Beyond the Binary: Honoring Nonbinary People as Sacred, Not “Other”
Disclaimer: This is a first-draft reflection, written from my current state of lived experience and consciousness. I offer it in the spirit of love, care, and truth-telling; rooted in my embodiment as a Black woman of trans experience who is also nonbinary in existence, politics, and practice. These words come with humility, an openness to evolve my own thinking, and a deep commitment to holding our trans and gender-expansive kin with tenderness, complexity, and reverence.
“Perhaps the resistance many trans femmes and trans masculine people hold toward fully honoring nonbinary siblings is not about lack of love, but about what it would cost to confront the binary thinking they themselves sought to escape. To honor nonbinary people as sacred would mean dismantling even the remnants of the binary within ourselves.”
The Ache
Lately, I’ve been sitting with the ache of what I’ve been seeing online in conversations between trans femmes and nonbinary siblings. It’s unsettling; not because the conversation itself is wrong, but because the way it is being held feels jagged. The container for it is not neutral; it is morphing under the pressures of polarization, public performance, and algorithmic outrage. And in that space, the capacity for care can shrink, while the potential for harm grows.
It worries me because I know we are living in a time when we need unity grounded in truth, not unity as a cover for avoidance. We also need the courage to have necessary, complex conversations without weaponizing them.
I have much to say and much to unpack, but my capacity to engage right now is stretched thin. My current reality is whole: juggling mutual aid requests, returning to school, planning events, writing grants, and keeping up with the daily demands of life and leadership. I don’t yet have the space to hold this topic with the length, depth, and tenderness I would want. Still, one truth keeps pressing on my heart: the way we honor, or fail to honor, our nonbinary siblings says something about how deeply binary thinking still lives in us, even when we think we’ve left it behind.
I Am Read as a Woman. I Am Nonbinary. Both Are True.
As an Afro-Caribbean Black woman of trans experience, the world reads me through the binary. My body, my name, my mannerisms; all of these become measures for femininity I did not invent, a femininity the world thinks it understands and feels entitled to validate or deny.
Yet I am nonbinary in my existence. I am nonbinary in my politics. I will remain nonbinary in my practice.
These truths do not cancel each other. My womanhood is real. My nonbinary truth is real. They are not opposites; they are two interwoven threads in the same fabric of my being. My femininity is divine. It is a spiritual continuum that has lived in me since before I had the language to name it, since before I knew where it would be welcomed and where it would be punished. It is not a threat to my multiplicity; it is one of its many expressions.
Before the Binary Was a Weapon
People like me are not a “modern invention.” We are part of an ancient and global design.
Before colonization, countless cultures held expansive understandings of gender, fluidity, and personhood. In Igbo culture of what is now Nigeria, gender was adaptable, shifting with status, spiritual calling, and community need, not fixed at birth. Women could take on roles considered “male” without losing their identity as women; men could embody roles coded “female” without diminishing their authority.
Across the ocean, the Bugis people of South Sulawesi, Indonesia, recognized five genders: makkunrai (women), oroané (men), calabai (assigned male living in female social roles), calalai (assigned female living in male social roles), and bissu, a transcendent gender embodying all genders at once, often serving as spiritual leaders and ritual guides.
Among many Indigenous nations of Turtle Island, people who embodied both masculine and feminine qualities, now often referred to under the contemporary umbrella Two-Spirit, held revered roles as healers, mediators, and keepers of cultural knowledge. Each nation had its own names, languages, and sacred traditions honoring these relatives.
In South Asia, hijra communities have existed for over 4,000 years, recognized as a third gender and often called upon to bless births, officiate ceremonies, and serve as spiritual protectors. In pre-colonial times, hijras held respected positions in courts and communities, their authority woven into the cultural and spiritual fabric.
These are only a few examples, but the pattern is clear: across continents and centuries, gender diversity was woven into the center of culture, ceremony, and community life; not seen as an aberration.
Colonial systems disrupted this. They did not simply erase our names from history; they rewrote the meaning of gender itself. They forced it into two rigid categories, criminalized anything outside of them, and weaponized those categories to control bodies, land, spirituality, and belonging. This was never about morality; it was about power.
The Binary Still Lives in Us
Even within trans and gender-expansive communities, the enduring influence of colonial gender enforcement persists. It is evident in our language, policies, architectural structures, and the subtle, unspoken hierarchies that decide who is considered “valid” or “deserving” of care. This influence can manifest in the varying degrees of celebration we give to certain transitions or the quiet erasure of individuals whose gender journeys diverge from a linear, medicalized, or “recognizable” path.
It manifests in the aesthetics we support, the narratives we fund, and the leaders we champion. We may unconsciously prioritize those who conform to a binary narrative because it simplifies our explanation to the outside world or provides reassurance that our identities can be understood within that framework.
Gender essentialism, the belief that identity must align with fixed traits, bodies, or roles, often takes this form. This notion doesn’t originate solely from cisnormativity; it can be perpetuated within our own movements, shaping who is centered, whose stories are amplified, and whose needs are treated as optional. It influences how we design our programs, assign leadership, and even deliver care, where some individuals’ safety is prioritized while others are expected to wait their turn.
