Hi, I’ll introduce myself in another post but this is on my mind right now so I’m gonna make this post first.
I am a non binary person who enjoys creating representation for themself to make up for a considerable lack of it elsewhere. That being said, when I was given an assignment to rewrite a fairy tale, I was excited for the opportunity to have a princex story. We were assigned the princess and the pea, which we are now adapting into a dating reality show a la The Bachelor. Now herein lies the problem. The person sought after here is the non binary character, and my group members did not understand how this would work. They expressed concerns about the contestants’ sexualities, the name of the show, explaining the gender thing, and not being offensive- all things I explained could be handled easily and without much need to explain things, really. Yet they persisted, and eventually I excused myself and left the group.
They have since realized that it really isn’t that hard to do this, but the pain I felt persists. The message that was sent to me was that a non binary person could not be the subject of desire, sought after, perhaps even attractive, unless there is some justification for why others would feel that way. Even when others encourage non binary people that we can find partners, the talk of them being “accepting of my identity” makes it feel as though someone could only love me as an act of charity. It doesn’t help that media is so lacking in stories of non binary people at all, much less of us falling in love. And, being disabled, the images of popular abled people praised for taking disabled people to prom because “they could have had anyone” only intensifies the feeling that anyone’s love or even lust for me would have to be out of pity.
On some days my self esteem is better than others, and I’m not totally lacking in confidence, but I can’t help but let it get me down. How can one make themself feel desirable when the world says they can’t be even in fairy tales?
