Notes on a non-binary transition

I've been a holdout in terms of calling myself non-binary. "Why would I want to endorse the idea of a binary in the first place?" I thought. "Why would I want to define myself as not female, just because I am the way I am, knowing that I am within the range of how a female human animal can be born?"

I ultimately decided to do it, not because I think that my doubts about societal prejudice are no longer valid, but because I've been facing that prejudice my entire life, and I discovered I can't just wish it away. Meanwhile, I'm now in my forties, and I have lived most of my life as a woman. But I have reached a point where it seems like the best option is to pursue this transition - not in the best of all possible worlds, but in the current world and situation I'm living in, amidst social misogyny, an economic recession, and my own various personal failings.

I'm at a crossroads in my life where in many avenues I have felt disempowered, through my own defensiveness and fear backing away from seeking empowerment where perhaps other women could have. For me, despite my maturity in years, I have had an inability to trust myself and vouch for myself, a tendency to back away that was only further encouraged by anti-female stereotypes.

In becoming non-binary, I do not declare my previous self gone or dead; I am still myself, with the new identity and medication a new part of myself as I begin a new chapter in my life. As part of my old self, I recall my old feminism, my radical feminism, my love of strength and health, my love of theatre and the arts, and my joy in life. All of these things I want to pick up and carry into my new self, without throwing them away, but remembering them.