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“You’re the missing piece I need
The song inside of me
I need to find you
I gotta find you”
― Demi Lovato

“In the ensuing silence, I have the time to contemplate the word cute â€� how dismissive it is, how it’s the equivalent of calling someone little, how it makes a person into a baby, how the word is a neon sign burning through the dark reading, “Feel Bad About Yourself.”
― John Green, Will Grayson, Will Grayson

“Most of my friends put their preferred pronoun in their Instagram bios—he/she, him/her, they/their—but I respond to any and all of them. I like to think of it as collecting pronouns: the more I get, the more fun I’m having. To get the obvious out of the way, because that’s apparently important to people, I think of myself as post-gender. I was trying to figure out how to explain that because sometimes it’s a paragraph and sometimes it’s a term paper depending on who I’m talking to, and I have no idea who will be reading this in the aftermath. Then I noticed that one of my fellow passengers has a cat with him, and that’s perfect.

When you visit a friend and find they have a cat, you just see it as a cat in all its pure catness, it doesn’t require further definition. You’ll probably get a name, and if you ask, whether it was born male or female, but even after you have that information you still don’t think of it any differently. It’s not a He-Cat or a She-Cat or a They-Cat. It’s just a cat. And unless the cat’s name has any gender-specific connotations you’ll probably forget pretty fast which gender it was born into.

My name is Theo, and by that logic, I am a cat.

What I was or was not born into has nothing to do with how I see myself. It’s not about going from one gender to another, or suggesting that they don’t exist. Some of my friends say that the moment you talk about gender you invalidate the conversation because you’re accepting the limits of outmoded paradigms, but I’m not sure I agree with that. I just think gender shouldn’t matter.

If you’re a man, aren’t there moments when you feel more female, like when you’re listening to music, or your cheek is being gently stroked, or you see a spectacularly handsome man walk into the room? If you’re a woman, aren’t there moments when you feel more male, when you have to be strong in the face of conflict, or stand behind your opinion, or when a spectacularly beautiful woman walks into the room? Well, in those moments, you are all of those things, so why deny that part of yourself?

For me, it’s not about being binary or non-binary. It’s about moving the needle to the center of the dial and accepting all definitions as equally true while remaining free to shift in emphasis from moment to moment. It’s about being a Person, not a She-Person or a He-Person or a They-Person.

(...) When you go into a clothing store, you don’t just go to the “one size fits all� rack. You look for clothes that fit your waist, hips, legs, chest, and neck, clothes that complement your form and shape, and reflect not just how you see yourself but how you want to be seen by others. If it’s still not quite right, and you can afford it, you get the clothes tailored to fit exactly who you are.

That’s what I’m doing. Post-gender is one term for it. Another might be tailored gender. Maybe bespoke gender. But definitely not one-size-fits-all. The world doesn’t get to decide what best fits who I am and how I choose to be seen. I do.”
― Michael J. Straczynski, Together We Will Go

“This is where I want to be. Right here. Satiated and limp form pleasure with Z. Beautiful and whole from love with Z. I'm happy here.”
― Sarah Ann Walker, This is me...

“Sam's world grew and grew with each book he finished.”
― Chris Priestley, The Last of the Spirits

“I am this, and I’ve never been that, I’ve no plans to remedy the broken bits.”
― Tyler Knott Gregson, Wildly into the Dark: Typewriter Poems and the Rattlings of a Curious Mind

“When you put one foot in front of the other... you cannot fail. Your dream might evolve. You might see that something isn't meant for you, and that realization will lead to what it is you are really supposed to be doing.”
― Chrissy Metz, This Is Me: Loving the Person You Are Today