'A label, but... not a constraint': The US has 1.2M nonbinary LGBTQ adults. What does that mean?
As a teen, Ava Devine didn’t have the words to fully describe their gender, nor a peer group for guidance and reassurance.
“I think that was the most isolating time for me because I didn’t have that community of other people who were experiencing similar feelings as me to lean back on because I didn’t know it existed,” Devine said.
There are about 1.2 million nonbinary LGBTQ adults in the United States, according to a recent study by the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law. Until now, there hadn’t been a comprehensive study on nonbinary people.
Devine said being nonbinary is “not a linear scale that goes from male to female” and that it’s important to acknowledge the different ways – “identifying as both or neither or not associating with any gender at all” – in which a person’s gender might deviate from the gender binary.
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“When I think of nonbinary, I consider it as anyone who identifies outside of the traditional assumption of male and female,” Devine said.
Nonbinary is not simply a term that means "neither man nor woman," says Marquis Bey, a professor of African American Studies & English at Northwestern University.
“To me, nonbinariness is the refusal and interrogation of gender itself,” Bey wrote in an email to Paste BN. “It is, I think, an imaginative call to consider how to be and live and love without, and as a staunch rejection of, gender.”
'By far not the only term'
Traditionally, nonbinary has been used as an umbrella term for a spectrum of identities, according to the Human Rights Campaign. But the term “nonbinary” is sometimes recognized only as a default alternative to man or woman, said Eden Anaï Luna, a nonbinary program manager at the Los Angeles LGBT Center.
“It is by far not the only term," Luna said. "And because we're still using nonbinary as a default term, we're erasing components of the culture and the community (that) in some ways have existed before the modern context with the word 'nonbinary.'"
Ciné Julien, a nonbinary student from the University of Central Florida, said that while nonbinary serves as a descriptor for gender identity, it shouldn’t inhibit nonbinary people in their self-expression.
“Nonbinary is a label, but it is not a constraint on how you identify yourself,” Julien said. “You’re able to identify yourself as much as you want to, as freely as you want to, as masculine or feminine as you want. It is about what makes you feel like you’re living your most authentic self, and that’s all that matters.”
The UCLA survey found that 76% of LGBTQ nonbinary adults are between 18 and 29. Most are white, live in urban areas and struggle to make ends meet, the study said.
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But Luna added that many nonbinary people they work with “who don't speak English, who speak Spanish, who were born outside the U.S., who are a bit older than the age range” in the survey “may have different contexts (for nonbinariness) in their respective cultures.”
Further, Julien said nonbinary people of color share a feeling of alienation within the LGBTQ community.
“I think it’s pretty alarming that we still have to fight for visibility in issues that most pertain to us, and we’re not able to talk about them because it’s always someone who is white at the forefront,” Julien said.
Jules Gill-Peterson, an associate professor of English and Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies at the University of Pittsburgh, said the exclusion faced by nonbinary people of color also extends to recent media and cultural representation, which she said tends to center on white nonbinary people.
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And even though nonbinary and its related terms are frequently associated with youth culture because young people often serve as “tastemakers” in shaping “the language that we use to talk about gender and sexuality,” there’s no historical shortage of people who expressed themselves in gender-nonconforming ways, Gill-Peterson said.
Abbie Rolf, a genderqueer mental health counselor specializing in gender-affirming therapy, said that nonbinary people are a “vast array of ages,” but some people don’t necessarily have an immediate opportunity to explore their genders.
“Just because you recognize that a thing exists, or you're recognizing discomfort, or you're recognizing euphoria, in certain circumstances doesn't necessarily mean that you have the language to identify or explore your identity,” said Abbie, who prefers to use their first name.
The impact of transphobia
Nonbinary people may also be at an increased risk for mental illness and similar forms of distress. The Williams Institute found that “LGBTQ nonbinary adults experience high rates of psychological distress,” and nearly 94% of respondents reported considering suicide.
Gill-Peterson said mental health survey results like these reveal the effect of transphobia on nonbinary people’s lives rather than reflect a natural tendency toward mental illness.
“If you have to spend your entire childhood and adolescence and maybe a lot of your adulthood figuring out how to describe yourself because no one is helping you in figuring out how to survive… then, of course, you’re going to experience a negative impact on your mental health,” Gill-Peterson said. “It would be bizarre not to.”
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Abbie also pointed to a struggle with aesthetic expectations of gender norms in being nonbinary, mainly the expectation that all nonbinary people present as androgynous (blurring the line between masculine and feminine in their presentation).
“Because the society that we live in likes to categorize and likes for people to fit in neat and tidy little boxes," they said. "With being the other may come danger and safety concerns, and oftentimes a lack of respect and not being treated with dignity."
Despite the challenges nonbinary people might face in coming to terms with their identities, Devine said, the initial fear and uncertainty fade with time.
“The biggest thing is, it gets better," Devine said. "If you are able to find the resources or the community, you come to understand yourself better, and it’s not always as scary as it seems at first."