Non-Binary Character Reference

This is a blog dedicated to answering questions about writing (or acting or anything else) non-binary characters. *I speak from my experience alone and do not speak for all non-binary individuals.* -- Before you ask or submit read "Before You Ask" linked below or tagged for mobile as "Read Before You Ask" --

[antisocialxconstruct]

I had a heck of a time capturing this and maybe someone’s already posted a better version, but I thought this was a super interesting bit of dialogue re: asari and gender.

[[transcript since holo-Jien insisted on talking over them: asari: Yes, the gender binary of other races is irrelevant to us. angara: I’ve been using feminine pronouns this entire time. Should I- asari: In my case it’s fine to continue. Thank you for asking, I appreciate it. Some asari prefer male pronouns, while others gravitate toward gender-neutral where language allows. angara: My people have several pronouns to identify themselves with. Perhaps I should prepare a document. asari: Please do.]]

[nonbinarycharacter]

I don't know about the work as a whole, but this scene is a good example of how to handle alternate gender systems!

[nonbinarycharacter]

Popping in to say that this blog isn’t dead, and to apologize for being so inactive. I am but a humble ND university student, but I’m hoping to get through some of the backlog over the holidays. Feel free to keep sending questions my way, but know that it may take up to a couple of months for me to answer (sorry!). Please make sure to check the questions I’ve already answered to see if I’ve already addressed a question similar to your’s, and if you have a similar question but it is different in a key way, please emphasize that difference in your ask. I’m less likely to prioritize questions that feel familiar. 

Also, please know that your asks are sitting in my inbox and that resending the same question will only slow me down. At some point I hope to empty the inbox completely, at which point I can ask people to potentially resend.

And welcome to the new followers, I can’t believe how many of you there are, especially with how inactive I’ve been recently. Thank you for following, and look forward to a massive outpouring of posts later next month!

[nonbinarycharacter]

So, I have this character that is genderfluid who goes to school solely as a male to avoid bullying. I want to have their regular gender-shift (idk how else to put it) to be related to the moon's cycle (since they're water themed) but is that realistic?

I personally don’t experience gender fluidity in this way (i.e. a regular shift related to time) so I’ll send it out to my followers. Does anyone experience gender fluidity in a similar way? 

If I had to make the call without any input I would say it’s not outside the realm of possibility, but such precision seems unlikely notwithstanding a preternatural  element. A shift with time is plausible, but the moon has such a long cycle I don’t know what such small changes would look like - unless every new/ full moon is a distinct shift (rather than a gradual change).

[notmuchadoing]

Well, maybe this seems strange but sometimes for me it seems to be related to my menstral cycle(my moon cycle!) As I get closer to bleeding (I guess we can call this the new moon) I feel more masculine. And when I’m ovulating (let’s call that full moon) I feel more feminine. And in between those times I feel like I’m more of a mixture of both in varying levels. For me at least its not a complete change from one to another, although it might be almost entirely male or female at the peaks.

[dykedekuremade]

Nonbinary characters should be like a regular thing because so much prophecy is so gendered.

“No man or woman can ever defeat me.” “Lucky me then!”

[dykedekuremade]

This post is making cis people mad keep reblogging it.

[fatcatwrites-blog]

why saying “male pronouns” and “female pronouns” is problematic:

it implies that non-binary people who use binary pronouns must relate to binary identity or are secretly of binary identity, regardless of intention.

it others those who do not use he or she pronouns, implying they are strange or inferior in some way, regardless of intention.

it implies that pronouns are a way to reveal someone’s gender.

[homojabi]

It also implies that people who are closeted and use the pronouns associated with their CAXAB are actually male/female for using them and therefore erases their real gender.

