Reykjavík Grapevine - aug. 2021, Síða 9

9 The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 08— 2021
or how people saw me. That changed pretty
soon and I felt 'agender' wasn't appropri-
ate anymore. Since then, I haven't really
been able to come to a conclusion about it. I
don't have much of a strong gender identity,
which would point to agender, but still I'm
not completely sure. It's a tough call to make.
I sometimes use the label 'trans feminine'
because I think it describes me well most of
the time. But otherwise I'm just comfortable
with 'nonbinary'."
When asked to describe what gender
even is, things begin to get more nebulous.
Ari Logn describes themselves as a gender
abolitionist, citing how the concept “seems
to completely control what we are ‘allowed’
to do or be.” Regn believes that “each and
every person on this planet has their own
gender,” as no two people will have the
same understanding of what their gender—
whether assigned at birth or discovered in
time—means to them. Reyn, for their part,
takes a whimsical approach, saying, “I always
think of this sign I've seen in pictures from
some Pride parade which said: 'People think
gender is male and female, when actually
it's just a big ball of wibbly-wobbly gendie-
wendie stuff'. I agree with that.”
Getting to know
you
If you’re raised in a binary community, how
do you even come to understand that you’re
nonbinary? For many, it comes from either
chance representation, or simply meeting
other nonbinary people.
“I never heard the word 'nonbinary' until
I met other nonbinary people,” Regn says.
“I was a really androgynous child. People
wouldn't mistake me for a boy but I felt like a
boy most of the time, since I was like 8 or 9. I
also realised really young that I was pansex-
ual. I came out in 2018, when I was 20. I was
working with children at the time and there
was this tiny little child who pointed at me
and said, 'You're a woman!' and I never felt
so confused in my entire life.
“Then I went into this self-reflection,
asking myself if I was being a misogynist,
like, do I hate women? Why don't I want to
be a woman? I was a really big feminist, I was
the president of the feminist committee at
MH [Menntaskóli vi! Hamrahlí!, a second-
ary school]. So I thought of course I don't hate
women, I love women. What is this? Why am
I reacting like this? This sent me into a spiral
of an existential crisis, and was really reflect-
ing.”
They continue: “Then I met a queer
person at [the nightclub] Gaukurinn during
the summer, and they were like 'how do you
identify?' and I said 'I think I identify as
nonbinary' and it felt so good to say that. I let
people use whatever pronouns they wanted,
so I was always 'she' for like half a year after
that. After I came out, I became so much
more confident in myself, so I started asking
people to use they/them, or hán in Icelandic.”
“I have this memory of seeing Boys Don't
Cry as a kid,” says Ari Logn. “I was just
amazed. There was something in my brain
that was like 'I connect to this'. I watched a
lot of things as a kid and I hadn't connected
to anything like I did to this. I didn't even
really know about gender at that age; I just
saw it and thought ‘this makes sense.’ Having
that experience as a really young person, It
took me some time to realise how transness
related to me, though.
“My life hasn't really been very traditional,
so I really didn't have gender expectations
put on me by family, apart from 'you have a
vagina so you're a woman'. If there had been
pressure I never noticed it, anyway. I feel good
about that. But you notice society putting
expectations on you, which subconsciously
puts in your head that you have to do things a
certain, very ‘traditional’ and capitalistic way
to be a successful human. That has definitely
had an impact on me, and that's why I felt
such relief when I realized I could just be ‘me’.
I'd say that in the last five years since coming
back to Iceland I've definitely settled a lot
more into being comfortable in my skin as a
nonbinary person. I would say it's definitely
safer for me to be who I am here, compared
to the UK. I have a lot of privilege as a white
Icelander.”
Not wanting to
bother anyone
A common theme that came up in these
interviews was not wanting to make binary
people feel scared or uncomfortable when
confronted with the reality of nonbinary
people. This desire to spare the feeling, real
or imagined, of binary people can keep many
nonbinary people in the closet, months or
even years after understanding their own
gender identities. Another closeting force
is growing up in a binary culture and having
societal expectations based on one’s assigned
gender at birth foisted upon you.
“When I hit puberty I had a lot of guy
friends, and they sort of expected me to
become a woman,” Regn says. “They kind
of all slowly evaporated around me, which
was really hard, so I became preoccupied
with male approval, which is really bad
for anyone. I became really obsessed with
becoming as feminine as I possibly could; I
wore dresses all the time, I did a lot of tradi-
tionally feminine things even though I didn't
really care for them. That led to eating disor-
ders, depression, I was just very sad all the
time.
“Then I went to MH, which is a school that
has a reputation for [allowing students] to be
whoever [they] want to be. When I figured
out that I was nonbinary, everything just fell
into place and made sense in a way that I
could actually feel comfortable with myself.
Being my whole, true self, which is so liber-
ating and I still feel so blessed that I actually
came to this conclusion. I've never looked
back.”
Adds Reyn, “I think if there was any exter-
nal pressure, it would have been from society
as a whole, media and maybe some friends—
most of my friends for most of my life have
been straight cis boys, who have a tendency
to maybe think more about these things than
some other groups might.”
“I wasn't really bound by these things at
all, but I did start to notice after I realised
I was nonbinary that these expectations are
everywhere. Continuously being labelled by
gendered terms by other people. You can
never just be a person. I think that's what
bothered me the most, because I wasn't
following gendered expectations. Coming
out helped with that, because I could finally
have a reason for not wanting people to
address me in certain ways. I think also, to
some extent, it alleviates some of the pres-
sure to conform to societal norms. It was
mostly just a relief to be able to stop pretend-
ing that there was nothing going, so as to
not rock the boat before I was ready. People
understand better now why I feel the way I do
and why I've been the way I am.”
“I think a lot of people are scared of nonbi-
nary people, because we're not comfort-
able,” Ari Logn says. “We're outside of
society's comfort. I've sensed in people that
I've encountered this uncomfortableness. I
don't really know how to address it though.
I've tried, like 'hey these are my pronouns, no
big deal, if you want information I can give
it’. And I try to give information but some
people will just make you feel bad about even
stating and asserting your pronouns or iden-
tity. Funnily enough I’ve encountered a lot of
well meaning people who think that because
I’m not woman, I’m automatically 'man'. It's
the other default. I will have men, more of
the time, asking if it's OK to use 'he' instead.
I'll say 'hán' and they'll hear 'hann'. It's like
they realised that it's 'not woman' so they go
to 'the other one'. But there's more than just
man or woman.”
Confronting
misconceptions
Even after coming out, nonbinary people will
very often find themselves having to contin-
uously educate binary people on who they are
and what their gender identities mean.
"You see around
you soci-
ety putting
expectations
on you. It puts
in your head
that you have
to do things a
certain way to
be a successful
human."
"I always think
of this sign I've
seen in pictures
from some Pride
parade which
said: 'People
think gender
is male and
female, when
actually it's just
a big ball of
wibbly-wobbly
gendie-wendie
stuff'. I agree
with that."Some of those aforementioned wibbly-wobbly gendie-wendies