Non-Binary gender identities

Non-binary is the umbrella word for a gender that isn't man or woman: both, neither, partly, or something those two words don't reach.

A gender that does not resolve into man or woman, where the refusal to resolve is part of the point rather than a gap waiting to be filled.

Two genders. Not half of each — two whole ones, both of them you.

Three genders. Not one gender in three outfits, not two and a maybe — you have counted honestly, more than once, and it keeps coming out three.

Your gender isn't one thing, and it isn't nothing — it's several at once, and the plural is the whole point.

More than one gender — not one complicated gender, but several, sometimes at once, sometimes taking turns.

Both, not neither — a gender that runs masculine and feminine at the same time, in one person, and does not put either one down.

A gender that sits between man and woman rather than outside them — and a word much of the intersex community says belongs to intersex people alone.

A gender you feel clearly and specifically — it just isn't male, female, a blend of the two, or the space in between.

There is definitely a gender there. It just isn't male, isn't female, isn't a blend of the two, and isn't neutral — it's its own thing, and the language for it doesn't exist yet.

Your gender is there, it is specific, and no word that currently exists carries it — so you stopped waiting for one to arrive.

Boyish, but not a boy. Masculine, but not male — standing right next to manhood without ever being inside it.

A gender that sits beside female instead of within it — near enough that "woman" is the closest word, far enough that it's the wrong one.

Two genders at once, held steady — not taking turns, not blending into one.

A man and a woman and neither one, all at the same time — one gender, not two taking turns.

A centuries-old word for neither-one-nor-the-other, taken up by a small number of people as a name for a gender that can't be sorted — not a blend of two, just unreadable.

Gender you refuse to make easy for people. The illegibility is deliberate, and it is the point.

A masculinity built inside queer life, by people who were not men and mostly were not trying to be.

Femininity held as a queer position rather than a default — chosen, worked at, expensive, and almost never read correctly from outside.

Masculine, but not a man. Boyish on purpose, and not planning to grow out of it.

All the genders at once, carried as one thing. Not undecided. Not empty. Crowded.

A gender with nothing masculine or feminine in it: not between them, not a mix, and not necessarily an absence either.

Two settings on one switch: agender at one end, another gender at the other, and never both at once.

Non-binary, and feminine at the root. Not a woman — but the femininity is the real thing, not a costume.

Not outside the binary — against it. A gender defined as the opposite of man-and-woman together.

A gender that can only be described as you: no outside reference, no comparison, no metaphor — just yourself.

All the genders available to you. Pangender with the limit written into the word.

More than one gender. Two, three, a crowd — held at once or in turns, and all of them yours.