Episode three of the Some Gender Going On podcast: On Not Being a Woman. You can play it or download it here:

My third episode! More emotional, crying in a cathartic and revelatory way. A good time, for sure.

The song discussed in the episode: Tell Me a Story.

Notes

As always, I’ll post my notes that I base the podcast off of, if you prefer reading to listening:

Izzy Grosof

Episode 3

On not being a woman

I was talking with a friend of mine who is a trans woman, and in the conversation it came up that I have a more feminine style than her, while simultaneously I’m nonbinary and she’s a woman. “I’m more feminine than you, you’re more woman than me” was the specific phrase I used.

And she’s not particularly masculine or non-feminine, among women. In contrast, I’m quite feminine for a nonbinary person. I’ve been to trans meetups and noticed that I was the only person wearing a skirt there.

If you lined up all nonbinary people on a masculine to feminine spectrum, I’d be quite far on the feminine side. If you lined up all transfeminine people on a masculine to feminine spectrum, I’d probably still be femmer than average.

But what would those spectrums tell you? They’re asking the wrong question.

Let’s try again: let’s talk about me.

I’m more comfortable being woman-adjacent than a lot of nonbinary people I know.

I buy clothes solely in the women’s section of the thrift store.

I’ve been to, and enjoyed, events for women and nonbinary people in my department. A lot of nonbinary people are not at all interested in being at events like that, because the events can make them feel like “girl-lite”.

I suggested to someone that if they couldn’t get a parent to use they/them, using the pronoun not associated with their AGAB could be a next-best. Only later did I realize that was not something every nonbinary person preferred, and only later-later did I start using they/she.

When my mom told me she used “she” for me for the first time, I was overjoyed.

I’m growing more comfortable and positive with “girl” being used colloquial or casually for me. “Hey girl, how ya doing?” “Looking good, girl!”, “You’re such a sweet girl” (from my girlfriend).

I’m taking estrogen-based HRT. It’s identical to what HRT for trans women looks like.

I’m a lesbian. It’s very important for me to date people who are attracted to the feminine in me.

I like it when people call me “miss” or “ma’am” or “girlfriend”

And when I acknowledge liking these things, I feel scared. I feel like I’m playing with fire, putting a fundamental part of myself in danger. A nonbinary part of myself, in danger.

So here’s the question I want to ask, today:

Why am I a nonbinary person, and not a woman?

What is my nonbinariness? How can it be in danger? Is it in danger? What is it made of? Where does my sense of self come from?

I know trans women, and I’m not one of them. I know nonbinary women, and I’m not one of them either. How do I know?

Because I’ve met a lot of women, cis and trans, and I don’t think to myself “I’m one of you”. And I definitely don’t think “I’m one of us”.

Because when I join nonbinary community, I feel seen. I feel heard. I feel found. I feel home.

Because calling myself they felt more right, in a gender way, than anything I’d ever done. Because that’s how I hatched, a little over five years ago.

Because I spent years thinking “well, I want breasts, but am I a woman? I don’t know” even as I didn’t feel like a man at all.

I use they because a transmasc nonbinary uses they. She is a second priority because it’s what trans women use.

But there’s something more fundamental.

When I think about losing my nonbinariness, of drifting away from it, I get sad. Immediately, intensely.

When I encounter people talking about nonbinariness as a temporary landing pad to being a trans man or a trans woman, I get defensive. That’s not me.

Because when I imagine claiming womanness, it’s intrinsically tied to someone challenging that claim. To being asked or told to change my behavior, to be confined in order to justify myself. And I don’t care if I could claim womanness and then reject all challenges and all comers. I don’t want it. More power to anyone who does, but it ain’t me.

Because it doesn’t feel true. I don’t want it. I want to be nonbinary. I feel nonbinary. I am nonbinary,

And every thing I listed, every pronoun and pet name and HRT effect, will never diminish me, will never confine me, will make me lose part of myself, will never make me abandon what I love about myself.

I love the freedom to define myself. To chart a journey that no one’s ever followed before. To make community with the gender oddballs and weirdos and question marks. To be an Ulzilna.

My journey is my own, and when I borrow from womanhood, it doesn’t invalidate me. It doesn’t break my path, steal my self, corrupt my journey. My gender is whatever works for me. And if that borrows from womanhood, if some uninitiated observer thinks that’s who I am, that’s them missing the mark wildly. I know that I am me.

I know what I fear losing, now, having written these words. I fear losing my freedom, my originality, my independence, my creativity, my common cause with the oddballs and the weirdos and the outcasts. That’s the essence of nonbinariness that I value.

Coming up with new gender takes, going new places, in a “fuck you, world, I do what I want, I’ll always be me” sort of way. And I know that for other people, womanness doesn’t sacrifice that. But for me, with my connection to gender, that’s tied up with my nonbinariness. And I’m ever so glad to have it.

Before writing this script, I couldn’t name what I was scared to lose, And so I was scared to do anything, to move anywhere more feminine, because I might lose what I cared about, without knowing.

But now I know, at least a starting point, of what I value. Of what I feared to lose. And now, I’m not going anywhere, wherever I take my gender. Today, tomorrow, and forever, I am nonbinary. I know that I am free.

So where do I go from here?

There’s a real danger associated with what I was scared of. A danger of falling into the established tropes of womanhood, of what women are supposed to like in our society, of what women are supposed to be like in our society. And even if not in our society, in smaller communities like the very-online-trans-community.

I was in danger of swallowing those tropes and suggestions and shopping only at that part of the gender store and losing myself. Forgetting myself. Abnegating myself in the wash of what’s easier, more visible, more present. And that’s not what I want. That’s not who I am.

So I’m going to keep collecting bits of metal off the street. Keep joining the “male group” and the “female group” at chit-chats at parties. Keep gender theorizing and discussing, telling people that “human” and “not a human” are genders. Keep finding new ways to be myself and love who I am. Keep making programmatic rainbow artwork (I have a new idea). Keep being loud and visible and unashamed and unabashed.

And I can do that undiluted, while at the same time adopting parts of womanness, including trans womanness. I’m not sacrificing myself, shuttering myself, boxing myself. I don’t care how anyone sees me. I’ll always be true to myself.