A growing number of young people today identify as “nonbinary,” but that identity has been little examined by researchers. Popular opinion tends to see “nonbinary” merely as a more tentative version of “trans.” However, it is quite distinct. A team of researchers from Bristol, UK, has undertaken qualitative interviews with 105 self-identified nonbinary persons recruited online. They found three distinct classes: (1) those who are deeply alienated from their bodies and view them as belonging to a foreign person, (2) those who are highly fluid in how they present their bodies to the outside world, sometimes adopting one gender role with family and a different one with friends, and (3) those who embrace their bodies as a creative canvas, often adorning them with piercings, tattoos, and distinctive gender-atypical clothing.
New Study of Nonbinary
