What Does It Mean to Be Gender Fluid?
"Gender fluid" and "gender fluidity" are terms that are being used with increasing frequency in our culture, as more people begin to explore their own understanding of gender, and what it means to live outside the traditional binary.
Several famous figures, including singer Miley Cyrus, former Batwoman lead actor Ruby Rose and Queer Eye star Jonathan Van Ness, have publicly identified as gender fluid or gender nonconforming.
What does it mean to be gender fluid?
Genderfluidity exists under the same umbrella as transgender and nonbinary identities. Much like being nonbinary, somebody who is gender fluid does not identify 100% with the sex they were assigned at birth. A gender-fluid person may choose to use they/them pronouns, although this is personal to each individual.
Someone who's gender fluid might also switch between different gender identities at different times, and have different forms of gender expression, i.e. wearing a suit and tie one day, and a dress and heels the next. Jonathan Van Ness has spoken about how gender identity is not a fixed constant, but constantly shifting—something that's been reflected in the Queer Eye star's wardrobe more and more over the last couple of years.
"I'm gender nonconforming," Van Ness told Out. "Like, some days I feel like a man, but then other days I feel like a woman."
Speaking to Time in 2015 about the launch of her #Instapride campaign, Miley Cyrus said she didn't care for the labels "boy" or "girl." (She didn't love "gender fluid" either, but it was the one she'd chosen to go with.)
“I’m just equal. I’m just even," she said. "It has nothing to do with any parts of me or how I dress or how I look. It’s literally just how I feel."
To show people what gender can look like outside the male-female binary, Ruby Rose—who identifies as gender fluid—made a short film called Break Free, where she completely transforms her physical appearance in the span of 5 minutes and 17 seconds. The film has been viewed more than 52 million times on YouTube since July, 2014.
"The message that I sort of wanted to explain to my fans was why I dress the way I dress, or why I am the way I am," Rose said in an interview on Sunday TODAY with Willie Geist, according to Teen Vogue. "Because I still was getting those questions of, you know, 'why does she look like a boy?' 'she could be so pretty if only she had longer hair and wore more make up and wore a dress.'"
Emily, 28, is gender fluid, but realizing her identity was a journey. "I think I started realizing I wasn't a girl around the time I realized I was bisexual," she says. "It was this awakening of realizing not everything had to fit inside gay or straight, male or female... I was also very confused by my desire to either be a very pretty lady, full makeup and a dress with heels, or to be a bro, basketball shorts and a baggy shirt with a hat."
Emily struggled to "put a name" to her gender, and began to identify as genderqueer while at grad school. She still currently uses she/her pronouns as she is most often perceived as female, and claims it's "easier than correcting people," but she also says she's happier now knowing she doesn't have to fit into any one box.
"I finally decided I liked the feel of gender fluid because my gender changes daily," she explains. "I don't usually feel too much stress trying to put a specific name to it, besides that it's just that: fluid."
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