When I started writing A Siren Song, I didn’t identify as nonbinary. In fact, I saw myself as a cisgender bisexual and a huge trans ally. There are things in the characters I wrote that have pieces of me in them, sure, but that’s just what it’s like to be a writer. Abel’s gender identity was not a part I was supposed to resonate with. But it is because of them that I am nonbinary now, you could argue it’s all their fault.
Obviously, it’s not. You can’t exactly blame a fictional character you created yourself for your own struggles. In fact, I was the one who made Abel nonbinary, not the other way around. So in what way did they influence my gender identity? And why did I make Abel nonbinary in the first place? It’s kind of a funny story, actually.
How It Started
I could blame my best friend. Ever since I met them, I made sure to write works in which they could see themselves. They told me they were asexual, so I started incorporating asexual characters into everything I wrote. Most of these works they’ve never seen. It felt important to make everyone I loved feel seen in media, even if I never showed them that media.
When they came out as nonbinary, it only felt natural to include that as well. A Siren Song started as a piece of fanfiction featuring two men who canonically never really ended up together. I made it as queer as possible.
Then I decided to take it one step further. When I turned it into an original work, I tried to put as much of my ideals and queerness into it as I could. The characters had to be bisexual, gay, queer, or asexual. They had to have generational trauma, mommy issues, and money issues. They had to question morality, life and death. There had to be political issues, too. Everything I found somewhat important ended up having a place in the story.
I told my best friend I would give them something, too. In fact, I would make a nonbinary main character, something I hadn’t seen much of when I was writing it.
Writing Abel
So when it came to writing Abel, whose entire identity and questioning of that identity was a pivotal part of the story, I had to make sure I did it right. I wrote about their gender experience in the way I thought it would feel. Afterwards, I showed it to my friend and asked if this was what it was like for them. They said yes — sometimes.
It confused me. I realised I identified with what I had written, even before I got their opinion. I saw myself in Abel, even without ever letting myself think about it before. The scenes about their gender, their breasts, and the way people saw them poured out of me. I didn’t have to do research. I didn’t have to think about it too much. I thought about it, and it simply ended up on the page.
It scared me to feel this deeply about it, because it was never supposed to feel like this. I wasn’t supposed to relate to Abel, because how could I relate to someone outside the gender binary?
And yet I did.
To say I had never questioned myself before would be a lie. But I always shut it down before the thoughts could form into something more tangible. It took a year or two of active questioning before I finally figured it out.
The Realisation
I told my friends that I might relate to Abel on a deeper level, and that there was a chance that I, too, was nonbinary. Nobody was surprised. Not even my best friend, who I like to blame for all of this ;).
Because in the end, what I wrote was not for them. It was for me.
Abel does not feel like a woman, but they also do not feel disgusted by the idea. They do not feel disgusted by their assigned gender, but they do feel uncomfortable with the expectations attached to it. Which means they do not experience dysphoria until they are put into the role of a woman.
This, too, is how I experience gender.
I do not hate my assigned gender. I do not hate my name. I do not feel dysphoric when I’m menstruating. But I don’t want to be seen as a woman. Nor do I want to be seen as a man.
Because I am neither.
I didn’t realise this before. And it took writing it down, even from the point of view of a magical human being, to finally see it.
When the story writes you
“You are like Abel,” my friends will say. “You too are a bitchy bottom.”
This makes me laugh. But I don’t prefer this over being compared to Abel in other ways.
Abel is nonbinary, and so am I. They like someone who could have been my type. Their best friend is asexual.
I give pieces of my own life to my story. But sometimes, my story gives something back.
If you find something in media that, in your eyes, turns you queer — accept it. Believe it. It’s you feeling seen in art and finally having the words for it.
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