Gender Narrative: Tavi

When I look back at pictures of myself as a baby, I smile because I came out of the womb gender non-conforming. I was a bald baby, and my mom would dress me in T-shirts, jeans, and Jordans. One of my mom’s cousins, who she grew up with, also had a son at the time, and she gave us his hand-me-downs. I am grateful my mom explored those options. As an infant, I didn’t know any better. They were just clothes to me. Until they weren’t just clothes to me. The older I got, the more I started to feel the impressions of gender roles in society weighing me down. Out of all of my siblings, my hair grew the slowest, and my mom worried about that because in society and the Black community, having long hair is desirable and attractive. I was forced to replace my Jordans with Jellies and my jeans with skirts. Pink became my “favorite” color, and not because I chose it, but because it was what was impressed upon me. I always wanted to do tom-girl things, but I was shoved into a feminine box. I always felt trapped and deeply uncomfortable. Traditional ideas about gender are limiting. There is no space for us to progressively discover who we truly are; society just tells us who we should be. Although the world has become more open to the LGBTQ+ community, there is still work to be done. Trans and nonbinary identities deserve to have support and visibility, as well. Most of the time, I feel I am constantly confronted with the fact that there are not very many spaces where my identity, and all its intersectionalities, will be seen or even accommodated. But despite that, I will always show up authentically. It’s what baby me would have wanted. And now, in adulthood, I have the choice--- to like pink, to wear the skirt, to indulge in femininity on my own terms. Both parts of me can exist. Because I know what it means to me.