Non-Binary Is Not a Noun: The Trial of “Don’t Call Me Girl”

Y’all ever watch Cold Case?

Before I get into it—this essay is about the trial of a simple nonbinary ask: “please don’t call me girl.”

I remember, when I was 13 years old, I watched this cold case episode about a 16 year old girl named Sam, whose murder case was reopened because it was suspected she may have been murdered for dressing like a boy.  I purposely chose not to rewatch the episode cause I want to remember what the “me” from that age, saw.  And tell you.

So, the investigators got most of her story from an old friend of hers, Dom, who they presume to be a witness.  His story unfolds, and it gets deep. He talks about how the town and the school stigmatized her but she was insistent on remaining who she was. There was a scene where a young Dom and Sam are reasoning with each other.  Sam’s hair is short and she’s in this opened up collared shirt with a muscle shirt underneath I think. He asks her “well what is it then? Do you like boys or do you like girls?” She replies “I like you.” And they kiss. There’s a youthful tenderness to it.  But later on essentially the girl is institutionalized for “gender deviance.”  Dom visits her and realizes she’s been given electroshock treatment, which has ruined her mind.  She looks up at him listlessly and she’s wearing bright red lipstick. She asks Dom, slurring: “do I look pretty?”

Dom, realizing the person she was had been destroyed in the name of gender correction, smothered the shell of what was left with a pillow.

That scene never left me.  Her fractured psyche , that bright red lipstick, this phrase she uttered.  It showed how everyone around her basically felt it was so important for her to be a girl, that if she was to be that and nothing else, then it was worth it.  The only thing she was to care about, was looking pretty.  And someone close enough to her for a kiss, knew from seeing her like that, that she was gone.

So we can say the episode suggests that genderfluidity has been a point of contention in society at least since 1963. 2007, if you insist the episode is purely fiction.

So people acting brand new about it like the conversation has never been had, like it’s never existed before, is beyond me.

You claim you’ve never heard of it.  But you imply that because it’s new to you, that you’re entitled to a walkthrough, and people who don’t oblige you on that are being dogmatic and forcing their “beliefs” down your throat. This is the only reasonable way to account this gap—it’s never had to be real to you, until this moment (allegedly) and now you’re adjusting to having to take something seriously that you used to be able to tune out.

And maybe it’s a test, to see if I’m the one that’s stupid.  If I engage it all wide eyed and disarmed looking to bring love and light to the people. Maybe it’s that.

What I do know ultimately, is there’s something fishy about expecting nonbinary people to audition their worth to you.

The “show me your papers” game is never the same thing twice.  Sometimes you have to explain “biology.”  Sometimes you have to talk about the earliest time you felt like this, and there’s this arbitrary cutoff to where if it isn’t early enough, then it can easily be written off as a phase. Sometimes you have to be a lawyer and start citing statutes or the three branches of government.

But it always starts very simple: “please don’t call me girl.”

Not even the pronouns , right? I’ve even let that go.

It’s just this ONE thing: “please don’t call me girl.”

And I even say please.

The person begins to engage, cloaking all of their judgment under this idea that they “don’t understand”.  The human in you that values dialogue and enjoys expressing your truth and shedding light on things.

But you begin to see that “I don’t understand” doesn’t mean “based on my understanding I have an openness and curiosity about gaining a deeper understanding.” It means “based on my understanding, I don’t find it valid.”

What sounds like an innocent question, turns into a clarifying question, then into a debate.  Then you find yourself defending yourself against coded insults.  And then you realize the entire discussion has become a tribunal. Strawmen and red herrings start spilling everywhere, and we’re talking about every topic known to man.

“Well I don’t get nonbinary, because the earth rotates counterclockwise and millions of people died in World War 2 and the average bmi has increased exponentially over the past 10 years, so I don’t get why the younger generations are so sensitive these days.”

Well, for one,

“Nonbinary” is not a noun.

It’s often reframed as one, so it can be a THING, like a coat to be taken off or an appendix to be cut out.

