Okay, so I’ve been at jazz camp for the past week- I got home literally fifteen minutes ago. Long but amazing story under the cut!

At camp, there was a young kid ((going into eighth grade this year, I think?)) that would kind of stick around me, like there was something he wanted to say. I made it clear from day one that I’m hella queer and stuff ((which literally EVERYONE was super cool about, which is another story)), and things just kind of went on as normal.

Well, about halfway through the week, I was talking with a boy in the choir- I was one of two non-binary people at camp, with the other being a genderfluid person ((they follow me and I don’t want to name names so I’m just going to call them Steven/Stephanie)). On that day, he was Steven, though people knew him as Stephanie from past years, before Steven came out as genderfluid. Of course, a lot of people didn’t understand this, so I was trying to explain it. The kid happened to be there, and was suddenly really interested. He kept asking me questions about gender and was surprisingly receptive to everything, especially because he’s a middle school kid and all that. Though he listened carefully, corrected himself as needed, and showed an interest in learning more about sexual orientation and identity ((I was honestly pleasantly surprised that he knew what asexual meant)). So that was a fun conversation where I talked about how I’m non-binary, and Steven/Stephanie is genderfluid, and how the gender binary is silly, and he just listened and asked questions throughout.

Today, I had completely forgotten about this exchange, though after I was done singing one of my solors, an older woman approached me, saying she was his grandmother. Before I could introduce myself, she told me how she was so grateful that I’d talked to him ((for the sake of this I guess I’ll call him Peter)). I had totally forgotten and asked what she was referring to, and she told me how Peter had told her all about the things I explained to him. I was shocked that she’d be glad about it, but went on to say how Peter’s dad wasn’t very accepting of LGBT+ identities, and how Peter was often very feminine but felt afraid to express it, and she was thrilled that I had told him all about gender and nonbinary identities, which honestly was really touching. To be thanked for being myself and trying to help people understand was absolutely huge.

Not much later I was walking along and Peter came up to me and Stephanie, pulling us aside. He told us that he thinks he’s genderfluid, and that he felt so relieved, because he never knew there was a word for it. He just thought he was weird for being feminine at times and he thought he was alone in it. Though ((much like when I came out)) hearing that there’s a word for it and real people like him made him so relieved, knowing there’s a name for him and who he is. It was just a really meaningful conversation, and a really meaningful day. I didn’t think much of the conversation, but it really did help someone figure out more about themselves, and that’s really special to me.