Reclaiming ‘Woman’, to Realise ‘Not’: Coming Out as Non-Binary

By Eli Stolz (they/them)

My sister’s first response when I told her that I am nonbinary was confusion. She told me that she had always thought that I was proud to be a woman. 

Was I proud to be a woman? I was, and I wasn’t. Some days, I was proud. Other days, I was uncomfortable. To be a woman is to be strong, in my eyes. I wanted to be strong like that. I am not a woman, though. Woman-ly, maybe. Feminine, some days. But woman? Not so much.

Some people may question my sincerity when no longer than two weeks ago, I was still calling myself a woman without question. Sometimes, though, these things take time. Gender is not a simple thing. 

One day, I looked at myself and simply realised: this body is feminine, but I am not. At least, not today. It was that evening that I processed the thoughts that I had been having the previous six months around my gender identity, and that they were real and valid. The truth was that I felt more comfortable when dressing androgynously, and by doing so, avoiding gendering myself unnecessarily. Those weren’t simple quirks. 

I had been thinking the previous month that maybe I was non-binary. But then I would think nobody non-binary is curvy like this. I convinced myself that my breasts and hips stopped me from being androgynous. Looking back, I can see the mistake I made in this thinking: I assumed that my body and being are interchangeable, but my body and my being are two separate entities. 

For years, I thought that my body was a reflection of my being. It can be, but that relationship should only go one way. Your body can reflect your being, but your being need not be defined by your body. I defined myself in my own mind when I saw my feminine chest, broad hips, thick thighs, and soft features. It seemed like an obvious conclusion because nobody would ever see me and think that I was a man. I would see myself and not think of myself as masculine.

I realised that I was non-binary when I realised that for me, the opposite of feminine is not masculine. Masculine and feminine are separate scales that have the same opposite of agender. Some days I feel more feminine than others. Some days I don’t feel feminine at all, but never is the level of femininity ‘balanced’ or inversely proportional to my level of masculinity. This was a revelation to me that saying out loud I know may be divisive. It hurts to know that my state of being may be divisive. However, I know that it brings me peace to realise that I no longer need to feel uncomfortable in my being. 

There was truth in what my sister had said. I was proud to be a woman. I was proud to be a woman in STEM, proud to be one of the only girls in the top maths classes in school. People have diminished my achievements in the past for the simple fact that I was a woman. For this reason, it pains me to write this, as part of me still wants to defy patriarchal stereotypes and norms and prove that women are powerful. Luckily, women have so many wonderful figures and role models – I am just not one of them.

My being is who I am. My body is merely a vessel. Finding comfort in my vessel took many years. It took time to accept every curve, every mark, every scar. To find comfort in my being is my next mission, as I have only just found out what my true being even is. 

So here I am, and here I will be. Defying odds and norms as I always have. Only now, I will do so as a non-binary person.