I like shoes! … No, I don’t. And other nonbinary adventures.

Here’s the thing: I’m a Gemini. I have a history of embodying two opposing ideals at any given time. “I like shoes! … No, I don’t.” “I love showers best… except when I love baths!” “I’m attracted to men… I’m attracted to women!” “I love Star Wars… AND I love Star Trek!”

I’m not exactly a binary-observing sort of person, when you get right down to it. Why gender should be any different is beyond me.

Of course, the truth is a lot more complicated than that; it always is.

I was raised by two strong, angry, fiery women who put the F (as in FUCK YOU) in Feminism. My grandmother, who was born in 1922, always insisted on the right to wear slacks, to work a job outside of the home, and to make sure her needs and wants were met — even if that meant walking up to her husband’s superior officer at the military base and flat-out saying “I will divorce that man if you send us someplace cold.” My mother, born in 1960, was independent, headstrong, ran away from home when she was a teenager, and decided to be a single mom in 1979 long before Lorelai Gilmore made it “cool.”

They were both amazing, inspiring women, both of whom I deeply loved. AND they scared the shit out of me.

I didn’t know my grandfather back when he was still drinking all of the time; I’ve been told he was scary then. I knew him after he’d stopped the booze, and I remember him after cancer took away a lung and, consequently, his cigarettes.

I like shoes! … No, I don’t.

And other nonbinary adventures.

I recently read a passage in a book that made me burst out into tears. It asked, “when you were a child, who held you when you cried?” My grandmother fed me and read to me. My mom talked to me and philosophized with me. But my earliest memories of being held — really and truly held — are of my grandfather hugging me into to his chest and asking me to guess which lung was missing.

Out of my immediate family, my grandfather was the quiet one. Granted, this is not saying a lot. My entire childhood is riddled with memories of shouting matches, power plays, fighting over who would take care of me, threatening divorce — I am not surprised that I loathe conflict as much as I do. But I was definitely a “Papaw’s girl” from a very early age. Reportedly, my first word, “moon,” was because he would take me outside to look at the moon every night. He let me “explore” the foothills behind the farmhouse, even though he was always ten steps behind with a pistol in his pocket. When my little brother was born, he carried him on a pillow, and I was told this was the way he held all babies because he was terrified he’d break them; he did the same with Aisling, too, when she was born.

He baked cakes, he built elaborate flowerbeds, he grew beautiful flowers, and he saved all my baby toys even though my grandmother wanted to throw them away. When I was living next door as an adult and would storm back to my trailer after a fight with my grandmother, he was the one who would come knocking on my door, asking me to come make peace, explaining that my grandmother only meant the best for me. He also, y’know, served in two wars, remodeled houses like it was nothing, and taught me how to play poker when I was five — so, please understand me — I’m not trying to suggest he was “excessively feminine.” (He was just — like me — a little bit of a peacemaker. And sometimes ridiculously conflict-avoidant. And also extremely passive-aggressive. But that’s another story.)

In fact — that’s the thing. I didn’t have the typical “binary” model for gender roles. I thought the idea of “gender roles” was a sham. People should be whoever they wanted to be. After all, that’s what my parental figures taught me. It made it very difficult for a young Devon to understand and empathize with my transgender friends as they began to transition. I couldn’t understand how being a woman was so much different than being a man, and vice versa.

Until, I finally figured out (at the ripe ole’ age of 40) — ohhhhhh. I don’t understand how being a woman is different than being a man…. I should probably explore that.

I’ve been meaning to post this for… I dunno? Six months? A year? But, today Elliot Page came out as trans and non-binary, so it felt like a good time to dish out the deets.

I’m non-binary. They/them/she/her — whatever. I’m Appalachian — if you just won’t give me a hard time when I wear boys clothes, then we good. No, I’m not interested in doing invasive surgery — despite my three c-sections, I hate invasive surgery. Yes, my kids still call me “Mom” and my siblings still call me “sister.” It’s just that the beautiful freedom of modern society has finally allowed me to slap a label on a thing that I’ve always known about myself — that I was raised in this liminal space where societal ideals of “gender” just weren’t really a thing, and I am most comfortable in that liminal space.

tl;dr - I like shoes! … No, I don’t.