My name is Tomlin, and I am non-binary

So here goes. A lifetime of trying to understand myself in all sorts of ways, and more than eight years of steady self-discovery — hard work, helped enormously by a lot of people and a lot of different perspectives — has brought me here. I am non-binary. Some of you know that, at least vaguely. Others have known for a while.

What it means for me is that I do not identify with either of the binary gender identities our culture offers. I don't reject the masculine or feminine parts of myself; in fact I have worked hard over the last two years to understand and embrace both, and more besides. I simply do not feel comfortable in either as an identity, and cannot. If this culture had a third option, I suspect I would sit there. My gender expression is certainly fluid, and non-conformist.

The reality is that I need to be open, authentic and as freely myself as I can be, which means I need to be able to talk about this publicly. To be comfortable in my own life there are changes I want to make, and am going to make, even though some of them will be awkward for other people, practically and perhaps 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 for short. I have discussed it at length with Owen and the children, and they are all happy with it. I have been using the name with some of my closest friends for a few months.

I want to be clear that dropping Fackrell says nothing about any change in my relationship with Owen, or with his family. Without the name I feel just as partnered to him, and just as much part of the Fackrell family as ever, in the same way I have carried on feeling part of the Davison family for the nineteen years since I gave that one up.

I know these are big changes, and that the automatic habits of speech are hard to shift. I get my own pronouns wrong out of habit constantly. I will be genuinely grateful to anyone who makes these changes with me and supports me. That said, she/her pronouns do not offend me, and I don't hate my old name, so I will never be upset if people forget. The terms that feel genuinely uncomfortable, and always have, are woman, girl, lady, wife. Person, human, partner and weirdo are all very welcome.

I have not changed my social media accounts or anything official yet. I will be doing that over the coming weeks. If any of the terminology here confuses you, I wrote a blog about gender recently that might help.

Anyway. I love you all, and I am not different. I am just representing myself outwardly in the most authentic way I can. I really hope you understand.