Know My Bones is a zine that focuses on the writing and artwork of non-binary individuals. The title comes from a song by my friend and classmate, Oliver Owens.
What is “non-binary?� Non-binary gender identities do not fit inside the gender binary that is composed of men and women. Instead one might feel like they encompass a combination of both, neither, or lie right in between. Non-binary folks may express their identity in a multitude of ways because gender expression does not equal gender identity.
Know My Bones by Oliver Owens You've got no place in the place you are standing If you leave, you leave your greatest companions Thieves and the liars Cheats and the buyers You could do without Night always comes You won't be alone Alone makes you feel what you know, know, know, know Know in your bones. These are parts of me That will shine under certain light in certain times. These are parts of me That will shine under certain light in certain times. Is it a problem that I'm shaking from your face? Is it a problem that I'm crying in this space? Can you remind me of the time that you were cruel? Said, can you remind me, so I don't fall in love with you? I don't remember how to move I don't remember how to move It wouldn't be a problem if I were seeing straight It wouldn't be a problem, but I am losing faith. Can you remind me of the time that you were cruel? Said, can you remind me, so I don't fall in love with you? I I I I
don't want to cross too many, am bound. don't want to cross too many, am bound.
You've got no place in the heart that I'm feeling but I can't help that right now it is beating.
People Are Fucking in the Gender Neutral Bathroom (And I just want to take a piss) by Eli
people are fucking in the gender neutral bathroom and I just want to take a piss. I know this is college and god knows nobody can keep it in their pants (amirite?) but please don’t get upset when I get upset that they choose to get it on in the one stall that validates people like me exist and are entitled to safe space and recognition. I am writing this because I love you. I love you so much that I get pains in my chest when I realize how impossible it must be for you to understand the little dark corner of the world I inhabit and how I know that its not your fault it’s just hard for me to explain all of the ways the world doesn’t see me. but you always saw me and you have always called me by my name.
CALL ME BORING I am so non-confrontational I MIGHT be the next dalai lamabut do realize that if we care about each other and you see my “they” pronouns as an invitation to debate, I’ve got politics in my blood and a LOT of repressed feelings about this one. here’s a visual: imagine, your anger is like a penny match a short fuse that may just be enough to light the powder keg that’s been sitting dormant in my ribcage until this very second so for the love of queer god stand back my sweet, sweet angel this flamethrower of emotion is not for you It was never for you the world
I don’t ask for much- I never wanted to be a
has given me enough gasoline to light
burden to anyone’s comfort zone
the entire stood on fire
I don’t want to be a seemingly superfluous and “grammatically incorrect” pronoun
because the world doesn’t love me like you do
I don’t want to come out again to my parents or my friends
so I need you to see me
I just want to exist
name
and I love you
and I need you to call me by my
From Mac’s blog: October 11th, 2013
i've had about idk 4 or 5 people say things like this to me, starting last semester and this year too
"i feel like we're on this level now where i can ask you this..do you wanna go on T?" "if you don't mind my asking...are you going to get top surgery?" "i don't want to make you uncomfortable, but do you want to transition?"
no we are most certainly *not* on that level yes i DO mind you asking and you ARE making me uncomfortable
like w h a t
yknow what my trans* friends NEVER ask me? they never ask me if i'm going to transition. they never ask me if i'm going to get top surgery because they know that it's none of their goddamn business and if i want to consult them about it, i will.
i can't give anyone a real answer so it's really frustrating for me. all i can say is "i don't want to talk about it," "i don't know," or "maybe"
Dysphoria by TW We creak to life with the engines. Our legs stiff, eyes blurred, bodies cramped, even though we are separated. This will be a long journey. The first bus passes ours. I panic, momentarily, over being seen -- not knowing that I am hidden, covered up by the other passengers visible here. I blend in. I could be mistaken for one of them. But then we move. And we pass the first bus, people all waving through tinted glass. We know that no one can see us, that we are left alone, but we tell ourselves "it's the thought that counts." Like two parts of the same body that will never, ever meet.
