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My name is Claire. I'm a girl. Or a girl-thing. Or one of those wavey arm men at a car dealership. Depends on the day really. I'm some sort of in-between of all of it. And that's the thing about gender — it's really fucking complicated.
I will not explain myself, and I will not listen to reason, for I am a nonbinary girl, and you'll all just have to live with that.
Yes, I'm your sister. And yes, I'm your girlfriend. But I'm also none of those things, you know? I have this weird ick that I’d never want to be a woman. But I am a girl deep down inside. Just... a nonbinary one.
Some days I wake up and I wish I could carve my boobs off with a butcher knife, and other days I wish I had a push-up bra. There are times when wearing a skirt sounds like a public-torture mechanism, and there are times when skirts are the only thing that feel right. Every day I'm confronted with the question: Who am I? And the problem is, it changes every time.
I really love being a girl. They get certain privileges others don't have. I get to own a million stuffed animals and wear copious amounts of jewelry without a second look. I get to be complimented on the street by other beautiful girls, connected to them through our girlhood.
I identify strongly with the idea of girlhood. I grew up female, and these experiences shaped me in unfathomable ways. I can't let go of something so integral to who I am, yet woman doesn't speak to me the same way.
A woman is refined. A woman is discerning. A woman is some made-up concept. Yet, that concept is something I just don't feel is me.
I had a friend tell me one time that I speak like a man. What a compliment, truly. I love my masculine speech patterns, but I'm no man. A man is strong. A man is aloof. A man is also some made-up concept that has nothing to do with me.
A boy, on the other hand, is something I can relate to. Boys are innocent, playful, confused. I would love to be a boy. But never a man.
So where does that leave me? I'm neither a man, nor a woman, yet I'm a boy and a girl. I ask this question on paper, and I have no answer. Is it my youth that makes me feel such a way? Is this just some inability to fathom adulthood confused with gender dysphoria? Who knows? Certainly not me.
Sometimes I act the way a boy would and others how a girl would. Sure, there are tomboys and femboys and all the other stuff in between. But none of that fits.
I remember I first changed my pronouns when I was 16. I was drunk off a bottle of strawberry lemonade Svedka and turned to my best friend at the time, simply saying — should I be bad? I'm not sure what "bad" meant in that context; maybe it meant rebellious, maybe it meant nothing at all. I just knew in that moment that womanhood wasn't for me.
I'm not here to be the gender police. You may disagree with this all you want, but it doesn't change the fact that I'm proudly a nonbinary girl — straddling the gender spectrum and holding on for dear life. It's a complicated place to be in, yet, I'm in it. And I wouldn't want it any other way.
Edited by Savannah Dagupion, Leah Mesquita and Audrey Eagerton.
This story is part of The Contrast Issue, which was released on March 26, 2025. See the entire publication here.
Reach the reporter at cageare@asu.edu and follow @notevilclaire on X.
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