Nonbinary Awareness Week may happen in the middle of July, but we're here to celebrate those who live their lives beyond a strict gender binary every day of the year.
Nonbinary folks identify across a beautiful spectrum, and the exclusivity of a binary isn't something they recognize for themselves.
International Nonbinary People's Day takes place on July 14, halfway between International Women's Day and International Men's Day, and began after Katie van Loon called for such a celebration for nonbinary people in a blog post. Years later, organizations like the Human Rights Campaign officially embraced the day for the LGBTQ+ community.
However, nonbinary people are living out and proud way beyond a simple day or week of the year. Many notable celebrities have used their public platforms to open up on their journeys over the years, so let's take a look at a few of the trailblazers below.
Happy Nonbinary Awareness Week!
Alex Newell
Alex Newell made history by becoming one of the first out nonbinary actors, alongside J. Harrison Ghee, to win a Tony. The star took home the award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical for their performance in Shucked.
"Thank you for seeing me, Broadway," Newell said in their acceptance speech.
Amandla Stenberg
The film Colombiana first brought Amandla Stenberg to Hollywood's attention, but her best-known role is that of Rue in The Hunger Games with Jennifer Lawrence.
Stenberg has also starred in film adaptations of The Hate U Give and Dear Evan Hansen and served as the face of Rihanna's Fenty Beauty.
Bella Ramsey
Bella Ramsey is the breakout star of HBO's hit series The Last of Us, a role that won them massive acclaim. They came out as nonbinary in an interview with The New York Times by saying their gender has "always been very fluid."
Bob the Drag Queen
The season 8 winner is among the most successful alumni of RuPaul's Drag Race. She has parlayed her success on Drag Race into various other media projects.
Bob explained on Twitter in 2019, "For the record, I am pansexual and non-binary," but later clarified, "I prefer binary pronouns." In response to a question about her preferred pronouns, she said, "He/him/his/she/her/hers."
Brandon Kyle Goodman
Gay and nonbinary writer Brandon Kyle Goodman of Netflix's Big Mouth has made a name for himself for not only the shows they write, but for their viral videos covering social justice issues.
Their videos -- discussing race, violence, and the Black Lives Matter protests -- have brought awareness and support to groups like the Black Trans Travel Fund, the Bail Project, and the Innocence Project.
"Black people and especially Black queer people are often positioned as a punch line, and if you're not willing to participate in that, it cuts you off at the knees since those are mostly the parts available," Goodman told The Advocate. "This is why I write. Because if those in power aren't going to see me as human, write me as human, then I'll do it myself. I know we are valuable."
Brigette Lundy-Paine
Known for playing Sam's sister, Casey, on the Netflix show Atypical, they have gained a strong following since coming on to the Hollywood scene.
Lundy-Paine came out as queer to The Advocate in 2018 and announced they were nonbinary on Instagram the following year. Apart from acting, they're staying active in politics, including trans issues.
Carl Clemons Hopkins
Clemons-Hopkins received a 2021 Emmy nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series for their role in Hacks, becoming the first out nonbinary actor to get an Emmy nod, but told Out that he never believed they would have the chance to play the role.
"When I started in this years and years ago, there really wasn't the concept of different types of queer Black characters to be played," explained Clemons-Hopkins, whose previous credits include Hamilton's Chicago production.
Demi Lovato
The singer, known for hits such as "Sorry Not Sorry," came out as nonbinary in 2021. "I feel that this best represents the fluidity I feel in my gender expression and allows me to feel most authentic and true to the person I both know I am and still am discovering," Lovato said in their podcast 4D With Demi Lovato.
Lovato is pansexual and has explained to the Today show, "I'm attracted to human beings, and it doesn't matter what you identify as. I just don't hold myself back from sharing my love with anybody."
Dominique Provost-Chalkley
Best known for their role as Waverly on the supernatural TV series Wynonna Earp, Dominique Provost-Chalkley is a British-French Canadian nonbinary actor, activist, and environmentalist. They founded Start The Wave, a nonprofit organization uniting people around the world through initiatives inspired by love, creativity, equality, and pride.
The organization's "pillar" of pride encourages people to "sit in the beauty of being" and "celebrate their queerness."
