No Gender November №6: Multi Dimensional Being

No one thing defines a person, ask a 6yo trans boy.

Note: This is part of the November 2018 “No Gender November” portrait series on my 6yo’s lunch notes. Follow along and learn non-binary with me!
< №5 The Third Gender | << Start at the beginning | №7 Support >

This spaghetti monster asked his mom “do I have to have boobs when I grow up?”

Non-binary thinking is a hard get for adults like me who never had a personal experience growing up beyond being a boy or a girl. Calling “him” “her” now, or “her” “they” is like a language I’m still translating in my head. Kids don’t have that problem, they soak up language like a sponge. They are just a ball of feelings too. They know what they are drawn to and what they aren’t. They’ll tell you pretty quick. My 6yo probably isn’t going to be an athlete. Not totally his thing, he’d rather be acting or dancing or coloring.

His friend wasn’t drawn to being a girl. He was and is a boy. He was amazingly fortunate enough to have had the words and the unconditional love of his parents that recognized it. But admittedly it was tough to connect to at first. Imagine realizing your kid is not who you picture in your mind. This is different than knowing my kid just doesn’t want to play baseball. Bathrooms are going to be a challenge. Friends and family may inadvertently ruin this young man’s day by slipping the wrong name or pronoun. It’s hard for the adults. What’s hard for the kids is that it’s so easy to them. His friends play rhythm didn’t even skip a beat when he transitioned at 5 years old. The only question they had was “when do we get ice cream?”

Adults have lot’s of questions. They still need to label and put everything in it’s place. A life of binary thinking has left them a one dimensional idea of identity. But nobody is that simple, there is no one thing that defines us. This 6yo knows he’s a boy. He doesn’t other himself from any other boy, he isn’t trans gendered in his mind, nor does he really think about it, at least not any more than the wrongest way possible to eat spaghetti. He can see how easy that is, I’m starting to too.