San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
WE’RE REINVENTING GENDER AS WE KNOW IT
Since I was little, I’ve always been flamboyant. My room walls, splashed with pink and purple, was my own little place of divine feminine refuge. My castle bed and my glittery sheets held my expansive collection of Disney princesses and companions. On top of my sheets sat me, in my bedazzled nightgown, waiting for my mother to come braid my hair, something she had always done. In the mornings, I’d get up for school, put on my pink, purple, green, or patterned shirt, and my pants or overalls. When the teacher gave us markers, colored pencils, or crayons, I always reached for the pink or purple.
Even as a girl, my femininity was always a lot.
As I grew, what that intense femininity meant to me changed. I went from a theatrically flamboyant young girl to a theatrically flamboyant young person.
When I came out as gay, my life shifted a little bit — not too much, but enough. I was still feminine, and I still identified as a girl, but I liked girls. I was uncomfortable with the word lesbian, not because I wasn’t a lesbian at the time, but because there was something missing there.
The night before I cut my hair for good, I looked in the mirror, imagining the nights in which my mom would braid my long curls.
What changed?
On the way to an LGBTQ+ youth event, my friend referred to me with gender neutral pronouns when speaking to their grandmother. The moment the pronoun “they” slipped out of their mouth changed
Valladolid is 19, nonbinary, uses pronouns they/them/theirs, and lives in Hillcrest. me forever.
I had heard about gender neutral pronouns before, but I never really got into it personally. Everywhere I went I saw representation, but not of someone that looked like me. What I saw was White, androgynous, masculine-leaning, skinny and overall cisgender-passing. Never anything I could actually relate to. I thought that because I was feminine I couldn’t be nonbinary.
I was wrong.
It wasn’t until I decided to become that person for myself that I found that validity. To become a role model for other Black and Brown nonbinary femmes. I gathered all of my makeup, bought the flashiest and brightest clothing I could find at the thrift store, opened my collection of wacky earrings and never looked back.
The way I express myself — to this day, is a lot. When I say a lot, I don’t mean it in a bad way. I’ve never had the opportunity to take up that space as a dramatic femme nonbinary person. Asking for my pronouns to be respected is not a lot. It’s the bare minimum. If you don’t understand, ask, educate yourself, reach out to the transgender and nonbinary people in your lives. My pronouns are not preferred, they are mandatory, and they will be respected.
To be nonbinary is to break the gender stereotypes that run our lives. To be nonbinary is to reinvent gender as we know it. To be nonbinary is to utilize our gender-bending powers to create a new standard for people of all genders, expressions and walks of life. The future is nonbinary, gender nonconforming, fully prepared, validated and knocking on gender’s door.