Notable nonbinary people
Notable nonbinary people will include celebrities such as musicians and performers, as well as historical figures and activists. There are many more nonbinary people in the world who aren't famous, but these are a few of those individuals that are well-known to some degree. Sorted alphabetically by surname, with a fair use or creative commons photo if possible.
Olly Alexander
Alexander, the lead singer and songwriter for electropop band Years and Years, has said, "I feel very nonbinary, and you know, I identify as gay and queer and nonbinary[...]"[1]
- Born: July 15, 1990 (age 36)
- Nationality: English
- Pronouns: he/him (assumed)
- Profession: singer, songwriter, actor, and activist.
- Wikipedia entry
Justin Vivian Bond
- Born: May 9, 1963 (age 63)
- Nationality: American
- Pronouns: v/v's
- Profession: Cabaret performer; most famous for v's cabaret character Kiki DuRane.
- Nonbinary Wiki entry / Wikipedia entry
Kate Bornstein
See our main article about Kate Bornstein.
- Born: March 15, 1948 (age 78)
- Nationality: American
- Pronouns: ze/hir
- Profession: author, playwright, performance artist, and gender theorist.
- Wikipedia entry / Kate's Blog
Jonathan Rachel Clynch
"One of Irish broadcaster RTE’s best-known journalists just [in 2015] came out as 'gender fluid,' and the response so far seems wholly positive. ... The 44-year-old, who has yet to make a public statement, told his bosses that he wishes to now be known as Jonathan Rachel and would sometimes dress as a female. ... Clynch has worked with RTE for 16 years, often filling in on Radio One’s flagship 'News at One.' ... 'He has been open about it for a while now and his friends and family were all aware of his situation. He is going through a process at the moment and will speak about it in his own time and he hopes everyone will be respectful of that.'"[2]
- Born: 1971 (age 55)
- Nationality: Irish
- Pronouns: he
- Profession: broadcast journalist
Ivan E. Coyote
- Born: August 11, 1969 (age 57)
- Nationality: Canadian
- Pronouns: They/their
- Profession: Writer
- Wikipedia entry Their Website nonbinary wiki entry
Miley Cyrus
In a 2015 interview, Miley explained, “I didn’t want to be a boy, ... I kind of wanted to be nothing. I don’t relate to what people would say defines a girl or a boy, and I think that’s what I had to understand: Being a girl isn’t what I hate, it’s the box that I get put into.”[3]
- Born: 23 November 1992 (age 34)
- Nationality: USA
- Pronouns: No preference expressed; journalists assume "she/her", possibly "she" on account of the 2019 album "She Is Miley Cyrus"
- Profession: Singer, songwriter, actress
- Wikipedia entry
Sam de Leve
de Leve plays non-binary characters for the Geek & Sundry [3] and Saving Throw multimedia networks. They are also a dancer [4] and writer [5].
Rain Dove
Rain uses her naturally androgynous look to model for both men's and women's lines of clothing & identifies as genderqueer or gender variant.
- Born: September 27, 1989 (age 37)
- Nationality: American
- Pronouns: Primarily she/her but accepts they/their or he/him depending on presentation
- Profession: Model, actor
- Rain's blog Rain Dove on Facebook
Dorian Electra
"Styling is so important to me as a genderfluid person, to be able to say “I’m a very flaming flammable guy”... it’s just very satisfying, ’cause that’s how I see myself, but I know it’s not necessarily how other people see me – they still call me ‘ma’am’ and stuff like that."[4]
- Born: June 25, 1992 (age 34)
- Nationality: American
- Pronouns: They/them
- Profession: singer, songwriter
- Their Wikipedia entry Their official site
Public Universal Friend
The Public Universal Friend was born as an English-American to a Quaker family on Rhode Island, and was assigned female at birth. This person suffered a severe illness in 1776 (age 24), and reported having died and been reanimated by the power of God as a genderless evangelist named the Public Universal Friend.
The Friend refused to answer any longer to the previous name, Jemima Wilkinson,[5] quoted Luke 23:3 ("thou sayest it") when visitors asked if it was the name of the person they were addressing, and ignored or chastised those who insisted on using it. The preacher shunned the name "Jemima" completely, having friends hold realty in trust rather than see the name on deeds and titles. Even when a lawyer insisted that the person's Will should identify its subject as having been born under the name Jemima, the preacher refused to sign that name, only making an X which others witnessed, even though the Friend could read and write.[6]
The Friend wore clothes that contemporaries described as androgynous or masculine, chiefly black robes. The Friend preached throughout the northeastern United States, attracting many followers who became the Society of Universal Friends.[7] The Public Universal Friend's theology was broadly similar to that of orthodox Quakers, believing in free will, actively opposing slavery, and supporting sexual abstinence. The Friend persuaded followers who owned slaves to free them. The followers of the Society included people who were black. The Society's followers also included many unmarried women, who took on prominent roles in their communities, which were usually reserved for men.
