You're Really Pretty by Bernadette Fox

Ray is a 31-year old, non-binar...n. with their bulldog, Frances.

Ray is a 31-year old, non-binary, queer person and full-time artist working in both sculpture and tattoo arts. Here, they prepare custom artwork for a friend’s tattoo session. Ray lives in Minneapolis, Minn. with their bulldog, Frances.

Adjective: non-binary &ndas...or homosexual and heterosexual.

Adjective: non-binary – denoting or relating to a gender or sexual identity that is not defined in terms of traditional binary oppositions such as male and female or homosexual and heterosexual.

Ray made the transition from id...ith childhood vibes.”

Ray made the transition from identifying as female to non-binary in January 2019. They had been thinking about it for over 9 years; “This was a thing that I just knew, beginning with childhood vibes.”

“It was always in my ... with my whole life.”

“It was always in my brain, but I didn’t have the vocabulary for it before. I first came out as bisexual, then I found my queer family, and then I finally had the words to explain what I had been struggling with my whole life.”

“Because I now identi...t in Uptown, Minneapolis, Minn.

“Because I now identify as non-binary… I can dress any way, and present any way, be male or female, be nothing or both. It is such a relief.” Ray on the front porch of their apartment in Uptown, Minneapolis, Minn.

“I only got on Tinder...;Respect Every Body”.

“I only got on Tinder recently and it was because I had just gone through this transition and I was feeling a lot of feelings and I needed to know that I could still connect with someone romantically. When I released myself from being defined as a woman, all of a sudden I could feel very pretty. I could look in the mirror and say ‘I’m neither of you and I’m both of you’.” Ray consults with a client in their tattoo studio, The Aldrich, where the motto is “Respect Every Body”.

“When I first started...e of Ray’s workplace.

“When I first started asking people to use ‘They/Them’ pronouns with me, most of my friends said they had seen it coming for a long time and weren’t surprised. They were like, ‘Yes! Finally!’.” The restroom outside of Ray’s workplace.

“I’ve spent so long trying to fit in with other people’s shit, and now that I know myself I’m like, ‘Fuck it. I’ll die for it’. Of course I’d love for it to be easy, but I would rather have the life that I want. And that’s what it is for most of us in 2019–it’s just not the same dream that our parents had.”

Rachel Andrzejewski, 2018. Ray Andrzejewski, 2019.

“There are definitely people who–when you give them your new name–they simply don’t believe you. And they will even say to me, ‘Is that your real name?’. And I’m thinking, ‘What? Why? You are literally meeting a human for the first time and they told you their name’.”

“Non-binary includes ...e the way I want to.”

“Non-binary includes a lot of little nuances and for each person–it’s just about what terms make them feel the most comfortable. But, basically it means that I’m not interested in being defined by either male or female, not being defined by my genitalia. There are things that I want to be able to fully reject or embrace–or any nuance of them–and being non-binary gives me a lot more room to feel and behave the way I want to.”

Bernadette Fox

Also by Bernadette Fox —

sense for a Place

When Water Came To Me