Okay, so, you’ve never heard of a nonbinary gender before, and out of nowhere, someone
tells you that they’re nonbinary.
What exactly does that mean?
And is it even a real thing?
Yeah, yes it is -- sorry that was a really bad a cliffhanger.
Nonbinary genders are real even though they’ve only gained public visibility relatively recently.
A nonbinary gender is essentially a gender that is not strictly “woman” or “man”.
So to figure out what I mean by that, we have to talk about what gender is.
And when it comes down to it, gender is how you feel and identify.
Let’s say you born with a penis and assigned male at birth because of that.
Then you grew up and you identified as a boy, and then you identified as a man, and you’ve
never had any doubts about that, and you’re perfectly okay identifying like that.
That would make you a cisgender man.
And vice-versa for cisgender women.
Now you’ve probably heard of the term transgender before.
So a transgender person is someone who doesn’t identify with the gender they were assigned at birth.
So, for instance, if you were born with a penis and assigned male at birth because of
that, but later grew up and felt that you identified more strongly with being a girl
or a woman -- that would make you a trans woman.
That narrative you’re probably a little more comfortable with, now let’s just change
one small detail to explain nonbinary genders.
Let’s say you were born with a penis and assigned male at birth, but when you grew
up, you didn’t identify with being a man or a woman.
Neither identity felt quite right for you.
That would make you a non-binary person.
Now, I know what you’re thinking.
You’re thinking that that’s not possible because men have penises and women have vaginas.
But you know it’s not that simple.
Transgender people exist, there are women who have penises and men who have vaginas.
That’s pretty mainstream and well accepted by now.
LGBT+ rights are widely supported, and that T stands for transgender.
So if you can understand that sometimes people don’t identify with the gender they were
assigned at birth, then I think you can understand that they might also not completely identify
with the other major gender.
And where that leaves them is identifying as some sort of third option -- a non-binary gender.
Every major LGBT+ organization in the US recognizes that non-binary genders exist -- they’re
slowly gaining visibility and acceptance.
They’ve been around for thousands of years in various cultures, and what you’re seeing
today is just people finding the language to describe how they feel.
I’m not gonna try and convince that you non-binary genders are real in this video,
because I think that if you really don’t want to believe it, you won’t.
But I will ask you to be open-minded and understanding
and compassionate for experiences that are unlike your own.
Not everyone experiences the world in the same way that you do, and you have to recognize that.
As non-binary genders gradually gain public acceptance, recognizing that they exist will
put you on the right of history in the long run.
All of that being said, let’s get into some more detailed aspects of it.
For one, many people consider non-binary people to fall under the trans umbrella.
That’s because being trans means not identifying with the gender you were assigned at birth,
and non-binary people certainly don’t identify with the gender they were assigned at birth.
So many people identify as trans and non-binary.
Another thing to note is that many non-binary folks use they/them pronouns instead of he/him or she/her.
This might be confusing at first, using they/them for a single person, but you’ll get used
to it pretty quickly.
There’s actually a lot of historical precedent for the singular they, and in fact, many of
us already use it to refer to singular people when we don’t yet know their gender.
I promise you, with a little bit effort, referring to a nonbinary person as they/them is totally possible.
But, not all nonbinary people use they/them pronouns.
Some use he/him or she/her for a variety of reasons.
One of those reasons might be that they identify as both a man and nonbinary, or as a woman and nonbinary.
For instance, I’m a woman, and I’m nonbinary, because I feel like on the gender spectrum,
mine lands somewhere in-between gender-neutral and super feminine -- so I identify with both terms.
The same can happen for nonbinary trans men.
Also, nonbinary itself is both a label and an umbrella term.
Many people identify as a more specific gender under the nonbinary umbrella, like genderqueer,
gender non-conforming, agender, bigender, greygender, or many others.
If you’re unsure what pronouns to use for someone, it’s always considered polite to ask.
And if you slip up and accidentally use the wrong pronouns, just correct yourself, maybe
apologize quickly, and move on.
If you continue to misgender someone by using the wrong pronouns, you can make them feel
really bad, and if you become overly apologetic every time you make a mistake, you could draw
more attention to them than they want.
And lastly, be careful of gendered terms for nonbinary people.
Ask them if they prefer sir or ma’am or neither.
Don’t call them a man or a woman, or a dude or a chick, unless they say it’s okay.
There are a lot of gendered things in our language that you might not realize are gendered
until you have to think about it, but that’s okay.
We’re finding ways of making it work, and we’re finding ways to accommodate everyone’s needs.
So, I hope that was a good little explanation of being non-binary.
There’s a bunch more stuff that I could get into, but I wanted to keep this as simple as possible.
I’ll link to some other great non-binary folks in the description so you can go learn from them as well.
I’ll also link to Ash Hardell’s book, the ABC’s of LGBT, because it has some really
insightful stuff to say about non-binary genders -- and Ash is actually a really lovely nonbinary person themself.
This isn’t sponsored, by the way, I just really like that book.
In fact, I was one of the editors for it -- and it’s so good.
I highly recommend it.
Anyway, that’s all I had for you today.
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Thanks for watching, and I’ll see you next time.