Nonbinary Gender Identities: History, Culture, Resources

by Charlie McNabb

Nonbinary gender identities are those that fall outside the traditional binary of “man” and “woman.” These include genderfluid, androgynous, genderqueer, and a multitude of other identity terms, some of which overlap. Although there have always been people who identify outside the gender binary, only recently have they gained popular media attention. Despite some visibility, however, nonbinary gender identities are poorly understood by the general public.It is critically important for gender minorities to find themselves in the media that they consume. Just as important is the need for those outside the minority community to understand and appreciate them. Nonbinary gender identities are represented in books and other media, but these resources prove difficult to locate, as classification vocabulary doesn’t evolve as quickly as community language. Reference sources identified include archives and special collections, theses and dissertations, key journals, and related organizations and associations.This timely resource—the first reference on nonbinary gender identities—offers an accessible entry into researching this topic. Written by a nonbinary scholar and librarian, this guide includes valuable appendixes that will aid every researcher and a glossary of the rich vocabulary emerging from nonbinary communities; a guide to pronoun usage; a primer on sex, sexuality, and gender; and Library of Congress Classification information.

Genres: Nonfiction, Queer, LGBT, History, Gender and Sexuality, Gender, Genderfluid

305 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 8, 2017

Reviews

[Bogi Takács]

Would not recommend; want to expand on this later (my arm really hurts, so I'll have to put this off).
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Source of the book: Watson Library, University of Kansas

[Jamie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I mostly read the nonfiction books section. It's an absolutely invaluable resource if you want to learn more about the history of gender identity and nonbinary people. There's so many resources from so many different groups. It's exactly what I was looking for.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a really great resource for anyone looking for any kind of media or scholarship relating to nonbinary or genderqueer identity. It covers everything from academic papers to blogs, from online personalities to performance artists, from support groups to library archives. It is long and dry (it's basically an annotated bibliography), but for a subject that doesn't even have a Library of Congress Subject Heading, it's indispensable.

[Bleu · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an eye opening book. Being someone who doesn't identify being female a lot of the time this book has made me feel like I'm valid no one can say I'm now. I now know so many celebrities that are genderqueer and/or queer.

[Guilherme Smee · Rating 3 out of 5]

É bastante complicado encontrar livros que falem sobre não-binariedade com um approach teórico, talvez porque o uso deste termo seja bastante recente, remontando à década passada, embora outros termos, ofensivos, como berdaches ou travestis tenham sido usados no passado. Este livro de Charles McNabb arranha a superfície da não-binariedade, não investindo muito na teoria e servindo mais como um livro introdutório para a questão da não-identificação com os gêneros masculino e feminino. Contudo, ele traz bons capítulos como o histórico do uso da palavra berdache e porque ela é ofensiva e mal usada para se referir à não-binariedade. Também traz um bom panorama sobre como a não-binariedade é tratada em diversos países do mundo, mas se furta de falar sobre a Europa e a América do Norte não-indígena, ou seja, o núcleo duro da cultura ocidental. Mais da metade do livro é preenchida de "recursos" para que o leitor saiba mais sobre pessoas não-binárias. Portanto, apesar de uma boa introdução ao tema, não recomendo para quem, como eu, está em busca de teoria acadêmica sobre o assunto.

[Salem Cook · Rating 4 out of 5]

Majority of the contents of the book ARE resources, which is good but there’s not much to actually read. I was hoping there would be more content as far as history and such. I’d also say while it kind of frames itself and how it talks as being directed towards cis people, I wouldn’t recommend this to people with no understanding of queer people as I could see it being overwhelming and not super helpful to trans folks wanting to explain being non-binary to people. I, as a non-binary person, grabbed this because I was interested in seeing how it was and I’m not mad at it. Good resources and info, but I think FOR non-binary people first and foremost.

So only negatives are that the actual reading is very limited and additionally including people as non-binary celebrities aren’t verifiably non-binary, which kind of just pushes the idea of androgyny equaling being non-binary when the book tries to say otherwise itself.

[❄Elsa Frost❄ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great introductory book to non-binary identities! My friend and I already knew about this stuff, so it’s not new information to either of us. But it’s still a good book I’d recommend to people learning about non-binary identities and people learning about them in the context of library subject headings (some library science is involved, hell ye!!).

Good book!

[Your · Rating 5 out of 5]

13 year olds on tumblr are the only people who understand gender

[JJ]

Eh. I think this is fine if someone is looking for a research starting point, as there's tons of academic and other resources listed here, but over all this is incredibly barebones. It's maybe introductory level, but the information isn't, uh, I don't know, it's lacking. It feels academically neutral but also somehow unsupportive of nonbinary identities? Ultimately it didn't feel use to me at all, except, perhaps, if one needed a handy list of places to start research. So yay on the resources part, nay on the history and culture parts, I guess.