Right now, nonbinary isn't dependent on the binary, it just is, 'Well, I'm not that.' But the more we say nonbinary, we're going to have to call up the binary in order to define ourselves. At that point, nonbinary will be so dependent on the binary that it will, in fact, become part of it, paradoxically. JM: Do you think having that word, 'nonbinary,' has helped to legitimize nonbinary identities in people's eyes? KB: Yes, to a point, and it's going to freeze nonbinary into something that can be defined.

Gender is not something you can hold onto, unless you get really angry about it. Being able to let go has always been a problem for humanity. That's why admitting that gender includes time, the passage of time, allows us to admit that living with gender is living with the process of letting go. Some people seem to think that nonbinary is an 'is' and it isn't. 'Not man, not woman' because I had no idea what I was. The sneaky thing about the word nonbinary is it doesn't say what you are, it says what you're not. Now we have this word that the general public knows: nonbinary. JM: Another big difference is that 30 years ago, you were forced to invent language to describe how you experience gender. So now, rather than saying just 'not man, not woman', I'm saying that my gender is a continuum. What we depend on to define ourselves as a gender continually changes, moment by moment. It's the idea that - you know it, I know it, we all know it, but hate to admit it - gender is continually changing.

Gender outlaw book