Being invisibly non-binary

I’ve written about how I’m passionate about being visible and not hiding who I am. My hope is others see people like them out in the world, living their lives, and they feel confident enough to do the same. Unless it’s a big queer event like Pride, I never see someone like me on the streets which is why I feel it is important for me to be that person others see. Until this week, when angry white men (and depressingly, boys too) took to the streets of my home city and made themselves extremely visible.

The past 3 years of being out and visibly non-binary have been a shocking revelation into how everyday bigotry is. I’ve faced this from family, people I thought were friends, “nice” folk I followed on social media, “nice” local community folk and strangers. If I feel brave and go out in a skirt in the hope I can change the world I face attacks from men. For 3 years I’ve tried to face this with a smile, but the rioting on the streets has made me very afraid of going outside. I look different. I stand out. I don’t feel safe. I find myself unable to enjoy wandering the streets with a camera anymore. If, on an average day, men are completely fine to attack me on my doorstep what about when they’re drunk and backed by a gang?

On the day of the riots in Liverpool, I was planning on going to Trans Pride in Manchester. A trip that would have required a bus into Liverpool and a train to Manchester. While preparing an even more daring outfit than what I wore to Liverpool Pride, because I’ve got to keep pushing myself, I checked Instagram. There was a post saying that a group of fascists would be shouting at a train station a few streets over from where the Pride March would end. I would be going on my own and even if I dressed down I had a freshly dyed hot pink beard. I’m quite visible and that has made me a target in recent years. I decided, mainly because I currently have quite bad back pain, to skip the Manchester event.

Instead, I went to Liverpool to have lunch with my wife’s knitter friends… I guess technically my friends too. One day brain, you’ll accept human connection… one day. During lunch, the anti-fascist protest came past and I went out to take a few photos. I was instantly photographed by a man with a big camera. I smiled, waved and chose to believe that they were an ally. I have to keep reminding myself that people are mostly good and not to fear folk with cameras, especially as I’m folk with cameras. Yet, it’s exhausting having my daily life become content for others. I’m reminded of the woman who was filmed walking through New York to show all the encounters with men that she had.

Years ago, when I first had my nails painted, I posted on social media about how if I felt scared I could simply take the nail polish off. Today it’ll take me a bit longer to remove hair dye, and nail polish and find something bland in the wardrobe but I can fade into the background. It makes me depressed to do so, but I’ll take that over being attacked.

What if I couldn’t? While I can cosplay as a boring privileged white man to avoid being attacked, what if I couldn’t? All those fears I have because of how I look, what if I couldn’t change how I appear to the world? People are living that right now. I’m scared, how must they be feeling?

With mobs attacking people who are different to them, and people constantly filming me or looking at me with disgust for how I look, I feel unable to live my life in the way I want to. It’s mentally exhausting and I need that energy to do photography commissions for paying clients. The only solution I can see is to tone down my look and cosplay as a bland man. Depressing as that sounds, it would make life easier.

On being visibly you in NYC

I'm going to put a warning before this video because it is upsetting. I haven't had the physical encounters this person has (yet), but definitely the verbal ones.