10 nonbinary icons from history and today to celebrate
07/12/24
Wirestock Creators/Shutterstock; Walter McBride/Getty Images; David Hudson, Public domain via Wikimedia Commons
While "nonbinary" may be a term that some people have only learned in recent years, there have been people throughout history who have bucked traditional gender norms. It's these icons who fought against societal expectations of gender and blazed the trails for nonbinary and gender nonconforming people everywhere.
From playwrights to scholars to actors and musicians, history is full of incredibly talented enbies. So, to celebrate Nonbinary Awareness Week, we're looking back at the amazing nonbinary people who have made our history so rich.
Public Universal Friend (1752-1819)
David Hudson, Public domain via Wikimedia Commons
The Public Universal Friend was an American preacher who claimed to have died and then come back to life as a genderless evangelist. The Friend then ditched their birth name and all gendered pronouns and started dressing in androgynous clothing. Their preaching attracted followers, who became the Society of Universal Friends, which had a theology similar to the Quakers.
Claude Cahun (1894-1954)
Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons
Claude Cahun was a French surrealist photographer, sculptor, and writer best known for her self-portraits. In her writing, she used "she/her" pronouns but considered herself gender fluid. But Cahun wasn't just challenging gender norms in the early 1900s with her androgynous look; she was also a resistance worker during WWII, co-founding the leftist group Contre Attaque.
In her surrealistic autobiography Disavowals, Cahun wrote about her gender: "Masculine? Feminine? It depends on the situation. Neuter is the only gender that always suits me."
Thomas Batty (1869-1954)
Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons
Thomas Baty was a renowned legal scholar and advocate for radical feminism and against the gender binary. Using the name Irene Clyde, they published Beatrice the Sixteenth, a utopian novel about a genderless society. Baty also founded the journal Urnania to campaign against the binaries of gender.
Kate Bornstein (1948)
Walter McBride/Getty Images
Kate Bornstein is an American author, playwright, performance artist, and gender theorist who first gained notoriety for their book Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women, and The Rest of Us. They started identifying as gender non-conforming in the '80s and now identifies as nonbinary.
"When it comes to gender and sexuality, I am nothing but possibilities," she wrote in a personal essay for the New York Times.
Judith Butler (1956)
Wirestock Creators/Shutterstock
Judith Butler is an American philosopher and gender studies scholar. Their work has influenced the fields of third-wave feminism, queer theory, and literary theory. The 1990 book Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity introduced the idea of performative gender and was critical of the gender binary.
“The young people gave me the ‘they,’” Butler said in an interview with David Remnick for The New Yorker. “This generation has come along with the idea of being nonbinary. [It] never occurred to me! Then I thought, Of course I am. What else would I be?”
Dana Zzyym (1958)
Randolfe Wicker via Wikimedia Commons
Dana Zzyym is a nonbinary and intersex activist who is best known as being the first U.S. citizen to receive a passport with an “X” sex/gender marker in 2021 after a lengthy legal battle.
John Cameron Mitchel (1963)
lev radin/Shutterstock
Hedwig and the Angry Inch star John Cameron Mitchell is an American actor, playwright, singer, screenwriter, and director—basically, if it’s a creative field, he probably excels at it. Mitchell came out as nonbinary in an exclusive interview with PRIDE back in 2022.
Joey Soloway (1965)
Tblackburnla, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Joey Soloway is a showrunner, director, and writer best known for creating the Amazon original series Transparent, which they won two Emmys. Soloway came out as nonbinary and gender nonconforming in 2020.
Stephen Trask (1967)
lev radin/Shutterstock
Musician Stephen Trask was a house band member at the New York club Squeezebox, where he performed with music icons like Debbie Harry, Lene Lovich, and Joey Ramone. But it was his work compiling the music and lyrics for the stage musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch that made him a queer fave. Trask came out as nonbinary in 2021 and uses he/him/she/her pronouns.
Mauree Turner
State of Oklahoma
Mauree Turner is the first out nonbinary person elected to a state legislature. They were elected in Oklahoma in 2020. Turner is also the first Muslim legislator in the Sooner State.
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