Janelle Monáe shared that they are non-binary during an appearance Wednesday on the Facebook series ‘Red Table Talk’.
“I am non-binary,” 36-year-old Monáe told hosts Jada Pinkett Smith, Willow Smith and Adrienne Banfield-Norris. “So I just don’t see myself as a woman or — alone. You know, I feel all my energy.”
As Insider previously reported, citing the National Center for Transgender Equality, non-binary people identify as a gender outside of the traditional categories of male and female, and sometimes identify as neither or a combination of both genders at the same time.
“I feel that God is so much greater than the ‘he’ or the ‘she,'” Monáe said during their appearance on the “Red Table Talk”, adding that “if I come from God, I am everything.”
Monáe continued: “I will always be with women. I will always be with black women, but I just see everything I am outside of the binary.”
Monáe added that they see “the energy of people” and not how they identify themselves.
“And I feel like that opens you up to fall in love with any beautiful ghost,” Monáe said.
When asked by Willow, Pinkett Smith and Will Smith’s daughter what inspired Monáe to come out publicly, they said it came after they discussed their sexuality and gender in their personal lives.
“If you don’t work out the things you need to settle with the world first, you’ll fix it with the world,” Monáe said. “And that’s what I didn’t want to do, so I thought I must have all my answers correct.”
Monáe added that they had not had the “necessary conversations” with their families before coming out publicly.
“I’ve had monogamous relationships, polyamorous relationships, but I knew I couldn’t be a little pumpkin,” Monáe said, referring to their childhood nickname. “I know who I am. I’ve played a version of some parts of myself, but now I own all of them.”
In an interview published Thursday, Monáe told Stuart Miller of the Los Angeles Times that they preferred the pronouns she/she and she/her.
Monáe appeared to come out as non-binary earlier in January 2020 when they shared a quote tweet with the hashtag “#IAmNonbinary.” And in June 2018, Monáe came out publicly as pansexual — pansexuality is when someone is attracted to people of all genders — during an interview with Rolling Stone.
“As a queer black woman in America, someone who has had relationships with both men and women, I consider myself an asshole,” Monáe told Rolling Stone.
Monàe told the outlet they previously identified as bisexual, “but later I read about pansexuality and thought, ‘Oh, these are things I identify with too.’ I’m open to learning more about who I am.”
Representatives of Monáe did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.
This post Janelle Monáe Confirms They’re Non-Binary in ‘Red Table Talk’ was original published at “https://www.insider.com/janelle-monae-shares-nonbinary-red-table-talk-2022-4”