Provost-Chalkley has made that a pillar in their own life as well, with the help of their role on Wynonna Earp. In an interview with SYFY, they reflected on the groundbreaking queer character, saying, "I understand what people feel when they see Waverly because I had it too. I came into my own queerness by playing this queer character. I like to think I would have got there myself in my own time in a different way, but I certainly wouldn't have gotten there as quickly."
Dua Saleh
It's hard to shake things up in a series that already tackles sexuality as frankly as Netflix's Sex Education. Howevever, that's just what Minneapolis-based nonbinary singer and actor Dua Saleh did when they joined the show's fourth season as a new student, Cal.
The season centers around a militaristic change in leadership at the show's Moordale High when Jemima Kirke's headmistress Hope implements strict uniform codes and more. Cal, who is nonbinary, is in Hope's crosshairs for refusing to wear a skirt that doesn't align with their gender identity, and Sex Education touches on the inherent transphobia in such rules.
Emma Corrin
Emma Corrin, who played the young Princess Diana in The Crown, came out as queer in 2021 with an Instagram post captioned "queer bride" and then came out as nonbinary. This year they are gracing the August cover of Vogue, becoming the venerable fashion magazine's first nonbinary cover star.
"I feel much more seen when I'm referred to as 'they,' but my closest friends, they will call me 'she,' and I don't mind, because I know they know me," Corrin said in the cover interview, adding, "In my mind, gender just isn't something that feels fixed. And I don't know if it ever will be; there might always be some fluidity there for me."
Corrin's career is hot. They have some big films coming up -- the actor is playing Lady Constance Chatterley in the Netflix adaptation of the D.H. Lawrence novel Lady Chatterley's Lover and starring with Harry Styles in My Policeman.
Emma D'Arcy
Nonbinary actor Emma D'Arcy play Rhaenyra Targaryen in House of the Dragon, HBO's Game of Thrones prequel series. They are one of the first nonbinary actors to lead a show of a hit franchise.
E.R. Fightmaster
Grey's Anatomy viewers got a new queer couple to love this season with the arrival of E.R. Fightmaster as the brilliant and charming Dr. Kai Bartley, a neuroscientist who catches the eye of Caterina Scorsone's Dr. Amelia Shepherd.
The actors had sparks from the moment they began researching a Parkinson's cure with Ellen Pompeo's Dr. Meredith Grey, and fans were delighted with the on-screen couple's subsequent romance. Prior to Grey's, the nonbinary actor appeared on the Aidy Bryant-led Shrill on Hulu and on Showtime's Work in Progress. Fightmaster has a background in sketch comedy with Chicago's Second City.
Halsey
Halsey updated their pronouns to she/they on her social media bios in March 2021. After receiving praise from fans, they posted this a few days later: "For those asking RE: my updated IG bio, I am happy with either pronouns. The inclusion of they in addition to she feels most authentic to me. If you know me at all, you know what it means to me to express this outwardly. Thanks for being the best."
The singer was pregnant at the time and had posted earlier, "I thought pregnancy would give me very strong, binary feelings about 'womanhood.' But truly, it has leveled my perception of gender entirely. My sensitivity to my body has made me hyper aware of my humanness and that's all."
Indya Moore
In season 1 of FX's Pose, they first caught our attention. Pose opened a new path for trans actors in Hollywood, and Moore has become a veritable fashion icon, appearing on Teen Vogue and Elle covers.
The activist and actor has revealed they want to tell stories for those in "stigmatized circumstances."
In an interview with Dazed, they said, "I wanna destigmatize humanity through the characters that I portray. I want to see trans representation in heroine-ism...I also want to imagine what it looks like for trans people to exist in a world without transphobia. What's it like to see queer and trans people on film and TV in stories (that aren't) about their transness? What is it like to imagine a world where our stories and experiences aren't rooted and centered in the fact that the world is still trying to grab hold of our existence? What does that look like? "
J. Harrison Ghee
J. Harrison Ghee made history by becoming one of the first out nonbinary actors, alongside Alex Newell, to win a Tony Award. The performer took home the award for Best Leading Actor in a Musical for their role as Jerry/Daphne in Some Like It Hot.
They dedicated the historic win to "trans, nonbinary, gender-nonconforming humans who ever was told you couldn't be seen. This is for you!"