i want to write you a song across the breadth of your ribcage, so my tune will sink into your lungs and give you strength to speak in firm and vital tones. “and i will be here for as long as you need me” it will sing, “i will be the spring to help you step and the wind to fill your sail. i love you, i love you”. instead, i’ll have to stick to writing you poems on the back of expired bus transfers. poems in the margins of my notebook. checking the time, counting the days til i can scrawl my verses on your skin and have you happier just to have me near. -Brandon D
Sometimes I find it productive to think of gender as a line in space. A normative social paradigm may be envisioned as a plane. It might have one line for gender with a line segment for sexuality superimposed along part of it. There would probably be a bunch of other lines for things like race, class, age, ability, etc. running parallel to the gender line, never to intersect with it or the sexuality line segment that it encompasses. In other words, people tend to think of gender as being linked with sexuality (i.e. aggressive heterosexuality as a key tenet of hegemonic masculinity, the 'butch lesbian' archetype, 'faggot' as an epithet that has more to do with male effeminacy than homosexuality...), but usually stop there. That gender could be connected to other factors like race or age is an idea that Western society has never adequately entertained, let alone embraced. I have no idea why this is, but as per usual, I'm inclined to be critical. To give a super oversimplified deconstruction, gender is basically a bunch of mostly-arbitrary traits, values, and behaviors that a culture decides should go with people based on what their body looks like and does. It's honestly a little ludicrous, especially when you consider how much consumer culture has created even MORE arbitrary gender decrees (like why are colors gendered now, can someone please explain me this thing). But as weird as it is, gender is literally everywhere, and you can pretty much either roll with it or fuck with it. ...so here is how I like to fuck with it! I've been working extensively with kids for some time now, so observing the interplay between age and gender is part of my daily reality. Kids in general are wont to be playful, explorative, honest, agentic, and imaginative, and experience their worlds through bodily interactions. For whatever reason, adults inevitably attempt to rope young girls into a Foucauldian 'docile and knowable' embodiment pretty much immediately, but give boys more freedom to occupy this ontological space before inculcating them with notions of hegemonic masculinity. Boys are disruptive in their playfulness, resistant in their inquisitiveness, and dangerous in their agency. Boyhood is an inherently volatile, unstable space. Boyhood forces adults to look on uncomfortably as it fucks with everything they consider 'proper', 'mature', 'correct'. And I realized, this is exactly what I aspire to as a queer adult. If I could take the hammer of boyish trouble to all the upsetting bullshit in the Real World--well, I feel like that would just be the very height of queer embodiment for me. And to explore constantly, experience everything through my body, and have fun while doing it? Fucking telos. So, my spatial-visual model of my own gender would probably be more like a
sphere in 3-dimensional space than a set of lines on a 2-dimensional plane. The gender line would intersect with the sexuality line on one plane, with age running through the gender line on a different plane. The lines for race, class, and ability would run through the sphere, but intersect with the gender somewhere beyond it in ways that I probably can't quite comprehend right now. But, also like space, my little gender-sphere is constantly expanding and deepening. I'm sure it'll grow to encompass more intersections, and might even do some crazy quantum things as time goes on--who knows? I sure don't. But isn't that the fun part? -Ty
I am a Self-Processing Animal by TW Three years ago, I was afraid I’d woken up a skeleton Flesh frightened away, muscles Seized all too tight by the thought Of continued life. I wonder how many of my tendons snapped In the process. How severed I became From the world around me. My bones, perhaps left out too long, Reduced to something unnatural, Gleaming and fragile in equal parts. I was afraid I would never be studied. Still, parts of me clench When I think that the box I will be put in Will not be opened ages later And poked through. That no one will read the cracks in my bones. I’m sure there will still be plenty, In many shapes, for many reasons, And I’m sure they will still be appreciated While I am here, and now, But flaying myself to show them off Only puts more nails in the box. And I know the dirt won’t preserve me, And I know your stories will, And I know you’ve got to tell them, Because I know I have more to give than my bones.
Binary by Eli
our world is coded with ones and zero’s but flesh and blood do not work like our computer's hard drives our skin does not respond to the touch of plastic keys blinking cursors and flickering laptop screens at 2 in the morning it responds to me and I do not fit in their binary I am so many words that haven't been invented yet. I am that empty second between inhale and exhale When I scream alone I speak in tongues that god himself hasn't heard yet.They say God is a trinity and Jesus was both human and divine so why on earth do we have to be just one thing? I want to walk up to the priest of my childhood church kneel at the edge of the cold, old marble altar and rip my chest open wide maybe they will recognize (understand) the shades of grey and unknown colors spilling from my temple desperately surrounding and clinging to their dormant feet as a hymn that language can not yet accommodate
For a Few Hours a Week or All Trans Everything by TW Sam and Dean are two transgender brothers who drive across the country battling demons with the help of their transgender father and genderless ghost mentor. Sherlock Holmes is a transgender woman who uses her brilliant deductive reasoning skills to solve horrendous crimes across all of England. Buffy Summers is a gender-questioning woman who makes the devil himself quake in his boots. The Doctor is a pangender space alien who's sick in equal measure of running from his past and being a white human being. Edward Cullen learned long ago that, just like age, gender didn't really apply to her either. Ted Mosby is a genderqueer thirty-something who's just trying to find the love of their life in a society that thinks they can only want one-night stands. The first time Dwight Shrute ever said FALSE was when someone called eir a man. Daria Morgendorfer is a non-binary person who probably rather be asleep right now. Superman borrows Wonder Woman's costume for missions to other planets. Lieutenant Starbuck is the greatest pilot and the best drag king the Galactica has ever seen, and she's too scared to change one of those. Genderless Gregory House secretly owes his bitter cynicism to internalized biological essentialism learned in his transgender-ignorant medical classes. Trans-feminine Will Graham is starting to become more scared of being held in a men's prison than anything else. Mako Mori and Charlie Hunnam don't need to tell each other why they drift so well. The only reason Gordon Ramsay yells so much is because he doesn't want people to find out she's genderfluid. Frank Underwood 's revenge schemes. Spartacus holds Naevea as his biggest role model for reasons he doesn't know how to articulate. Tony Stark has an Iron Man suit with breast cups that makes him feel safer and more powerful than all the others. John Snow knows nothing...except that the Night's Watch would be better for him as a co-ed force. Gustavo Fring is the most sympathetic villain ever portrayed on television, and millions mourn the death of their favorite non-binary character when ze dies. Shrek isn't scared at all when Fiona turns into a human man when they kiss. "This is the best layer yet," he says, as they share more than a smile. Jacks Keller always complains about how difficult riding a motorcycle is while tucking when he gets too stressed.
Ash Ketchum has six teams made up of genderless Pokemon, so ey can be even closer to them. And every week, cis people are criminals with no backstory or sympathetic light. And every week, cis people are jokes in the openings of Seth McFarlene shows. And every week, cis people are plot twists based solely on their bodies. And every week, cis people are nothing but set-ups. And every week, cis people are not written without a shred of respect. And every week, cis people are killed, and killed, and killed, and lucky if that's all that happens. And then, and only then, can you tell me that representation doesn't matter.
Cover art by Bologna Ebner All dawings by Tom Luke 2014 Mac C