How do you personally want to be perceived as a non-binary person?
I've been looking for trans/non-binary support groups lately, and while doing that I unfortunately ended up being exposed to a lot of transphobic content on Instagram. That's not really what I want to talk about here, though. If anything, it just made me realize how much I need to hear from other non-binary people right now.
I've been thinking a lot about what we're actually trying to achieve when it comes to how other people perceive us.
For many binary trans people, there seems to be a relatively clear social goal: being perceived as the gender they are. Passing can mean that people consistently see you as a man or a woman without questioning it.
But what does "passing" even mean when you're non-binary?
I personally want people to look at me and not be able to immediately categorize me as either a man or a woman. Ideally, I'd love for someone who already understands non-binary identities to look at me and think, "That's a non-binary person." I know that's probably not realistic, because there isn't a single way to look non-binary.
And this is where I get confused.
I do like androgyny, and personally I'd be happy if people perceived me that way. But I don't think androgyny should be treated as the default aesthetic goal of being non-binary. Not every non-binary person wants to look androgynous, and some of us may want to look quite masculine, quite feminine, or somewhere completely different.
At the same time, I don't want to simply be perceived as a man. That would still feel like being categorized incorrectly, even if being perceived as a man would probably alleviate some of the dysphoria I have around being assigned female at birth.
What I really want is for people to question their own assumption.
If someone looks at me and thinks, "I genuinely don't know what gender this person is," I'd actually prefer that over being automatically categorized as a man or a woman. And if they know what non-binary/genderqueer identities are, I'd much rather they recognize me as that.
But I also don't necessarily want to have to educate every random person I encounter. If someone has never heard of non-binary identities, I don't feel like it's automatically my job to teach them. I'd rather leave them a little confused and let them ask if they're open to it.
I realize there may be something slightly pessimistic in that mindset. Part of me assumes that people who aren't already open-minded enough to ask about my pronouns will probably just make an assumption, even if I give them all the information they need. Maybe that's not necessarily true, and I'd actually like to be challenged on that.
So I'm curious about other non-binary people's experiences:
How do you personally want to be perceived as a non-binary person?
Do you want people to recognize you as non-binary? Do you want something closer to "non-binary passing"? Do you want to be completely unreadable? Do you actually prefer being perceived as masculine or feminine? Do you want to be androgynous, or does that have nothing to do with your identity?
And if you've struggled with this contradiction between wanting to be recognized and not wanting to be reduced to a particular appearance, how did you deal with it?
I'm mostly looking for other people's perspectives and hopefully some good conversations. I don't want anyone to question whether I'm actually non-binary — I'm pretty comfortable with that part. I'm questioning how I want to be perceived, and I'd really like to hear how other people experience that.