- Born: November 29, 1752, died July 1, 1819 (age 66)
- Nationality: United States
- Pronouns: No pronouns. The Friend asked not to be referred to with gendered pronouns. Followers respected these wishes, avoiding gender-specific pronouns even in private diaries, and referring only to "the Public Universal Friend" or short forms such as "the Friend" or "P.U.F."[8]
- Profession: Preacher
- Wikipedia entry
Eddie Izzard
Eddie Izzard identifies primarily as a transvestite but also uses the word transgender and has stated "I am 100% boy, plus extra girl."[9]
- Born: 7 February 1962 (age 64)
- Nationality: English
- Pronouns: he/him
- Profession: Stand up comedian, actor, writer
- Wikipedia entry
Elly Jackson
"I don't feel like I'm female or male."[10]
- Born: 12th March 1988 (age 38)
- Nationality: English
- Pronouns: She/her
- Profession: Singer-songwriter and the lead singer of the electropop duo La Roux.
- Wikipedia entry
Jinkx Monsoon
In a Facebook post about transphobia and the drag scene, Monsoon stated "I, myself do not identify as cis-gendered. I am genderless."[11]
- Born: September 18, 1987 (age 39)
- Nationality: American
- Pronouns: They/them, she/her while in drag
- Profession: Actor, singer and winner of RuPaul's Drag Race season 5
- Wikipedia entry Official website
Richard O'Brien
In a 2009 interview O'Brien spoke about an ongoing struggle to reconcile cultural gender roles and self-described as being transgender or possible third sex. O'Brien stated, "There is a continuum between male and female. Some are hard-wired one way or another, I’m in between."[12] O'Brien expounded on this in a 2013 interview which covered using oestrogen for the previous decade, and identifying as 70% male 30% female.[13]
- Born: 25 March 1942 (age 84)
- Nationality: British
- Pronouns: He/his
- Profession: Writer, actor, television presenter and theatre performer. O'Brien is known for writing the cult musical The Rocky Horror Show and for presenting the popular TV show The Crystal Maze.
- Nonbinary Wiki entry / Wikipedia entry
Tom Phelan
Phelan plays a binary-trans teen on TV but identifies as non-binary themself.[14]
- Born: 1997 (Age 29)
- Nationality: American
- Pronouns: He/him [citation needed]
- Profession: Actor; noted for playing transgender teen Cole on ABC's The Fosters
- Tumblr / IMDB
Genesis Breyer P-Orridge
After marrying Lady Jaye Breyer P-Orridge in 1993, Genesis and Lady Jaye began "project Pandrogeny" to become Breyer P-Orridge, an entity described as an "amalgam" of their two selves. Genesis Breyer P-Orridge continued this project after the death of Lady Jaye in 2007.
- Born: 22 February 1950 (age 76)
- Nationality: British
- Pronouns: s/he, h/er
- Profession: singer-songwriter, musician, poet, writer, occultist and performance artist
- Wikipedia entry h/er own website
Amy Ray
Amy Elizabeth Ray is an American singer-songwriter and member of the contemporary folk duo Indigo Girls. She also pursues a solo career and has released six albums under her own name, and founded a record company, Daemon Records.
Speaking about her own gender identity to thegavoice.com, she said, "I am half and half and whatever you call me is fine,” she says. “I work every day to be comfortable in my body and in rare transcendent moments, I am, but it’s the job of my lifetime to appreciate my physicality and always project what is inside me so I can celebrate this life I’ve been given."
- Born: April 12, 1964 (age 62)
Raeen Roes (Angel Haze)
Raeen Roes, better known by their stage name Angel Haze, is a well known agender rapper, as they announced via twitter. [15] [16]
- Born: July 10, 1991 (age 35)
- Nationality: American
- Pronouns: They/them
- Profession: Rapper, lyricist, singer
- Their Wikipedia entry Their official site
Ruby Rose
"On 22 July 2014, Rose came out as genderfluid, saying, "I am very gender fluid and feel more like I wake up every day sort of gender neutral.". This announcement came approximately a week after she released a short film called "Break Free," in which she visually transitions from a very feminine woman to a heavily tattooed man."[7]
- Born: March 20, 1986 (age 40)
- Nationality: Australian
- Pronouns: She/Her [8]
- Profession: Model, actress, musician, and television presenter.
