Sometimes it’s like being invisible. Watching as eyes pass over you, or even stare through you, without ever focusing properly. Brushing your fingers over the spines of books that have magic and dragons but no one who feels like you. Scrolling through Netflix with much the same result. Filling out forms with two options: MALE or FEMALE?

Other times you can’t get out of the spotlight. You watch as strangers debate your very existence, your basic human rights, how “grammatically correct” your pronouns are – they demand to see proof, your birth certificate, your baby pictures, your genitals.

“What are you”, they demand. And if they do not like it, you are not permitted to exist.

It’s more than the bad though. It’s more than just being afraid or frustrated or angry. It’s looking at your name- your real true name – written on a birthday card for the first time. It’s having a lecturer using your pronouns in class. It’s having your boss outline their inclusivity policy for all queer kids, non-binary kids included. It’s finding friends who see you, who feel like you, who respect and love you like it’s as easy as breathing.

It’s seeing the world in a totally different way. Seeing how we structure and order our society and how paper-thin the walls that box us in are. It’s being twilight instead of day or night, beautiful and magic.

What does non-binary feel like?

Wonderful. Terrible. Free.