Themperor Tea
“I’d like to start using she/they pronouns.”
The end of October 2024, was a monumental moment for me. I celebrated it by attending the Whitney Museum with a dear friend. We dressed up in beautiful dresses, embraced the culture and life of Alvin Ailey, sat near the river, reflected, and finally ended the night with a great meal. It was lovely.
We walked around the Whitney in circular motion, taking in the significance of the day and the exhibition. Alvin Aliey’s life was something to take in slowly, so we paced ourselves, intentional about giving these works their respect. As we walked around, I got vulnerable. I told her “I’m starting to identify with my masculinity too…” “I’d like to start using she/they pronouns,” I said. “I feel that I am nonbinary.” A day later Adj said, “I fully support this. Your intuition is strong so whenever it feels right go for it.” She took a second and typed, “Themperor Tea.” And so, it shall be.
I was once a wife to a man from New Orleans. It’s been seven years since the day we said ‘I do’ and four years since our split. It was another lifetime ago. I’ll always be grateful for the lessons and challenges in love I learned in that relationship, but our ending was a new beginning for me. After a grueling two year process, our divorce had become official a couple years ago. I vowed to celebrate it as a victory annually.
This year has been incredibly transformative for me. I’ve moved fearlessly learning and expressing new discoveries, like the fact that I am androgynous. I identify more with my masculine side and have a feminine twist. Learning and embracing my nonbinary affirms the way I have seen myself for a while. Only this time, I am able to give my identity a name to fit the way I am seen and how I feel in the world.
After my permed hair was damaged while I lived in London for four months, I cut my hair to a TWA cut 14 years ago and came back to the states facing my mom's distaste. Instead of a warm embrace at the JFK terminal, her face was displeased with my look. “I hate that you cut your hair!” was the first thing she said to me. She turned and walked away without hugging me.
This was the first time I would challenge my femininity and embrace my masculinity in front of the woman who had designed me to be the perfect femme archetype to match her femininity. Cutting my hair was a form of rebellion in her eyes. I hadn’t lived out my rebellious years as a teenager, but at 20, I was pushing her envelope. Years later she grew to accept my look by comparing my style to that of Erykah Badu, a comparison that in her eyes made it easier to understand me. Yet, still, she didn’t like my androgyny and made it clear with a look of disapproval or unfavorable comments about my style that I wasn’t “girlie”.
I shared this story with a friend recently who helped me put the pieces together. I was always under the impression that my mother just didn’t like my look. My friend said, “Tea you are pretty gay presenting. Your mom wasn’t feeling your look not because it’s bad, but because you look gay as fuck!” We laughed about it because although it was sad to know my mom would never be okay with me being gay, her discomfort seemed too heavy not to laugh at. That being who I am displeases her so much that she loathes my identity.
In the past I never felt comfortable with myself because of the gender standards forced upon me from my family, my former church, society, but also, myself. I was my biggest enemy because I did not love myself enough and didn’t have people around me who looked like me. It also didn’t help when I received comments about being too aggressive, too bossy, too assertive.
Being able to identify as nonbinary is enlightening for me. It’s always been there. I’ve always sort of pushed the boundaries of gender. I have been this way since I was a child. I questioned gender standards for women at a young age by fighting against typical colors, scents, domestic roles and activities that were given traditionally to girls. I didn’t like being told the color pink belonged to me because I was a girl, when really blue was a better color and who was in charge of gender norms for a six year old anyway? I didn’t like it and I made sure my family knew that buying me pink or anything overly girly was not for me.
As a child, I remember being on the playground and splitting recess between playing with the group of girls which typically meant playing hand games, sharing gossip, jump rope, or playing ‘house,’ all while waiting in line to compete to be apart of the games a group of boys from my class played. The boys seemed to know all about risk and adventure, two things that have always caught my attention. The risks were taken on the monkey bars and by a game of tag. Whoever could keep up with their pace and stamina without falling won. To win meant to gain everyone’s respect as someone who wasn’t afraid to get hurt if it meant having fun. I knew for sure this was me. After a few times of sitting aside to observe the laws of their games, I decided to take the risk and play the boys’ game. Surely, this wouldn’t be hard. After being tested, I proved I could hang but because I was a girl, the boys never gave me a chance.
College would reveal a new boy group that just so happened to be close friends with my then boyfriend. My boyfriend hadn’t been great at expressing his emotions for me (a dating trend I still keep attracting till this day, but I don’t have time to go here ha!), and because of his tall emotional guard, I decided to be his homeboy. I figured if I assimilated to be like one of the ‘boys’ I would be able to get closer to the guy I adored. Funny thing is, I was right. Another funny thing is, I started to enjoy playing the role of a boy. The guys had less stress and more cool vibes than any girl friend group I had been a part of. I didn’t want to be a girlfriend, because girlfriend’s didn’t gain respect. If you were one of the boys, you became a stakeholder instead of a casualty. I didn’t understand the systemic patriarchal limitations I’d gravitated to as a sense of power at that time, but I’d connected the dots that having male energy opened doors.
Before I took time to accept my identity, I disliked everything nonbinary. I didn’t like having to ask about pronouns. I declared I was only into femme presenting cis gendered women when really, that’s not true. I was rigid. I was projecting my self inflicted fear so much that I did not give myself a chance to discover my interests. It all relates back to fear. I feared the person I was becoming because I could not control the growth and I was unfamiliar with the change. I didn’t want to be ‘othered’ after years of passing with the privilege of appearing heterosexual. This new change would be harder to adapt to. It would be harder to explain to people who once knew me as a former version of myself that I have evolved into the best version of myself. But, really, this part of my life doesn’t require any explanation. It demands an experience. If you are unable to understand my experience, then it’s not for you.
When I told my friend Adj that I wanted to start leaning into the nonbinary parts of me because this feels right. I was scared to say it because I knew this was a permanent change in my life that I wouldn’t be able to change once I said the words aloud. I was ready because fear no longer owned me.
Adj smiled. She didn’t rebuttal or have a doubtful tone. She trusted my judgment. Spirit had guided me to open up to the right person that day because had it not been her, I probably would have continued to feed negative thoughts mixed with debilitating Christian biases that tried to get me to change my mind and remain small. I knew I couldn’t afford to play small anymore.
In that moment while opening up to my friend in the middle of the most beautiful gallery exhibit, I realized I could finally breathe, leaning more into myself without the anxiety of being someone I’m not. I was able to own the parts of me that had been so complex to understand before. In that moment, I realized that I was being witnessed for the person I had evolved to become. Finally in alignment.
