For all the people who think there are only two genders and that they never change, I don't think you are lying.

And the people who told you that, I don't think they were lying to you.

And the people before them, the people all around them who said to them, throughout their lives, that humans only come in XX female and XY male and nothing else is conceivable, I don't think that they all meant to lie, or mislead, or manipulate you.

Some of them stayed home, near where they grew up, in environments where the people whose lived experience said otherwise didn't feel comfortable to talk. Where Uncle Julius had to move away to become June. Or where Mr Thomas Pokarski, the aging English teacher had outlived everyone one town over who knew him as Tina Pokarski.

Some of them only took a little science in school. Enough to learn about chromosomes, but not enough to learn about the conditions that often led to babies born across the gender spectrum, like XXY/Klinefelter Syndrome, 45XO/Turner Syndrome, Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia, or Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, or any of hundreds of others that impact the binary nature of gender.

Some of them weren't interested enough to read studies on the gendering of brains that showed that transgender manifestations were very real or study different cultures and see how it's been prevalent in the human condition since gender definitions were.

Some lacked imagination and couldn't conceive of a society where there was no man/woman binary, thinking that looked like chaos. And they didn't like it. It scared them. Or repulsed them.

And none of them knew what it must feel like to wake up one day and realize you are different, then go on a journey of discovery only to find yourself in a room with someone whose outfit, or haircut, or mannerisms, or just the way they carry themselves, their laugh, their smile, the lilt of their voice, makes it clear what home looks like to you.

Makes it clear who you are and what tiny little space on the gender spectrum you want to carve out and make yours.

None of them know the joy of looking in the mirror one day and seeing that very thing look back at you.

For all the people who think there are only two genders and that they never change, I don't think you are lying.

But if you don't listen, you aren't thinking.