I didn’t know I was a girl until the age of 5, when I went to kindergarten. My parents never, for whatever reason, had judgment, or asked me about my gender or my sexual choices. I don’t have one of those sad stories of being judged and oppressed. I grew up in a great family that allowed me to live my life like me.
When I was 54, I guess I came out in a different way. Because I found out then that my grandmother was Seminole Indian, and that’s why she used to call me “two-spirit.” At the time, I thought she meant I’m a Gemini. My grandparents were wealthy, and on Easter, they used to always have a party and all the little girls would be dressed in little bonnets. I was always playing with the little pigs [at their house]. My aunt used to say it’s disgusting, but my grandmother used to always say, you just need to leave that child alone. She’s two-spirit, and she’s going to do well.
I grew up in a little tiny town, with only, like, 12 kindergartners. Everything was fine until we went to phys-ed. The teacher said, “We’re going to play dodgeball,” so all the little boys lined up over here and all the little girls lined up over there. It was the most defining moment in my entire life. I ran over to where all the little boys were. I’ll never forget it: The teacher walked over to me, grabbed me by the arm, and said, “Kathy, you’re over here.” And she took me over to these screaming, giggling little girls. And I thought, these are not my people.
They called my dad to come to the school. When I went to the principal’s office, my dad was sitting there, his arms crossed. The principal said to my dad, we have a situation with your daughter. She refuses to play with the little girls. She’s always with the little boys. I’m going to have to request that tomorrow, and from then on, your daughter comes in dressed in the dress code, which is dresses down to knee length.
My dad stood up — I’ll never forget it — and just said, “Come on, we’re going home.” He looked at the principal and goes, “That’s not likely to happen.” And I never wore a dress to school again.
In a small town like that, where everybody knows everything, nobody wants a hassle. I really wasn’t judged much until I had my breasts removed [at age 54]. The transgender community tried to put pressure on me to make a decision about changing my gender, taking testosterone, and declaring who I was. I didn’t have much relationship with the community before surgery, except for a few trans friends. After surgery, there was a lot of pressure from certain patients to declare my gender and also about my non-use of testosterone.
I think using they/them pronouns is still really hard for people. Using they/them doesn’t make any sense to country folks. And they’re not having it. But you’re in New York? Okay, well, that’s completely different.
I think that acting somewhere in between a man and a woman, it’s still just inconceivable for more than 50 percent of the populace. It doesn’t make sense to them.
For law school, I started out at CUNY, then transferred to the University of Pennsylvania. About 30 percent of the time, I was wearing dresses and skirts. At CUNY, people were really, really supportive, like vocally supportive, almost a little bit oppressive. And then at Penn, there was a small group of people who were really supportive in a cool way and then everybody else was just civil.
Once I graduated and worked at a law firm, I would trot out my dresses every now and then, but it became less and less. I put them in the back of my closet. I went to some interviews wearing a professional skirt and jacket, and I didn’t get any callbacks. Maybe it was that, or maybe it was just my own awareness, but I really shied away from [wearing dresses] throughout much of my career.
Then, five years ago, I started reintroducing women’s clothes into my wardrobe. It was maybe about two and a half years ago when I started wearing it [when I was teaching at] law school. There was an incident where this anti-trans activist from the Federalist Society came to debate me at school about bathrooms. And it felt like I really had to wear a skirt to represent.
The first time I wore [women’s clothes] to teach broke it open for me. And I did it more and more frequently. But I realize that my body is a man’s body. I’m not under any impression that people think that I pass as a woman. It means people probably think of me as a man wearing women’s clothes. I think of myself as more gender-fluid or nonbinary.
My daughter, I think a part of her thinks that this is natural and that’s who I am. And she sees me in a context where I am treated as completely normal for dressing this way. But I do think kids who are 10 are very aware of what’s normal for themselves and for their families. And so 10 is the age kids become very embarrassed of their parents all the time — and not just when their parents are gender-nonconforming. So whatever resistance she has is really just age-appropriate. But I know that she knows that this is who I am, and she’s playful about it and supportive about it in her own way. It’s not ever, “I wish you wouldn’t dress like that.”
