Gender identity is one of the things that we just didn’t talk about when I was growing up. We barely talked about sexual orientation.
Partly it’s because it wasn’t on my radar. I can think of all of three LGBTQIA+ people in my Mum’s social circle: a gay male friend who was a fashion designer and got me into modeling, a crossdressing male who liked to go dancing in women’s clothing, and a lesbian woman who spent a lot time of sunbathing on the beach in Barbados.
The homophobia wasn’t overt, but it was definitely there. They were considered harmless, but odd. It was OK for them to be who they were, but I knew it wouldn’t be OK for me to be like them.
Gender identity was way beyond conversation. That’s largely because I didn’t have the right vocabulary for it. I didn’t have words for gender identity or gender expression (or the understanding that they aren’t the same thing).
That’s why books like How to Understand Your Gender: A practical guide for exploring who you are by Alex Iantaffi and Meg-John Barker are essential.
I found this book incredibly helpful in understanding not only my transgender son’s experience, but also my own.
Because it turns out that the feelings I had growing up: of discomfort with my changing body during puberty, of my supposed societal role, of how I was supposed to look and act – those were based in something deeper than being a tomboy or the awkwardness of adolescence. I was, and am, nonbinary gender.
I’d tried, over the years, to find words to explain it, to myself and to others. I told partners that I’m just as much a man as I was a woman. One partner, a Native American, told me I’m two-spirit. That resonated. But it’s a term I can’t use as I’m not Native American myself and we’ve stolen enough from this country’s native peoples.
As a spiritual person, someone who believes in living multiple lifetimes and taking on different roles in them, it makes sense to me that I don’t feel necessarily male or female (or not just one of those two options). If I’ve lived more than once I can only imagine I’ve been different genders during those experiences. Plus, on a soul level, I don’t think I have any gender.
I learned to convincingly play the role of a female. Makeup, dresses that flattered my body shape, earrings and accessories. Not high heels, though, at least not for longer than about 30 minutes. But it always felt like a role I played rather than a natural state of being. When I’d dress for work as a successful marketing communications manager, it was a costume I wore. I called makeup my “war paint” for going into battle at the office, where I was socialized to behave a certain way.
That’s not me. And I’m not doing it anymore. You may have noticed that from the short purple hair, lack of makeup and perpetual jeans.
But until I learned more about gender identity and expression, I didn’t know I didn’t have to. (And you can love makeup, have long hair, and wear dresses — that is, you can express as female — and still be nonbinary gender, as expression and identity don’t equal each other.)
That’s why books such as How to Understand Your Gender are so powerful. They give us words, concepts, vocabulary and a chance for self-exploration that’s not only useful, but healing, helping us understand and make sense of our place in the world.