After Demi Lovato came out as non-binary, the terms ‘enby’, ‘pronouns,’ ‘gender identity’ have increasingly been doing the rounds. How do we make ourselves more aware and accepting and how do we ensure that we don’t misidentify anyone- on purpose or by mistake?
Sex and gender
The first thing to understand here is the difference between sex and gender.
Sex refers to the biological differences between males and females, such as the genitalia and genetic differences. Gender is more difficult to define but relates to an individual’s concept of themselves, what they see themselves as. This is called gender identity.
Now, a person can be of a particular sex and identify as a different gender with or without wanting to convert their sexual organs.
Note: Sexual orientation (gay, lesbian, bi) is a whole other concept, and frankly, more or less isolated to the concepts of sex or gender!
Gender is a spectrum, and a person can lie anywhere on the spectrum- and even this can change!
A commonly made mistake is identifying others as either man or woman based on their physical body. Being male is not always equal to being a man and being female is not always equal to being a woman.
Nonbinary gender identity is just one term used to describe individuals who may experience a gender identity that is neither exclusively woman or man, is in between or beyond both genders.
Types of Non-binary genders
Agender: Having no specific gender identity or having a gender identity that is neutral or undefined. Sometimes used interchangeably with genderless and neutrois.
Bigender: Having two distinct gender identities, either simultaneously or alternatively.
Genderfluid: Moving between two or more gender identities.
Genderqueer: A catch-all term for individuals with nonbinary gender identities. Some people identify with it as their main identity. The term includes a slur, so make sure an individual explicitly identifies with it before tacking it onto them.
Nonbinary: The umbrella term covering all gender identities outside the gender binary. Individuals can and do identify with nonbinary as their specific identity. Also referred to as nb or enby, though both of these terms are contentious. As nb also means non-Black, some Black cisgender and nonbinary people are uncomfortable with it as a shortened term for nonbinary. Many nonbinary adults do not feel comfortable with enby because it sounds infantilizing.
You can now make out how non-binary refers to an umbrella term of people who don’t identify with a particular gender. While these terms are extremely important to understand and make a part of our daily vocabulary, what is even more important is acceptance. Acceptance of people of variety and difference beyond what we have perceived as normal, of simply letting people be whoever they want to be.
Instead of focusing on the terms, let us focus on names and pronouns. If someone tells you they have changed their name- just call them by their new name. The older name here is referred to as a ‘dead name’. If someone tells you they want to be referred to as ‘they/them,’ just call them that!
It is common to make mistakes since we are all new to this. What is important is accepting, learning from them and making the effort every time.
To be a good ally, another thing to keep in mind is to make sure you don’t expect a person in the LGBTQ+ community to be your teacher. It is not their responsibility to explain or teach anything to you, even though they might do it because they want to. Google is at our disposal; let’s make full use of it!
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