The Feminine Non-Binary

I was assigned female at birth. This means a doctor saw my little body and proclaimed “It’s a GIRL!” My mom (half-awake) exclaimed: “Dorothy!” (because she wanted my name to reflect her favorite old aunt) The story goes that the doctor laughed and asked if we were going to move to Kansas, and my dad said that we weren’t, but were going to buy a dog (presumably to be called Toto). We didn’t move to Kansas (stayed in SoCal my whole life), I never had a dog (have a stuffed bear named Toto, though), and that’s not all they got wrong.

Throughout my young life, I was raised aggressively female. Though my mom sported a Tomboy Hairstyle and Levi’s most of my life, she stuffed me into pink dresses with lace and put ribbons in my hair. She tried so desperately to force me into the femininity that she felt to have failed at in herself. However, her dreams were not my reality. My favorite outfit was the first one that I had picked out for myself: a pair of black bike shorts, a red t-shirt, a black vest (hey, it was the 80's!) and a black bowler hat. I felt so like myself for the first time. In high school, I wore button down shirts with a tie and flare leg jeans (in 1998, turns out I should have kept them). My mom praised me when I wore a skirt or did makeup (despite almost never having done so herself) well into my 30’s. She did so far after I first heard the term “gender fluid” and even after I came out as non-binary.

I was about 35 when I decided to discard my birth name of “Dorothy”, though I still allow certain people to use it. I don’t hate it, but…