Coming out as nonbinary was a response to a lot of criticism I got when it leaked that I'd be playing a nonbinary character on 'Steven Universe.' I never really had the words like nonbinary or gender fluid or gender nonconforming until after 'Drag Race' and that's when I first started identifying publicly as nonbinary.
I've always thought about gender, as someone who has been categorically "gender nonconforming" for my entire life, I was forced to think about it, but obviously I became more conscious of it as a social issue as I've gotten older. And as I've met more folks who are genderqueer or trans, it's been really enlightening to hear their stories, and it got me thinking about my own gender history.
We understand that, in our communities, black trans folk, gender-nonconforming folk, black queer folk, black women, black disabled folk - we have been leading movements for a long time, but we have been erased from the official narrative.
There always has to be a coming out. There's never just a gender-nonconforming person who exists on a TV show without some screaming on-the-street moment.
It's my view that gender is culturally formed, but it's also a domain of agency or freedom and that it is most important to resist the violence that is imposed by ideal gender norms, especially against those who are gender different, who are nonconforming in their gender presentation.
One particular debate that I have seen play out again and again is whether trans people who have more traditional gender expressions or who "pass" more should be the ones who are represented. A recent advocacy guide focused on advocating around trans health care access produced by the largest trans advocacy organization in the US instructs readers that advocacy will be more successful if the message is delivered by people who pass as non-trans men and women.
I've always been surrounded by music. The arts have been in my life for a long long time. It was just always around. I can remember as far back as third grade, me rapping, pencil on the desk rapping type s**t. So I always had a passion for it.
I have always been aware that I can never represent all trans people. No one or two or three trans people can. This is why we need diverse media representations of trans folks to multiply trans narratives in the media and depict our beautiful diversities.
I have been gender-nonconforming my entire life.
If people want to see more representation of trans people you just have to look around, because with the explosion of digital creation, lots of trans actors and film makers have been creating their own content and it's readily available.
People assume that trans people will only be accepted as trans characters, or that there aren't enough trans writers, or that there aren't any trans producers or directors, there's that attitude.
I'm not gender-fluid. I'm not gender-nonconforming. I'm not gender-free.
Some trans people thought that in claiming that gender is performative that I was saying that it is all a fiction, and that a person's felt sense of gender was therefore "unreal." That was never my intention. I sought to expand our sense of what gender realities could be. But I think I needed to pay more attention to what people feel, how the primary experience of the body is registered, and the quite urgent and legitimate demand to have those aspects of sex recognized and supported.
It's not a cis-man becoming a cis-woman. It's a trans person just being who they want to be. This is how I've always felt, and this is who I've always been. But so much focus is put on the transition or the change because it's so visible. But that's not even what it is... That's who that person's been and who they are now.
I think one of the biggest misconceptions is that only gender non-conforming, non-binary, or trans people have a gender identity. But the truth is, everyone has a gender identity.
For a long time, I really blithely walked around in the world imagining that gender didn't matter any more and behaving like I was on equal footing with other people. And I think, for a long time, it was easy to live in the world that way.