I recognize this influence within myself. I have unconsciously practiced binary thinking when silence felt safer than questioning the status quo. Conversely, I have consciously embraced binary recognition when it felt like affirmation or protection. This isn’t a reflection of doubt about my multiplicity; rather, it acknowledges that the world rewards me when I conform to its binary gaze and punishes me when I deviate.
The transformative power of the binary lies in its ability to shape not only external structures but also our own self-perception. It can seduce us into mistaking the comfort of recognition with the fullness of freedom. When this occurs, we risk confounding proximity to acceptance with actual liberation.
Moving from Performance to Practice
If we are serious about dismantling the binary’s hold on us, we have to move beyond performance; beyond saying the right words, posting the right graphics, or making symbolic gestures that don’t shift the underlying structures. Performance can win applause, but practice is what transforms culture.
Practice is slower. It is intentional. It asks us to notice how binary thinking shows up in our daily choices; in who we center, how we design spaces, and which bodies and expressions we treat as “natural” leaders or community representatives. It asks us to disrupt those patterns, not just when it’s safe or popular, but especially when it’s uncomfortable.
In practice, honoring nonbinary and gender-expansive people as sacred means:
Redesigning our spaces so they aren’t organized around binary assumptions; from bathrooms and housing to leadership titles and dress codes.
Redistributing resources so they aren’t funneled disproportionately toward the most legible or “palatable” members of our communities.
Telling fuller stories, making sure that the narratives we amplify reflect the vast range of ways gender-diverse people live, love, lead, and exist.
Rebuilding care systems where nonbinary people are not an afterthought in safety planning, wellness initiatives, or mutual aid.
Creating decision-making processes where gender-expansive people hold real influence, not token seats.
On a personal level, practice means examining the ways I have internalized binary norms; not to shame myself, but to interrupt them before they calcify into habit. It means asking: Who am I affirming only because they fit what I’ve been taught to recognize? Who am I overlooking because their truth is harder for me to categorize? And am I willing to slow down and listen long enough to see beyond my assumptions?
Practice also requires a shift in how we measure success. Instead of counting visibility as the ultimate win, we measure how deeply people feel safe to bring their whole selves into a room. Instead of valuing assimilation into existing systems, we build systems that can hold our multiplicity without asking us to shrink.
Moving from performance to practice is not glamorous. It’s rarely viral. It’s the quiet work of changing policies, shifting habits, rethinking leadership, and holding ourselves accountable over time. But this is the work that ensures our liberation isn’t just a performance for the world’s gaze; it’s a lived reality for all of us.
I’m Still Learning
I am still in this unlearning. I am still catching the ways the binary tries to live through me; sometimes in my organizing, sometimes in my relationships, sometimes in the way I see myself. I am learning to stay in relationship with my own multiplicity, to let my divine femininity and my nonbinary truth exist without one having to erase the other.
And I am learning that our collective liberation will never be found in the binary. It lives in the sacred expanse where we arrive exactly as we are; not performing, not passing; simply being.
Further Reading & Cultural Resources
These books, articles, and community archives offer more on pre-colonial gender diversity, the persistence of the binary in our movements, and practices for building liberatory spaces.
On Pre-Colonial & Global Gender Diversity
Oyeronke Oyěwùmí – The Invention of Women: Making an African Sense of Western Gender Discourses
(Explores Yoruba society before colonial gender categories.)Serena Nanda – Neither Man nor Woman: The Hijras of India
(On hijra communities in South Asia and their cultural/spiritual roles.)Sharyn Graham Davies – Gender Diversity in Indonesia: Sexuality, Islam and Queer Selves
(On the Bugis people and their five recognized genders.)Qwo-Li Driskill et al. (Eds.) – Queer Indigenous Studies: Critical Interventions in Theory, Politics, and Literature
(On Two-Spirit traditions and sovereignty.)
On Colonialism & Gender Enforcement
María Lugones – “Heterosexualism and the Colonial / Modern Gender System” (Hypatia, 2007)
(Foundational essay on how colonialism imposed rigid binary gender systems.)Susan Stryker – Transgender History
(A clear overview of trans history in the U.S., including how binary thinking is reinforced.)Dean Spade – Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics, and the Limits of Law
(On how systems reproduce inequality and what real liberation requires.)
On Gender Essentialism & Movement Practice
Kate Bornstein – Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women, and the Rest of Us
(Personal and political dismantling of the binary.)Reina Gossett, Eric A. Stanley, and Johanna Burton (Eds.) – Trap Door: Trans Cultural Production and the Politics of Visibility
(On the gap between being seen and being safe.)Cathy J. Cohen – “Punks, Bulldaggers, and Welfare Queens” (GLQ, 1997)
(On centering the most marginalized in movement work.)
Living Archives & Community Spaces
Native Youth Sexual Health Network – Resources on Two-Spirit history and organizing.
South Asia Trans History Project – Archival and oral histories of hijra, khwaja sira, and related communities.
Pacific Sexual Diversity Network – Work around fa’afafine, fakaleiti, and māhū identities.
Transgender Law Center – Publications on intersectional, trans-led movement building.