Nonbinary: Memoirs of Gender and Identity by Micah Rajunov

Nonbinary: Memoirs of Gender and Identity Reviews

• 
  Jenny (Reading Envy)

  This collection of short essays from people who do not identify as just male or just female, and that's where the similarities end. There is a decent age diversity, which helps to demonstrate how things have changed (and how they haven't.) There is some racial diversity as well as a wide span of relationship types and class difference. Most of the stories are USA-based, which is too bad as the international voices that could have been included would have been interesting (the first essay starts in Thailand but is clearly western voices), and there are not many if any points of view coming from people who are incarcerated (or have been incarcerated) or who live with disability. Only one of the authors openly discussed the privilege of passing, and only one of the authors I remember pointed out that the equal rights protections that still exist often do not apply to nonbinary individuals, at last not explicitly, and the need for more protections. I'm not sure it's fair to expect possibly the first collection like this to do everything, but I felt I should at least share the holes I could see. Randomly, one of the people I follow in Instagram has an essay in here as well. An important read, but just the beginning....
• 
  Tyler Gray

  A diverse range of nonbinary voices. Related to some as a fellow nonbinary person, learned a lot and was thought-provoking. Showed a range of ages too with older nonbinary people as well, showing it's not a "young person" thing. Nonbinary folks have always been here.
• 
  Maia

  A nuanced collection of essays from many different perspectives of folks whose gender doesn't fit into the binary. More than thirty contributors' pieces are arranged into five sections, themes around "What is Gender?", "Visibility", "Community", "Trans Enough", and "Redefining Dualities." This book came out in 2019, the same year as my book, and it's interesting to think about how much has changed since then.
• 
  Leo

  As someone who just got to understand my own gender (or lack off, to be honest) found this to be very helpful and I recognized myself a bit in each person but absolutely more than I've ever done in a book. Great way to start reading more about the subject as I keep learning more about myself everyday. The audiobook was well narrated and I liked that they kept the same narrator on everyone and that they still sounded like their own unique person.
• 
  Fran (The Ramblebee)

  You can also read this review
  on my blog.
  
  I'm agender. Sometimes I use the terms trans, genderqueer, or nonbinary for simplicity, to simply signal that I don't want to be gendered as either male or female, and to emphasise that those are communities that I belong to. For the longest time of my life, I believed in the male-female binary and identified as a cis woman. It never sat quite right with me: I always felt a twinge of discomfort when people called me a woman, and I was upset at the changes my body went through during puberty. But I never wanted to be a boy, so surely I must be a cis woman, irksome and uncomfortable as that felt.
  
  I can't even tell you how mind-blowing it was for me to learn that gender wasn't a binary, and that there were words for what I was experiencing. At first I struggled with a lot of doubt, but all of that dissipated the first time I came out as agender. It was euphoric to feel, for the first time, that I had found an accurate way to describe my gender and my experiences. So when I spotted Nonbinary: Memoirs of Gender and Identity on NetGalley, I had to request it.
  
  Nonbinary is a collection of autobiographical essays by nonbinary people writing about their individual gender journeys. I related very strongly to some of them, less so to others, but that was to be expected. Nonbinary people aren't a monolith and we experience and navigate gender in myriad ways, not only depending on how we identify, but also on our individual surroundings, on age, class, race, disability, etc. Nonbinary takes this into account, making it a multi-faceted exploration of gender.
  
  However, there are some things I wish would have been explored more deeply, in particular how disabled nonbinary people relate to their genders and bodies. As S. E. Smith notes in their essay, An Outsider in My Own Landscape: "Gender expression becomes a matter of cold cash realities." But not only does it come down to money, it also comes down to having a certain body, an abled body that is relatively easy to clothe, that is able to undergo surgery or to bind, etc. For many of us who are both disabled and nonbinary, expressing our gender and presenting our bodies the way we want to is simply not possible by virtue of our particular disability, but this tends to be ignored by the community at large.
  