But it’s not a noun.  It is a descriptor of the embodiment of my being.  It’s not a THING, that you can grasp in your hand and inspect and poke holes into and throw away.  It is my personhood.

But if I say that, or offer any truth to counter something objectively false or harmful they are saying, then I’m the asshole, even though they just claimed they were seeking understanding.  Now it’s about “how you say it.”  No matter how much they’re invalidating you, scoffing at you, showcasing prejudice and ignorance and doubling and tripling down on it…you have to show “decorum.”  You have to baby them through it.

They’re framing you as the “sensitive one” while you’re walking on eggshells around their ignorance.

They’re telling you you don’t know enough about life yet, that’s why you still care so much about this insignificant thing…while simultaneously claiming it’s too complicated for them.

“Most nonbinary people are women.”  “You’re just trading one problem for another.”  “Well you don’t look nonbinary to me.”  “Are you sure you don’t just hate men?” “Well EYE am a woman, so don’t other me!” “Did you always feel this way? Maybe it’s just a phase.” “People aren’t there yet.”

This is when you realize their problem isn’t the way you said it, it’s the fact that you said it at all.  But by the time you realize this is not a misunderstanding, but weaponized incompetence, it’s too late.  You’ve been triggered, picked apart, and denigrated.

30 minutes later, when you are heart-pounding, frustrated, humiliated, and embarrassed , they are thanking you, cause they “really feel like they learned something.”

It’s a clever way to frame the energy vampirism and the labor extraction.  You say “learn” but, you also said you want “understanding.”  But let’s be honest.  You heard “please don’t call me girl,” and decided I owe you something.  So, you GAINED something.  My energy. My time.  My life story.  My emotional bandwidth.  All for you to pick apart however you see fit, so you can regain the authority that is lost over me because of a simple ask: “please don’t call me girl.”

You empty me out , you take the authority to assess how well I took the whole ordeal, and then you walk away feeling like the mature, intellectual, and level headed one.

Just because I said “please don’t call me ‘girl’”.

Sigh.

—-

It’s very weird to watch people create paradigm out of thin air.  They scrape together speculations from podcasts and gossip and , idk where they be getting half of this shit from actually.  But the aim is to correct.  The aim is to identify the flaw in you, the place where you just need a little pep talk, and you’ll go back to that biological assignment where you belong.

It also starts to cross a certain line from, okay here’s a principle, an idea you don’t understand and are even less inclined to validate , fine.  But I’m a human being and I expressed an ask.  One that doesn’t require you to pay money, doesn’t require you to lift more than 20 pounds, doesn’t require you to stop going to church, doesn’t require you to donate any organs,

And you are denying me.  Like let’s put the dialectical showdown aside for a second—honestly, you don’t even have to think it’s true or real.  I can’t control what you talk amongst yourselves about.  I’m not even asking for that.  I just asked “please don’t call me girl.”

But when I say “no” to something , and you keep doing it anyway,

There’s a disrespect there, and a disregard there.  But you don’t care.  Because to you, I just am running from my destiny because I hate men and I didn’t alchemize my PTSD correctly BUT also I’m not mature enough and I haven’t gone through enough to learn how to pick my battles.  Or whatever.

So you insist on booking me for ladies’ night.  You insist on me being on your list for “send this to 5 women you know!”  You insist on “girl” and “sis” and fall back on this “ohh it’s just a grammar little oopsie,”

But if a man told you “stop calling me girl,” you would stop, and you’d do it out of respect.  You wouldn’t make a weird face and start up with all the excuses as to why you’re just not gonna stop.

And where it gets darker for me, is when you see the pipeline.  You’re used to doing this, right? With the cisgender women and girls you know, you scoff at all of their unconventional ideas.  They ask not to be hugged so low and you complain about them being too high strung.  They say they don’t want children and you say they’ll “come around.”  They say they want a career and you pathologize their “hyper independence” and “rugged individualism.”  They say they don’t want to be in a relationship and you stigmatize them like it’s unnatural .  And if they do get pregnant…they say they got a C section and get told they cheated.  They say they want an epidural and they’re judged for taking the easy way out.  After birth , they say they are one and done and now you’re sending them videos of big families with 8 and 10 kids and calling only children weird.

