If, after reading this, you still refer to me as a girl, I won't be offended. I understand that the world is not always accepting of non-binary identities, and it may take some time for people to adjust. I know I grappled with my own identity for years. My pronouns are they/them, but I won't correct someone who uses she/her or he/him. This is especially true in French and Arabic, where non-gendered pronouns are not commonly used or do not exist.