  Additionally, some of the authors reproduced binarist and essentialist rhetoric, something that was rather disheartening to see in a collection specifically created by and for nonbinary people. I don't mean to imply that people can't identify the way they want to, like by reclaiming terms such as "transsexual" because that was the prevalent terminology at the beginning of their gender journey. Wrong and archaic as such terms may seem to a younger generation of nonbinary people, they have validity as individual labels.
  
  What I cannot condone is the use of binarist phrases such as "male-/female-bodied", "female hormones", "female genitals" etc. Physical traits are not inherently gendered, and though my body may be perceived by many as a woman's body, it is not. It's an agender body. It was hurtful and upsetting to see such terminology from people who by all accounts should know better, and I wish the editor(s) had done a better job of catching and correcting this issue. The contribution by a parent to a nonbinary child was also wholly unnecessary. In a collection by and for nonbinary people, I don't want to read about a parent grappling with their anti-trans convictions and their doubt in their own child's assertions about their gender.
  
  I was happy that a number of the contributors were POC, considering our community is often white-washed and racist. In that same vein, though, it made me uncomfortable that two white (I think?) contributors propagated Buddhism as a means to the end of understanding your gender. I would also be remiss not to add that this collection is overall quite US-centric and thus not always entirely relatable to those of us outside of the US.
  
  In spite of these complaints, I still think Nonbinary is an important collection increasing the visibility of genderqueerness. It's not the empowering statement I was expecting it to be, but there were moments when I felt deeply understood, or else felt a deep understanding for a nonbinary experience different from my own. And with that, I want to leave you with some of my favourite quotes from the collection.
  
   
  

  We who identify as nonbinary spend so much time saying who we are not that we never get time to focus on ourselves, to celebrate and honor who we are. Nonbinary is only in relation to the colonizer, to White culture, to Western, mutually exclusive ideas of masculine and feminine. It still centers their experience as normal, typical, the true measure of gender. --- Token Act, by Sand C. Chang

  
   
  

  Even people who claim to be accepting of nonbinary gender still expect that our expression must deviate from the norms associated with our sex assigned at birth. --- Token Act, by Sand C. Chang

  
   
  

  I spent decades bouncing from identity to identity, looking for something that aligned with the real me. It's almost impossible to form a sense of identity without the words to describe yourself. --- What Am I?, by CK Combs

  
   
  

  The problem is, "woman" has never fit me. I had bottomless depression as a teenager (...), plagued often by the idea of "woman" and adult womanhood. I could not understand who I would be in that context. --- Coming Out As Your Nibling, by Sinclair Sexsmith

  
   
  

  How could I explain that the woman in me doesn't need me to perform gender for anyone, that she's more than fulfilled to reside in this body just as it is? She says it's her temple---she doesn't need a knife to alter me. --- Coatlicue, by Féi Hernandez

  
   
  

  But I have transitioned. I have transitioned in the relationship with myself. --- The Flight of the Magpie, by Adam "Picapica" Stevenson

  
   
  

  I want to be alive. I want to live. And so this is my gender: a desire to live. --- What Growing Up Punk Taught Me About Being Gender Nonconforming, by Christopher Soto

  
   
  
  Please note that all quotes were taken from an eARC and might differ from the published version.
  
  Thank you so much to NetGalley and Columbia University Press for providing me with an eARC in exchange for an honest review.
• 
  Silvana

  If you're a Harry Potter fan, you might be aware about the debacle surrounding JK Rowling's tweets and essay on trans people. I was confused with one of the recent tweets about menstruation and said to my friends, what's wrong with the tweet, as she was asking about a term, and linked an article on WASH practices which is, like, a huge health issue? Obviously, I foolishly did not realize the tweet itself was scornfully trans phobic, since she defined women as “people who menstruate", which is not accurate as trans men who haven’t transitioned still menstruate and there are women who don't menstruate. And that was not the first time she did that. Back in December, when the Scottish parliament was discussing the revision of their Gender Recognition Act, she also tweeted to support for a woman who lost an employment tribunal over comments she made on social media about transgender people. More on JKR and discussion on gender:
  https://www.mugglecast.com/episode-46...
  
