A history of Miffy: NB@32

A little while ago a post on Bluesky did the rounds asking “how old were you when you came out?”. I replied “I realised I was enby when I was 32”. A factual statement, I first said it aloud when I told my partner and I was 32 at the time; but as I saw other replies to the question from others with deep and meaningful insights about how they knew from childhood, I felt that my answer bluntly compressed my experience, and begged the question “what took you so long?”.

I wanted to expand on this because I have not tried to express these thoughts in detail before and having some breathing room to write content longer than a bloot¹ is one of the reasons I started a blog in the first place. If nothing else this would prove a useful bit of introspection for me, but as a newbie to the internet of animals, maybe this would be a way for people to get to know a little more about the bun behind the shitposts.

FYI: Emotional distress, mention of derogatory language.

Yo, listen up here’s a story, about a little guy who lives –

[record scratch]

I grew up in a rural area of the United Kingdom in the 1990s. Growing up in the 90s was very exciting. It truly was a time of technological advancement. There was some new doodad to educate or entertain every five minutes. By the turn of the millennium I’d seen DVD usurp VHS, our family console had changed from a Commodore 64 to a SNES to a Playstation. I still remember receiving my first text on my Nokia 3310 (it was my Dad wishing me happy birthday). I can still hear the dial-up modem tones in my head. But this post isn’t about how I am still frightened of the Y2K bug posters.

Before computers, we had toys, and like almost everything in the 90s they were for boys or for girls. As a young kid, I was not interested in cars, action men or football. My parents desperately wanted me to be interested in boy’s toys. I remember my father (seemingly generously) once offering to get me any toy so long as it came from the “blue shelves” and his frustration as I stood staring at Action Men for 10 minutes before deciding I didn’t want anything.

I very occasionally sneakily played with my sister’s Polly Pocket set. It somehow felt like a more grown-up Lego set as the pieces were so tiny and intricate². I liked to come up with stories for the characters. I once asked my trustworthy grandmother if she thought it would be OK if I put a Polly Pocket on my Christmas list, but she laughed very hard and thought I was making a joke. I remember my face hurting from being so red.

I found it hard to make friends with boys, and so most of my friends in early childhood were girls. The girls at school were nicer and far more interesting than the boys. While many of the boys played football or huddled in circles around a playfight, we would talk about books or come up with games to play together.

I was a little jealous of my friends’ clothes outside of school. Almost all of my clothes were hand-me-downs that were too big in one way or another, or made me look like I was into things that I was not; I never felt like my clothes let me express myself. I once asked my mum for a pink-ish top to match some of the girls at school, and got a very sharp “don’t be silly” snapped back at me. I definitely wouldn’t be asking about dungarees, then. I never got to the bottom of why a girl was allowed to wear boy clothes and be called a tomboy, but a boy couldn’t wear girl clothes and be a tomboy too.

When I was around 8 or 9, my parents and teachers began to pressure me to spend more time with boys. A teacher once said that I “wouldn’t want people to think things”. When I asked what it was that people might think, I never got an answer, just more suggestions that it was very strange for a boy to spend so much time with a group of girls, and that I should “just play some football”. When I asked my parents they weren’t helpful and suggested that a boy could keep spending time with one girl, if they were a girl-friend. It would be a decade or so before I understood that the implication here was if I spent a lot of time with girls, people might think I was gay. This nonsense, and the reason nobody would talk with me directly - I think - was the result of Section 28.

“Section 28” of the Local Government Act 1988 passed by the Thatcher government stated that local authorities (and their schools) “shall not intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality”. Section 28 had a profound chilling effect, its vague prohibition of “promoting homosexuality” meant schools often elected to simply not acknowledge or talk about LGBTQ+ issues or people at all. The easiest way to comply was to avoid the issues entirely. This combined with the moral panic instilled by the media in response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic of the late 80s meant there was not only an intentional lack of understanding from Section 28, but a fear and unwillingness to understand LGBTQ+ people and issues. This, at least in my case, seemed to encourage people to take it upon themselves to steer impressionable minds away from perceived homosexual behaviours like [checks notes] being around girls. Eventually the pressure was too much and I stopped hanging out with my friends-that-were-girls and hung out with nobody instead.

I went to secondary school in the 00s at a time where “gay” and “queer” were synonymous with “lame” (at best). Rumours of this kid or that kid being gay and the bullying that ensued meant there was not a single person in school that wanted to draw attention to anything that might bring their gender or sexuality into question. By this point, with the arrival of computers and video games and other new distractions of the times, I had genuinely long forgotten my occasional desires to play with toys from the “pink shelves” and wear dungarees.

