mxactivist:

It’s full of helpful links to sources, and goes over all of the main records-and-paperwork issues that my advocate is likely to bump into.

WARNING: Very UK-centric!

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I’m nonbinary. That means, for me, I’m not a man or a woman. The name comes from the “gender binary”, which is the idea that everyone is either male or female – and nonbinary people don’t tidily fit into that binary.

Some people consider it a subset of being transgender because our genders are different to those we were assigned at birth – only instead of going from male to female or female to male, I’m going from male/female to… neither, something else! For myself, I think for most intents and purposes it is most helpful to consider me to be transgender.

There are no solid estimates for how many people are nonbinary; the best one we have is a study by the Equality and Human Rights Commission that estimates 0.4% of the population; that’s around 250,000 people in the UK, or 1 in 250. It’s comparable to the number of bisexual people in the UK, the number of Jewish people in the UK, and the number of Buddhists in the UK. We will probably be counted in the next UK census in 2021. We have existed all over the world since humans have known what gender is.

That means…

Gendered words – I shouldn’t be referred to as man, woman, male or female. Gender neutral language should be used, and gendered language should be avoided.

• Male, female –> nonbinary
• Man, woman –> nonbinary person
• Son, daughter –> child
• Brother, sister –> sibling
• Mother, father –> parent (not that I am a parent!)

Pronouns – specifically, third person personal pronouns. I am not he or she, but they (aka singular they). This can take some getting used to if you don’t normally use singular they even for people whose gender is unknown, and especially if you’ve been taught from a young age that it’s grammatically incorrect! If you’re familiar with other gender-neutral pronouns I’m happy for you to use whatever when referring to me, as long as it’s not he, she, or it. Here’s an example sentence:

Charlie has their dentist appointment today. They are walking to the appointment alone. They booked the appointment themself.

Titles – for example, Mr, Ms. Gendered titles should not be used for me, ever. A lot of computer systems require a title, and have no gender neutral options. The most popular gender-neutral title among nonbinary people is Mx, and that’s also the title that is most available to nonbinary people in forms and paperwork in the UK.

Mx Sam Smith

Dear Mx Smith, we are writing to inform you…

I have to fight hard and sometimes cite law to persuade companies and organisations to accommodate me. In situations where a title must be chosen and complained about later, I usually go with Dr while making it very clear that I am not a doctor and this is incorrect and in breach of the Data Protection Act 1998.

Gender markers – there should never be a male or female gender marker on any of my records anywhere. I’ve had to put a lot of work into making sure that this is the case. If you run into any of my records that have male or female gender markers, it would help me a lot if you can try to get those changed to a nonbinary gender marker or a “not specified” gender marker, or to get it removed from the record altogether. My gender marker on most records are terms like “not specified”, “indeterminate”, etc. The two exceptions are my birth certificate and my passport, which both must say M or F by (current) law.

Nonbinary people and the law – there are two laws that relate to transgender and nonbinary people that are often helpful.

• Data Protection Act 1998. This set of laws requires that data recorded about me must be both accurate and relevant. Gendered titles and binary gender markers (binary = M or F) are usually neither accurate nor relevant, even on medical records.
• Equality Act 2010. This set of laws was originally intended to cover people of all gender identities including nonbinary people, but the guidance does not explicitly mention us and so in practise nonbinary people are not protected by the Equality Act. The closest it gets is saying that people are protected from discrimination if they are transsexual or someone thinks that they are transsexual. I’ve had trans-related surgeries but there have been no test cases that would confirm whether or not I am protected by the Equality Act under this criterion as a nonbinary person. For some years we have been edging towards including gender identity as a protected characteristic in a new version of the Equality Act, with the support of an inquiry report by the Women and Equalities Committee released in January 2016 and the Labour party manifesto promising to update the Equality Act to protect us if the Labour party were voted into power. This vital change would require all organisations, companies and governmental systems to accommodate and explicitly include nonbinary genders in records and paperwork.

Because the Equality Act is not yet explicit, I often have more luck citing the Data Protection Act.

The practical implications

• “To whom it may concern. I am writing to complain about your lack of flexibility in titles. I am nonbinary, which means that I am neither male nor female. When creating a bank account I was forced to lie about my title in order to sign up. This is in breach of the Data Protection Act 1998, which requires stored personal data about me to be accurate. Could you please change your system to allow for no title at all or to include the gender-inclusive title Mx, which can be used by anyone of any gender.”
• “To whom it may concern. I am writing to complain about your lack of gender-neutral changing rooms. I was unable to use your pool/gym/clothes shop today because the changing rooms were limited by gender. As a nonbinary person it’s inappropriate and at times unsafe for me to be in either the men’s changing rooms or the women’s changing rooms. The ideal situation would be a gender-inclusive changing room with cubicles.”
• “To whom it may concern. I am writing to complain about your gendered toilets. Today I was forced to choose between a male restroom and a female restroom. I am nonbinary, which means I and other customers are uncomfortable when I am in the men’s toilets and when I am in the women’s toilets. The ideal solution would be a gender-inclusive toilet, and please note that a disabled toilet is not a solution – many nonbinary people are not disabled and should not be occupying a toilet that a disabled person may need to use in a hurry.”
• “To whom it may concern. I am writing to complain that my records with you have a binary gender marker. As a nonbinary person, the gender markers M and F are inappropriate, inaccurate, and very uncomfortable for me. Do you have a third gender option that I could choose instead, or would it be possible to remove the gender marker from my records entirely?”
• “To whom it may concern. I am writing to complain because, despite having no gender marker or title on record with you, your staff keep guessing a gender at random and calling me Mr Smith or Miss Smith or even sometimes Mrs Smith. Equality training rarely includes nonbinary genders, even when it teaches about transgender people. Do you have any plans to train your staff on awareness and accommodation of nonbinary people?”

I make it sound like I complain about this all the time because I’ve been doing this for years with varying degrees of success, but in reality these days I rarely have the energy. And when I do, I would rather spend that energy on [other more important stuff].

I’m not sure how often this will happen, but if you become aware of a gendered title or a gender marker on my records while advocating for me it would help enormously if you could get that corrected, or try to?

I hope this all makes sense! I’m not sure how this all relates to advocacy or whether you’ve advocated for nonbinary people before, but it seems like something important that you should know about. Most people I meet have not even heard of nonbinary genders, so if I have gone a bit overboard please forgive me! And if you have any questions and you can’t find the answers, feel free to ask me and I’ll do my best to answer them. 🙂