5 Questions About Gender I Ask as a Nonbinary Therapist
5 minute read
Ever wish your therapist just understood your gender? That they just got that you don’t fit neatly into one gender box or the other? That you jump from box to box? That you’re in both boxes at the same time? That you’re in none of the boxes at all?
Yeah. Same.
So, I became that therapist.
I’m June, I’m a trans nonbinary butch therapist and I love talking about gender. Working with me, you don’t have to worry about being stigmatized for how you exist. Here are five questions I would ask you about your gender if you were my client, that aren’t just “what does nonbinary even mean?”
1. “What’s your relationship to gender?”
This is one of the first questions I ask during an intake. I ask it this way to start to model to you that, while gender itself is a social construct and kinda made up, we all relate to it in different ways! Maybe you and your gender are monogamous. You know what it is and it never changes. Maybe (like so many Bushwick queer folks) you and your gender are poly and you relate to several genders. Maybe you and your gender are no contact. Basically, there’s no one way to be nonbinary. The possibilities are endless and, like any relationship, it can totally change and evolve over time as you grow and learn more about yourself!
2. “What’s something you have a hard time describing about your gender?”
Gender is tricky! How we define ourselves and how we articulate those definitions can be so elusive…even to ourselves! When you think about yourself and your gender, do you know how to describe it? What words do you use? Do you even have the words? Maybe your gender is more of a feeling in your body. Where do you feel it? Can you feel it? Is there something that keeps you from feeling it? It might be helpful to ask yourself these questions at different stages of your gender journey to see where those shifts take place as you gain new terms and greater understanding. Remember, just because something feels hard to describe today, doesn’t necessarily mean it will tomorrow!
Additionally, I might ask you what feels easy about describing your gender. Gender is tricky, sure, but it doesn’t always have to be! Maybe you’ve got all the right language right now. Maybe you know who you are and how you define yourself. Maybe you feel your gender in your body and you know exactly where and how you feel it. Again, this might change over time, so I’m really looking to take a snapshot of where you are right now, today, in the moment of me asking.
And, just so you know: You can change the language you use at any time, no questions asked. All you have to do is say so.
3. “Where do you look to find representation of your gender?”
Look, we all know that trans representation in general (and nonbinary representation specifically) is pretty lacking. It’s slowly getting better, but still, we don’t often see ourselves on screen. One place we might turn to for representation is literature. There are tons and tons of great books, comics, audiobooks, and zines by, about, and for trans and nonbinary folks!
With this in mind, I might ask you where you find that representation. Maybe you’ve got a comfort character that you feel really accurately depicts your gender, maybe you don’t. Chances are, that character might not even be confirmed to be trans or nonbinary (but they might be!). What characters do you feel represent your gender? Where do you find these characters?
4. “When do you feel the most euphoric about your gender?”
We all know about gender dysphoria (even though not every trans and nonbinary person experiences gender dysphoria, we all know about it), but what we don’t talk enough about is gender euphoria. This is when you feel the most yourself. The happiest and most confident in your gender expression and identity. Maybe you’ve got a really cute outfit that gives you this euphoria. Maybe tattoos or piercings or other body mods make you feel euphoric. Maybe you don’t know what brings you gender euphoria yet. That’s okay! The exploration and experimentation is part of the fun of gender!
5. “What do you wish other people understood about your gender?”
“But, June,” you might be saying to yourself by now, “What about other people? How do I explain myself to them?” Great question! So far, we’ve talked mostly about you and how you relate to your gender. That’s so important, but we don’t exist in a vacuum. All of us have someone (or multiple someones) in our lives that are important to us. We want these people in our lives to see and affirm us for who we are.
The trouble is, when they don’t, it can make it all the more difficult to keep having a relationship with them. It can be soooo exhausting to constantly feel like you have to explain yourself to people, just to get the bare minimum amount of affirmation and validation. You might be asking yourself, “Why can’t they just get it?” To answer that question, you have to know what “getting it” means to you. Maybe some people just can’t or won’t get it, no matter how hard you try to teach them. No matter how many explanations you give, resources you provide, or conversations you have with them, there’s just something that keeps them from understanding. Sometimes it might be worth it to keep trying, especially if that other person is really important to you. Sometimes, you might find it helpful to practice radical acceptance of where that other person is now, and reimagine the role that they play in your life.
This is what asking the question “What do you wish other people understood about your gender?” might help to illuminate. Once you know what you wish people understood, you can start to figure out ways to express yourself to others in ways that might help them understand even just that tiny bit more.
Like I said before, it’s hard to find a therapist who just understands what it means to have a gender identity that doesn’t fit into the cis-normative ideas of gender. These are just a taste of the many, many more questions I might have for you about your gender experience. I might ask you all of them, or I might ask you totally different ones! It all depends on you and what you need. If any or all of these questions here spoke to you, a nonbinary therapist might be for you!
For more like this (and sometimes some fiction too), follow my Substack: https://substack.com/@junerosecohen