Sex education in our school consisted solely of “dont do it, but if you do, for the love of god dont get pregnant”. Discussion of the act itself was banished to be spoken of only clinically in science classes on where babies come from. There were some rumours that sex actually felt good and people did it for fun, but the consensus seemed to be that sex led to babies and that was best avoided. There was no acknowledgement of gay people having sex and absolutely nothing on the existence of trans or non-binary people.

For the kids with access to four (sometimes five TV channels if you were lucky), all the 90s and early 00s had to offer on those subjects were sitcom tropes and Jerry Spring circus curiosities. James from Team Rocket enthusiastically and eagerly volunteering to dress as a girl as part of some scheme sticks out in my memory, but my brain did nothing with this information at the time. I first became aware that maybe girls could like each-other (like really like each-other) when I heard the lyrics to the 2002 No 1 hit “All the Things She Said” by taTu. I do recall the lyrics resonating with me a bit, but unfortunately my adolescent brain was distracted by girls kissing, which seemed normal for a boy.

Around this time I was coming of age. I was (and still in fact remain) a short boi. This attracted the usual names and nonsense which only occasionally bothered me. I started growing hair before anyone else in my class and it seemed to be coveted by other boys as a status symbol. The teasing about my height stopped almost overnight, I guess I was their alpha now. I was however not particularly pleased with this development. I started shaving my face as soon as I could, despite my parents saying it was too early to worry about it. I particularly disliked the “you’re becoming a man” narrative. At the time I thought this discomfort was because I did not like the idea of growing up and becoming a boring “Mister” with a briefcase. Spoilers, but I would later understand this to be the same visceral reaction I have when people address me as “Sir”.

Like most awkward teens, I was not particularly happy with how I looked. I was small, not particularly athletic, and acne pocked. But I figured all my discomfort was just part of “the changes” we were taught in our science classes. None of this felt like a big deal to me, I was otherwise a healthy and happy kid who simply spent most of their formative years enjoying the company of their computer. I spent a significant portion of my childhood playing The Sims; building houses, creating people and their characters, setting them about in their day to day life… ironically just a Polly Pocket with extra steps and a CPU.

Our family would eventually move and I made a close friendship with a boy who lived near our new house. After a few years, on the way to secondary school he recounted a dream where I had tried to kiss him. I had no attractions like that, but I thought it was cute and no big deal. Thinking I was in close company, I teased “is that so bad?” which was the wrong answer: he actually wanted me to apologise for the dream. Of course I am not apologising for something I didn’t even do! After common-sense prevailed, our friendship resumed as if nothing had happened (we do actually still keep in touch), but this interaction left a lasting impression on me.

As I got older and started college³, I earned more bodily autonomy. I grew my hair out a little, finally rejecting the buzzcut like hair length my parents imposed on me during my school years. I got a part-time job and used the money to improve my ancient computer and finally pick my own clothes. I mostly imported cutesy t-shirts from Threadless in various bright colours with childish cartoons, monsters and robots⁴. I started to like how I looked.

I’d made new friends and the popularity of the goth and emo subcultures of the time offered a new opportunity and the safety to try something different. One day our little group decided to head to college as if we were going to a concert together. I borrowed a black jacket with plenty of silver buttons, threw it over a tee; a studded belt held up some grey shorts, and I completed the vibes with knee-high striped socks that I had finally purchased having long lusted after them at the alt shop in the big town.

We had a great day, save for a little light teasing from people who didn’t understand the emos and goths anyway. I felt pretty good about myself, and so did the rest of our group. That evening, on the way home from college, along a country road that I used to shortcut home, the driver of a passing car beeped their horn, wound down their window to call me a fag and hit me with the wingmirror of their rustbucket car. I didn’t tell anyone. That was it for me. The times may have been changing for the young adults but self-expression was still alien to the adults. We’d time capsule this and let it be a problem in a few years instead.

All in all, I just ended up pouring my time and effort into my hobbies. I bombed out of college courtesy of massively undiagnosed ADHD but managed to get in to university with good recommendations and extra-curricular activities. I entered university with something to prove, but I relished the challenge and the new environment – a campus that had shops and computer rooms open all day and all night! Wow!

I found a very nice friend group. One day in our second year shortly before Halloween, one of the group suggested we watch a movie called the “Rocky Horror Picture Show” together. I think that movie was the last transmission my little cis boy brain received as it crossed the event horizon into queerness. Inevitably, we cross-dressed for Halloween.

I enjoyed the experience, a lot.

Like, a lot a lot.

I looked better than I ever had before. I actually felt hot for the first time. It was the most confidence I have ever felt. I brushed off silly comments and embarrassed boys who tried to put me down in front of their friends. I felt invincible.