[nonbinarycharacter]

I'm a trans person writing a family with two trans people, a transfeminine NB mother and their binary son. I had imagined the transfeminine character being married to a cis man (them both being bisexual), but I realized that they wouldn't have had a biological child. On the one hand, it's kind of none of the reader's business, but on the other, I don't want to not know myself because worldbuilding. Do you have any ideas? Sorry if this causes dysphoria for you -- it did for me. :(

Ok I can think of a couple of options,

- change your characters: make the mother nb and dfab, make the father trans and dfab, make the father a mother who is cis and dfab

- change the background: the son is not their biological child (adoption), or there was a surrogate involved

- change the world: there’s a lot of new research going on right now that would allow trans women to be mothers - set your story 10 years in the future

remember that these are just options for you, and you are under no obligation to let your readers in on this information. I think adoption would offer the least alteration to your story and characters, but any of these are possible, and there may be possibilities I haven’t thought of.

[nonbinarycharacter]

Can a nb character use he/him pronouns if they identify usually androgynous but partially/at times as male and partially/at times as agender? And is "genderfluid" or "genderqueer" better term than "non binary"? Don't they all kinda collaborate? I've heard Ruby Rose uses she/her pronouns. But I'm not sure?? And then some say that this Ruby Rose thing is just bullshit??? I'm nb but my language doesn't have gendered pronouns so I'm not familiar with pronouns.

Firstly, any person can use any pronouns. Certain pronouns do have implications, but regardless everybody is free to choose their own pronouns.*

Genderfluid and genderqueer are sort of different types of nonbinary. Genderfluid means you have a gender that is defined by being unstable or shifting, genderqueer means that your gender is defined by being queer. It all depends on the experience of the person/character what the best choice is for them.

People who are saying “this Ruby Rose thing is just bullshit” are being transphobic. I’m going to assume if you’re nb you don’t agree with that, there just some misunderstanding. They’re saying that being nb is bullshit (which I think everyone who is reading this know its not)

*(I don’t want to confuse the issue, especially since anon’s first language isn’t English, but some pronouns are coined by people who only want them to be used by a group they belong to. The only example I can find right now are witchself pronouns, which are only to be used by people who are spiritually witches. However this type of restriction is really pretty rare, so don’t worry too much.)

[nonbinarycharacter]

This isn't a question but a reference to someone asking about having a character with a multiple-pronoun set. I did this for one character but tried to make it easier by having an external element indicate which pronouns the character favored at certain times. For example, if he wore a blue necklace, it meant people had to use he/him pronouns. If she wore a red necklace, she/her pronouns. its not exactly what other people do irl, but for the book it helped.

[nonbinarycharacter]

If you include what language you speak/are writing in I can help you way more thoroughly (especially in regards to pronouns) than if you don't. (Besides English) I have at least some specific experience in Russian, Spanish, German, and French, and I love doing research on pronouns in other languages. So tell me what language you're writing in! Also, if people want to submit their experiences with labels or pronouns in other languages (implications, problems, solutions, alternative, and such) I will certainly post those and tag them with the language so people can find info that way.

[nonbinarycharacter]

So, I have this character that is genderfluid who goes to school solely as a male to avoid bullying. I want to have their regular gender-shift (idk how else to put it) to be related to the moon's cycle (since they're water themed) but is that realistic?

I personally don’t experience gender fluidity in this way (i.e. a regular shift related to time) so I’ll send it out to my followers. Does anyone experience gender fluidity in a similar way? 

If I had to make the call without any input I would say it’s not outside the realm of possibility, but such precision seems unlikely notwithstanding a preternatural  element. A shift with time is plausible, but the moon has such a long cycle I don’t know what such small changes would look like - unless every new/ full moon is a distinct shift (rather than a gradual change).

[nonbinarycharacter]

Hello, so, I have a main character who's genderfluid and uses mostly they/them pronouns. The story would probably start at a point after they already know this and are pretty open about telling other people their gender and pronouns. One thing I'm really unsure about is, if I were showing some kind of memory or something from their past, should I ever show that they were afab/amab? For example, if I showed a memory of them in the past when they were still figuring out their gender, (1/2)

(2/2) or a non-offensive family member making a casual comment of some kind. I don't want it to feel to readers as if I were telling them the character's "real" gender-- because their real gender is genderfluid -- but I don't know if I would be erasing an important part of the character's identity by never talking about their process of figuring that out about themselves. As a side note, the story's focus isn't their gender, but I still want it to be important to that character. Thanks so much!

