Nonbinary Quotes

“At some point during my research, I came across the term "gender fluid." Reading those words was a revelation. It was like someone tore a layer of gauze off the mirror, and I could see myself clearly for the first time. There was a name for what I was. It was a thing. Gender fluid.

Sitting there in front of my computer--like I am right now--I knew I would never be the same. I could never go back to seeing it the old way; I could never go back to not knowing what I was.

But did that glorious moment of revelation really change anything? I don't know. Sometimes, I don't think so. I may have a name for what I am now--but I'm just as confused and out of place as I was before. And if today is any indication, I'm still playing out that scene in the toy store--trying to pick the thing that will cause the least amount of drama. And not having much success.”
― Jeff Garvin, Symptoms of Being Human

“So here it is. My friends call me he, or they. The government and most of my family call me she. The media calls me she, because I don’t trust them enough to request that they do anything else. My lovers call me sweetheart. Or baby. Somewhere in all of that I find myself.”
― ivan coyote

“And it was hard to explain. That they didn't want to be a man, but that they had never felt quite right as a girl. That they only started to feel really okay when they understood they could be their own thing. That they could exist in a space that was all their own, that they could shift and adjust until it felt right. They had settled on nonbinary feeling right for them, even though they knew others like them had their own names that felt right to their own experiences. And that was comforting too. That each person could choose what brought them closer to belonging, the power in that. Knowing that one day, people might discover even better words for it. That there was only ever freedom in continuing to find new names for who we were, who we could be.”
― Anita Kelly, Love & Other Disasters

“That works for me," Ash says. "My ideal body is no body at all."
Chloe snorts. "Just a head floating above a sexy void."
"That's so gender of me," Ash says, beginning to chisel out Smith's cheekbones.”
― Casey McQuiston, I Kissed Shara Wheeler

“What is the utility of "body positivity" if it only seeks to provide one with a false sense of confidence rather than to liberate all from that which cages the body?”
― Da'Shaun L. Harrison, Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness

“We do the same thing to the next generation that was done to us. We divide billions of people into one of two categories and tell them that this is the way things are. We emphasize and exaggerate the differences between these categories and minimize the differences that exist within them. We forget that there is more variety within the categories of men and women than between them. We forget the ways in which we once deviated from the norm. We forget that humans have never perfectly aligned with these norms.”
― Alok Vaid-Menon, Beyond the Gender Binary

“I guess your gender feel natural to you. I'm jealous," he replies. Then he pauses. Thinks about it. "Except, actually, no. I don't think I am. I used to be. But the more I let myself just exist, the more fun it gets. So I try not to question it or label it. I'm trying to just see everything as.. negotiable.”
― Caroline O'Donoghue, All Our Hidden Gifts

“Definitely a play-to-pay, saved us a lot of bucks. There's just a small catch.'
Beverly and Krak eyed Steve, wary of the catch. A catch in these times was seldom an overly convenient thing.”
― Mark Mumm, Short Tales From Earth's Final Chapter: Book 5

“Without a mindful willingness to traverse our own discomfort and to listen in challenging spaces, we are doomed. At times this does mean choosing to sit in dialogue across from groups who hold egregious ideologies to our own. There is no binary conflict, nor binary solution to conflict. Just as there are no binary people.”
― D. Simone

“Youth has its moments of keen intuition, even normal youth—but the intuition of those who stand mid-way between the sexes, is so ruthless, so poignant, so accurate, so deadly, as to be in the nature of an added scourge; and by such an intuition did Stephen discover that all was not well with her parents.”
― Radclyffe Hall, The Well of Loneliness

“Gender nonbinary sounds so restrictive. Like your gender can either be binary or not binary. Which...is a binary.”
― Jules Machias

“Straight and queer are products of a bipolar world,
In the sanctuary of love there's no straight, no queer.
In love's domain queer is straight, straight is queer,
A heart full of love and light is radiantly nonpolar.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Amor Apocalypse: Canım Sana İhtiyacım

“I am nonbinary. I am a sex worker. I am Espi.”
― Espi Kvlt, X Marks The Spot - A Nonbinary Anthology

“Just because some idiots can't comprehend any gender other than man and woman, doesn't mean the transgender people don’t exist, just like, just because some idiots can't comprehend ideas of progress, except in terms of left and right, doesn’t mean the world doesn’t exist beyond red and blue.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Heart Force One: Need No Gun to Defend Society