  Anyhow, thanks to my friends who corrected me. It got me even more curious, and remembered I did have an unread book in my shelf. Once I started it, I was so glad that the theme was very relevant to my thirst of knowledge. This book has 30 something essays that brought me into the lives of non binary people, giving me intimate insights on their (or their loved one) lived experiences (because that's also what gender is), coming from various backgrounds, age groups, income levels, race, and so on. Trans people transitioning, genderfluid ones, to parents with an agender child, there are many voices.
  
  The quality varies, of course, but as always, putting yourself in their shoes, looking at the world from their eyes, you can't help getting new knowledge and understanding. Or even at least openness to find out more. A few essays, interestingly, read like SFF short stories, it's fantastic.
  
  I wish the essays also include wider experiences like from outside the US, since gender definition, identity and expression are so diverse. I also wish there's a discussion about why trans-exclusionary radical feminist (TERF) exists. As an AFAB/cis woman (I guess?), I'd like to have more practical pointers, like shall I just let all people who look like men enter toilets since I might offend transgender individuals? I'm fine with that, if that's the case. In Indonesia we only have a few unisex toilets.
  
  Clearly I still have a lot to learn. Thanks, NetGalley and Columbia University Press!
• 
  Mallory

  This was a very interesting read about the wide spectrum of gender. I thought the title was a little misleading as it is a collection of essays more than memoirs and while I greatly enjoyed the level of diversity in those essays a large part of me wanted to dig in deeper with those voices into more of a memoir of their gender journeys. I did like that there were a mix of different voices from greatly different backgrounds. I also really appreciated the visibility of this group of people that haven’t always got the recognition they deserve. The essays were well written and very interesting, I just wanted to dive deeper into each story.
• 
  Sasha

  So many different non-binary / genderqueer / not cis (and sometimes also not trans!) perspectives represented here! Some things I related to and some things couldn’t be further from my own gender feelings, which made for a really interesting reading experience. It didn’t always feel like the essays fit under the headings they were grouped into, but that’s a minor gripe.
• 
  Anniek

  I received an eARC of this book through Netgalley, in exchange for my honest opinion.
  
  This is a really diverse collection of non-binary voices. People all across the gender spectrum are telling their personal stories, like how they knew they were non-binary, how they came out, how they share their identity with the world in their day-to-day lives and how the world responds to them.
  
  Personally, I have been questioning my gender for quite a long time now. It's a confusing and stressful process, and it really helped me to read this collection, because it showed me that no non-binary experience is exactly the same. There were a few stories that I could really relate to, or that at least had some passages that resonated with me.
  
  Of course, since there were so many different stories, I did not enjoy reading every single one of them. What mostly differed, was the writing style. Some of the stories were pretty dense, and because of that, I had some difficulty getting through those. But overall, this is a very insightful collection, whether you're (questioning) non-binary or whether you just want to know more about what non-binary means.
  
  CWs: transphobia, homophobia
• 
  Erin Crane

  This was ultimately a really helpful read for me. I’m cis, and I wanted to understand better the nonbinary experience. Can’t ever /really/ understand, but I can do the best I can.
  
  To be honest, I ended up being surprised by a lot of these essays. I had heard of the biology/gender/expression split, and the introduction of the book mentions it, but many of the essays go on to describe a lot of dissonance around expression. I thought I’d hear a lot more about some feeling completely detached from expression. But the more I read and thought about it, the more I was like, of course it would all be intertwined. We live in a cultural context with expectations, so in practice it’s very difficult to separate those things.
  
  I appreciate all the writers sharing their stories. I have a better understanding than I did before and a sense of the range of experiences. It’s truly an individual journey.
  
  The world would be a better place if people could express their gender however they wished to and be treated with respect.
  
  My favorite chapters were 24 and 30.
  
