My two kids, my husband and I were at an outdoor picnic table at Roberta’s pizza on a chilly day in Brooklyn when our then-7-year-old declared that they were nonbinary.
The kids had finished eating their plain cheese pizzas and were goofing around, giddy to be eating at a restaurant after endless pandemic meals at home. In the middle of the hand-slapping game they were engaged in, my oldest said something to my youngest about them becoming a dad one day. Our 7-year-old let out an exasperated yell, like they had hit some kind of boiling point.
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“I’m not a he or a she!” they said, their fists clenched. “I’m nonbinary, call me they.”
They had been telling us that they’d felt “a little like a boy and a little like a girl” since they were about 3, but this was the first time they put a label, and a pronoun, to that feeling. My husband and I were both blown away and very proud of them for so confidently asserting their young identity.
My family lives in a picturesque Brooklyn neighbourhood, where many of the historic brownstones have rainbow flags in windows. Most people here would probably identify as being liberal-leaning. However, even before this moment, we had already experienced some of the challenges of raising our gender nonconforming child in a world that is so wedded to binaries.
When our child was in second grade, we were all surprised at how easily the other kids in class adapted to using their pronouns (they/them/theirs) correctly. One teacher even told me that when someone accidentally misgendered our child, using a pronoun that does not reflect their gender identity, the other students were quick to correct them. The parents of those kids from school, on the other hand, have had a harder time accepting our child’s identity.
Our child is often misgendered. People look at them, with their long hair, pink-hued outfits and rainbow Crocs, and assume they’re a girl. And as progressive as Brooklyn can seem, the reality is that many of the everyday spaces our family encounters are gendered ones, from play spaces to dance classes. When our child took ballet a few years ago, the teacher often asked the little girls to imagine they were fairies or princesses but wasn’t quite sure what to say to my child. One year, our child’s teacher struggled to switch to “folks” or “friends” instead of addressing the students as “boys and girls.” Our local school waits until kids are in fifth grade before introducing students to the topic of gender identity.
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And it was only as recently as 2021 that New York City public schools were finally required by law to designate all single-occupancy bathrooms as all-gender bathrooms. Attitudes across the country toward the LGBTQ+ community seem to only be getting worse. In fact, in the last year alone we’ve seen an explosion of anti-LGBTQ+ laws aimed at limiting trans and nonbinary people’s rights and safety. In 2024, a Manhattan parent-led advisory board called on the Department of Education to revisit guidelines on trans girls’ sports participation. Most recently, President-elect Donald Trump has been spreading rhetoric about schools performing gender-affirming surgeries on students.
As a preschooler, our child enjoyed some of their brother’s toys but mostly gravitated toward what would be considered “girly” toys and interests — princesses, every character in the ”Frozen” movie, playing dress-up with tutus and dresses — and preferred female friends as playmates. When they asked us to draw a picture of them, they would get frustrated.
“No, draw me as a girl,” they’d say.
Some days they’d say they wished they could grow up to be a girl. After a while, it was clear to us that our child’s identity lived somewhere in between the two poles of “male” and “female” and that those coordinates were fluid.
Sometime around third grade, I noticed their classmates had begun separating into groups of male and female. I saw it at drop-off and pickup, where the girls would congregate in circles on the sidewalk to chat while the boys would start roughhousing and talking about soccer. Our child gravitated toward the girls’ circles, as this group shared similar interests (imaginary play, an obsession with cats, a love of stuffies and schoolyard dramas).
When we talked with them about their friendships at school, they said they were “friends with everyone.” But when it came to playdate requests and stories about who they hung out with at recess, it was mostly girls. I also noticed how the moms of the girls would plan playdates and sleepovers for their kids, and how we were never a part of those invitations. It was hurtful. I’ve wondered how it must feel for my child to hear about these gatherings knowing they hadn’t been included or to wonder why I was unable to make certain playdates they had requested happen.
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I knew it wasn’t the kids who were responsible for their own social calendars. My child seemed to be very well-liked by their peers. Their friends would come up to me, arms linked with my child’s, asking when they could have a playdate. Again and again, I reached out to parents to plan get-togethers for our kids, and again and again, there was always a reason why it couldn’t come to fruition. (There were, however, a few exceptions, and those are the parents I value dearly.) I began to think it was me.
