do not identify as male or female. That's about the
population of the city of Dallas. Now identifying as
non binary. Among them are people like singer Demi
Lovato. They do not identify as male or female. On this
point, the country is fundamentally divided. Accor
to Pew Research Survey, 56% of Americans believe your
gender cannot change after you' born. 41% say it can
as we explore why we wanted to set the table with a
focus on history. It turns out the non binary gender
identity has been around longer than you might think.
Newsy's Maurizio Giorgio explai There is no one way
to be non binary and all non binary people are valid
Non binary people live all over the world, not
exclusively man or woman. We're trying to use a
language that has never really acknowledged us to
describe something, an innate experience of ourselves.
Some people dismiss the identif as new or trendy. Homo
sapiens have been around 300,00 years and for the most
part was kind of obviously the boys and girls were, but
we've decided in a very short period of time that none
of that iseal and r we're changing it. It's literal
you can now identify in 100 different ways your agenda,
including two spirits and all this other stuff. Then I
am entitled to identify as two spirit penguin. But non
binary people have existed across different cultur
dating back thousands of years. One of the earliest
known non binary identities was the hydra in India 4000
years ago, neither men nor women. They were considered
to have the power to bless or curse and they weren't
controversial. They were widely respected, But that
changed as Britain colonized India. They brought with
them a strict view of male and female genders. In 187
still under British control, a culture war ensued India
criminalized gay sex. That ban remained in place for
nearly 150 years until 2018 and today Hendra are
recognized as a third gender in India. There's an
extensive history here in the Americas to in the 15th
century spanish colonizers discovered native americans
often had two or five or even 10 genders. They were
known as two spirits. A blanket term for people who
have two identities in one body there were masculine
roles and feminine roles, but as Children grew they
could see the world differently and we we're
matchmakers. We were sex educat We I mean, we took
care of the elderly. We took care of the we we were
like the utilitarian people we fit. We fit in where
other people didn't in parts of Mexico, people continu
to embrace the idea of a third gender. Like in Oaxaca
where third genders have existed since pre colonial
times, mush are born male and raised to take on female
gender roles within Zapotec society. They've been
respected for generations and since the seventies
Oaxaca hosts a three day festival to celebrate mush
known as the vigil of the intrepid as featured in the
documentary. The last day is the most important of the
year as one is crowned queen. The slow resurgence of
non binary identities didn't st in the US until the
20th century. In the 19 eighties, the american
psychiatric association categor
nonconformity as a mental disorder. The diagnosis
became a necessary step for many transgender and non
binary people to access gender affirming medical care.
But some L.G.B.T.Q. Advocates argued that labeling
gender identity as a disorder created a negative sti
In 2013, the A.P.A. Changed the classification to
gender dysphoria meaning dissatisfaction. In 2014
facebook created 50 gender settings for users ranging
from new toy, rejecting gender completely to other. And
in october of 2021 the US issued its first gender
neutral passport to Dana Zim. The 66 year old activist
won their six year fight to identify themselves as
intersex on their passport using the letter X. For
gender. And soon more US citizens who don't identify as
male or female will be able to apply for passports
stamped with that same marker. Lawmakers here in
Montana passed legislation last year that barred trans
students from competing under their gender identity.
Seven more states are considering similar measures no
in 2020 to to to pick these provisions may also
people who do not identify with their gender. That was
Newsy's Maurizio Giorgio report joining us now on
the why is Travel Anderson there an award winning
journalist who dedicated tirhe career to focusing on
those in the margins and grace basis. They were also
named two rout 2020 list of the most influential
african Americans travel, thank you so much for coming
on with us today. Thanks for having me. So on our show,
it's all about discovery and understanding. And I think
a lot of people want to better understand what non
binary is, but don't know where to start or even how to
ask those questions often. So let's start with your
journey. How did you come to understand you were non
binary Yeah. Well, you know, I feel like I have always
known that the, the ways that I was supposed to show up
in the world and moved orld just didn't gel
with what I internally felt sin I was a kid. Um, but
I, you know, grew up in south Carolina in a
conservative household, my grandmother was a pastor.
