My Personhood is Not Political

I came out of the closet as nonbinary for the first time to my best friend, then to my parents. Shortly after, I came out again, to my sister. Then to my other siblings. And I’m still coming out, on a regular basis, to this day.

Any queer person knows that coming out is not a one-time thing. When your sexuality or gender identity is not the 'default setting', you repeatedly run into situations where people will assume you are one thing until you tell them you're another- effectively 'coming out' again. This process can become tiring at best and anxiety-provoking at worst. Never has this felt more personally true for me than recently with the state of politics in the US.

I'm not the type to be 'loud and proud', to wear pins or attend parades or anything like that; I’m a private person. As a result, in my day to day, few people I interact with know I’m nonbinary. I’ve always “looked queer” if such a thing can be said, but generally people tended to assume I was a butch lesbian prior to testosterone. Now that I can grow facial hair and have a deeper voice, it’s assumed I’m a trans guy. In the course of daily life, few people ask for clarification, and I’ve never really considered it worth my energy to correct them. Our relationship is typically transactional, after all- we’re both just trying to make it through the day. This has resulted in kind of funny scenes at times- like the post office worker who called me ma'am and then sir alternately and then seemed lightly puzzled when I answered to both without batting an eye or offering a correction.

I may not be outspoken about it, but I am confident in who I am, and if the topic comes up, more often than not I will be open. If I'm telling you about my gender identity or pronouns it's because a) I anticipate us living or working together closely or b) I like you and want to know *you* better as well. or, well, C) you asked.

When people do ask, there are, of course, the usual suspects, the well-meaning or curious follow-up questions like ‘what does that mean?’ or the occasional ramble about someone else they know who’s nonbinary and everything going on in that person’s life. Innocent but time-consuming and potentially a little pressuring if you feel put on the spot as some kind of educator or representative.

There are also the more eye-rolling remarks we’ve all heard like “singular they/them is grammatically incorrect' (it isn't) or how ‘I don’t think that’s a real thing’ (Buddy, YOU asked. I don’t particularly care for your opinion on the validity of my answer. You have the right to respect my identity or not, but don’t act surprised or offended if I think you’re a dick.)

And finally, there’s the head-scratching ‘why are you that way?’ (Hell if I know. Why are YOU the way YOU are, with YOUR desires and inclinations? Not an easy question to answer, is it?)

Lately though, there’s an increasingly common new reaction in town. My disclosure of my gender identity seems to be taken as an invitation to talk politics. And brother, I hate talking politics. I have my opinions and I do my due diligence in voting. I’ll talk these things with the people closest to me but political convos with strangers? No thanks. I don’t care if you’re a conservative with a chip on your shoulder and something to prove, or a liberal itching to posture about social justice, I don’t want to run through and debate my takes on every current ‘trans issue’ in the media.

LGBTQ identities have become ridiculously politicized, particularly over the last decade, due to the push for equal rights and visibility in all aspects of life, and the debate over various bits of legislation regarding queer people. This has in my opinion contributed to the average person, who possibly doesn't even know an LGBT person in real life, seeing us as more ideas and symbols than people. Even if the idea/symbol is positive, it's still positively dehumanizing.

My identity and preferences- or lack thereof- are not a Discussion or a Talking Point to further whatever your particular ideas are. To the right-wing media I'm a delusional boogeyman and to the left I'm a tool & pet victim. Either way I end up a cardboard cutout, feeling like I'm reduced to a two-dimensional stereotype as soon as people find out I’m nonbinary. Conservatives are already mad about the host of things they assume I believe upon knowing a single fact about me. Liberals will happily assume the same kind of things and then become angry and dismissive when I don't agree with all the talking points I'm 'supposed' to.

I get what feminist Carol Hanisch was talking about when she coined the phrase ‘The personal is political’ but I think we go too far with this phrase, take it too literally. The personal definitely affects the political, influences and steers it. But they are not synonymous. The personal sphere is much deeper and more nuanced than any politics, and to liken them to one another is cheapening and simplifying humanity in a way that not only does us each an individual disservice but that also creates more division and anger between severely delineated factions or camps. Politics makes no room for grey spaces, and the personal is almost entirely grey. I have friends on either side of the aisle as well as people I dislike, and it’s a simple fact that the character and motivations of people within the same political group vary just as much as they do in any population.

All this noise around trans and nonbinary identities has resulted in me being a lot more hesitant to be open with my identity in public. It just feels like too much *work* for the simple favor of being referred to in a way that would make me more comfortable. But every time I don’t come out during a perfect opening, a time I normally would have before, I feel the missed opportunity, and in its wake, a growing sense of shame returning. Don't get me wrong- I'm not tempted to go back in the closet (nor could I really at this stage, to be blunt). The shame comes only if I give into a narrative that is not my own, focus on what is said about people like me and not the reality inside.

One of Trump’s first moves as president was to take the gender marker 'X' off the table for passports. In anticipation of this, I renewed all my documents beforehand, 'X' and all. I'm not going to do what you want until you make me. I am American after all- we’re stubborn like that. There are government officials who genuinely seem to believe they can legislate us out of existence, that denying someone any recognition of their identity is going to make them stop identifying that way. It is exactly because the personal is NOT political that this won't be working out for them. I look forward to the day that coming out as nonbinary is respected but also not a big deal. Just a nod and a shrug and an okay. And honestly, I believe that day will come.

It's a lot harder to move back than to move forward. You can't put the toothpaste back in the tube. The concept of using neutral pronouns is pretty widespread at this point, and even if you take a checkbox away on a piece of paper, you can't revoke an option once it's seized upon by enough people to make it into the dictionary.

I've always thought it was kind of ridiculous how just by virtue of having a large enough audience and being openly queer had people terming you as an 'activist' of some kind. But as much as I resent that labelling (like, can I just be me without everyone taking it as a Statement? tm) I do think it speaks to a kind of larger truth: that just being open and unashamed of yourself as an LGBT person is an achievement in itself. How many of us struggled to get to that place? How many are still struggling? Maybe the 'activism' isn't so much political as it *is* personal? Maybe the real radical statement is simply being able to say, Here I am. Because no fight for ever-changing policies will feel as good as being able to say to just one closeted individual just through existing authentically, If I can get here, so can you.