Happy Nonbinary Awareness Day!

HAPPY NONBINARY AWARENESS DAY!

Today is international nonbinary awareness day!

As most people already know, I am nonbinary/genderqueer.

But what does that mean?

Our society - especially the western society - is seen in binaries: gender is divided into "man" and "woman". Long time people thought that that's scientific fact but let me tell you: Science learned and so shall we. Biologically there are more genders than only man and woman. Socially there are even more. The binarity of man and woman is incorrect and hurtful for many people.

Nonbinary people are outside of this binarity of man and woman. I think that's the thing every nonbinary person has in common. Other than that, we are very unique. Nonbinarity comes in all ages, colors, sizes, forms and words. There is not one nonbinary or genderqueer person who feels and exists like another. The spectre is so big.

I, for example, am very androgynous, I like clothes society would put into the "men's corner" and I bind my breasts. I use perfumes and deodorants people would say are "men's". That doesn't make me a "woman light" or a "man light". I am outside of this binarity. Sometimes I am neither, sometimes I am both, sometimes I am just something else.

Our mind was conditioned to think in those two catagories so it's not that easy for many people to grasp the idea of people exsisting outside of something you were taught to be so universally true.

But just because you maybe can't understand it, doesn't mean you can't respect it. That is a big thing I also had to learn. I myself can't understand everything when it comes to gender or sexuality, but every single person knows best, what and who they are. So it is not my place to discuss this with them, but it's my moral duty to respect them as people. To accept and love them.

Nonbinary people face discrimination and invisibility. Many laws are focused on the binarity of men and women. Nonbinary people often don't exist. I am in Germany and it's a hell to get your name and gender changed on your legal documents here, when you're nonbinary. It is even a hell to do it when you are binary trans, but for nonbinary people it seems nearly impossible.

Today I was asked, in which bedroom I will sleep, when I will superviese summer camp: men's or women's?

I answered honestly:

I will sleep, where I won't feel like I'd threaten someone. I will sleep where I am allowed to sleep.

I cannot say I will sleep where I want because my identity is - as many trans* identity - seen as a threat. To children, to cis people, to society. Because I am not "normal"; I don't fit the norm, I am strange. People are afraid of foreign things. It's a survival technique. But way too often this first slight fear turns into life-destroying hate.

Where do I go to the toilet?

Where can I sleep?

Where am I allowed?

Where am I convenient?

Those are every day questions for me.

Germany is a very gendered country, german is a very gendered language. We don't have the privilege of "they/them" pronouns.

It is not easy being different. We have to invent new pronouns and have to explain us every freaking day. If you don't fit it feels like you have to court every day to fight for the right to exist.

But we exist and we should have the right to exist and I am so grateful that more and more famous people are coming out, are being visible to end the stigma and end the invisibility.

International nonbinary awareness day.

Today the world will be aware of us.

In the good and the bad way.

But what's the other 364 days?

I am loud because I would not be alive otherwise. I am not loud because I am proud. I am loud because I have to be in order to survive. I demand to be seen in order to get the nonbinary spectre seen. In order to pave a way. I am a social worker and I know that many kids and juvenile people see me and I can just hope that it has a positive impact on them.

We deserve our place in the crowd.

We deserve a space to be seen, heard and loved.

We are real.

It's a long way to go but I always look into the past and see heros and heroines like Marsha P. Johnson, Lili Elbe, Laura Jane Grace, Elliot Paige, ... (I just wish I'd knew or even see more transmasc nonbinary people bc I feel pretty lost with myself here...), and I am so freaking grateful for everything the queer fighters in our past and present days did to get the world a step forward.

I want to be part of the people who have the strength and power to change the world for good.

Happy International Nonbinary Awareness Day.

Be aware, we exist.

Be aware, we are here.

Be aware, we won't go away.

I'm here, I'm queer, I'm fighting with(out) fear!

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Follow your euphoria!