It was in my notes. But I had interviewed a dozen nonbinary people by phone before traveling to Maryland, one of several states where “Gender X” legislation was under consideration. Some of the biographical details had blurred in my mind. And now it seemed rude to ask.

After all, why did I need to know? Many nonbinary people I had talked with had already asked me not to mention whether they had been assigned female or male at birth, to deter readers from making false presumptions. I couldn’t imagine how the information would change what I asked or how I acted. Yet I could not quiet the part of my mind that insisted on guessing. It felt too much like I was flying blind.

Mx. Fogel wore jeans and a button-down shirt. For the average woman, they were a bit tall, I calculated, or maybe they were a touch shorter than the average man. The pitch of their voice was moderate, their blond hair cut short.

It wasn’t much to go on. I considered surreptitiously opening the file with my earlier notes, but I was busy taking new ones as they told me how information on nonbinary gender identities had been hard to come by just a few years earlier.