A Young Person's Perspective on Non Binary Identities
Throughout the majority of history most places in the world only recognised two genders, men and women; though there are also some places where the existence of third, fourth and fifth genders were commonplace.
In this post I will mostly be using nonbinary as an umbrella term to describe genders that are not simply man or woman, but it is important to note that not all people with diverse genders will identify with the term nonbinary.
Whether because they are from a culture that does not have a gender binary, they do not like the term, or any other reason.
It is also important to recognise that the terms man, woman and nonbinary are not mutually exclusive; there are nonbinary men and nonbinary women, as well as people who are both a man and woman at the same time, and even people who are all three at once, because there is no wrong way to experience gender.
There are a lot of different terms that people may use to describe how they experience gender.Nonbinary is typically used as an umbrella term for these genders, though not all people use nonbinary as they do not feel it describes their experience.
For example: someone who is native american and identifies as two-spirit may not feel their experience falls under being nonbinary, as their culture has no binary to begin with.
Ultimately everyone has their own preferences, and different people in similar situations may prefer different terms to describe their experiences.
There are plenty of different terms that people use to describe their gender, though some people will just use nonbinary and leave it at that. Some possible genders that people may feel aligns with their experiences are:
- Genderfluid, a gender shifts over time
- Bigender, a gender that is actually two genders at once
- Demiboy, a gender that is partially a boy
- Demigirl, a gender that is partially a girl
- Agender, a lack of gender
There are also people who feel that none of the terms that are in use describe their gender, so they create their own terminology. These genders are referred to under the umbrella term of xenogenders.
Similar to how people use many different terms to describe their gender, people also use various different pronouns that align with how they view themselves and their gender.
While they/them is commonly thought of as “the nonbinary pronoun” the truth is a lot more complex than that, for as many people who prefer they/them there are just as many who do not like being referred to as a “they” at all.
Similar to xenogenders, people may not identify with commonly used pronouns and instead use either more obscure pronouns or create their own pronouns.
In short, what I have been trying to say across this entire post, is that people can use any pronouns and terms that they want, they can identify however they want.
