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Janelle Monáe is known for breaking boundaries in their music and visual art, exploring themes of queerness, blackness, and feminism. The "Dirty Computer" singer made another bold statement over the weekend after appearing to come out as nonbinary, writing "#IAmNonBinary" in a tweet.
2020-01-13
According to the National Center for Transgender Equality, nonbinary people identify as a gender outside of the traditional categories of male and female, and sometimes identify as neither or a mixture of both genders at the same time.
Monáe is one of a growing number of people identifying as nonbinary. A recent Pew Research survey found that one-third of teens and people in their early 20s know someone who uses gender-neutral pronouns, the set of pronouns that many nonbinary people use as opposed to "he" or "she."
Two-spirit people — Native American people who identify as either neither man or woman, but a gender beyond or a combination of the two — fall under the non-binary umbrella.
Chelsea Guglielmino / Getty Images
Being nonbinary means identifying beyond "man" or "woman"
Despite some Twitter users claiming "everyone is nonbinary" because everyone should be breaking gender stereotypes, being nonbinary goes beyond breaking gender stereotypes.
Rather, nonbinary is an umbrella term for different gender identities that exist beyond mainstream societal ideas of man and woman. Some of these identities have existed for centuries and across cultures, and include Two Spirit people in Native American nations and Waria people in Indonesia.
Being nonbinary is different than being a binary transgender person who identifies as a man or a woman. While both nonbinary people and binary transgender people are both not cisgender, which describes someone whose gender corresponds with the sex they were assigned at birth, some non-binary people identify as transgender while others do not.
It also has nothing to do with what gender or genders a person is attracted to, or their sexual orientation.
Finally, being nonbinary is different than being intersex, which describes people whose physical and hormonal characteristics do not fit neatly into scientific definitions of "male" and "female." Intersex people can also identify as nonbinary, though.
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People who are nonbinary also typically use pronouns aside from he or she to refer to themselves. One of the more known pronouns non-binary people use is "they," though nonbinary people have also used "xe" or "zir" or multiple pronouns.
Indya Moore, star of hit FX series "Pose," is non-binary and speaks openly about their identity.
Axelle/Bauer-Griffin / Getty Images
Nonbinary people are more visible than ever before, but still face a higher risks of physical danger and mental health problems
But transgender and nonbinary people still face disproportionately high rates of homelessness and physical harm — especially femmes of color. (Femmes are queer people who act and present in a feminine way. This can mean trans women or femme nonbinary people.)
Quispe (pronouns: he/they) is a former Sex & Relationships Reporter at Insider covering kinks, porn, LGBTQ issues, and the intersection of health and race. As a transmasculine Quechua Two-Spirit writer, their primary focus at Insider was covering transgender health and wellness, from hormone replacement therapy to skincare. In 2020, Quispe began covering the wave of anti-trans legislation sweeping the US, appearing on The Young Turks, MSNBC, and The Majority Report as an expert commentator. Quispe previously worked for NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune's social media team and The Uptown Messenger's news team. They graduated from Tulane University with a bachelor's degree in Political Science and Africana Studies. Quispe currently works at Them. as a Lifestyle Editor.
