When I first heard about the non-binary identification people were starting to use I was very confused about it. When I was a young gay man starting at a corporate job in the late 80s and had conversations other gay men the one way we talked about our partners, or a guy we met at a club that we wanted to date was to say they or them and the other would know you meant a guy, but those around you would have no clue. Because back then you could get fired for being openly homosexual so we had to protect ourselves. So to use they/them as a pronoun for a single individual was not something that made sense to me.

But over the course of the last 3 weeks I’ve had some very interesting discussions with dear friends about this seemingly new pronoun, although it’s not really that new. And had some memories kick up of two close friends of mine who we all met at age 19, they were a female and a male, both bisexual but in a relationship with one another, he and I were in love and for real, she and I were too in our own way. He was allowed to date other men, and she other women. Anyway, she had this idea about being an IT, not a he or she because she never felt like one or the other really clicked with her ideas of herself. She was gorgeous, still is, and looked very feminine but felt very masculine. Same with him, he was gorgeous, still is, but had a very masculine face, yet very feminine qualities. And then there was me, I was a shy little boy who hid behind his mom’s leg who when I came out to bars and was living a more gay lifestyle was “trained” for lack of a better word, by those who took me under their wing to be very flamboyant and more feminine than maybe I would have expressed myself. I even did drag for a year, then realized it was me hiding away from myself in a costume, more than it was an artistic expression, and it didn’t feel right. So I felt like and it also, and we talked about others who fit into this category as well, many of which were in the group we hung out with or had met at a bar.

This totally made me feel more in touch with someone identifying as non-binary and get it, that one extreme end of the spectrum or the other neither felt very comfortable. I also started wondering if I fit that pronoun more than I thought before, and I do, really. But when I started doing yoga in 2000 it really brought up a more masculine side of myself that had never found expression within me before and I was very happy to have that, and yet I’m not terribly masculine either. Although these days I’m not terribly feminine either, I’m somewhere in the middle. I do however feel very happy to have a penis and be a guy, and am okay with anyone calling me that, and I’ve never loved the gayism of calling each other “girl” or “girlfriend” and don’t know that I ever will, so I myself feel more male than anything. Though now I get what it means to identify as non-binary(even though I apparently always undertood it) and feel more understanding and compassionate to those who identify in this way and less tolerant of those who poo poo it. (Wait, really, does any of it matter as long as I or you support a person in whatever choices they make, agree with them or not matters not, their life is theirs to lead whether or not I or you are “tolerant” of it, right? Tolerate is an inadvertently nasty world really, as in “they’re okay as long as they stay over there in the corner, we will tolerate them…” Hate it.)

In the grand scheme of things I would love for all of us to drop all labels and there be no need for any of them, just we all being happy and loving to one another, understanding and compassion to how each person felt abounding all around and so no pronouns or labels would be needed or matter, but alas, that is an ideal that is not being realized in our world at this time, nor likely will be in my lifetime.

Love the person, for who they are, not any other reason. For the vibration they put out and if it matches yours and if it doesn’t, no need to wish them ill, just let them go along their way and find others who they do vibe with, with no name calling or demonization, just openness and love and you go your way and find those you do vibe with.

Thanks for reading…