The Demigirl OR why I decided to publicly say I am non-binary
Dear you,
Let’s talk about pronouns for a minute.
According to Oxford Languages, a pronoun is:
A word that can function as a noun phrase used by itself and that refers either to the participants in the discourse (e.g. I, you ) or to someone or something mentioned elsewhere in the discourse (e.g. she, it, this ).
In many languages, pronouns have a gender. In English, French or Spanish, for example, pronouns are gendered. In some cases, like in French, this doesn’t only apply to people but to EVERYTHING! The table is female, the desk is male. The shower is female, the bath is male. The keyboard is male, the mouse is female. Don’t ask me what the rules are, there are none, you just need to know
… It doesn’t make sense even if you try… A television is a she, a computer is a he, a giraffe is a she, a dog a he… There are languages that make it a little easier for students to learn like English where objects are “it”, but people are either male or female.
On the other end of the spectrum, there are languages where pronouns have no genders. The first time I heard of this possibility, which had never occurred to me before as a French-English speaker was when my Estonian friend at Uni told me that in Estonian, pronouns have no grammatical gender. This left me perplexed and I wondered, how do you then know if the person you are talking about is male or female? This was year before the pronoun debate started and at that time, I didn’t realize it was possible to not be male or female and that being non-binary was a possibility.
I have never felt like a normal woman, but I have never wished to be a man. I have spent my whole life feeling somewhat in between, but closer to a woman than a man and although I thought it was somewhat uncomfortable at times, I thought it was just how it was to be me. My femininity and I have not been best friends and I have felt awkward being a feminine woman according to western society standards all my life. I felt more like a clumsy tomboy with long curly hair who wanted to play sports, wear as little makeup as possible and only wear pants.
For years I feared becoming a mother as I didn’t feel that I would fit the role. My mother gene, which I have, can show extreme care, but I enjoy being fun, playing pranks, throwing my son in the air and chasing my daughter around the dining room table. I work long hours, I come home, make a mess with the kids, laugh and play… My wife often gets exasperated that I got the kids overly excited 5 minutes before bedtime and I apologize each time. If one only read this without knowing me, one would think I am a typical dad. But I am not… I am a mom who doesn’t fully identify as a woman. And if someone really needed to give me a label, I’d say that I am a demiwoman or what is also often referred to as a demigirl.
According to Gender wiki, a Demigirl is:
A demigirl (also called a demiwoman, demilady or a demifemale person) is a gender identity describing someone who partially, but not fully, identifies as a woman, girl or otherwise feminine, whatever their assigned gender at birth.
If someone was to ask me about my identity on a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is being male and 10 is being female, I’d answer that I am a 6 or a 7 on a day where I feel more connected to my feminine side. But does this really matter? For a long time, I have wondered if it did. Do people need to know that I am a demigirl? Do people need to know that I have always felt non-binary, even before I could put words to it? Do people care? Do I need to come out again, this time, not as a lesbian, but as non-binary person? For a long time, I thought it didn’t matter and most importantly, that it would confuse people and that I would struggle to explain how it feels to feel as a demigirl and in between genders. But then I got the kids and faced my struggled with motherly femininity and it became more and more obvious to me that I am non-binary. I felt different from other moms I spent time with and I did what I do best, google everything I could about being nonbinary, what it means, how it feels, etc. As I concluded that I was most likely a 6 on the male-female scale and greatly enjoyed my mom-dad role, I wondered if I should I tell the world I am non-binary? Do I have this need? Does anyone care? Although I don’t think it really matters in my particular case, some kids are struggling to find themselves, just as I did for years. They don’t feel that they fit the conventional definition of their gender and they want to be themselves. I am an almost 40 year old woman with a family, a steady job and I am filled with gratefulness for the LGBTQ+ people that came before me and made it possible for me to marry a woman and have children with her. Therefore, I decided to pay my dues forward and publicly, on LinkedIn and Instagram, showcase my pronouns. I am a she/they. By doing so, by stating that you can call me she or they, I hope to raise awareness and acceptance so that some young kids out there can be just who they are when they are ready to show the world who that is. I hope that my peers in the business world realize, by seeing on my LinkedIn posts and comments my pronouns that they know a she/they and that I am just a person like everyone else. That being non-binary isn’t a distant reality from a different world or era but that I am right here and they know me. Maybe this will lead them to ask me questions or get them better prepared for the day where their child will say, I don’t feel binary.
I will continue to be the mom-dad that I am. I have learned to be comfortable with the very little femininity that I have and that I don’t need to live up to some society standard of what being a woman means. I will continue to appreciate that my breasts have reduced in size since I lost weight and that I am simply a demigirl, a she/they and that after years of keeping this to myself, it feels good to tell the world that I am non-binary.
Talk soon,
Laurence
P.S. You know the song “Man, I feel like a woman” by Shania Twain? Although it’s a great song to dance to at an office party, I have never understood or related to the lyrics… just saying :P
Visit my website: https://www.laurencepaquette.com/
