Uncensored: The third gender

For trans and non-binary people, safe spaces are important but elusive.

OpinionsBeN “Bee” Upshaw — Published February 11, 2025 3 minutes

The film depicts Milk’s personal and professional struggles with homophobia. It was interesting to realize how much of the homophobic rhetoric targeting 2SLGBTQIA+ in the 1970s is repeated today, in the 2020s, particularly against trans and non-binary people. 

The film had me reflecting on my own gender and sexuality, and how these identities impact the way we move through the world. As a non-binary trans-femme individual, there are certain spaces where I simply do not feel safe, while other spaces provide me with euphoria and glee. 

Being able to be your authentic self while working is a privilege that most places are unable to accommodate.

When I was working at Walmart, being misgendered was a feature of the job. On the one hand, I didn’t care what others thought. “I accept myself,” was my internal affirmation, mellifluously mingling in my mind. On the other hand, constantly being erroneously gendered takes a toll over time. It’s like a rock in your shoe, a constant reminder that things could be better.

Being in such an environment led me to the dysphoric “I wish I was more feminine” instead of the euphoric “I am feminine.” The solution to this problem is simple: respect pronouns. Respect people’s gender. This is a necessary aspect of any inclusive space.

As with all queer identities, every lived experience is unique. But at bottom, no matter how a person identifies, it is crucial that we can all live authentically without judgement, without ridicule, without harassment. This is what is at stake in the discourse around safe spaces; safe spaces point to a basic human need to be accepted as who we are.

The biggest factor that makes a space friendly to non-binary folks is the people present in the space. Sometimes, allies are refreshingly disinterested in your gender and will take you at your word. Other times, enbies and trans folks are happy to actively listen, to share their own wisdom and lived experiences, and create solidarity.

For me personally, I have transitioned into a non-binary feminine identity, and I reflect on my own safety when going somewhere unfamiliar.

Can I present feminine without being erroneously called a “man” in this space? Are there other like-minded folks who might relate to my experience in big or small ways? Are these people allies? These are the kinds of questions I ask myself when I enter new or unfamiliar spaces, both in the real world and online.

Online spaces are incredibly hard to navigate. Dating apps as a non-binary person are challenging. Aside from individuals who fetishize the genitals of trans people in a dehumanizing way, there are those who simply do not understand non-binary people and their experience of the world.

At one juncture in my dating app misadventures, I was chatting with a cisgender woman, seemingly getting along. But everything changed when my gender identity came up in the conversation, despite clearly articulating how I identified on the profile. This woman felt she had been “tricked,” telling me that she only wanted to talk to “real girls,” and when asked to elaborate, talked about chromosomes. This phenomenon can be called gender essentialism, one of the homophobic rhetorics still present to this day, which in this instance, amounts to bigotry. Was I not femme enough?

Gender essentialism is the belief that gender is some innate, unchanging, biologically deterministic category for people, despite my existence being evidence to the contrary.

This kind of essentialism around gender is problematic because it flies in the face of any attempt at making spaces safe for non-binary and trans people. If everyone in a room says that there are only two genders, I wouldn’t feel comfortable entering that room.

As Simone de Beauvoir writes in her iconic work The Second Sex, “One is not born a woman, one becomes a woman.” Gender being socially constructed means we come into our own as we move through the world. 

I hope for a future where all people, regardless of gender, can do so safely.

This article originally appeared in Volume 45, Issue 9, published February 11, 2025.