Shelby Criswell
My partner and I were browsing the recently curated queer collection of movies on streaming platform MUBI for something to get into the Pride spirit, because we’re not just queer we’re cinephiles.
“There aren’t any nonbinary movies,” she said, something I’d overlooked because being non-binary and a moviehead, I already knew there wouldn’t be any. Predominantly, MUBI’s collection focuses on cis gay men’s stories, and there are some whoppers within that canon to be sure. There were a few movies centering on cis lesbians, too, but only one with a trans narrative: Vera Drew’s incredible and subversive use of the DCU’s IP to tell her coming out story as a trans woman, The People’s Joker. That is what we landed on, and I might be lingering on this small moment, but only having that one choice remains indicative of something I feel more broadly. While I know a beautiful and varied community of genderqueer and nonbinary folks in New Mexico, we’re not always included in the broader conversation and community.
I’m not trying to sit here and decry others’ queer experiences or trying to elbow my way to the front of the crowd screaming “I exist!” more loudly than anyone else, but I consider everyone within the queer community as a comrade. That’s a word I don’t use lightly, as there are consistent existential sociopolitical threats that demand we respond as a unified front. And yet, I struggle sometimes to even be gendered properly (not using they/them pronouns or referring to me as “sir”) by cisgendered homosexuals. It’s as though my identity just doesn’t fit within the parameters of the LGBTQ+ (I guess I’m in that nebulous Q+, the et cetera) in certain circles, and I’m constantly told people just don’t “get it.”
I don’t know what there is to get. The singular possessive “they” has existed since day one of the English language, and I don’t introduce myself as a man to anyone because, duh, I’m not one. I used to have an identity crisis about presenting as masc, something I’ve had to unlearn over time. The truth is I don’t think I do. I don’t have a hair on my head or face, my own ritual of gender affirmation. I also don’t wear makeup or clothes one might perceive as feminine, as I’m truly agendered. So while I give nothing in my presentation to indicate masc, it’s still the default assumption, even often in queer spaces. Frankly, it feels GOP-coded, like an obsession with genitalia and assigned sex at birth that limits expression and experience.
My queerness is defined by being undefined, a refusal of boundaries in search of a true and vital self that is constantly changing. I don’t criticize anyone who feels more defined, and some days I’m envious of that. But I gravitate toward an existence in which I am constantly seeking myself while knowing I may never truly find them. It feels antithetical to a queer experience to try and limit how one interfaces with the community as a whole. Aren’t we supposed to celebrate what queers us from the status quo to begin with? And yet there are constant lines being drawn as to who’s queer enough.
The conversation around queer-baiting is a stumbling block for this very reason. To paraphrase actor Harvey Fierstein from his brilliant 1983 interview with Barbara Walters (it makes the viral rounds this time of year), I don’t assume straightness in others. To expand, I don’t assume cisgenderedness either. It’s a big table, queerness, and anyone can pull up a chair at any time. I don’t care who you prefer to go to bed with, it’s none of my business, and I certainly don’t give a second thought to your sex organs.
Similarly, the examination of whether or not being nonbinary falls under the overall trans experience seems to cause more division when we ought to be seeking union. I respect fully that my experience likely will not involve HRT or gender affirming surgeries, and while I don’t subscribe to a binary gender I think it’s vitally important that if you do, you be respected and seen and loved as such. It hurts, though, when people suggest that nonbinary is something I can slide in and out of as it suits me, or that I simply haven’t committed to an identity. The idea that I can benefit from what would be a coerced assimilation into cis society is one I find corrosive to the psyche. I have no interest in hierarchical structures socially, politically and certainly not within the overall queer community. I have boundless love for all trans people, and I certainly don’t take my privilege as a white person who often passes as a man lightly. In the face of the threats that have often loomed over all of us who live outside of a cishet existence—and especially now as those threats are being signed into law to be enforced by a militarized occupying force—we need everyone on the same team.
So when I meet you, I want to know you. Wherever you’re at. If you say you’re queer, I’m not actively trying to surmise to what degree. If you’re in, you’re in. I guess ironically, that’s one binary I rely on. Queerness is your journey, and its variety is what makes us big and strong. You are welcome by my side as we stare down annihilation with joy and love in our wild hearts. I ask only that, as we stand side by side, you tell me I’m welcome there. And even if you don’t, I’ll stand with you anyway.
