In my first German course I decided to take the risk (and learning opportunity) and told my teacher that I’m non-binary, and use they/them in English. I asked my teacher about corresponding pronouns in German. She said, respectfully, that she hadn’t come across that before, but would do some research. The next day she came to me with the little information she had found. It helped to the extent that it offered me a space to exist in that class. One that I and my non-binary identity were sure to be swallowed in.

As a non-binary queer person, visibility and representation have become very important to me, as personal and political necessities. Non-binary people are so often unseen, unheard, and rejected as such, which can turn daily life into a challenge for existence. This is not to say that non-binary people are always fighting against their environment or never accepted anywhere; rather, non-binary people are in a constant negotiation with the outside world surrounding gender presentation, recognition, and (in)validation.

I find validation in queer spaces with people who ask for and use (or try/want to use) the pronoun I choose, with people who don’t feel the need to ask me intrusive questions about my body, and with people who care for me and hear my struggles without ‘othering’ me. However, as I can imagine is the case for many, these affirming situations are not so common and it is necessary to leave them in order to live in and engage with society (for example, to go and buy groceries).

When I started identifying as non-binary and using they/them pronouns, these more confronting spaces became a site of and opportunity for self-validation. I valued myself through the notion that my acknowledged presence was both personally and politically important, and that my just showing up is an act of resistance.

I would meet people and actively bring up gender identity, ‘out’ myself in class introduction rounds and ask for neutral pronouns, complain to lecturers about instances of insensitive language, insistently correct certain family members when mis-gendered, and post openly about gender and sexuality online. This facet of identity was so rarely offered space to breath and I took it upon myself to go about my life armed with a gender 101 speech and an oxygen mask. There was so much energy for feeling uncomfortable, for challenging others with my being, to have difficult conversations, and to experience the pains of rejection.

This self-imposition (because it did often feel like an imposition) was isolating and affronting in these moments, it has always been scary. But, there was a political motivation driving me to feel justified in adamantly insisting on and allowing myself to be vulnerable enough to give others the opportunity to SEE me, to RESPECT me, to ACCEPT me, or to reject me.

That’s the risk.

I had come to expect this of myself. As a duty to challenge the status quo, to insert myself as real and valid, and to plant seeds in people’s minds that I hoped would grow into space for my own and other non-binary people’s existence. It became built into my self-concept and daily life. I felt resilient and with all of the other privileges I have in my life, I felt it my duty to be visible for myself and for those who cannot.

But I am profoundly exhausted.

This month, I attended another intensive German course, in which we are often addressing each other with personal pronouns and the teacher is referring to us in gendered ways. This month, I said nothing. I stayed silent and swallowed every notion of gender imposition and digested it as though it were willfully but shamefully eaten.

“I don’t belong, I don’t deserve to belong, I’m not valid, my presence and pronouns are an imposition.”

I thought that I had battled through so many of these intrusive and damaging thoughts. But I find them creeping back. This means putting other people’s comfort and ease above my own well-being and possibility for existence. And it is painful, and shameful, and so very easy to just sit back and let the world be as it is, without disruption. But always being the ‘disruption’ is a taxing quest to embark upon and sometimes it’s necessary to make a compromise with the world, one that serves you best, as a human-being in need of rest, care, and fallibility.

I never wanted to take on the whole world, I just wanted to make sure that those around me were sharing in the work for me to be seen. And that’s the thing: it should be shared-work. It shouldn’t be my or any other non-binary person’s soul responsibility to insert themselves into a situation; they should be asked in, invited, involved, and valued. And maybe it’s unrealistic to imagine a world where that kind of respect is the norm but I don’t think it’s foolish to demand for that which is unrealistic.

In reality, non-binary people will continue to request and demand recognition and it will be exhausting, empowering, painful, joyful, and full of ambivalence, but this is also just the beginning. There are so many seeds that have been planted, are being watered by their keepers, and I grow hope for the future.

If you are a non-binary person and feel invisible in a space, please know that I see you and your will to be seen, and I care. I will you to do what is good for you at any given moment; choose your battles and save your energies for things that lift you. I’ll be here, trying to lift myself too. And when we meet, we can share the weight.