1. Bella Ramsey (they/them)
Bella first publicly came out during an interview with the New York Times. At the time, they said, "I guess my gender has always been very fluid. Someone would call me 'she' or 'her' and I wouldn't think about it, but I knew that if someone called me 'he,' it was a bit exciting." In a new interview with Vogue, Bella shared, “I had a lot of anxiety around pronouns. When The Last of Us first came out, I was like, Everyone just call me ‘she’ because I look like a ‘she’ to you, so it’s fine. But now, I’m able to vocalize it more, being called ‘they’ is the most truthful thing for me. That’s who I am the most.”
2. Elliot Page (he/they)
Back in 2020, Elliot came out publicly as trans and nonbinary saying, "I feel overwhelming gratitude for the incredible people who have supported me along this journey. I can’t begin to express how remarkable it feels to finally love who I am enough to pursue my authentic self. I’ve been endlessly inspired by so many in the trans community."
3. Demi Lovato (they/she)
In 2021, Demi shared that they identify as nonbinary and said, "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. I'm still learning & coming into myself, & I don't claim to be an expert or a spokesperson. Sharing this with you now opens another level of vulnerability for me. I'm doing this for those out there that haven't been able to share who they truly are with their loved ones. Please keep living in your truths & know I am sending so much love your way."
Every day we wake up, we are given another opportunity & chance to be who we want & wish to be. I’ve spent the majority of my life growing in front of all of you… you’ve seen the good, the bad, & everything in between.
4. Halsey (she/they)
After quietly updating her pronouns on Instagram, Halsey shared, "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." They later went on to explain that pregnancy affected their perception of gender even more: "My sensitivity to my body has made me hyper aware of my humanness, and that’s all. Doing a remarkable thing. And it’s grand. I hope the feeling lasts."
5. Emma D'Arcy (they/them)
“When I was starting out, I really felt that I had to present as a woman in order to find success in this industry,” they told E! News. “It wasn’t sustainable, and I stopped pretending. And weirdly, at that point, I got nominated for Best Actress for the Golden Globes, which is, like, beautifully ironic.”
6. Janelle Monáe (they/she)
In April 2022, Janelle came out on an episode of Red Table Talk. They said, “I just don’t see myself as a woman solely. I feel all of my energy. I feel like God is so much bigger than the 'he' or the 'she.' And if I am from God, I am everything. But I will always, always stand with women. I will always stand with Black women. But I just see everything that I am, beyond the binary.”
7. Sam Smith (they/them)
On Jameela Jamil's podcast, I Weigh Interviews, Sam first publicly shared that they identify as nonbinary and said, “When I saw the word nonbinary, genderqueer, and I read into it, and I heard these people speaking, I was like, ‘Fuck, that is me.’” They continued, “I am not male or female. I think I float somewhere in between."
8. Alex Newell (he/she/they)
Alex became one of the first nonbinary people to win a Tony Award for acting at this year's ceremony. When they were asked about being nominated in a gendered category, they said, “I look at the word ‘actor’ as one, my vocation, and two, genderless. We don’t say plumbess for plumber. We don’t say janitoress for janitor. We say plumber, we say janitor. That’s how I look at the word, and that’s how I chose my category.”
9. Liv Hewson (they/them)
Liv publicly came out as nonbinary after being out with their family and friends for nine years. They shared, “It was a risk, yes, but at the end of the day, I really felt it was a risk I had to take. It was not sustainable to compartmentalize myself."
10. Emma Corrin (they/them)
Emma shared that playing Princess Diana on The Crown was what actually made them realize they were nonbinary. They told the New York Times, "I feel like Diana helped me explore so many depths of myself and really do a big internal discovery of what I was feeling about everything because she was a very complex person." They also explained to ITV News, "It's taken me a long time to realize that I exist somewhere in between, and I'm still not sure where that is yet."
11. J. Harrison Ghee (he/she/they)
They were also one of the first nonbinary acting award winners at this year's Tony's. In their speech, they said, "My mother raised me to understand that my gifts that God gave me were not about me, to use them to be effective in the world, to help somebody else's journey. So, thank you for teaching me how to live, how to love, how to give. For every trans, nonbinary, non-gender-conforming human who ever was told you couldn’t be seen, this is for you."
12. Jonathan Van Ness (they/he/she)
In 2019, JVN came out as gender nonconforming and explained that some days they "feel like a man, but then other days [they] feel like a woman." They shared, "I just am either, like, gender-bendy or nonconform-y or nonbinary, and somedays I feel like a boy and somedays I feel like a girl. I didn’t think I was allowed to be nonconforming or genderqueer or nonbinary — I was just always, like, 'a gay man' because that’s just the label I thought I had to be."
