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Happy Non-Binary People's Day!
5 years ago
Happy Non-Binary People Day! I am neither a man, nor a woman! This is a summary of my journey so far.
CW/TW: Hate Crimes, Homophobia, Bullying, Gratuitous Violence, Sexual Assault, Rape, Suicidal and Homicidal Ideation, Authoritarian Abuse
To be perfectly honest with you, I didn’t even know what non-binary was until relatively recently. I’ve struggled with my gender identity for most of my life. I often confused it for sexuality, and at one point convinced myself to ignore the concept of gender completely, due in large part to society’s prescribed binary gender system.
I was about 10 years old when I first suspected I might not be a boy. But what other option was there? I didn’t feel like a girl either, and that left me pretty fuckin confused. I didn’t tell anyone about this, and I don’t *think* I changed my behavior in any way, but I think the local kids could “sense” something was off about me. Soon, everyone at school was calling me “gay” (everything was “gay” to these numbnuts). It started with mockery, then progressed into bullying, until one day…
They just started beating my ass. I stopped counting how many times I took a blind sucker punch in a hallway only to turn around and see every one of my fellow students pretending nothing had happened. I stopped counting how many times people would literally just walk up to my tray at lunch and simply take my food, to eat or sometimes just throw away. I gave up on any hope that my guidance counselor and principal would put a stop to it. This seemed to follow me to every school I went to, even when crossing state lines.
I spend most of my childhood years in fear or in pain, because of a concept I didn’t even understand. When I finally figured out what “gay” even meant, I was pretty sure it wasn’t me (spoiler alert, I was wrong). My feelings weren’t about who I wanted to have sex with, my feelings were about my place in a 2 gender system and how I didn’t feel comfortable with either option.
When I was 17, about a month before I joined the Army, I was smoking some dank ass kush with my friend Gabby, when I let it slip that I didn’t think I was a boy. Bless her heart, she too was blinded by the binary system, and automatically assumed I might be a girl. So she did what any supportive and stoned friend might do when discovering their friend is trans, and let me try on a bunch of her bras and underwear. We spent a couple hours in the mirror, trying on different sets and trying to see how I felt in them. Before I could properly explain what I was feeling, however, we ended up fucking in her underwear, and I forgot all about it for now.
About a month later, I joined the US Army. I was excited and happy to finally escape persecution for my “gay”. That relief was short lived. About 2 weeks into Basic, the other recruits started making fun of me too. It started with “innocent” little jokes about Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell, progressed into stealing my hygiene supplies, and then, as before, the sucker punches came. At this point I was familiar with the song and dance, and just resigned to it. I didn’t try to tell my drill sergeants. I didn’t try to explain myself to anyone. I just gave up.
5 or so weeks into Basic, I found out we’d be going to the live fire range for marksmanship reasons in about a week. Intrusive thoughts filled my mind. At first I was vengeful, I thought to myself “as soon as I get real bullets, I’m going to kill as many of these motherfuckers as I can before they kill me.” Then, I convinced myself that if I was so outnumbered, maybe I was the one who should die. I decided that as soon as I got out to the range, I’d turn my rifle on myself.
Needless to say, I chickened out. But what I *did* end up doing was shooting a 39/40, first time go. My drill sergeant made a comment at formation, “don’t fuck with [DEADNAME], dude can hit you from 300 meters away.” This earned me a little respect, and a week later, I earned an Expert badge from the grenade range, and again from the bayonet course. (When you have more than one, you just hang little bars that say “grenade” and “bayonet” from the badge, it looks sort of like a ladder and is honestly kinda cute). Apparently, you’re less likely to get beat up by your platoon if you’re “gay”, but really good at killing people.
They spared me for the rest of Basic Training and I got through AIT fine, because I wore my badges in Class A’s every Friday for inspection before we were allowed to enjoy our weekend. I kept my mouth shut, and I guess nobody wanted to fuck with me. I thought I was in the clear. Nobody cared that I was “gay”. I thought I finally beat the stigma, I did something good so the soldiers wouldn’t beat me up anymore. I did it.