  Great quote:
  I was once asked if I considered my choices a mistake. I can honestly answer, “No.” I am the product of my choices and their consequences. If my journey has been a mistake, then so am I. But I am no mistake.
• 
  Leia Sedai

  This book now ranks in my top ten of books to recommend regarding queer topics. The essays and memoirs included were thought provoking, bittersweet, informative, funny, empathetic, and so much more. After reading this book I feel I can support, understand, and stand up for Nonbinary folks in a way I couldn't before reading it.
• 
  Jess

  These thirty stories from nonbinary and gender nonconforming people certainly show the infinite possibilities of how we define our gender (or not), express ourselves (or not), how we fit into circles or we are rejected, and the trauma that each suffers in the narrative that is exploring gender.
• 
  Matt Millado

  One of those worldview-altering books
• 
  Isabelle

  Nonbinary - edited by Micah Rajunov and Scott Duane is a book that is emotional, educational, heartbreaking and thought-provoking all at the same time. While I firmly believe in letting people live their lives the way they want to as long as other people are not harmed by it, I did not know much at all about having a nonbinary identity. This book really gives an insight into how harsh life outside of the binary can be but also how fulfilling it can be to find your place in the world. This book brought me to tears several times but also made me smile on several occasions. I am glad I got to take part in this learning opportunity and recommend it to anyone who wants to have an insight into the feelings and experiences of living outside of the binary.
  
  There are 2 reasons I did not give 5 stars on this review. I wish the book was more consistent on trigger warnings - now, I'm not sure if these were given by the original authors or the editors but nevertheless, it would have been nice if it was more uniform in that sense throughout. I was also not a big fan of the experience that was told by the parent. All of the other stories were told by those that are nonbinary themselves, experiencing it all first hand, but this one was told by the parent of a nonbinary child. It did not fit in with the rest. While it would be interesting to read more experiences by parents, that should be its own book, but I think when those stories are shared, it should also say that they were shared with the child's permission. These things were very personal and it felt inappropriate to read it told by someone else.
• 
  P

  4/5 stars
  
  It’s not that I don’t want to wear my femme clothes to work; it’s that I know as soon as I do, my entire nonbinary identity will be disregarded. I won’t be seen as “trans enough”—my clothes will give people permission to treat me like a woman or feel entitled to use the wrong pronouns. Even people who claim to be accepting of nonbinary gender still expect that our expression must deviate from the norms associated with our sex assigned at birth.
  
  As someone who identifies as non-binary but also never really feels non-binary enough because of the idea we have created about what a non-binary person looks like, this book did give me a bit of relief. The irony of this idea of a set androgynous identity we try to make while trying to escape the binary identity isn't lost on me. It never fails to make me feel not enough.
  
  So yes, this book was a refreshing read. But this one story from the parent of an enby teenager was just too weird in this collection, according to me. It might just be me, idk. But those conversations were too private and given that we weren't told how the parents got to know them, i will assume what most desi parents do, they might have snooped up on their teenager. And that is shitty and scary and I hate that that was my first thought. But it is very possible. So ya.
  
  Otherwise, this was overall a good collection.
  
  Workplaces tend to be reactive when it comes to accommodating trans and nonbinary folks. They wait until a trans or nonbinary person gets hired, then they scramble to figure out how to make the environment safe and accessible. In my ideal world, workplaces would do the work before a trans person gets hired or even before they are interviewed. They would figure out their HR policies, restroom facilities, and documentation (e.g., name badges, email addresses, electronic records, computer user accounts) ahead of time. There is always the chance of having employees who do not disclose their trans status or identity, so waiting for the first “out” or vocal trans person to report problems is not really an equitable approach.
• 
  Mareike

  This was an incredibly informative and educating read!
  
  The only thing that I would criticise, is that some of the essays felt quite repetitive, especially towards the end. Of course this makes sense, since it includes many shared experiences, but I would’ve loved to see other voices outside of the US maybe to get some more perspectives.
  