Parents in our grade tend to do “girls’ parties” and “boys’ parties” as a way to make things more wallet (and apartment) friendly. Sometimes my child is invited to both, as the only nonbinary kid at an all-boy or all-girl party. One day last year, as the kids trickled out of the side doors of the school and found their respective grownups along the sidewalk, one of my child’s friends came running to her mom to ask why my child hadn’t been invited to her birthday. The mom smiled at me apologetically and said to her daughter, “I thought you wanted just girls.”
“They’re not a boy or a girl,” the girl responded. “They’re my friend.”
Photo Courtesy Alexis Barad-Cutler
A few weekends ago, my child was finally invited to their first slumber party. They had been talking about this party since before school ended last year and had been constantly asking me if I had received the invitation yet. The birthday girl had invited them multiple times and repeatedly told them about the activities she had planned for her soiree (face masks, a movie, waffles the next morning).
For the first time, I wondered if this really was an oversight and not a slight, so I did something I’d never done before. We’d recently sent out electronic bar mitzvah invitations for our older child and about 40 of them had not been received, having gone straight to spam. It took everything in me to send a text to the birthday girl’s mothers, asking if the same thing might have happened with their invitation.
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“We’re sorry,” the moms wrote back. “We were trying to keep it small, because we can’t fit everyone in our apartment. But we love your child, and would love it if they could come.”
I was embarrassed that this wasn’t a case of “it got lost in the mail” but very grateful for their graciousness and the invite. I’d never seen my kid pack their fuzzy, bear-shaped travel bag so fast as they did the morning of the sleepover party. As we walked the dog and picked up a chocolate macaroon at the cafe behind our apartment, they told me that they had a plan for when it came time to change into pajamas.
“I’ll change in the bathroom,” they said. “To give the girls privacy.” That night I was with friends at a sushi restaurant, celebrating my husband’s birthday. I kept looking at my phone with dread, imagining the text or call from the parents telling me that it wasn’t working out and that we’d have to come get them. I couldn’t stop worrying about potential moments when my child’s gender identity could make them, or the others, uncomfortable.
The next morning, they came home from their sleepover giddy (and surprisingly well rested). They showed me the pink and purple tie-dye shirt they’d made and told me about how great a movie “A League of Their Own” was even though they “hate baseball” (their words).
“Oh, and mom,” they added. “Everyone took turns changing in the bathroom by themselves. Not just me.” When they said this to me, it confirmed that this had indeed been on their mind that night. And, it meant something to them that the other kids at the party decided to change in the privacy of the bathroom. I imagine it helped my child not feel singled out and made them feel even safer.
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At 10 years old, my child is super confident, comfortable in their body and still very much gender nonconforming in the ways they express themselves, their hobbies and their interests. They no longer want to wear dresses but, rather, dress for ultimate comfort. They intend to keep growing out their already long hair. And they still tell us that they feel like both a boy and a girl.
Any parent will tell you that the minute you think you have one thing down, another one comes up that you’d never expected. As a parent of a nonbinary kid, and especially as we enter the middle school years with our child, I know these curveballs will become even more complex and with bigger potential consequences. Trans and nonbinary folks suffer disproportionately from mental health issues. A 2020 survey led by Trevor Project found that more than half of the trans and nonbinary youth (ages 13 to 24) respondents seriously considered attempting suicide. On the legislative level, our country is becoming ever more dangerous for LGBTQ+ kids. There have been more anti-LGBTQ+ bills introduced in statehouses this year than in each of the previous five years. It can feel bleak out there at times.
When we became parents, my husband and I knew very little about the huge spectrum of ways a person can express their gender identity. We didn’t even know that being gender nonconforming was an option until our child embodied it for us, and pushed us to learn and challenge our preconceptions and biases. We’ve met with child therapists, we’ve read a lot of articles and books, and we’ve spoken to other parents of trans and nonbinary kids. We continue to be open to the possibility that things might shift for our child as they mature.
As with so many things, change starts in the home. My hope is that other parents can also learn to take some cues from their kids, who I think have a lot to teach all of us about inclusion and acceptance.
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