Who I really am
Tags: Gender Equality, LGBTQ, Nonbinary, Gender, Gender Identity

My name is Lenny.

I’m not a female person.

I’m also not a male person.

How is that possible, you may ask yourself, thinking that it has to be really hard to explain. Let me tell you that it’s not hard, not even a bit. It’s as easy as saying “I’m a female/male person” — but a lot of people don’t believe that there are more than the two binary genders. And that’s the most problematic part about being non-binary.

Yes, I’m non-binary, which means I don’t identify as someone male or female. Some non-binary humans identify as someone in between, but others don’t see themselves anywhere on this scale, so they identify for example as Agender. On the non-binary spectrum, there are a lot of different gender identities and I’m sure that nobody knows every single identity. But that’s okay, as long as anyone who identifies as non-binary finds a term that fits for them. And we’re never going to stop learning — not about gender identities and also not about everything else on this planet.

I’m still not sure how to define myself, everything I know is that I’m definitely not a binary person. For a long time I thought that I was a trans guy, but it’s not that I’m a hundred percent unhappy in my body, it’s just very difficult most of the time. There are days where I hate my body so much, I want to rip off some body parts and replace them or just get rid of them. But on other days, I accept my body. I don’t love or even like some parts, but I’m okay with them, you know? With every new day, I try to accept my body a bit more, especially because I know that there are no opportunities to change the parts I hate. And it’s not only about those things you can see, there are things happening on the inside of my body which I don’t like at all, but can’t be stopped.

But the most terrible thing about being non-binary in a world that’s so binary is, that the most people don’t even try to understand you. There are plenty of possible reasons why, and I really understand some of them, but I really don’t get what’s so hard about calling someone an other name, a name they identify with, or use the pronouns this person prefers. It’s hard to call someone another name from one day to the other, I know that, but you should at least try it and I promise that it gets easier from day to day; believe me.

Just imagine you were afab (assigned female at birth), but you wouldn’t feel like a woman. And then you decide you want to openly live as a male, because you just feel like it, but nobody uses he/him pronouns and your new name. I’m quite sure you wouldn’t be very happy about it. And just because you are not in this situation, it’s not fair to not use the right pronouns and name for another human.

So, what I wanted to say is, you should ask a person if you’re not sure how to call them, especially if they use a name that’s not typical male/female. For example my name, Lenny, is a genderneutral name, but most people who only read my name, think I’m a cis male person — and that’s not true. I’m not pissed if anyone uses he/him pronouns, but it’s not what I prefer. I prefer they/them. But here in Germany aren’t any common genderneutral pronouns, so I go by she/her most of the time, especially when someone isn’t able to just say “Lenny” instead of any pronouns. It’s not a big problem for me to use female pronouns, but I hate to be called “woman”, “lady”, “girl” or something like that. It’s just not what I am. I am Lenny — and Lenny isn’t a woman, a lady, a girl or something else; I am just Lenny.