Coming Home To Me

I’m an almost 52 year-old pudgy white man with Cerebral Palsy who feels no need to trade my body parts in for others. Sure, I look in the mirror and wish various parts could be smaller, tighter, and larger, respectively, but I think everyone has a bit of that in their life. Yet, I identify as non-binary because that description best matches my emotional and psychological understanding of myself. This is a story about the journey from the internal knowledge of my truth to its public performance.

When I was about 8 or 9, my mother would take me to the department store with her, drop me off in the…