“It's important that we, as historians or as queer people, don't treat gender and sexuality as two things that use to be entangled but have now been teased apart. There can be a tendency in white queer circles to frame this as a narrative of 'progress' in which we've moved from and outdated past where all queer relationships had to have 'a man and a woman', to a liberated present in which sexuality has been unhooked from gender and queer relationships are characterized by sameness and mutuality. But that narrative doesn't represent everybody's experience. If we frame the entanglement of gender and sexuality as a relic of an unenlightened past, we erase the experiences of many people - often, disproportionately, working-class people and people of colour. There are plenty of examples of individuals, groups and cultures for whom it's no accurate to talk about 'gender' and 'sexuality' as separate concepts or experiences.

...

Where do non-binary peole fit into our existing categories of sexuality? Is gender really the most helpful way to [categorize] the people we're attracted to, or is it time for a new model: one that reflects the fact that knowing someone's gender doesn't always tell you much at all about who they are?”
― Kit Heyam, Before We Were Trans: A New History of Gender

“i want every person to be girls except me”
― Theo Thimo

“What would it mean for us to lean into Insecurity as a political tool in which we free ourselves from insisting that we perform "perfection" and total confidence in order to advocate for our collective liberation?”
― Da'Shaun L. Harrison, Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness

“What I am really naming here is the complicatedness of feeling both affirmed and harmed by your assault because your body is never really your own when you're fat and Black, and the trauma you arrive at upon realizing that there is no affirmation in touch indented to harm-or at least unintended to be sure of your consent.”
― Da'Shaun L. Harrison, Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness

“How do you tire a spirit? Call it names, tell it what to wear, how to act, how to walk, how to sit, how to carry its books, what to say, when to speak, when not to speak.”
― MJ Jones

“To live in authenticity does something to a person.”
― MJ Jones

“The dress code of "business casual" is highly gendered, and I have to decide which "drag" to wear to work.”
― Sand C. Chang, Nonbinary: Memoirs of Gender and Identity

“I touched my chest, feeling the compression of the binder Theseus had lent me, trying to determine if it made me feel nonbinary or like a dog in a thundervest.”
― Avi Silver, Pluralities

“You can neither fathom nor manifest the true vastness of the human mind, with your puny binary eyes of belief and disbelief - facts and fiction - capitalism and socialism - democracy and autocracy - logicality and sentimentality.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Iman Insaniyat, Mazhab Muhabbat: Pani, Agua, Water, It's All One

“Gender nonbinary sounds so restrictive. Like your gender can either be binary or not binary. Which...is a binary”
― Jules Machias, Both Can Be True

“I had been treated as a victim for too long and now I wanted to be invisible, unmarked, too elusive to be domesticated.”
― Grace Jones, I'll Never Write My Memoirs by Jones, Grace (September 24, 2015) Hardcover

“We are made to subvert and skirt around structures that are built to exclude us, and it is exhausting work.”
― Kalani Adolpho (editor) , Stephen G. Krueger (editor) , Krista McCracken (editor)

“[...]I was alive like them, real as they were: They could see it. I had proved it to them over and over again. But they chose to ignore it. They debated me, as if I were theoretical. I was a concept, not a person. And then, with their laws and their bans, they outcast me. An object.”
― Ray Nayler, The Mountain in the Sea

“Words are important. They allow us to communicate how we think and feel. Words help us to understand and to be understood.
So, finally grasping the language you've been reaching for, to explain this complex and perplexing thing, a feeling which once felt so abstract and lonely, I started to wonder if--"Maybe, I'm the only one who exists. Is there anybody else out there who feels like this?"--finally being able to articulate this thing, that for so long, you had no idea how to express, is a blessing. It feels like finally being able to release a deep breath. One you didn't even realize you were holding.
I am seen.
I exist.
I am not alone.”
― Theo Parish, Homebody

“Being openly queer can feel intimidating. But every day just by being yourself you inspire the people around you. You don't have to be an influencer to influence!”
― Theo Parish, Homebody

“Being trans is fine, it's the world that's the problem. And that's what people don't seem to get. There are loads of us as well. Whether you make room for us or not, whether you accept us or not, whether you include us or not, we're still going to be here. And us existing doesn't take anything away from you or make your life more difficult. Making space for me doesn't mean you have to give up your seat.”
― L.D. Lapinski, Jamie