  But apart from that definitely an important read. The introduction and editing was well done.
• 
  Jessica

  I felt really seen, reading this book. I didn't connect with all the essays, but some seemed like they were written specifically with me in mind. I want to hug this book to my chest and also pass it around and make everyone I know read it!
• 
  Sara Codair

  I'll write a longer, more detailed review soon, but for now, I'll say that this is a collection of moving, well-written essays that not only validated my identity as a non-binary person, but boosted all types of non-binary voices.
• 
  Bryn Hammond

  First person life stories, or slice-of-life stories, from nonbinary people. There was a wide range of experiences and of circumstances: complicating factors such as poverty and race not neglected. Of course, I found a few wise, a few very moving. With thirty contributions, and with the editorial eye to difference, you must find stories that resonate or teach.
  
  One chapter jarred for me because it was a parent writing about their nonbinary child. Inevitably (should I be optimistic and write 'almost inevitably'?), somebody writing about a nonbinary person was quite another matter than nonbinary people giving their own testimony.
  
  An excellent resource. Some pieces use more 'gender language' than others but the book is easy to digest as an introduction to the topic, and an appealing read.
  
  I read an ARC from NetGalley.
• 
  Chrystopher’s Archive

  DNF at 31%. First and foremost I'm just not in the right mental space to be reading this right now. While nothing says that writing about your personal experience requires you to write upliftingly, I just got an overwhelming sense of tiredness and jagged emotional edges from essays. Essays that also failed to form a cohesive narrative, making it difficult to read the book as a whole and to navigate to the different identities expressed.
• 
  Isabelle

  Chapter Notes:
  
  One: war smoke catharsis
  - Genderqueerness encompasses your life experiences. Your ambiguity. Your ability to show up in a certain role AND not be limited to that instance of showing up.
  
  Five: my genderqueer backpack
  - Genderqueerness is an accumulation of the things that define your past identity with the meaningful new resonating moments you've picked up over the years. It's not throwing away who you are but making room in your backpack for the different aspects of yourself.
  
  Eleven: life threats
  - "Femininity in all forms is still a joke in many places around the world. And, in my case, to be what the world thinks of as a 'man' who is feminine is one of the worst sins." Even in philosophy, there was not only a categorizing of women as weak, or emotional/more irrational, but uneasiness with the idea of femininity itself. Now we still only accept femininity when it serves us.
  
  Thirteen: what am I?
  - There was and still remains a fear that the experience of being a woman is being erased. This was a conflict within the trans community, which pressured trans men to present as butch lesbians or tomboys. It is interesting and sad how there can be difficulty reconciling (1) expanding the borders of acceptance and (2) preservation.
  
  Sixteen: purple nail polish
  - "My reflection in the mirror looked pretty much how I expected it to—neither particularly male nor female. It was just … neutral. The problem was other people. Strangers looked at me and saw a woman...." !!! Always having viewed yourself as different, but maybe it was just... androgynous.
  
  Seventeen: uncharted path
  - Including this story was probably for readers or parents who need to hear this perspective of a parent. I found that a lot of doubts the mother had were actually thoughts I've had about myself, so I could resonate with the narrative in this way. Perhaps including this perspective was for necessity and not cohesiveness? Maybe Bailey wasn't old enough? Was that disrespectful though? I was also kind of scared reading this one. Don't know why. The car experience was shocking, but in general, the tone of the story was just a bit familiar to me. "The details were excruciating to learn; hearing that your child doesn’t like something about themselves is never easy, but when it’s about the very body they were born into … it broke my heart." Idk but this scared me.
  
  Twenty-Four: an outsider in my own landscape
  - Media depiction of androgyny as white, slim, tomboyish, tough, double-take
  - "Sometimes I just want to be a person, not my gender." (241)
  
  Thirty: rethinking non/binary
  - "When nonbinary identities are idolized as the postmodern, fashionable, or intellectual, who is left out? Imagining gender in terms of relational power reveals a need to rethink where we invest our community's resources."
  
