When is Nonbinary Bias Nonbinary Privilege?
Some transgender people suffer and perish while others go unnoticed
The conversation about and acceptance of nonbinary (enby) people is still relatively new. People are still learning about nonbinary identities and appropriate gender pronoun usage. Some folks are struggling as they grow accustomed to the taste of inclusion in their mouths, stumbling awkwardly over conjugation and misgendering faux pas. Many have no idea that nonbinary people fall under the transgender umbrella. Preconceived notions run amok and stereotypes abound. Misconceptions and ignorance can lead to violence on one end of the spectrum, and subtle acts of exclusion (SAE), or microaggressions on the other.
I’ve been studying and teaching about diversity for decades, the nonbinary label is only recently embraced nomenclature for me. The reality of who I am has been the only constant. Imagine the plot of a super cheesy romcom that’s trying to cram too many experiences into too few characters; that’s pretty much my life. Reinvention and metamorphosis might be my hobbies. It’s how I learn and grow.
When society doesn’t readily embrace language that encapsulates your experience, it’s not exactly easy to invent it. So here I am minding my 40-something-year-old business when the language of nonbinary identity…
