Before I got my first period, I was 100% convinced the doctor declared my gender wrong when I was born. I didn’t consider myself a boy, exactly, but I knew they were wrong saying I was a girl. I used to stand in the bathroom, look at myself in the mirror and wonder if this is what I was supposed to look like.
When I was in elementary and middle school, I didn’t hear a single word uttered about queer identities. I don’t know what it’s like for younger nonbinary kids now, but I couldn’t have found the words for what I was feeling without having friends who were going through similar things.
Now looking back, I realize the intense feelings I had for my best friend in fifth grade would mark my first crush on a girl. But I only realized this after one of my close friends started dating a girl when we were freshmen in high school. That same year, one of my friends came out as a transgender guy.
At the time, I didn’t understand what that meant. Thankfully, Tumblr existed, and I went down a rabbit hole where I discovered an array of identities previously unknown to me. I saw the term “nonbinary,” and something just clicked.
When I was in middle school, my clothes were almost exclusively chosen by my mother: blouses and skirts in pink and sequins. Then, one day in sixth grade, I was playing in the woods with my best friend. There was a stream behind their house, and we would cross it using a few branches we threw together.
One day, when I was trying to cross our makeshift branch bridge, it broke. I fell into the stream, and my clothes were soaked. I borrowed a pair of jeans and an old black t-shirt from a lemonade fundraiser from my friend while my clothes were in the dryer.
It was a simple outfit, but when I looked in the mirror, I felt happier with my appearance than I had in a long time. That feeling, which I later learned was gender euphoria, stayed with me.
In junior high, I chased that feeling. My wardrobe slowly became an exclusive collection of jeans, graphic t-shirts and band sweatshirts. I stopped wearing makeup, and I cut my hair short. When my mom said I looked like a boy, it felt like a compliment.
It confused me at the time, but when I learned about nonbinary identities, it began to make sense. The way I felt when I looked in the mirror, the dread of shopping for clothes, feeling like the doctors were wrong about me — it was all part of this gender category that no one had ever spoken about.
My journey with my gender identity remains ongoing. When I started my undergraduate program at the Savannah College of Art and Design, it was integral to me that everyone viewed me as “not girl.” I dressed hypermasculine and smiled to myself when strangers in the south couldn’t choose whether to address me by “sir” or “ma’am.”
The problem, though, was I was trying to fit myself into another box. Instead of presenting how everyone expected me to present myself as a girl, I was doing everything I could to adhere to how everyone expected me not to present myself. It was, in short, exhausting.
But by my junior year of college, I gave up trying to decide what people expected or didn’t expect of me. It was time to just be Julien, and it was up to me — and only me — to decide what that meant.
I found clothes that wouldn’t pin me down as super masculine or hyper feminine. I kept my short hair, but I learned to embrace makeup again. By the time I graduated, I was finally at a point where I had my own style, and my friends could see it too.
Everyone’s journey looks different, and this is only the beginning of mine. But that’s one of the beautiful parts of being in the LGBTQ+ community: There are no rules and no single mold you’re supposed to fit into. In a time when so many people are trying to tell us there’s something wrong with us, there’s bravery in embracing who you are — and showing the world just how beautiful that can be.