Mat Gilson

I am a private person. I do not prefer to share a lot of personal information with my coworkers. I am not outgoing, and I can only assume that I am not particularly well liked. Had my town not been so small, and its people so entwined, my coworkers may not have even known that I have a partner. Its fine to be gay here, people love the gays, especially within my self proclaimed “progressive” workplace, where the owners are very visibly concerned with things like voting rights, and donating money to local charities. Recently there was a request to have everyone share their preferred name, pronouns, and a reply to an icebreaker question in our company slack, which felt tedious, but this kind of thing is standard across companies now, right? So why did I feel so stalled? 

I think that my discomfort comes down to  this; I am not fully formed. I have not come to a conclusion about my identity that I am satisfied with. I go by she/her pronouns because that’s what people on the street call me, they do not have to ask, that is how I am perceived. Yet at home, amongst friends, I exclusively go by they/them pronouns, I even go by a shortened, more androgynous form of my given, “work name.” 

The complexity of this dichotomy is not easily conveyed to people I am close to, let alone these strangers. I feel that I am betraying myself, and the community of people who are brave enough to be out and nonbinary, by not expressing that I go by they/them pronouns at home. But the people at home see me that way. They do not stutter over “Sh-them” when referring to me, as other nb people at work have to endure. I do not want these work people to know something that I feel is so intimate about me. 

The heart of my problem is being put in the position of having to confess or to lie. In this attempt at inclusion, which many people in the community hugely benefit from, and which is rightfully common procedure, I am at an impasse.