I do think there’s more freedom for people today to be themselves at work and dating than I had when I was their age. That makes me happy. Although I should say, there’s a little sadness too, because I feel like being [LGBTQ] is so normalized now that there’s not that kind of camaraderie there used to be when I came out. You would see somebody who was visibly gay, there would be a sort of smile that you would share, and you would greet each other. And now that sort of doesn’t happen so much anymore.
I wear what I want, and I feel very feminine in what I wear, and I enjoy that. And that’s why I feel like “gender-fluid” might be more appropriate than “nonbinary,” but I don’t care about the labels. I think there’s some value in it, but the label isn’t a core part of what I’m doing.
When I was 21, I officially came out as nonbinary. Dating for me was incredibly hard. I just saw this post the other day saying that straight privilege is being able to date in middle and high school. I completely agree. I feel like at 27 years old, I’m still learning how to make friends, and how to have a relationship. I’ve had to not only navigate all that queerphobia and transphobia, but also so much social anxiety. I’ve had to unlearn really toxic and unhealthy representations of the community.
Until just this past year, I didn’t have a beard, and I presented in a way that many people would read as a trans woman. I was very feminine. I tried dating apps, like OkCupid, and if I put things like nonbinary on my profile, I would get so many questions, and so many people invalidating me, sending me horrible messages. Questions like, do you have a penis or vagina? What are you, male or female? A couple guys were interested in me, but they didn’t really want to take me out on a date. They just wanted to hook up.
So I felt a lot of shame around who I was, because I felt that the only type of love or attraction that I was capable of receiving was if I was seen as a sexual object. It made me feel I was never going to be capable of dating.
Then I met Ethan, and everything kind of changed. He taught me that I’m worthy of love and affirmation beyond just being treated as a hookup. Which is how I’ve gotten to the point of really embracing my expression that I have now. For the longest time, I felt I had to keep shaving my beard and keep plucking my beard to get rid of it. And it didn’t really align with what I really truly wanted. But I felt that I had to do it. I had to do it to be attractive. I had to do it to be accepted. I had to do it in order to be palatable.
About a year ago, I started growing out my beard, and it was probably the most exciting thing that I had done in a long time. I felt that I was going against the norm and I was paving my own path. I had a lot of resistance. I felt it from people within the community, especially older trans women, who were my mentors and whom I looked up to. I’ve learned so much. I’ve grown a thicker skin now more than ever to people’s reactions, but I’m still really vulnerable.
When Ethan and I got married in July, we went to Puerto Rico for our honeymoon. We had been talking about how I should look, not because it was uncomfortable but as a matter of “How should we navigate this in order to be safe?” I decided that I needed to remove my beard.
My beard grows in extremely fast. Knowing that, and knowing we were outside of our home city, knowing that if I don’t blend in and look like a cisgender woman, we felt that I may experience violence. I ended up plucking my entire beard. It took me about four hours to do, and my face was extremely puffy.
Something that I talk about with other queer and trans people is just how fear can sometimes control our lives. But I’m in a place and in a time in an era where it’s a lot safer to be who I am today. Yes, there’s a lot more visibility, and with visibility comes violence, but I need to sometimes just learn to enjoy the moment and be present — be present with my fellow community members, with my siblings, with my family, with my partner, with my friends, and in the world.
We’re nothing new. We’ve been around for thousands of years, and we’re not going anywhere.
Annie Tritt is a New York-based photographer who seeks to create spaces where viewers have the potential to experience transformation. They have previously photographed and interviewed nonbinary youth for Vox, and their work has appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Billboard, and Variety, among other outlets.
CREDITS
Editors: Karen Turner, Jessica Machado
Visuals editor: Kainaz Amaria
Copy editors: Tanya Pai, Tim Williams
Design: Amanda Northrop