JD Samson
JD Samson is a musician with the bands Le Tigre and MEN. She identifies as genderqueer and a gender outlaw. "I do mostly go by she and her and I consider myself a woman in most senses of the word. I sometimes consider myself part of the trans community and I don't mind at all when people call me he if that's how they see me.[17]
- Born: 4 August 1978 (age 48)
- Nationality: American
- Pronouns: She/her[17]
- Profession: Musician
- Nonbinary Wiki entry / Wikipedia entry
Sam Smith
"When asked if he feels like a cisgender man, they replied: ‘No. I mean, I’ve got these tattoos on my fingers.’ They pointed to small tattoos of the gender symbols and smiled: ‘I don’t know what the title would be but I feel just as much woman as I am man.’"[18]
- Born: 19 May 1992 (age 34)
- Nationality: British
- Pronouns: They/them[19]
- Profession: Singer-songwriter
- Nonbinary Wiki entry / Wikipedia entry
Rae Spoon
- Nationality: Canadian
- Pronouns: They/their
- Profession: Singer-songwriter
- Wikipedia entry
Amandla Stenberg
Writing about organising a workshop, Hunger Games actor Amandla Stenberg wrote, "Basically, we’re trying to understand the duality of being a non-binary person and a feminist. How do you claim a movement for women when you don’t always feel like one?"[20][21].
In a later Tumblr exchange about having conflicted thoughts about preferred pronouns, Stenberg wrote "Damn you right. They/them it is."[22] As of June 2016, Stenberg's Tumblr profile reads "17 / non-binary / she/her or they/them / bisexual".
- Nationality: American
- Pronouns: They/them or she/her
- Profession: Actor
- Personal Tumblr
- Wikipedia entry
Kieran Strange
Kieran identifies as genderqueer and gender-fluid."[23]
- Born: August 8th
- Nationality: English & Canadian
- Pronouns: He/him[24]
- Profession: Singer, songwriter, actor
- Personal Website
Rebecca Sugar
Rebecca Sugar, the creator of Cartoon Network show Steven Universe has said of its characters: "They wouldn’t think of themselves as women, but they’re fine with being interpreted that way amongst humans. And I am also a non-binary woman which is been really great to express myself through these characters because it’s very much how I have felt throughout my life."[25]
- Born: July 9, 1987 (age 39)
- Nationality: American
- Pronouns: She/her or they/them[26]
- Profession: Animator, director, screenwriter, producer, songwriter
- Wikipedia Entry
Eliot Sumner
Musician Eliot Sumner, Sting's child. "Asked if she had come out to her friends and family, she [Eliot Sumner] said that she hadn’t because 'no one had ever asked'. 'They knew already,' she added. 'So I didn’t need to. I’ve never come out to anyone. My friends always knew and I always knew'. [...] She said she did not believe in gender “labels” and preferred to dress down, shunning the glamour attached to some singers. Asked whether she identified with a particular gender, she replied 'no', saying she defined herself simply as a 'musician'. 'I don’t believe in any specifications,' she said."[27] (Note that this article uses "she" pronouns for Sumner, but Sumner's pronoun preference hasn't been stated.)[28]
- Born: July 30, 1990 (age 36)
- Pronouns: not stated
- Profession: musician
- Personal website
Tilda Swinton
"I don’t know if I could ever really say that I was a girl – I was kind of a boy for a long time. I don’t know, who knows? It changes."[29]
- Born: 5 November 1960 (age 66)
- Nationality: British
- Pronouns: She/her
- Profession: Actor; noted in the nonbinary community for her work in Orlando and as genderless angel Gabriel in Constantine.
- Nonbinary Wiki entry / Wikipedia entry
Pete Townshend
"I know how it feels to be a woman because I am a woman," Townshend said in an interview with White that ran on White's radio show in September 1989. "And I won't be classified as just a man."[30]
- Born: 19 May 1945 (age 81)
- Nationality: British
- Pronouns: He/his
- Profession: Guitarist in The Who.
