I am black. I am nonbinary. To any other enben of colour,
I see you.
I know how you are treated in your ethnic culture, in your family. How they tell you "it's a white thing" even though it was your vibrantly-gendered culture that was steamrolled into a binary by Western colonisers. I know how it feels to not be able to use your correct pronouns in your mother tongue because no one knows the neopronouns you have to use in your binary gendered language. I know how you try to mix and explore sides of your native culture that you have never explored before. That you never knew you could blend so euphorically back when you used to live under the binary. I know the guilt you feel for not fitting in, for not being able to pass up your racialised binary gender experience. The ethic sisterhood, the racialised brotherhood. I know how it feels, to be able to pass as something amongst white people, but then the sweetness of that is taken from you as you remember that it is rooted in the racist binarism that continues to subjugate the binary members of your race. I know how to feels to feel invisible in the non-binary community, when most of our representation is white. I know how it feels to view androgyny or gender neutrality as impossible unless you are white; it was the same feeling you felt towards masculinity and femininity when you were binary gendered. I know how it feels to want to transition in a masculine or feminine way, but remembering those who pass as men or women in your ethnicity get killed and sexually assaulted at random by the system. I know how it feels to not want to risk it, to want to hide forever. I see you. I. See. You.
But I do not only know your struggle. I know the beauty of finding other enben of colour, who understand the intersections, the history. I understand the joy that is uncovering that history before colonialism, of the many different genders and modalities of you ancestors gone by. I know the smile that comes on your face when your chosen family (which can include blood relation) uses the right pronouns, the right neopronouns. I know the understanding that it's okay to still understand your racialised binary experience will forever be a part of you that white trans people might not understand. I know the joy of expression through hair, and the absolute ecstasy that comes when you too will realise that androgyny and gender neutrality is not just for white people, not just in white expression. It works in your ethnicity too. I know the feeling of peace that comes from being gendered in your desired way by a member of your race, realising you are surpassing the binarist system.
I know the feeling of great pain that comes from being an enban of colour, a black enban to be specific, but I also know the feelings of great beauty that you get from that intersection. It gets dark sometimes, but there is joy to be found. There is community to be found. There is unity to be found. There is life to be found as an enban/enby of colour. We are strong and we shine brighter than the sun.
