Personal Narrative: Gender Stereotypes

Their name was Logan. Their hair fell down past their chest and their head was covered with a baseball cap placed backwards slightly to the left. They wore a striped pink and blue button up with black slacks that loosely fell to the floor. To some, they was just another pretty girl who looks like she raided her father’s closet but they changed the way I look at myself and the world around me. I use the pronoun “they” because Logan is agender and they/them/theirs are their preferred pronouns. Born a female, they decided their place on the gender binary was not one more than another but instead neither. At the time I met Logan, I didn’t know this. I didn’t know what it means to be agender and I most definitely did not know that I would come to

They are moments of brief clarity, a deeper understanding of yourself or life itself. And unfortunately, that clarity quickly blurs as the implications of this new found knowledge settles. For me, the realization that I am agender changed the way I look at myself, how I interact with others and my outlook on life. I find myself noticing the way others speak about gender in everyday conversation. Even identifiers such as “hers” and “his” that most people don’t think twice about are words that catch my attention. I needed to come out to my boyfriend, my friends and my family. I shaved part of my head and changed the way I dress. I did these things because I needed to be honest with myself and the world about who I am. I cannot live in fear of the ways I do not fit in but instead celebrate the things that allow me to be

Epiphanies are valuable for provide new insight into life however, as Thoreau explains in the final chapter, without action and risk to change, you will never truly be happy nor will you be fulfilled. I found this to be true this semester as I navigate through the multitude of ways I identify myself and the ability to express each of them in everyday life. To live honestly, it is necessary that I express all these identities and dare to be different. Though this epiphany came to me later in my life and has been a struggle to fully comprehend, it has changed the way I feel internally. I am more confident, kinder to myself and suddenly hyperaware of the issues facing the LGBTQ