Have you ever wondered what life would've been like had you been given the opportunity to choose your gender?

Not in the sense of simply stating how you identify, but being supported, uplifted, acknowledged, believed, and seen while you navigated this journey called life as the person you know yourself to be. In essence, and in regards to society, the practice of choosing your gender is uncannily synonymous with choosing your battle. Do I continue to live a life performing trauma-inflicting behaviors stemming from the gender and the role that was placed on me? Or, do I make my gender expansiveness more visible at the possibility of facing more discrimination, oppression, and microaggressions, but also more love, self-worth, and community?

The power of choice, in general, is a privilege not all people are afforded, or something that everyone is aware that they may have. Before being born, a child’s inherent power to choose how they feel inside or whether they’re a girl or boy, both, or neither, is stripped from them, and from that point on their self-expression has the potential to feel staged.

Choose Your Gender is a testament to living a life out loud after silencing myself for years based on others’ expectations of my body. It is a charge to take control of your own narrative when you feel it’s time. It is the opportunity to expand your mind and critique your perception of gender and sexuality in the scope of social justice. And it is the demand to dismantle gender-based roles and discriminatory policies that are set up to oppress nonbinary and trans people.