Post content: The difficulties and wonders of coming out as non-binary are included in this emotional piece, which also mentions (in paragraph 5) my experiences of childhood and adult abuse.
Since I came out as non-binary, I've felt transparent. People around me look, but I've merged with the backdrop. It's naked, this feeling, although that's the wrong word. Folks stare at nakedness, don't they? Whereas it feels like people look through me.
Since I came out, spaces are unfamiliar. I drift through them, a ghost, watching. I see everything, but feel swallowed by it. Gender snaps its crocodile teeth, trying to grab me and gulp me back inside. I want to flirt with femme, but if I do, I worry the beast will take me. I love flat caps and pleather jackets, but people apologize when they realize they've called me "sir."
Why does lace scare me? It can't erase me.
I haven't been out long. I'm a child.
All my life I've known that our outsides aren't our insides. They can reflect who we are, but they are not us. I was bullied for my outside when I was young and had acne on my face. I was scoffed at, told I was ugly, told I was a blight. The bullying happened at home too. My mother once told me, when I was naked, that I was disgusting. Then she laughed.
Now, I know I am beautiful, just as I am. But now, how I present dictates how my insides are seen.
"She!" people cry. "She, she, she!" And I wonder, should I ever have started this journey, this lovely open wound?
But behind my ribs, there's a space I've never known. It has soil and rain and I know it's the "me" that 's been buried. This "me" rises up and turns their face to the sun. There is air in this space, and peace. It's a grand place to grow.
Had I never come out, this space wouldn't exist. My tree is growing. Roots run deep.
Watch this space.
I'm beginning.
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