Intersex people have anatomy or genes that don’t fit typical definitions of male and female. While some transgender people are nonbinary, most transgender people have a gender identity that is either male or female, and should be treated like any other man or woman.īeing nonbinary is not the same thing as being intersex. Most transgender people are not nonbinary.

While not all nonbinary people need medical care to live a fulfilling life, it’s critical and even life-saving for many. Some, but not all, nonbinary people undergo medical procedures to make their bodies more congruent with their gender identity. Non-binary people aren’t confused about their gender identity or following a new fad – nonbinary identities have been recognized for millennia by cultures and societies around the world. Therefore, “nonbinary” is one term people use to describe genders that don’t fall into one of these two categories, male or female. The idea that there are only two genders is sometimes called a “gender binary,” because binary means “having two parts” (male and female). Some societies – like ours – tend to recognize just two genders, male and female. If you’re not sure what a word means, you can usually just ask politely.

None of these terms mean exactly the same thing – but all speak to an experience of gender that is not simply male or female. Other terms include genderqueer, agender, bigender, genderfluid, and more. People whose gender is not male or female use many different terms to describe themselves, with non binary being one of the most common (sometimes spelled with a hyphen, as “non-binary”).

Folks vs folx