So here goes. A life-long struggle to understand myself in so many ways and more than eight years of true and consistent self-discovery through hard work and with a lot of support from many different people and perspectives has led me to this.
I am non-binary.
Some of you are at least vaguely aware of this, and others have known for some time. For me, this means that I do not identify with either of the binary gender identities that our culture and society provides. I don’t reject masculine or feminine aspects of myself, and in fact have I done a lot of personal development to embrace and understand both of these aspects and more over the last two years. I simply do not, and cannot feel comfortable in either of them as an identity. I suppose if our culture had a third, I might identify there. My gender expression is certainly fluid, and non-conformist. The reality is that I need to be open, authentic and truly myself as freely as possible and so I need to be able to talk about this publicly. To be comfortable being me in my life, there are some changes I want to make, and am going to make, even though they may be tricky for some both practically and maybe emotionally.
The main change is that I am changing my whole name officially by deed poll, and my pronouns will be they/them/theirs.
My new name is Tomlin Wilding, with Om, Tom or Tommi used for short.
This has obviously been something I have discussed a lot with Owen and my children and they are all happy with the changes and I have been using my name with some of my closest friends for a few months. I want it to be clear that my dropping the name Fackrell is in no way a reflection of any change in relationship with Owen, or his family. Without the name I feel just as partnered with him, and just as much of a part of the Fackrell family as always, in the same way as I have continued to feel part of the Davison family for the last 19 years since I gave up that name.
I understand that these are big changes, and that it will be tough to change automatic speaking etc. I use the wrong pronouns for myself out of habit constantly. I will be really grateful to people who make these changes with me, and support me. However, she/her pronouns do not offend me, and I do not hate my previous name, so I will never be upset if people forget. The only terms that feel really uncomfortable for me (and always have because it feels as weird as being called the other alternative to me) are being described as a woman, girl, lady, wife. Person, human, partner, weirdo are all very welcome descriptions! I haven’t changed social media accounts or anything official yet, but will be doing this over the coming weeks.
If you are confused by any of the terms in this, I wrote a blog recently about gender that might help.
Anyway, I love you all, and I am not different, just representing myself outwardly in the most authentic way I can. I really hope you understand.