Janelle Monáe
The acclaimed recording artist, actress, author, and model confirmed that they are nonbinary. "I'm nonbinary, so I just don't see myself as a woman... solely. I feel like God is so much bigger than the he or the she. And if I am from God, I am everything," Monae said on Facebook's Red Table Talk. Later, in a Los Angeles Times interview, they outlined their pronouns: "My pronouns are free-ass motherfucker and they/them, her/she."
Monae has a book out, The Memory Librarian: and Other Stories of Dirty Computer, and will be playing Josephine Baker, the bisexual entertainer, civil rights activist, and literal Nazi fighter in the A24 series De La Resistance.
Jerrie Johnson
Harlem's breakout star Jerrie Johnson, who uses she/they pronouns, made their TV debut on Freeform's super LGBTQ-inclusive series Good Trouble before landing the plum gig as a lead on the Prime Video's show as the lesbian lothario, Tye.
The series, set in -- you guessed it -- Harlem, stars Johnson, Meagan Good (D.E.B.S.), Grace Byers (Empire), and Shoniqua Shandai (I Am the Night) as friends navigating love, career, and gentrification. The series not only centers and uplifts Black women, but it also places Tye's relationships and hookups on an even playing field with those of her friends.
Joey Soloway
The creator of Transparent came out as nonbinary in 2020 and is one of the highest-profile nonbinary people in show business.
A two-time Emmy winner for directing Transparent, Soloway has used their fame to speak out for representation of diverse experiences in the stories Hollywood portrays, telling The Advocate, "We want the ambient sense of belonging in the world that white people and male people have, just from having grown up watching white male creators say, 'This is us.' We want, 'This is us.'"
Jonathan Van Ness
It is no secret that Jonathan Van Ness has many talents, including hairdressing, self-care, comedy, show-hosting, and writing. Oh, and don't forget, JVN is also good at tumbling.
His first work on-screen was the much-loved Game of Thrones recap, which led to his Gay of Thrones series on Funny or Die. However, everyhing changed once Van Ness landed a role on Netflix's reboot of Queer Eye.
As a nonbinary person, Van Ness does not subscribe to the idea that gender is a choice between one of two options and therefore uses rolling (or toggles between) pronouns.
Kat Cunning
A modern triple/quadruple threat, Kat Cunning has emerged as an artist to watch. A dancer turned singer and actor on Netflix's Trinkets and HBO's The Deuce, Cunning came out publicly as nonbinary in 2020. In 2022, Cunning costarred in the Jennifer Lopez-Owen Wilson-led rom-com, Marry Me.
Kehlani
The successful Grammy-nominated artist spoke with The Advocate about their queerness in a cover story.
"All my friends, all her aunties, uncles, her godparents, everybody is just loudly queer," Kehlani said. "Our generation already kind of broke the mold of getting to that point, so I don't even think our kids are going to think about it as something that they have to identify and differentiate."
"I feel it should be normal. We'll be reading queer stories, queer books where the baby has two dads, two moms, two parents who don't identify as either. Movies that have that. She sees healthy queer couples. So, I don't think that [my child's] going to even think about it as, This is different from normal."
Liv Hewson
Hailing from Australia, Liv Hewson has accrued a long resume over the past few years. Fans of queer-inclusive holiday rom-coms will remember Hewson in Netflix's Let iI Snow in 2019. That same year, the nonbinary actor appeared in the Margot Robbie-Charlize Theron starrer Bombshell alongside Brigette Lundy-Paine.
In late 2021, Hewson became one-half of TV's most shipped queer couples opposite Jasmin Savoy-Brown in Showtime's Yellowjackets. They went on to host the Netflix podcast The Homo Schedule together.
MorningStar Angeline
MorningStar Angeline is quietly helping to shift stories about Indigenous people in Hollywood. Angeline (who uses she/they pronouns) starred in The Incredible 25th Year of Mitzi Bearclaw, a sweet indie flick about a hat-designing dreamer who gets a second chance at bonding with her family when she's called home to her community on a remote island to help care for her ailing mother.
They've also appeared in Amazon Studios' series Outer Range, where they play an Indigenous woman who has a wife and a daughter. Before Outer Range premiered, they told The Advocate it would provide much-needed representation of queer Indigenous families: "Something as simple as that can be super powerful."
Poppy Liu
Poppy Liu has amassed a wide range of credits throughout their career - Sunnyside, Better Call Saul, and even Nickelodeon's iCarly. But in 2021, the actor stole audiences' hearts as the quirky Blackjack dealer in the Emmy-winning HBO Max series Hacks.
