00:02I know a lot of people may see me as a woman, lady, or a girl, but I am none
00:06of those things.
00:07I do not have a gender, but I do express gender-wise in a feminine or femme way to most
00:14people.
00:14The future is non-binary because fuck gender roles.
00:19My name is JD and my pronouns are they, them, and theirs.
00:23I identify as non-binary. I've felt a man and a woman as long as I can remember.
00:27We all carry duality, and just because you think that you know doesn't mean that you know.
00:34I genuinely dress how I feel. I don't dress in the girls' section or the women's section.
00:40I dress how it feels good on my body.
00:43Being able to create my identity is really important.
00:46It's less about having gendered clothing and more about what feels good and what makes me feel sexy and cute
00:53that day.
00:54Any way that I can have a pop and express something in my clothing makes me feel super comfortable.
01:01I'm a first-generation American. My mother was born in Guyana, in Georgetown, Guyana.
01:07This next time with coming out as trans has been really, really tough.
01:10My mom's not accepting. I think she really thinks that she is.
01:14I think she has a lot of her own gender issues that she has to work out.
01:18It's really, really hard and it's really taxing.
01:20The way that I was raised was very heavy on manners, etiquette, speech, being neat, being clean.
01:29Having your boobs out, having anything above the knees was not cute.
01:33Very uptight and very put together and polished.
01:37I didn't really like myself.
01:39I look back at pictures of myself back then and I was unhappy, you know?
01:45Growing up was definitely hard and being a weird queer kid and never having any outlets for that.
01:51I don't know. I was just very fae and faggy, I guess, and nobody really knew what to do with
01:57that.
01:57I had vitiligo. I developed vitiligo as a stress disorder, basically.
02:02And then taunting and bullying progressed even more because God forbid you're fat and you're black
02:08and according to other kids you talk like you're white.
02:12I had to learn how to get really tough and how to be a bitch from that
02:16because if you can't fight through that, you're going to drown.
02:20You're going to drown forever.
02:21One of the defining moments of learning to just be myself and dress the way that I felt most happy
02:28was meeting my fiancee. I had never met someone who was high femme or femme presenting
02:35and I didn't even know that was something that could be.
02:38I thought very much in the binary of like, you either dress like a boy or you dress like a
02:42girl
02:43no matter what your gender is. Those are the two things that you're given.
02:46I think she definitely saw that I was a person screaming to get out of this mundane thing that I
02:54had just been taught.
03:05I just want to say if you encounter a non-binary, queer, trans, gender non-conforming person,
03:12don't be afraid to ask questions. Don't assume anything.
03:16People will always open you with love if you treat them with love.
