I have just found out I’m nonbinary.

This discovery is... somewhat frightening. I don’t feel any shame in being nonbinary whatsoever, but there’s two reasons I feel this way.

When I heard about aromanticism and asexuality, I immediately knew I was both these things and proudly embraced these parts of my identity. There was nothing that shattered a fundamental belief I had held for my entire life. Not like this.

Going from believing I was a “man” for 20+ years to suddenly tearing that belief to pieces is quite a shift to say the least. And it made me realize something rather disturbing about how I treat myself versus how I treat others.

I, up to now, have kept telling everyone, even in queer spaces, that I’m male. There’s really only two reasons I’ve been doing this: I’m AMAB¹, and I like “he” pronouns. That’s literally it.

I’ve long suspected that my attitude is more nonbinary. I don’t necessarily feel masculine or feminine. I feel more like some mixture of both.

I embrace people of all kinds who are trans or nonbinary or whatever gender, regardless of their personality, or what body they have. And here I am, telling myself I’m male and that I can’t be nonbinary... because of the male body my humansona has.

I’ve been having internalized queerphobia this entire time, and it needs to stop.

I need to be kinder to myself.

Seeing “nonbinary” written in my bio is in a sense, scary. Seeing such a basic, foundational belief shattered. But it feels more honest, and even a bit reassuring. I get the feeling that I’m being a little more accurate about who I really am.

I’m happily accepting of everyone’s queer identities. Why can’t I be accepting of my own... queer identity?

The fact that I have never once suggested I am “queer”, until now, should also tell you how deep my internalized queerphobia went. And there’s only one conclusion I can make:

I am queer, and I should not be afraid of that.

I wasn’t planning for this to be my next issue, but I appreciate you reading it. I felt the need to give this a dedicated issue.

We will now return to our regularly scheduled programming.