So anyway, once I got to my first duty station the beatings resumed. Not nearly as often; where in school I was getting beaten nearly every day, now it only happened every 2 to 3 months. An improvement to be sure, but I never could shake the constant fear that someone in my company was just going to kick me in the nuts randomly, or smash my lunch in front of me, or whatever the fuck they had in mind. Again, I gave up, because I was “gay”. I stopped resisting. I just stuck to my duty the best I could, and didn’t make any friends. That was fine, until…
It was during my second deployment. I can’t bring myself to get into detail about it yet, except to say it’s literally my most vivid memory. Long story short, I was gang raped in the motor pool with a grimy, oily broom handle because I was “gay”. The only person I told this to before today was the worker investigating my PTSD claim for disability benefits.
Those guys made it onto my personal “DNR” list. I was a medic, you see, and there were 4 total people who I decided I wouldn’t try hard enough to save if they ended up wounded. I would make it look like I tried, or pretend they were low on my triage list. None of these 4 ever got wounded, and in retrospect, I don’t think I would have been able to kill them if they had.
Anyway in 2012, I let my contract expire, and ETS’d. I receded into a hole for about 3 or 4 years, and completely ignored my gender identity. It was only a few short years ago that I was introduced to the concept of “non-binary people”. What a godsend that was! I finally felt like I had a place in society! I had a name! I wasn’t “gay” (yes I was), I was non-binary! But now there was a new problem.
Non-binary is kind of vague, you see. It covers a LOT of ground. All it really means is “not a man, not a woman”, and you I felt like I needed to narrow it down from there. I’m still stuck in this stage to be honest. Besides, I’m a little behind the curve in my understanding of the concept of gender at all. I need to decide whether my outward gender expression, or if my place in society is more important to me. If my outward expression is more important (and it might be because lol ego), then I am genderqueer. If my place in society is more important, then I am genderfluid.
For the first time in my life, I feel comfortable enough to pursue my feelings about my gender, to narrow it down, to put a name to the face, as it were. I am non-binary, and I exist despite every effort to prevent me from doing so.
CW/TW: Hate Crimes, Homophobia, Bullying, Gratuitous Violence, Sexual Assault, Rape, Suicidal and Homicidal Ideation, Authoritarian Abuse
To be perfectly honest with you, I didn’t even know what non-binary was until relatively recently. I’ve struggled with my gender identity for most of my life. I often confused it for sexuality, and at one point convinced myself to ignore the concept of gender completely, due in large part to society’s prescribed binary gender system.
I was about 10 years old when I first suspected I might not be a boy. But what other option was there? I didn’t feel like a girl either, and that left me pretty fuckin confused. I didn’t tell anyone about this, and I don’t *think* I changed my behavior in any way, but I think the local kids could “sense” something was off about me. Soon, everyone at school was calling me “gay” (everything was “gay” to these numbnuts). It started with mockery, then progressed into bullying, until one day…
They just started beating my ass. I stopped counting how many times I took a blind sucker punch in a hallway only to turn around and see every one of my fellow students pretending nothing had happened. I stopped counting how many times people would literally just walk up to my tray at lunch and simply take my food, to eat or sometimes just throw away. I gave up on any hope that my guidance counselor and principal would put a stop to it. This seemed to follow me to every school I went to, even when crossing state lines.
I spend most of my childhood years in fear or in pain, because of a concept I didn’t even understand. When I finally figured out what “gay” even meant, I was pretty sure it wasn’t me (spoiler alert, I was wrong). My feelings weren’t about who I wanted to have sex with, my feelings were about my place in a 2 gender system and how I didn’t feel comfortable with either option.
When I was 17, about a month before I joined the Army, I was smoking some dank ass kush with my friend Gabby, when I let it slip that I didn’t think I was a boy. Bless her heart, she too was blinded by the binary system, and automatically assumed I might be a girl. So she did what any supportive and stoned friend might do when discovering their friend is trans, and let me try on a bunch of her bras and underwear. We spent a couple hours in the mirror, trying on different sets and trying to see how I felt in them. Before I could properly explain what I was feeling, however, we ended up fucking in her underwear, and I forgot all about it for now.
