I am the parent of a nonbinary teen. At the time that they came out (which was pretty recently), they reflected on how in early childhood, it had always felt unfair to them to be called “cute” instead of “cool.” In working towards better understanding what it means to them to be nonbinary, I spent time looking at the strange ways that gender is entangled with “cuteness” and “coolness” in the the accoutrements of their childhood. There are so many ways to be either of those things, or neither, or both. Gender is definitely an issue, but it’s one of many. And of course any individual processes all of this through their own imagination, which is layered and sometimes very private. We had some good laughs digging up and sorting through their childhood collection, and we don’t consider it to be conclusive.
