Explanation
The term "non-binary" can mean different things to different people. Basically, it is used to describe someone whose gender identity is not exclusively male or female.
If someone tells you they're non-binary, it's always important to ask yourself what being non-binary means to them. Some people who are non-binary experience their gender as both male and female, and others experience their gender as neither male nor female.
Non-binary can also be used as an umbrella term, encompassing many gender identities that do not fit into the male-female binary.
Although non-binary is often thought of as a novel idea, the identifier has been around for as long as civilization has existed. In fact, non-binary gender has been recorded as early as 400 BC to 200 AD, when the Hijras in India identified themselves as being beyond male or female.
India is one of the many countries in the world whose language and social culture recognizes those whose gender cannot be exclusively categorized as male or female.
Do you have to be transgender to identify as non-binary?
The non-binary gender corresponds to a person who knows who he is. Some non-binary people identify as transgender, some do not.
This may sound complicated, but once presented, it is actually very simple. A non-binary trans person is someone who does not identify with the sex they were assigned at birth (trans) and who also has a gender identity that cannot be categorized as exclusively male or female (non-binary).
A non-binary person who does not identify as trans may partially identify with the sex assigned at birth, as well as have a gender identity that cannot be categorized as strictly male or female.
Understanding gender as a spectrum
The idea that gender is a spectrum is based on two widely accepted beliefs: historical precedence and fundamental biology.
From the Hijras in India to the Māhūs in Hawaii, there have always been people whose gender does not fit the stereotype of what it means to be male or female. These examples of non-binary and non-conforming gender throughout world history have laid important foundations for how we understand gender identity today.
Moreover, sex is not always binary, even at the biological level. One in 2000 people is born with an intersex condition. Intersex is used to describe people who have chromosomes, anatomy, or other sex characteristics that cannot be classified as exclusively male or female.
The idea that sex and gender are binary – each entering a male or female box – is a social construct. This system has historically been used to differentiate between biological and sex-linked traits in males and females.
The idea that there is a man and a woman is not wrong, it's just incomplete. Many people, intersex or not, have a mix of biological traits or gender expressions that don't fall under the male or female checkbox.
So is gender identity rooted in nature, nurture, or a combination of both?
Although more research is needed, research data suggests that there is a biological component to gender identity, but not in the way you might think. For example, attempts to align an intersex person's gender identity with their external genitalia are typically unsuccessful. This suggests that the sex characteristics you were born with do not always match your gender identity.