About a month later, I joined the US Army. I was excited and happy to finally escape persecution for my “gay”. That relief was short lived. About 2 weeks into Basic, the other recruits started making fun of me too. It started with “innocent” little jokes about Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell, progressed into stealing my hygiene supplies, and then, as before, the sucker punches came. At this point I was familiar with the song and dance, and just resigned to it. I didn’t try to tell my drill sergeants. I didn’t try to explain myself to anyone. I just gave up.
5 or so weeks into Basic, I found out we’d be going to the live fire range for marksmanship reasons in about a week. Intrusive thoughts filled my mind. At first I was vengeful, I thought to myself “as soon as I get real bullets, I’m going to kill as many of these motherfuckers as I can before they kill me.” Then, I convinced myself that if I was so outnumbered, maybe I was the one who should die. I decided that as soon as I got out to the range, I’d turn my rifle on myself.
Needless to say, I chickened out. But what I *did* end up doing was shooting a 39/40, first time go. My drill sergeant made a comment at formation, “don’t fuck with [DEADNAME], dude can hit you from 300 meters away.” This earned me a little respect, and a week later, I earned an Expert badge from the grenade range, and again from the bayonet course. (When you have more than one, you just hang little bars that say “grenade” and “bayonet” from the badge, it looks sort of like a ladder and is honestly kinda cute). Apparently, you’re less likely to get beat up by your platoon if you’re “gay”, but really good at killing people.
They spared me for the rest of Basic Training and I got through AIT fine, because I wore my badges in Class A’s every Friday for inspection before we were allowed to enjoy our weekend. I kept my mouth shut, and I guess nobody wanted to fuck with me. I thought I was in the clear. Nobody cared that I was “gay”. I thought I finally beat the stigma, I did something good so the soldiers wouldn’t beat me up anymore. I did it.
So anyway, once I got to my first duty station the beatings resumed. Not nearly as often; where in school I was getting beaten nearly every day, now it only happened every 2 to 3 months. An improvement to be sure, but I never could shake the constant fear that someone in my company was just going to kick me in the nuts randomly, or smash my lunch in front of me, or whatever the fuck they had in mind. Again, I gave up, because I was “gay”. I stopped resisting. I just stuck to my duty the best I could, and didn’t make any friends. That was fine, until…
It was during my second deployment. I can’t bring myself to get into detail about it yet, except to say it’s literally my most vivid memory. Long story short, I was gang raped in the motor pool with a grimy, oily broom handle because I was “gay”. The only person I told this to before today was the worker investigating my PTSD claim for disability benefits.
Those guys made it onto my personal “DNR” list. I was a medic, you see, and there were 4 total people who I decided I wouldn’t try hard enough to save if they ended up wounded. I would make it look like I tried, or pretend they were low on my triage list. None of these 4 ever got wounded, and in retrospect, I don’t think I would have been able to kill them if they had.
Anyway in 2012, I let my contract expire, and ETS’d. I receded into a hole for about 3 or 4 years, and completely ignored my gender identity. It was only a few short years ago that I was introduced to the concept of “non-binary people”. What a godsend that was! I finally felt like I had a place in society! I had a name! I wasn’t “gay” (yes I was), I was non-binary! But now there was a new problem.
Non-binary is kind of vague, you see. It covers a LOT of ground. All it really means is “not a man, not a woman”, and you I felt like I needed to narrow it down from there. I’m still stuck in this stage to be honest. Besides, I’m a little behind the curve in my understanding of the concept of gender at all. I need to decide whether my outward gender expression, or if my place in society is more important to me. If my outward expression is more important (and it might be because lol ego), then I am genderqueer. If my place in society is more important, then I am genderfluid.
For the first time in my life, I feel comfortable enough to pursue my feelings about my gender, to narrow it down, to put a name to the face, as it were. I am non-binary, and I exist despite every effort to prevent me from doing so.
Bran_Itztli
~branitztli
Awful to hear you've been through all of that. I'm glad you're still here with us and growing every day. The world is better with you in it. 💜
