When I was born, the doctors bound me to a word: “girl.” Perhaps because this word never fit, I became obsessed with words: how to bend words, distort words, create paradoxes that erupted from the space between words — because the space between “boy” and “girl” was where I felt most at home. As I claimed my own words – words like “nonbinary,” “transgender” and “genderqueer,” which indicate how my gender identity is neither male nor female – I watched others struggle with these often-unfamiliar words. I saw them trip over my pronouns, shielding themselves with grammar to avoid calling me “they.” I sat in churches where the liturgical words were “sisters and brothers.” I would imagine myself in the word “and” while fortifying myself to face the fact that many there had no idea an “and” existed. I had no words to say when yelled at for entering the “women’s restroom” in church — how could I quickly explain that I didn’t belong here but there was no good option for me? It came out … [Read more...]