13. Amandla Stenberg (she/they)
Amandla publicly came out as nonbinary in a series of Tumblr posts after a fan asked their pronouns. They explained, "I mean they/them makes me feel comfortable, but I know that the media and the general populace that follows me will critique it/not understand which makes me feel sad and almost more uncomfortable." They told People Magazine, "[Gender] can be pretty much whatever you want it to be. I tend to believe that gender as we've set it up in current-day society doesn't actually exist."
14. E.R. Fightmaster (they/them)
“I think it’s really important when you are an actor with an identity that gets discussed a lot, or rather is in discussion, to be firm in how much of your identity you bring to the show,” they explained while discussing their role as Kai on Grey's Anatomy. “I have also learned a lot about what aspects of nonbinary are most confusing to people, and…things about the identity that need to be handled well or need to be handled with grace, and how to talk with people who aren’t familiar with this identity in a gentle and educational way.”
15. Sara Ramírez (they/them)
Back in 2020, Sara came out publicly with the Instagram caption, "In me is the capacity to be Girlish boy Boyish girl Boyish boy Girlish girl All Neither #nonbinary ♥️💛🤍💜🖤♥️." They later said that coming out felt "freeing" and playing Che Diaz on And Just Like That... was a "perfect fit." They explained, "This character will teach me a lot about how to embrace the power that you have even against systems that would have you shut down."
16. Lachlan Watson (they/them)
Lachlan was about to start transitioning and was even given a prescription of testosterone when they realized they were actually nonbinary. They explained, “I realized in doing that that the problem wasn’t that I wasn’t male; the problem was just that I was female." They added, "I didn’t want the world to look at my body and inherently deem me female and inherently decide just by looking at me what I can or cannot do, how I’m supposed to sound, what I’m supposed to say, what my career is going to look like, how I’m supposed to act, my mannerisms. Everything could have been deemed by taking one look at my body because society assumes that’s what we’re bred and born to do... Seeing myself as female every time I look in the mirror is painful in a way I will never be able to describe."
17. Brigette Lundy-Paine (they/them)
On Instagram, Brigette shared, "I’m nonbinary, always felt a lil bit boy, lil bit girl, lil bit neither. using they/them as of late n it feels right. scary af to come out n been rly putting this off. But I feel I owe it to myself and to all of us who struggle w gender.”
18. Asia Kate Dillon (they/them)
Asia shared that playing Taylor on Billions — a character also regarded as the first nonbinary role on American television — was what helped them figure out their own gender identity. They said, "I did a little bit of research and discovered that female is an assigned sex, and nonbinary is in reference to gender identity, and those are two different things. It finally helped me put language to a feeling that I'd had my entire life."
19. G Flip (they/them)
They've sought out to provide more nonbinary representation in the music industry with song lyrics like, "I grew up uncomfortable. Eleven years old and I wanted to die, I don't feel like I'm a girl, nor a boy so where do I lie?" In an interview with Refinery29, they said, "I didn't even have a character on TV or a musician or singer to listen to and consume their art or consume their words to feel less alone and to feel seen. I want to be that person that I never had as a kid, because I know how it feels. I know that if I can make one kid feel less like I did, then my job is done."
20. Nico Tortorella (they/them)
Nico and their partner, Bethany C. Meyers, both identify as nonbinary. Nico shared, "For me, ‘they/them’ fully encompasses all of it that exists in my own multi-dimensional dynamic being. Right? It just feels more inclusive. It feels wider.”
21. Shea Couleé (she/they)
Shea explained their gender journey began when they were a kid. They said, "Something that my mom would say all the time growing up — and I don't even think she realized — was, 'Oh, Jaren, boys don't talk like that.' 'Boys don't stand like that.' Boys don't do this, and boys don't do that. She was basically saying that some things that came very naturally to me were qualities that were only to be exhibited by a girl. That was really confusing because it never really felt like it was so black and white, so this or that. I just felt like I was being me. Those were some of the first signs at a young age that I knew that my personal feelings about gender didn't quite fit into the status quo."
22. Ruby Rose (they/she)
Ruby explained that they knew they were gender-fluid since they were a kid, but her peers at school bullied her for it. They said, "For a long time, I thought there was something a bit wrong with me, or that I wasn’t the gender I was meant to be... It took years, but eventually, I came to a place where I went: ‘OK, I think I’m just very androgynous and very in tune with the masculine energy.’”
Looking for more ways to get involved? Check out all of BuzzFeed's posts celebrating Pride 2023.