  
• 
  Doreen

  I assigned this in a recent class I taught for a women and gender studies course on life-writing and highly recommend for anyone questioning or curious, but also wanting to be educated on what it means to define oneself beyond the binary. The essays really help readers who are not fluent in contemporary gender politics to distinguish among and between trans, cis- and non-binary gender identities, and more importantly to be exposed to diverse understandings and experiences of what it means to be non-binary. As the editors claim in their introduction, non-binary gender identities are often erased or made invisible, left out of activities that make up everyday life (xxii). A book like this begins to fill in those gaps.
  
  As you read through the various essays categorized around larger topics, you realize there is no one way to be nonbinary; instead gender identities are complex, heterogenous and always up for change. This fluctuation or in betweenness of gender is often times perceived as a fad or a trend and not how it is presented in many of these essays: as a way to align a sense of who one is with a gender identity that makes them feel whole. The lack of certainty about gender having certain fixed qualities and behaviors aligned with either/or categorizations of men or women that characterizes many of these essays is refreshing. Also helpful are the essay from older non-binary people who make it clear this is not a fashion or trend or even really that new. Instead it highlights the significance of stories that not only contribute to a collective political identity but also reveal how gender can never be essentialized and that it is dangerous and damaging to do so. This book unfortunately will most likely be censored from many libraries and schools in conservative states and areas when in fact it should be required reading.
• 
  Nicki Markus

  Nonbinary was both a touching and informative read. Through the stories presented, it's clear to see that a nonbinary identity can mean different things to different people, and that all presentations as such are equally valid. With some within the LGBTQIA+ spectrum still relatively invisible, I believe this is an important work to highlight the experiences of those still marginalised within the community, and I applaud those who came forward with their stories for their courage and willingness to share their experiences and feelings with the world at large. I hope this work will aid understanding and acceptance of those who identify as nonbinary. I certainly found it a compelling and inspiring read.
  
  I received this book as a free eBook ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
• 
  Kristi Holmes Espineira

  Read this book if:
  * you want to understand more about the complex spectrum of human gender identity
  * you care about someone who is nonbinary, gender-nonconforming, or queer
  * you’ve found yourself fumbling with someone’s pronouns, struggling to wrap your mind around someone’s gender identity or expression, or simply feeling clueless about what the heck “nonbinary” even means
  * you want to learn more about and be more empathetic towards people along the entire lived experience of gender
  * you’re wondering, questioning, or exploring your own gender identity
  
  
• 
  Emily

  Reading this has been great because nonbinary is such a broad term. It could be easy to read one or two stories and say, "well that's not how I feel so I must be part of the binary". But if you keep reading you can really see the diversity of this community and how it creates a space where people (binary and non) can take a look at themselves without the lens of gender and figure out what truly makes them feel happy and comfortable.
• 
  Audrey

  I’m still learning a lot about gender and I feel like reading personal stories about people relating to and exploring gender has been important. I think this was an important book for me to read. It was well written and covered a huge range of issues that obstacles faced by those that exist outside of a gender binary.
• 
  Mika J. Elijah

  Reading this book has been an incredible experience and I feel very lucky to have done so. I read the ebook but someday I will buy the physical copy. I really want to read some of the chapters again in the near future, it brought me joy and got me contemplating labels and ideas again and I’m just full of love for this book.
• 
  Becky

  It's interesting the way things have changed already since 2019 when this collection was published. This volume brings together personal stories from a diverse group of writers in the nonbinary/genderqueer umbrella, and I loved the breadth of their stories and experiences, and especially the embracing of a very personal definition of transition, if applicable, for each person.
• 
  Ekmef

  If you are nonbinary and feel a little lost, this is the book for you. In the multitude of personal stories there will be one that resonates with you, you'll find someone who went exactly through the same stuff as you did and you'll know that you are not alone in all this. It's a wonderful collection of lived experience that shows there are many ways to be nonbinary.