I grew up with everyone using she/her pronouns for me. In my mid-twenties, a nonbinary friend listened when I said I didn't feel like a woman and started using they/them pronouns for me experimentally. It felt right, better than “she” or “her.”
I have never felt like a girl, even though I didn’t know about trans people growing up. I relate much more strongly to being a boy, although I had the experience of growing up socialized as a girl. I describe my experience as being nonbinary, which can mean different things to different people, but generally means outside of the gender binary of woman or man.
I used to have a name that was almost exclusively given to girls. I did not feel my name represented me, a nonbinary person.
If my name was merely illogical, I might have rolled with it. However, once I realized what my name meant to the rest of the world, I felt bad about the way I was representing myself. I feel it in the pit of my stomach when someone makes gendered assumptions about me. It makes me feel a little sick, a little bad about myself, a little hurt. I didn’t like my name. I didn’t care if people mispronounced it because I didn’t like the correct pronunciation better. This went on for several years.
When I finally changed my name, I was uncertain about my choice, but I had reached a breaking point. I did not want people to call me by that name anymore, and “Rey” felt like a relief.
