A few years ago, I sat on the couch with my laptop editing my current work in progress when my husband came into the room. Joel sat down next to me for a few moments. Only my fingers were making a sound as they clicked away at the keyboard. Even that slowly stops as I turn to my husband and smile.

“We need to talk,” Joel quietly said.

I closed my laptop slowly and automatically my brain started to list any possibilities of what I might have done wrong. I probably forgot to do something. Surely after nine years, they weren’t going to break up with me.

“What did I do now?” I said with a hopeful grin. Defusing an uncomfortable feeling with a joke was my forte.

Joel looked me in the eye and said with tears forming, “I’m not a man.”

I nodded and grabbed my husband’s hands and help them softly. I smiled. I know what coming out feels like. It’s not always a safe thing to do and I wanted to be there for my husband. I didn’t say a word but just looked at Joel with love and a smile.

“I’m non-binary,” Joel said and I must have given a look of confusion because an explanation quickly followed, “It means for me that I’m not a man or that I’m not a woman. I’m both. I’m none. I don’t know. It’s hard to explain, but I just know that I’m not a he and that my pronouns are they/them.”

I listened as Joel talked about it more. They talked about their childhood and how they never felt like they fit in and as I continued to listen to my husband, the more it made sense to me and soon ABOUT me. My eyes widened as I listened to them talk. They were so relaxed now as I asked questions and acknowledged them, but all the while, I realised that I was non-binary, too. I almost blurted it out but this was their moment not mine.

But in my head I thought about all those times in elementary school back in the States where the boys were split up from the girl in sports. The boys took their shirts off to play. I wanted to keep mine on. The girls went off to play skipping rope and hopscotch and the boys wrestled or played football. I would watch the girls go off and want to join them. I even tried a few times with only replies of jeers and disgust. To be fair, the same thing would happen with the boys. They didn’t want Michael to join in, oh no, not the gay. It was more than that for me, though.

Beyond never feeling like I was part of the boys, I never felt much like a boy either. I didn’t like wearing their clothes. I didn’t like the colours I was supposed to like. I didn’t like the music I was supposed to like. There were so many rules put on me about how a boy should be that it just never felt right. I cried. I shared my emotions and was comfortable doing so. I liked feeling pretty and gorgeous and beautiful. Feeling handsome never felt like me, though I learnt I could be both and all.

I never felt like I was part of the girls, too. There were many aspects of being a girl that I liked. I loved how colourful they seemed to be. I loved their music. I loved feeling free to express myself. I loved their make-up and getting together to discuss how hot some of the boys were.

I’ve always been told what I’m not growing up. I was not a girl. I was not a real boy. I wasn’t normal. I couldn’t wear make-up. I couldn’t wear girl clothes. I couldn’t even wear boy clothes if they didn’t approve of it. I’d have my clothes ruined or my shoes stolen. I’d be mocked and ridiculed. And not just from the other children. I’d get this kind of attitude from my biological family and teachers at school. I’d overhear my parents talk about me with other family members when they didn’t think I was around. I was strange to distant relatives. They’d act all suspicious of me or mock the way I talked or used my hands to express myself.

I didn’t know who or what I was for almost forty years of my life until my husband sat down next to me and explained who they really were inside. And by doing so, they explained who I was inside too. My gender was not binary. I didn’t have to choose one or the other. There’s a spectrum to humans and I had finally found mine on the day my husband came out to me.

The next day, I sat down next to my husband and softly said, “We need to talk.”