The first-generation Chinese-American actor shares the screen with a largely queer cast, debunking what she calls, in an interview with Out, a "myth" that there's got to be "the token queer person in the show" or "the token Asian person," and "you can't have both."
Paving the way as a queer, nonbinary, genderfluid immigrant, Liu shared that they did not fully embrace their identity until after college.
"A lot of the queer visibility that I saw was around white queerness," Liu said. "And it just didn't feel like it was like a space for me."
As they discovered other members of the queer Asian community, something finally "clicked."
"I think that's part of what is really important about visibility," Liu reflected. "As humans, we learn by imitation, we learn by seeing something -- a blueprint...to be like, 'Oh, yeah, that's for me and this is it.'"
Quintessa Swindell
One of the three stars of the two-season Netflix charmer Trinkets, Quintessa Swindell broke ground for nonbinary actors in lead roles. They went on to play a troubled young queer person opposite Uzo Aduba in the acclaimed fourth season of HBO's In Treatment.
For viewers who missed those hidden gems, Swindell also guest-starred in Euphoria's first season as the alluring partygoer who hooks up with Hunter Schafer's Jules.
River Butcher
An up-and-coming nonbinary-trans stand-up comedian and podcast host, River Butcher is putting gender-bending comedy on the map. Butcher first garnered attention while co-hosting the 2014 web series She Said for Amy Poehler's Smart Girls network. Most recently, Butcher starred in his own Comedy Central stand-up special, A Different Kind of Dude.
In November 2021, Butcher shared his name and pronouns with the world - he/him and they/them - writing on Twitter, "I made myself small for many reasons over my 39 years and I am on a path to take up the space I was created for, slowly and surely. I am very lucky to be able to live publicly as myself."
Sam Smith
Sam Smith continues to push the envelope as a nonbinary singer-songwriter in a massively cis-hetero industry. The four-time Grammy-winning artist has generated countless hits including "Stay With Me," "I'm Not The Only One" and "Dancing With A Stranger."
In a 2019 conversation with actress Jameela Jamil about body image, Smith opened up about their relationship to their body, expressing the fluidity in which they view themselves.
"I'm not male or female, I think I flow somewhere in between. It's all on the spectrum," they said during an episode of I Weigh.
Later that year, they officially came out as nonbinary in an Instagram post, writing, "After a lifetime of being at war with my gender I've decided to embrace myself for who I am, inside and out."
Sara Ramirez
Renowned actor, vocalist, and Tony winner, Sara Ramirez, continues to carve a path for those who come after them. The former Grey's Anatomy star made history playing Callie Torres, one of network TV's first bisexual characters.
In 2021, Ramirez's nonbinary stand-up comic and podcaster, Che Diaz, was just about all anyone could talk about on the Sex and the City reboot, And Just Like That. Ramirez is also an ardent and important queer activist at the intersections of all of their identities.
Theo Germaine
An actor who came up in the Chicago theater world, Theo Germaine had a breakout year in 2019 with a pair of auspicious and refreshing roles. One was in the Golden Globe-nominated Netflix series The Politician and the other in the critically lauded Showtime series Work in Progress.
Germaine recently starred in the progressive film They/Them, a summer camp slasher flick that centers authentically cast queer actors. The cast also includes Kevin Bacon, Anna Chlumsky (Veep, Inventing Anna), and Austin Crute (Booksmart).
Vico Ortiz
A star of Amazon Prime's S.O.Z.: Soldiers or Zombies, Vico Ortiz was not one to sit on their laurels when offered the role of Sergeant Valencia. They told The Advocate that before stepping into their character's camouflage, they made a pitch to make the character nonbinary and to expand what that may look like to viewers.
"Whenever someone's like, there's a nonbinary character, the industry immediately says things like Oh, androgynous, white, thin, and whatever," Ortiz said. "A nonbinary person isn't necessarily androgynous and doesn't need to act a certain way or behave a certain way, they just are. [Valencia's] arc has nothing to do with their identity. They're just simply the same way that every other character exists."
Ortiz stars as Jim in the breakout HBO Max comedy Our Flag Means Death and has previously starred in the web series These Thems, which featured a cast of primarily nonbinary and trans folks.
