Read: Raising Them by Kyl Myers

Recently I read a book called Raising Them by Kyl Myers and I was blown away. Firstly, the narrative centers around Kyl and Brent – parents of Zoomer – who are raising their child in a gender creative way. Gender Creative Parenting means that they do not assign a gender to their child based on their child’s genitals. Instead, they raise their child using they/them pronouns, do not restrict or encourage anything based on one gender, and wait until their child is old enough to tell them what gender they are.

This is so awesome. I laughed, I cried and I was also a little fearful for these parents. Luckily, Kyl and Brent have amazing families that support them and educate themselves and others so that Kyl and Brent don’t have to shoulder all of the educating. The one thing that struck me though, was the media’s interference. Media outlets took an original story done with Kyl and Brent’s consent and ran with it, without consent. There was a lot of abuse hurled their way and I felt for them. It is scary to have less control over your narrative and to receive hate mail on top of that from people who just don’t understand and aren’t willing to go the mental leap to get there.

this got me thinking about the ways in which I’ve contributed to Patriarchy and Sexism and the systems of oppression that thrive off gendered parenting. The binary is a system that prevails under patriarchy because it keeps people in their respective roles and needs those same people to perpetuate it with each new generation. There was a time I was completely ignorant of all of this. Each time a new nibling of mine came into the world, I was obsessed with the idea of them either being a boy or a girl. and while I didn’t care so much about their genitals, – though, that’s what was determining how I treated them – I was ready to shower them in pink or blue.

I feel ashamed when I think and admit this. But I can’t deny it. In being honest about my journey, I have to acknowledge and be accountable for my participation, both conscious and unconscious in perpetuating systems of gendered oppression. The other day, I was talking to my niece and she asked me what I was up to these days. I told her I am writing a novel. Cool! she said, what’s the name of your protag? from this I laughed, because she obviously knows a thing or two about storytelling and also because it felt so good to get into it with her. Velvet, I said, and she said, that’s pretty. It is, I thought. Then she said: is Velvet a boy, girl, or neither? and this was super awesome. Her nonbinary Charlie did a geeky dance inside, for feeling so seen by this twelve-year-old. I told her that Velvet starts out as a girl then transitions to nonbinary. Neat! she said. Then she went on to say that she would write a gender-neutral character too if she were writing a story.

Ten years ago, when I was seventeen, I would never have imagined that my two-year-old nibling and I would be having this conversation. It was wild. When I left London in 2016, I never imagined that I would be where I am today, that I would have figured out the internal despair I’d been experiencing for so long. I don’t have the traditional “transgender” narrative, because I didn’t transition to a binary gender. For me, it’s different, I don’t feel like one gender all the time. I’m a mix. Being nonbinary isn’t something people fully understand. The classic: are you a girl? are you a boy? then what are you? is so cliched and jarring, but literally the reality for so many of us who don’t fit into the binary either as cis or as trans people.

I look forward to being held accountable by my niblings as they get older and reflect on how they were gendered. I really hope that they do question it if that’s how they feel. I don’t want any of them to have to live a life hidden and/or ashamed of who they feel they are or aren’t. I think that’s one thing I think about every time I lament on how easier life was when I presented as a cis female. I quickly remember that I was miserable, and so the illusion of happiness fades. I’m so much happier as I am today.