I think there’s a major difference between including a trans character’s assigned gender as a sort of transphobic wink nod to the reader and including it as a dramatic choice. I don’t think it’s absolutely necessary to include this kind of information, as in I don’t think their assigned gender is a totally necessary part of their character or past development. However, the inclusion of information about their pre-transition self shouldn’t (note: shouldn’t) undermine your character’s gender. Handle it in a sensitive way, which you definitely seem to be capable of, and you’re fine either way.

[nonbinarycharacter]

Oh okay I just messaged you, but I have another question! So the main character, who is non-binary, is going to be seeing someone from before their transition and I'm wondering how to show this interaction without being completely offensive and/or insensitive? Again, thank you so much for answering my questions! It means a lot to me.

The important thing to keep in mind in this kind of scenario is point of view and knowledge.  What point of view have you been writing in? What knowledge will that point of view have? What knowledge do your characters have?

- Omniscient: the narrator knows everything, including the character’s limitations in knowledge. “Sarah didn’t know yet that X preferred they pronouns, and made a great fauxpas in using she pronouns for them.”

- First Person: this character only knows what they know, they are limited by the knowledge they have, and their knowledge is limited by what they can reasonably know: their background, their presence during events, their past experiences, their perceptiveness, etc. “I didn’t know X that well, we knew each other in high school, but we weren’t very close. I didn’t know what to say” or “I didn’t know X that well, I knew her in high school, but seeing her again was very weird” or “I cringed when I saw Sarah because I knew he would call me by she pronouns. I had worked so hard to become “they”.

- Third person: depends on how you write it, but mostly the narrator will be distinct from the main character, but only know what they know. This is where things get a little tricky. Ask yourself: Does my narrator know this person’s gender and/or pronouns? Does it make sense, given the rest of my work, that the narrator would/would not know this information? “Sarah was walking down when she spotted X. He had not seen her since high school. ‘Hey Sarah, just so you know I’m going by they pronouns now,’ said X. Sarah felt bad for misgendering X in his head, but Sarah was glad they had taken him into their confidence.”

Remember that if a character would not reasonably know something it would be ridiculous if they magically know it. Accidentally misgendering someone because of lack of knowledge happens, and it would be unrealistic to have someone your character knew before transition know their post-transition preferences.

Every scene will be different, so if anyone has further specific questions regarding this type scene feel free to ask them. All people just generally asking “how do I do an interaction with someone my character knew pre-transition” will be referred to this post (I get a lot of these questions, this isn’t a jab at you anon)

[nonbinarycharacter]

To the anon from earlier who wanted to write an AFAB nonbinary character where “I don’t plan on their gender being some big deal or whatever”… I think they meant that as in, they didn’t want to make the nonbinary character’s gender the center of the narrative?

There are ways one could let the reader know that the character is nonbinary and keep it casual. Something like… say, if the character has to sign a form, they can look down at the gender boxes and think, “Not this shit again.” Or they could casually correct people who misgender them (this will, however, make it a big deal among certain people) Or, if they’re closeted, they could have little gender-based in-jokes among the group of people they’re out to (eg: my friend and I have a thing where, whenever she accidentally says ‘asexual’ instead of ‘agender’- I’m agender, she’s maybe ace- we’ll start up a list of words starting with 'A’ that are really, totally, the same thing as agender. Armadillo, aviation, atomic theory, etc.. :D )

But yeah, if your character is open about their gender, it is going to be a big deal. But it doesn’t have to be a big deal to them… depending on just how accepting of nonbinary identities your character’s friends, family, school, work, government, society etc. are.

mod comment: I agree with all of this

[nonbinarycharacter]

I have a character who's agender and goes by she/her pronouns because they feel ok, but really really really loves it when people use fae pronouns for her. At the moment she's just exploring it within the context of fairy role-plays - do you think this is ok, or do I need to get her asking for them in RL (she has friends and lovers who would be a-ok with this, she's just scared)? Basically I'm worried that by only using fae/faer in a role-play context I'd imply they weren't real pronouns.

