Why I’m Coming Out as Nonbinary as a 40-Something Mom
I’m gender nonbinary! I announced this last year at age 41 with little explanation, and caused bafflement even among some close friends. I’ve been out as bisexual for 20 years and as polyamorous for 16 years. As an attorney and activist, I’ve done international media about my queer identity and queer community for 14 years. I know myself well and accept my queerness. I wear dresses and makeup and heels sometimes. I love and display my cleavage. I might be described as a power femme. How could I have this new revelation?
As I found myself again after having a child, I realized that at 41, I found someone different than I was when I started the journey of parenthood.
I struggled to find my physical health and sense of self again after the early years of motherhood and breastfeeding, and when I did, I found that I didn’t recognize the middle-aged woman in the mirror. Once I started listening to myself again, I realized that I didn’t resonate with traditional aesthetics of motherhood. I don’t feel like a ‘ma’am’ who needs help carrying luggage. I don’t feel frumpy and matronly, I feel edgy and queer and tough, and want to look it. I feel masculine and strong and protective and dominant and bold. I wanted to present myself and be perceived in the world (and in the mirror) more like how I see myself, and less like images of what middle-aged moms are expected to look like.
I started experimenting with clothes and cutting my hair, and felt like an awkward teenager again for a while. But now I’ve finally found a balance that feels right for me. I prefer myself with short hair. I prefer they/them pronouns. Some days I want to wear a ballgown and some days I want to wear a tux, and I get to decide as I feel.
As a working parent, making space for my own needs and identity feels like a radical act, in opposition to a culture of selfless motherhood. Honoring my nonbinary identity is one way I’m letting myself take up space in the world, like I make time for my own fitness and health, for my career and creative expression, and for my pleasure and play.
Gender is performance, and I don’t need to cater my act to anyone else.
As a child, my earliest consistent feedback was that I was one of the pretty ones, and that my appearance could help me climb socioeconomic rank out of the working class. “You’re gonna break hearts and steal wallets with those eyes.” “Learn how to spin tassles on those titties, sweetheart, and thank god I know you’ll never starve.” It was only later that adults in my life noticed that I was also one of the smart ones.
Through my 20s while I was starting my own law firm, I supported myself partly by capitalizing on my femme appearance, through burlesque dancing and performance. Walking through the world as a pretty femme woman, I couldn’t cry in public without people rushing to offer to give me money or save me. I got constant attention, smiles, and efforts at interaction, both positive (generosity from strangers) and negative (like street harassment). When I cut off my hair and started dressing more butch, I became nearly invisible.
In my 20s and 30s, I was a radical upstart lawyer talking about social justice and polyamory in a cheap suit, scraping to pay rent. My mainstream femme conformist appearance softened my message, and helped get my foot in the door to rooms of power, just like my Ivy League degrees did. I also experienced consistent sexual harassment (from both men and women) along the way, from bosses, opposing attorneys, and community leaders, which made it clear that my appearance was a significant factor in the way I was perceived in my professional legal community. While I hated the harassment and was utterly dismayed at the emphasis on my appearance, I knew implicitly that I also got positive initial reactions based on my conventionally pretty appearance that I could then use to get people to listen to my words. Beyond appearance, my accommodating feminine warmth and demeanor softened people, and when I was perceived as aggressive, ambitious, or striving, I was met with the anger and misogyny that ambitious women face. I didn’t dare present more butch. People wanted to speak to me as soon as I entered a room, and my career was precarious enough that I didn’t want to risk that stopping for the sake of freedom to have a different haircut or to dress differently.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was performing femme gender as a means of finding power and access as a working class queer person without a safety net, avoidant of risks to my social status. Being femme is a beautiful part of me, but its not all of me. I’m grateful that now I’m sharing the rest of me, too.
In my 40s, I didn’t have as much access to pretty privilege as I did as a younger woman. I realized that I had been put in the box of fair maiden, and now was entering the box of invisible mother. By coming out as nonbinary, I’m climbing out of the box. I no longer need to scramble to keep my place professionally. I am my own boss. I feel stable and well-respected in my career and don’t need to kowtow. I feel confident enough to have a non-conformist presentation in the legal community because my non-conformist message is increasingly valued and accepted.
Unlike the ‘born this way’ narrative of queerness, sexual orientation and gender identity may shift over a lifetime. Fluidity is fine.
Like so many people who identify as bisexual, over the past 20 years, I’ve spent years as mostly a lesbian, years primarily with male partners, years attracted mostly to fellow gender adventurers like me. Likewise, my gender identity continues to shift between masculine, feminine, and androgynous, and I relish the freedom to follow it. I’ll go through months at a time when painting my nails, shaving my legs, or wearing a dress feels discordant and gender dysphoric. This summer, I wanted to shave my legs and wear cute dresses, even though I still crave that great tux.
I’m grateful for the freedom and privilege to feel safe being myself. I recognize that my professional status, my increased financial means, my age, and my whiteness all contribute to my freedom to express myself. Now I hope to work- with all of you- for a world where we can all express our full selves.
