Mom, I am non-binary.

You have heard it before, but we don’t really talk about it. First because it doesn’t defne our relationship, but also because we lack common comprehension, common vocabulary around gender, which makes my feelings, my experience hard to describe. And yet we all live gender, each in our own way, which we all have something to tell about.

A few weeks ago I decided to write a book about gender and trans* identities, addressed to my mother. I wanted to tell her, and hopefully a lot of other people, about my experience as a trans* and non-binary person, and about other trans* perspectives, in a language she would understand and maybe be more open to than our conflicted discussions on the subject.

Beyond my mother, I think writing about trans* existences, especially non-binary and intersex people, from a trans* positionality, is necessary. Our lives are invisible on so many levels: judicial, medical, political, personal, and what influences them all, the media level. Working to correct that, from the margins but in the public space, is essential to democratizing our existences and our rights. At the personal level, I would also like to stop separating my friends’ sphere, personality and thoughts (Marie, enby, queer & proud) from my family’s sphere (Marie, female & dishonest). Being honest and gender-radical at all personal levels would be a big step for me towards activism, empowerment and self-fulfillment.

Once this idea had grown, questions started to be raised. Being this vulnerable and exposing one’s self in life writing is not easy, but exposing your parents is something else. Beyond the obvious question of anonymity and my mother’s public life and not doing justice to her or her character, I had to think about our interpersonal relationship and the impact of this writing, positive or negative. Trying not to base my writings on my judgement of her was part of the process. Reading John D. Barbour and his essay “Judging or Not Judging Parents” (Barbour, 2004), I remembered that judging could also mean acknowledging that our parents are, just like us, the product of external influences, sometimes out of their control, and that different access to alternative media (where informations about gender identities can be found) was one of these. I wrote several drafts: I started quite angrily, but each one was getting less angry than the one before. I ended with a very personal text, without generalization, accusations, but also trying not to feel guilty myself, either from being too harsh or on the contrary not saying enough. As the personal is political, I believed that a more personal text, trying to speak first to my mom and by extension to other parents, might have more impact.

I want to write this book as a sign of hope for trans* folks who are struggling in talking about gender identity to their parents, and as a tool to start the conversation again, this time based on respect, awareness and acceptance.