I think if you have your character articulate that she really wants those pronouns all the time, but roleplay is the only place she feels safe being called by them it could be really great commentary about neopronouns. If your readers understand what you just told me it could be an important discussion and much needed support for nb people who are scared to use the pronouns they love. I myself would prefer neopronouns, but despite my supportive friends I just don’t feel prepared to use them. Something about experiencing so much transphobia makes many trans people afraid as they slowly unlock different aspects of their gender, even with safe people.Sounds very interesting anon, keep up the good work

[nonbinarycharacter]

That maybe a bit of a different question, but I'm writing a story set in a utopian society, where all sorts of prejudice, including that agains nb people have been overcome. What would that look like, in your personal opinion? I've got a scene where two characters meet for the first time and casually ask for pronouns, since they're not sure of each other's gender, but I'm not nb and I wondered what sort of acommodations you think should be made for the society in general to be fully accepting

Anonymous said: I'm writing a fantasy novel set in another world with a fair amount of queer characters including someone who's non-binary. But I'm making it so the kingdom they live in (as well as most of the world) isn't homophobic or transphobic. Would that be considered erasure, or would it be okay because it's an alternative world?

Ok I’m going to answer these two together, since they’re pretty similar.

I think the idea of a perfect world is pretty boring actually. Unless there’s some underlying prejudice, or a faction of nasty bigots, or a contrasting society of extreme hate, or an aspect of the world that isn’t perfect, it sounds like a rather dull setting. Utopias are only really interesting if they have a contrast and some flaws, otherwise your writing just sounds lazy and fake.

I think a perfect world would have the option of a non-gendered space in all situations (bathrooms and locker rooms come to mind). I think gender would still exist in my perfect world, but the only place gender would be considered appropriate would be in reference to people, not clothes or names or pronouns or occupations or hobbies or colors, etc. There would be no such thing as a gender marker. Children would only be gendered once they were old enough to understand such a thing; not like it would be ‘adult’ or something like that, just like something kids only had to be concerned with if they wanted to be. There’s more things than that, but those are the ones I can think of right now.

I think a utopia would be offensive is if you played it off like our world was like this or even close to like this. If it’s a clearly different world and humans are not involved then that’s something.Those characters, though, are going to have their own problems.

The thing is, as I said, a utopia isn’t interesting without some other setting contrasting it. And as soon as the character/s leave perfectland they sure as hell will be discriminated against again.

The other thing is, if you are doing this because you don’t want to have to deal with marginalized characters having struggles, that’s pretty lazy, weird, and bad. If you want to write a story about prejudice free people who are perfect always in every way, write about blob people. If blobs aren’t sexy enough for you, go ahead and write about all abled nt cishet white people like you wanted - you’ll only have to deal with misogyny. When you are urged to write diverse characters, that inherently includes their struggles and complexities.

You CAN write utopias, but don’t do so without contrast.

I don’t know... does anyone have anything to add?

[nonbinarycharacter]

hey, I'm writing a few nb characters with multiple pronoun sets and I was kinda wondering how I could use both in my story without it becoming confusing? thanks!

Check out the other (freshly posted) asks I have tagged ‘multiple pronoun sets’.

( 1 don’t be afraid and just go for it 2 use the person’s name a lot 3 make it explicitly clear that the character uses multiple pronoun sets)

[nonbinarycharacter]

So I'm writing this story and in it a trans woman and her husband adopt a child that was abandoned who later turns out to be genderfluid and I'm wondering how I should handle the child's pronouns? Like if the child walks into a scene should I just go with the last pronouns used until otherwise stated or should I give the readers clues using clothing and then switch the pronouns even though I can see how that might be problematic? Or should I use "they" until the character says otherwise?

All of these are fine, it is up to your character. Go with what they want/what feels right for them.