- Nonbinary Wiki entry / Wikipedia entry
Steven Tyler
"I've been misquoted as saying that I'm more female than male. Let me set the record straight -- it's more half and half, and I love the fact that my feelings are akin to puella eternis (Latin for 'the eternal girl')."[31]
- Born: March 26, 1948 (age 78)
- Nationality: American
- Pronouns: He/his (assumed; citation needed)
- Profession: Musician; frontman of Aerosmith
- Nonbinary Wiki entry / Wikipedia entry
Gerard Way
_(6825192746).jpg)
"I have always identified a fair amount with the female gender..... Masculinity to me has always made me feel like it wasn't right for me.""[32]
- Born: April 9, 1977 (age 49)
- Nationality: American
- Pronouns: he/his or they/their [33]
- Profession: Musician, former lead singer of My Chemical Romance
- Wikipedia entry
See also
References
- ↑ Years & Years: Inspiring - #PlessPlayForPride Spotify, June 7 2016
- ↑ Tom Sykes, "A ‘Gender Fluid’ Journalist Comes Out To Irish Cheers." 2015-09-18. Daily Beast. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/09/18/a-gender-fluid-journalist-comes-out-to-irish-cheers.html
- ↑ Exclusive: Miley Cyrus Launches Anti-Homelessness, Pro-LGBT ‘Happy Hippie Foundation’, out.com, May 5, 2015
- ↑ https://www.dazeddigital.com/music/article/44167/1/dorian-electra-new-song-video-flamboyant-interview
- ↑ Moyer, p. 12; Winiarski, p. 430; and Susan Juster, Lisa MacFarlane, A Mighty Baptism: Race, Gender, and the Creation of American Protestantism (1996), p. 27, and p. 28.
- ↑ Catherine A. Brekus, Strangers and Pilgrims: Female Preaching in America, 1740-1845 (2000), p. 85
- ↑ Peg A. Lamphier, Rosanne Welch, Women in American History (2017), p. 331.
- ↑ Juster & MacFarlane, A Mighty Baptism, pp. 27-28; Brekus, p. 85
- ↑ Eddie Izzard on Atheism, Transgender, and “The Invisible Bloke Upstairs”, Religion Dispatches Magazine, March 7, 2013
- ↑ La Roux's Elly Jackson: I Don't Have A Sexuality, starpulse.com, February 9th, 2010
- ↑ [1],
- ↑ Richard O’Brien: ‘Society should not dictate gender’, Pink News, 18th August 2009
- ↑ Richard O'Brien: ‘I'm 70% man', BBC News, 18 March 2013
- ↑ "TOM PHELAN" in She Wired, 2014-03-02
- ↑ "angxl hxze on Twitter", February 14, 2015
- ↑ "angxl hxze on Twitter", February 14, 2015
- ↑ 17.0 17.1 EQ Interview With MEN - "It's Just Gender - It's Just Whatever"
- ↑ Sam Smith on his gender identity: 'I feel just as much woman as I am man', Gay Star News, 22 October 2017.
- ↑ https://twitter.com/samsmith/status/1172519872464662530?s=20
- ↑ hi folks, @dazedfields and I are organizing a workshop on feminism, amandla.tumblr.com, March 2, 2016
- ↑ Hunger Games actress says she 'doesn't feel like a woman all the time', Gay Star News, March 4, 2016
- ↑ muavve: WHAT ARE YOUR PREFERRED PRONOUNS THIS IS IMPORTANT, amandla.tumblr.com, April 20, 2016
- ↑ "Tear Down The Wall" music video released, watchtheswitch.tumblr.com, June 17, 2014
- ↑ [2], August 12, 2016
- ↑ https://io9.gizmodo.com/steven-universes-rebecca-sugar-on-how-she-expresses-her-1827624015?IR=T
- ↑ https://twitter.com/rebeccasugar?lang=en
- ↑ Craig McLean, John Dunne."I don't believe in 'gender labels,' says Sting's daughter Eliot Sumner." December 2, 2015. Evening Standard (magazine). http://www.standard.co.uk/showbiz/celebrity-news/i-dont-believe-in-gender-labels-says-stings-daughter-eliot-sumner-a3127961.html
- ↑ Curtis M. Wong. "Sting's Child Eliot Sumner: I Don't Identify With Either Gender." December 2, 2015. HuffPost. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/eliot-sumner-non-gender_565f50d1e4b079b2818cf268?ncid=tweetlnkushpmg00000054
- ↑ Interview with Actress Tilda Swinton: “I am probably a woman”, thewip.net, March 20, 2009
- ↑ Interview with Pete Townshend: “Pete Townshend Says He Is Bisexual”, orlandosentinel.com, November 8, 1990
- ↑ "Hollywood Stars: Steven Tyler says he’s both man and woman?" in examiner.com, May 17, 2011
- ↑ "I am Gerard Way, musician, artist, creator, and cousin of Joe Rogan- Ask me anything!", October 1, 2014
- ↑ "Gerard Way on Twitter", June 9, 2015
.jpg){kind=link}
.jpg){kind=link}
