I always give people the benefit of the doubt, until and unless its proven that their question was actually malicious, so yes I definitely try to answer any and all questions like this if I can!

I can only speak from personal experience, but for me…its something that…theres no Correct way to BE nonbinary. You have to understand that being nb isnt a narrow label? And being nb doesnt just mean youre an afab person dressing in more masculine/androgynous clothing or an amab person who wears pretty colors, florals, and maybe skirts or dresses every now and again.

I want people to respect my identity as nb because its how I see myself, its something that is important to me, identifying as nb has helped me a lot. Just because Im afab and wear skirts sometimes doesnt make my identity as nb less valid. And while expressing your gender through your wardrobe/etc is important for a lot of people, AND sometimes a good way to assert your gender to the people around you, it is not by ANY means necessarily connected to your gender, as a lot of people seem to…assume? Suddenly an amab trans girl dresses in more masculine clothing and people start to deny that she is, in fact, a woman. And this is. So weird. Strip a cis person down to nothing and youd never question their gender, why, suddenly, when you are talking about trans people, the idea that “if I cant tell immediately that youre ___ by looking at you why dont you just stick to the pronouns you were given at birth, whats the difference? why does it matter to you?” Youd never ask a cis person this.

Also there is a common misconception that nb people are “a mixture of female and male” or “sometimes female and sometimes male” or “inbetween male and female”. While that might be an accurate description of some of us, for a lot of us its just not. Agender people often seem to be left out of the nonbinary paradigm and if you ask any of them they would probably tell you that they are neither male nor female at all. I identify as genderfluid because thats just a label that I feel really described me well. I do tend to describe myself as more masculine or feminine on some days but (for me) this isnt the same as saying I feel either more male or female, although I understand this can be hard for some people to wrap their heads around.

I could dress in an elephant costume and it wouldnt change the fact that Im nonbinary, and I want that identity to be respected no matter how Im dressed, or not. I find also that people tend to take fat/large chested nonbinary people less seriously…which has everything to do with the idea that being nonbinary automatically should mean youre androgynous (it doesnt always), and therefore if you have a large chest or curves you are automatically seen as disingenuous. My body should not discredit me just because its not something you (have been told) is associated with what it looks like to be “neither woman nor man”.

In short, to answer your question; regardless of how people SEE us, our genders are not the clothes we wear or what we look like.

also as a side note you shouldnt use phrases like “born a girl” as that perpetuates the idea that youre cis until proven otherwise. afab/amab (assigned X at birth) are better alternatives and mean what youre actually trying to say. Ive also seen cafab/camab (coercively assigned X at birth) but I think these are generally used by intersex people? correct me if Im wrong about that though!

well no one else is gonna do it