Navigating Love And Relationship Roles As A Non-Binary Person

On International Non-Binary People’s Day Dr Antimony Dior reflects on navigating love and relationships as a non-binary person.

It was forty degrees in Canberra, but I still wasn’t expecting Dee to be so hot.

I’d travelled to the nation’s capital to meet up with some friends over the Christmas holidays, but it wasn’t the circular streets that were turning my head. Dee and I had been sending each other daily cat pics for about six months at that point, having met on OKCupid – a dating app that allows users to choose and search for dozens of hyper-specific gender labels.

I wasn’t looking for friends and Dee wasn’t looking for lovers, but we matched as potential board game buddies.

After coming out, I’d been curious to date other non-binary people. I wanted to meet other people who found their bodies confusing.

I wanted to relate to others in a non-gendered way. I couldn’t really explain to my binary friends why I wanted these things, considering that many non-binary people’s bodies can look exactly the same as cis people’s bodies.

But it’s not the shape, it’s how you use it that matters.

Actions like putting an arm around a shoulder or a hand on a waist aren’t inherently masculine or feminine. Anyone can snuggle into a shoulder, kiss a forehead, stroke a cheek, slap a butt, or be the little spoon.

Words like ‘beautiful’, ‘handsome’, ‘pretty’, ‘hot’ are only adjectives. Cooking a meal or paying for dinner are just nice things to do sometimes. None of these little romantic gestures should be gendered, but they are.

I wanted to experience a relationship where these little things weren’t wrapped up in identities or tied to the role in the relationship or position in the world.

It had always felt like an effort to remember to do the right thing according to my role, and I was curious to know what would happen if I just did what felt pleasant in the moment instead. I felt that my best chance of doing this was with someone who also didn’t have an attachment to a particular gender.

On that blistering day in Canberra, an agender transmaculine queer top and a genderfluid nonbinary queer asexual side ordered blueberry waffles and a vegan breakfast scramble.

The catch-up quickly turned into a date, which turned into an unexpected romance.

Dee had been out longer than I had, but I’d read more philosophy, so we were both insufferable.

They were perfectly androgynous, and up until the moment they took their pants off, I didn’t know what to expect. I liked the experience of figuring things out as they went along, rather than relying on assumptions.

Roles can be hot – if you choose them. Social conventions are socially convenient, but can get in the way of learning other ways of doing things.

This isn’t to say that non-binary love is especially revolutionary or an escape from the world. Unfortunately, the world is unavoidable.

But in being a non-binary person and loving other non-binary people, I’ve found a way to approach relationships that’s about a contextual ‘could’ rather than a default ‘should’.