And so you know, you end up taking on these identiti
that your parents or your grandparents were just you
community kind of forces on you Um, I think for me it
was when I started doing kind of my own education. Um,
when I went to college when I went to grad school and
then beginning to just read and discover that like
folks like me, folks who don't really fit in these
boxes of gender that have been forced upon us, that we
have existed since the beginning of time since humans
have walked this earth, that we have always been divine
individuals. We've been people who, who communities
have sought after for medical, medical care for for
care of of elderly in our communities and knowing tha
history finding and accessing those people who have
been disappeared in our history and in our archives
have been really kind of instrumental for me and kind
of my identity information. So you interviewed another
activist on your podcast They described how other
people's interpretations and anxieties about gender,
nonconformity make it a tough situation for queer
people take a listen to this first. We're not allowed
to exist. So we are just a discourse, an idea, a
conversation, a metaphor, a pro a joke, a proxy never
actually a fully fleshed out human being. So travel.
Why do you think some people react so negatively to
someone who doesn't identify as a man or a woman Yeah,
that's a lok who is a fabulous activist and perform
artist there. Um and what they say really resonate with
me. I feel like we we've grown up in this society where
we all have been given these scripts of how we are
supposed to show up in the world, You know what a man
is supposed to be and look like, how he's supposed to
act, what a woman is supposed to be and how she is
supposed to lo aoknd act. Um, and I think when folks
see those of us who reject all of those presupposit
that are put on us, I do feel like it unsettles
something within them. Um, and in a society where we
teach men to to act out their feelings with their f
and with violence and with guns and other forms of
violence that we as queer people. We as trans people
and non binary folks are the ones who bear the brunt of
that in addition to other women from identified fol
Right. And so I think that the freedom, the the the
glamour, the play that we as non binary people exhibit
um is so foreign to some people that rather than
question or challenge the internal things that come up
for them. They just want to act out on us, right And
that leads to write 2021 being the deadliest year on
record for trans people and gender non conforming
people in the us. So you once wrote that sometimes y
gender nonconforming presence c at times feel like a
burden. How how did you handle that pressure Yeah. Well
you know, I think part of it is also about just just
rejecting all of the the pressures that come with being
who I am. I think that so much as a low kind of alluded
to. We as non binary people as trans people. We are the
trailblazers. We are the one who have to come into a
space and shake the table a little and there's that
representation You know, kind of burden that comes with
that. Oftentimes we're not able just to move and exist
through the world, right I've got to think about what
I'm wearing and the spaces that I'm going into and
whether or not I'm going to be safe, right I have to
think about how me just living my life in the ways that
come most authentically to me, challenges or unsettle
something in someone else. And so it can be a little
difficult. Um, my advice though is I think, you know,
as we are seeing more and more people are beginning t
you know, find language that describes their lived
experiences and that language has been gender fluid or
non binary or androgynous any one of these terms more
and more. We're seeing younger people right Having
these conversations at earlier ages, challenging their
parents,randparents to kind of re
contextualized and rethink how they think about their
own genders. And so I do feel like we're moving into a
space where more and more folks like me can feel safe
to live out loud in the same ways that everyone else do
Um we're not there yet. But you know, we're we're
slowly making that progress. So you've also written
that your mission as a journalist is to highlight quot
those in margins gray spaces and the intersections of
life through a pop culture lens. What do you think is
key to understanding and valuing non binary identities
I think what is key to valuing our identities is
everyone else valuing and re contextualizing and
interrogating their own lives, their own relationships
to their gender. You know, at these days, I feel like
the that term toxic masculinity is just like, you know,
something that everyone says on on twitter. But let's
be all begin to think of the ways that we were just
grown up in societies that told us that who we knew we
are, who we know we are to be true is somehow a problem
right Like and for me, you know, we think that there
are men and that there are women and that there are no
folks in between or outside of that. But I stand here
sit here as proof that that there are. And so what then
does the freedom that I exhibit as a non binary
individual How can that spill over into your experience
as a woman Right How can we begin to disassociate th
things such as, you know, our genitalia such as what
the doctor has said or not saidbo aut who we are How
can we divorce those things that we often hyper focus
on from like the truth of an individual that they know
who they are regardless of the outside world travel
Andeon, thank you for sharing your story and insight
on the show tonight. We really appreciate it. Thank you
for having me up next on the why we'll explain why