Not to mention how many women confide in me and admit their personal construct of being a woman is at least partially rooted in the ways society has failed their body.  They have painful periods, so they must be a woman. They have incontinence after having kids, so they must be a woman.  They were trafficked as children, so they must be a woman.  And of course, they have kids, however violently, so, they most be a woman.

And just to be balanced here, let me give a quick word to the socialization of manhood. I can’t speak directly the AMAB experience of being nonbinary , because the un-socialization aspects are different.  (“What’s AMAB?” Omg can you please google it?) But in my own waking life, 99% of the time I hear “I’m a man” — it’s to justify some sadistic and cruel act or worldview, offloaded as a natural consequence of testosterone.  “What did you expect me to do? I’m a man!”

“Man” is often asserted as something corrective.  “Man” says “I am here to correct the behaviors of everything around me that doesn’t reflect manhood back to me.”  “Man” says “I am the one with the authority to prescribe laws that everyone in a 6ft radius is required to keep.”  Sounds exhausting.  I think it’s hard to construct a self when yourself is built upon a biological role in reproduction that constantly has to be reinforced by having a dick measuring contest with everything around you.  And I’m not even trying to be funny, I feel genuinely sorry for these folks because someone told them, in order to be a man, you have to constantly assert that you’re a man.  Even if you hurt people, and take people’s agency, or steal their future—all of these are a necessary means to an end, so long as you come out of it having proven, that you’re a man.  And, that sucks.

I also genuinely think people would be less pressed about the gender thing if they didn’t have a certain degree of intelligence assigned to it.  Like some people only feel smart or wise when they are talking about “the divine feminine” or waxing these whimsical theories about “testosterone” and the male nature.  In other words, while constructing gender they tell themselves are uncovering the truth of it.  Solving the mystery of it.  Organizing the sense of it, hashing out the balance…you’ve seen these livestreams right? It’s like 10 on a screen and they’re all talking about relationships and biology and queen and king energy and stuff…and insist after all of that hypnosis that this shit is natural.  Sheesh.  If they can’t lecture you about how “you’re a woman so you are wired to do this and be this,” and “you’re a man so you are wired to do this and be this,” what can we even talk about for the next 2 hours, amirite?

I think the widely accepted social custom of coercive language around the construction of gender, is ultimately designed to obligate reproduction .  Maximal reproduction, at that.  A society is built where people are required to exist within the confines of their purported role on reproduction, AND constantly prove that role.  And I think the only way to truly prove your role in reproduction , is to…reproduce.  Before you reproduce, there are all these mind games and policing over you and what you are doing in life.  And after you reproduce, (well, after you start showing) it metastasizes into this BEAST.  You need to be constantly corralled into prioritizing reproduction.  And the facilitation of reproduction and the art of reproduction and the science of reproduction and the joy of reproduction and the reward of reproduction and the meaning of reproduction.

You have to be what society says that based on YOUR reproductive system, which is in YOU, that you are supposed to be. Otherwise you’re a symptom of the downfall of society.  Not rape.  Not poverty.  Not medical neglect.  Not even fascism.  You.

And I truly mean NOT EVEN FASCISM.  The amount of conversations I’ve had that start with “fascism bad” and end with “well the white man said you had to change that X on your passport so you better do it” is….insane.  And don’t act like you haven’t seen it.  yall love to tear people up and act like they were born in two pieces.  I be so over that.

But I digress.  “Don’t call me girl” is more than semantics. It’s more than comprehension.  It’s about dominance, the refusal of such, and the methodology of punishing that refusal. It’s about the power of naming and the dominion over behavior and expression.

It’s about power itself.