The Nonbinary Notebook

The One With THE THING

March 11, 2016

5:52 AM

Ugh. I feel icky.

My sibs and I went over to our dad's girlfriend's for dinner today, which was fun. And delicious. Anyway, the little neighbor girl came over and saw me on the couch. She whispered the thing to my dad. I was slouching and my face was kinda covered, but she still said the thing. It counts. She SAID the THING. The thing I have been waiting for since I realized who I am, since I first started writing this book:

"Who's he?"

I did it. I passed, for about 0.2 seconds, to a ten year old, but I passed. The phrase didn't even have time to register, however, before my dad said the other thing.

"That's my DAUGHTER, [birth name]."

He put extreme emphasis on "daughter" too. I honestly think that was kinda transphobic. I don't know. I told him specifically in the letter that I hate being called "daughter". I saw pronoun dysphoria described perfectly on Tumblr like this: it's like listening to music, and suddenly, a wrong note is played. It sounds awful, it makes you cringe, and it sticks out from the other notes. So every time somebody says "she", it's like hearing a B when there should be a B flat. It's awful. And I don't know if he gets that. Nobody realizes how much it hurts to be called the wrong pronouns.

It's hard to be misgendered...but it's harder to segue.

I figured out a way to make my binder work fabulously! Like I learned to ~adjust~ the right way to be as flat as possible. It's pretty awesome. Especially with an open button up over a tee shirt. It just looks so fab, man.

Goodbye my friend pal homeslice bread slice dawg,

~Eli