Trapped In The Margins

The title of this may seem contradictory to the masses, but I know that there are a select few that will understand what I mean. I will elaborate for those that do not. I identify as a black woman and I also identify as a black person. Still confused? Let’s break this down. I was introduced to societal values by black women and I was expected to follow those expectations as a young black girl then later as a young black woman.

I have always done what I was told, which made things easy for my parents. But there was this feeling clawing at the back of my brain that this was not fully right for me. There were times when I fully felt my girlhood. I reveled in the identity and all that came with it. There were other times when I did not like that identity, nor did I want to be perceived like that at all. Now, I came of age in the mid-2000s so I was shown that androgyny was masculine presenting. But deep down I hated that as well. Masculinity was still the default, even though I did not feel masculine whatsoever. It was infuriating but there were few choices I could make to appease that feeling I had inside.

Forward to 2020. I was now a fully fledged black woman that made her own money and paid her own bills. The pandemic hit and the world shut down. I was one of those deemed an “essential worker” so I didn’t stop working. I kept going to work as usual, even though it looked like an apocalyptic movie. However, I worked with a highly vulnerable population so I was forced to isolate myself at work. I wasn’t allowed unnecessary contact so I spent a lot of time alone. It was in this time alone that I began to learn about being non-binary.

Non-binary is one term people use to describe genders that don’t fall into one of these two categories, male or female. There are many ways to express your non-binary identity. People commonly use they/them to identify themselves. Personally, that didn’t feel fully right either. See, I referred to myself earlier as her and I love that. I also would not mind if someone referred to me as they/them. There are people that start off as she/they and then transition to other identities. That’s not for me. I feel that she/they is perfect for me at the moment. I do not know what the future holds but I am happy to have the words to describe myself better.

I also do not want to give up on my black womanhood totally. I am proud to have been raised in the black community and I hold being a black woman dear to me. I think it’s because of all of the struggles that black women face. It would be an injustice to turn away from that. The world sees me as a black woman and I am happy to be the result of all the black woman that raised me. I am and always will be a black woman first but I am content living in the world as a black person.