Halloween would not be enough for me. I began dressing up in private at home almost immediately. My partner of the time and I had misinterpreted my enjoyment of this as a fetish for girls clothes (which got tangled up with other things⁵), to be kept between us behind closed doors. To be with a partner who supported me like this, to have friends who knew I was partial to throwing on a dress: that felt like enough for me. It would still take a little more time for us to realise that my fetish was actually looking good and feeling confident.

The realisation was finally accelerated by moving in with family to save for a home. This was great news financially, we were able to stay somewhere rent free for the best part of a year. Instead of wasting money on some second-home househogger, we could put every penny into our own place.

However, this would prove one pause too many for my adventures in self-expression. When we packed up everything that I’d become accustomed to wearing in private, I figured I wouldn’t miss it too much. Before we moved I spent a great deal of time not in those clothes, at work, or travelling. Yes, I felt more like myself in my girl clothes – whether it was loungewear or a dress – but I’d never made the jump to understand how much of my own identity was now wrapped in looking a particular way while at home.

Like a plant that I am tasked to look after, I began to wilt. I slowly became sad and withdrawn for a reason completely unknown to me. I put this down to missing our independence, to not having a space of our own, to the difficulties of a new job. Out of energy, I stopped shaving my face, and out of nowhere: years of dysphoria hit me in the gut all at once. Suddenly I hated my beard, my body hair, my legs, my clothes. My own appearance made me upset but I had no idea why.

My partner – who obviously understands me better than I do – had a suspicion, and took me shopping. She bought me a skirt. I put it on in secret and saw a more pleasing shape in the mirror. I cried.

And so I finally did what I should have done earlier, and used the internet to research why a boy might want to wear girls clothes this much. To my relief and surprise, it’s not unusual. So un-unusual in fact, there’s a spectrum of terms for gender non-comforming people and flags to proudly fly for all of them. I began binge reading information, trying to squash years of self-discovery into days and weeks of relentless research.

One day, I encountered a post of a beautiful bearded enby, wearing nothing but lingerie. They looked incredible, they looked powerful, and they looked happy.

That image seared into my mind. This is what I was looking for. This is what I wanted to be. I want to have a dick and be pretty.

I told my partner I am non-binary. After being there for every step of this journey and helping me figure myself out, it turned out this answered some of their own questions and she told me they are non-binary too.

I flew the non-binary flag and marched at Pride for the first time this year. Before going, I went to a women’s hairdresser and used reference images of women to get a haircut like I’ve never had before. I marched with well-defined facial hair, a face of make-up, earrings, and a dress. A stranger on the street after the march told me I looked beautiful. The only thing that stopped me crying was my make-up wasn’t waterproof.

Looking back over this draft, “I realised I was enby when I was 32” is a hilarious understatement. Writing this has been incredibly cathartic, and has brought up a lot of memories that were long forgotten. Each of these memories feels like a shard of a secret about myself, and this is the first time I’ve actually pieced them together. There are so many of these small moments spread over such a large time which in isolation became forgotten, but now together I understand how that finally led me to where I am today.

I’m still working out what being an enby means for me. I’m really pleased with the style I am starting to carve out for myself. I’m having fun experimenting with what works for me (and what doesn’t⁶). It’s a good day for me when I get a double-look on the street from someone trying to work out if I am a boy in a skirt or if I am a girl with a beard. I had never cared about how I looked to others before, but I’ve found myself taking pride in my apperance and I’m so happy with how I present myself now.

I like to joke that Miffy is three⁵, but there’s truth there: I’ve only had a good idea of who I was supposed to be for coming up to three years now. Realising in my thirties felt so late, but I’ve been humbled by my fellow enbies and trans sisters who I’ve had the pleasure of meeting over the past year, who always say it is never too late to be who you are meant to be.

I shed a tear (or two…) writing this, thinking about how different life would have been for so many people if Section 28 had never been enacted. Section 28 created an environment that suppressed our right to information that would have allowed us to grow up and be who we were meant to be. Imagine if people had just been allowed to grow up knowing it was OK to not feel like a boy, or a girl, or to love someone of the same sex. It is humbling to turn on the TV now and actually see people breaking expectations around gender. I wonder what young me would have thought of someone as famous as Harry Styles strutting around Madison Square Garden to overjoyed crowds, wearing a gingham dress and ruby slippers.

Only my partner and my close friends (if you’ve read this far, that’s you) know I am non-binary, but I’m slowly stepping out of my comfort zone in my day-to-day. I’ve started to ambiguate my appearance by accessorising with earrings, necklaces and gender neutral clothing (I love my new hakama pants). I have finally made peace with my facial hair and body hair⁷, ending the vicious cycle of shaving it all off to look more feminine and growing it back again to look more masculine.

I no longer feel the pressure to look like somebody else’s idea of pretty, I live with my own notion of what pretty is. I hope you do too.