Rey, who grew up on a desert world with probably minimal human contact, but surrounded by aliens and robots and the only lesson they ever really learned was survival of the fittest. The desert doesn’t care what’s between your legs - it will try its damnedest to kill you regardless.
Rey, who has very faint memories of their family, but those have been worn smooth by the sand. Old enough to remember, young enough to miss out on societal expectations. When they were younger, they were called ‘boy’, ‘girl’, ‘kid’, ‘human’, and many other, less savory things.
Rey, who learned to respond to any and all pronouns as a survival skill. When a drunk scavenger comes looking for a friend to share the prosperity of their new find with, you don’t care what you’re called as long as you get some of those rations.
Rey, who is considered just another weird one by most of the small population and is generally just referred to as ‘Rey’ because who even knows or cares anymore.
Rey, who loves the droids they occasionally find that sometimes have a bit of power left, who teach Rey how to understand binary and tell magnificent stories of the world outside of the sand dunes. Droids have no concept of gender, not really, and a kinship is formed between any and all that they find.
Rey, who doesn’t mention any of this to Poe or Finn or anyone else because it’s not really relevant in their mind; if the others want to refer to them as ‘she’ then that’s fine. Until one day they respond to different pronouns without missing a beat and Leia (who has been around for a while and has seen more than enough of the galaxy and its inhabitants) notices, and decides to talk with them.
Rey, who is confused by the question “what do you want to be called?” because they’re just… Rey. And Leia specifies “do you want feminine, masculine, or neither pronouns?” and Rey is still kind of confused but not as much. Explains that “they/them” fits the most comfortably, and Leia nods and puts a note in Rey’s file that reads “Gender: Nonbinary, They/Them”
i just really want more nb characters in everything but especially star wars okay