Writing Nonbinary Characters

As a nonbinary queer writer, fictional characters helped me understand myself. I encourage authors to include nonbinary characters in their work.

Nonbinary characters in fiction are important because they represent a truth about humanity: People have always existed with identities beyond female and male.

As a nonbinary queer writer, books with trans and nonbinary characters have helped me to envision a world that nurtures my gender identity. Reading stories with these characters—some like me and some very different from me—allowed me to more fully express myself and advocate for my community. I changed my name and came out at work. I wrote a narrative guide on how journalists can write about trans people with respect.

I grew up with few books hinting at non-cis gender identities. My first was a picture book my mom read to me as a child: The Mountains of Tibet, by Mordicai Gerstein. A woodcutter grows old, dies, and is given the chance to choose his next life. Out of a universe of options, he chooses his home mountains of Tibet, but he asks to be a girl. I was perplexed by the ending, because I could not relate to someone who had the chance to be a boy and chose instead to be a girl. I did not want to be—was not—a girl. I didn’t know how to express this at the time, but having a book with a character who decided to change their perceived gender still made an impact on me.

As an adult in my late twenties, reading books written by a diverse community of trans people was crucial for me to learn about different gender experiences. I love reading fiction by queer and trans authors featuring characters who are confident, describe their identities as “trans” and “nonbinary,” use they/them pronouns, and are recognized and accepted. I nurture my inner child with books that weren’t yet written when I was young.

We should all support nonbinary authors, but you don’t have to be nonbinary to write a nonbinary character, as long as you have the knowledge, empathy, and humility to write about someone different from yourself. Here are a few tips (along with book recommendations and examples!) to consider if you are writing nonbinary characters.

As a nonbinary queer writer, books with trans and nonbinary characters have helped me to envision a world that nurtures my gender identity. 

I recommend hiring a sensitivity reader and/or an editor who is nonbinary if your work features nonbinary characters. Even if you’re a trans person writing trans characters, it can be eye-opening to receive feedback from a person with different experiences.

If you’re a cis writer, I recommend reading to understand, but not trying to emulate, stories centered on trans experience. One such story is Kacen Callender’s novel Felix Ever After. Seventeen-year-old main character Felix Love is happy with his physical transition but struggles to understand his gender identity. Felix grapples with hurtful misgendering from his father and humiliation at school while coming to the realization he’s not exactly a man. With a trans support group and internet research, he finds the perfect word to describe himself: demiboy. I love the nuance Callender expresses in a young person struggling to find himself.

The support group in Felix Ever After shows readers the trans community, so we see more than one trans character. It’s important to consider gender-diverse supporting characters as well as leads.

It’s unrealistic if all characters are cis gender-conforming men and women. My communities are far from all white, straight, monogamous, neurotypical, and able-bodied. Authors can create immersive worlds where gender manifests differently than in our current reality.

In Neon Yang’s novella The Black Tides of Heaven, children are born gender-neutral and are confirmed into their choice of female or male gender. Secondary sex characteristics are suppressed until the person undergoes medical procedures and takes confirmation medicine. Trans people exist within this world. Yongcheow is a man but has not gone through the medical treatments as part of confirmation; he wraps his chest with cloth bindings. The main character, Akeha, and their twin, Mokoya, are inseparable and promise each other they are never going to be confirmed. When Mokoya and, shortly afterward, Akeha decide to be confirmed after their seventeenth birthdays, their decisions cause a rift between the twins. Akeha leaves the city where Mokoya lives and starts a new life. When Akeha decides to be confirmed, they change the words used to refer to themself, using gendered versions of the pronoun I. The words are an indicator of gender identity completely separate from appearance.

I appreciate fictional worlds where nonbinary gender expression is mainstream. Once & Future, by Amy Rose Capetta and Cori McCarthy, is a King Arthur–inspired novel set in the future when Arthur returns for the forty-second time, in this life as a girl. The wizard Merlin, who ages backward, has reached his late teens and quickly absorbs the idea of gender-neutral pronouns and fluid gender identity. The universe of Once & Future has problems—water shortage, environmental disasters, oppression—but gender discrimination isn’t one. There is no “gender nonconforming” because the culture does not enforce a gender binary. Without sexism, homophobia, or transphobia, gender fades into the background as an important but not crucial aspect to the plot.

Nonbinary people have a wide range of appearances, and they’re often not the white, skinny, and androgenous stereotype shown in the media. There’s no single way to “look nonbinary,” and there are no universal language guidelines for referring to nonbinary people. Consider describing your characters as tall, fat, short, masculine, feminine, sexy, muscular, bearded, big-chested, wearing no makeup, wearing winged eyeliner, or having any skin tone.

Nonbinary characters are not unusual in Once & Future—and they are smoking hot! Many characters are dark-haired and dark-skinned, with red hair, light eyes, and pale skin considered unusual. Our heroine makes out with a person she met in a nightclub who is “fluid” and uses they/them pronouns. Their description doesn’t include many physical characteristics.

Nonbinary people’s gender expression may change over time, with different people, or with shifting mood. Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi is a semi-autobiographical novel of a fractured self. Ada, the main character, has different facets or spirits who can control her and who have different genders and sexualities. The first two have little gender expression. The next one is more strongly feminine and is attracted to men. The last is strongly masculine in appearance and is attracted to women. Ada dates men and women and gets top surgery to flatten her chest as cutting, ritual, and a way to express masculinity. Ada changes as she grows up, moving from Nigeria to the US. The different aspects inside her psyche fight and coexist. Freshwater illustrates complex, changing, fluctuating nonbinary identity.

Nonbinary people may use they or she or he or ze or may alternate between multiple pronouns. Some people use he at work and with family and she with online friends, or they make an exception for language an intimate partner or family member may use with them. Languages other than English may not have gendered pronouns or may not have gender-neutral pronouns. Some people don’t care what words people use for them, as long as they are respectful.

If you choose to use they/them pronouns for your character, it’s easier than you might think! Trust your grammatical instincts from when you speak about someone unknown: “Someone left their keys on the table. Are they coming back?” Use the plural “they are here” but the singular “Rey is here.” It’s incorrect to say “Rey are here” or “they is here.”

Both Ada (in Freshwater) and Felix Love (in Felix Ever After) are nonbinary but use gendered pronouns (she and he respectively). In Once & Future, everyone with a “fluid” identity uses they/them pronouns. And in The Black Tides of Heaven, pronouns are used as an indicator of chosen gender.

I appreciate stories that unobtrusively use they/them pronouns without making it a big deal. This demonstrates acceptance from the community—or from the narrator or author—that readers may not experience in real life.

And remember: Being nonbinary may be the least interesting aspect of your character! Perhaps they are a kleptomaniac or repeatedly fall in unrequited love or can speak to dragons or run a restaurant or are a fighter pilot. Nonbinary characters might think a lot about gender while they are coming out or transitioning, but not so much during the rest of their life.

It can be intimidating to write a character different from yourself, especially without good examples or role models. Matthew Salesses’s book Craft in the Real World taught me whether a reader relates to a story says more about the reader’s culture and experiences than about the writing’s quality. If you write a nonbinary character, you (and your readers) may not personally relate to the gender feelings of this character. That’s okay. But many readers out there may relate to your nonbinary characters, and it can be exciting to write characters with a variety of gender expression.

I am so grateful to authors who write nonbinary queer characters. I feel joyful, seen, present, and honest in my own skin when I read characters who help me understand my gender identity. If you haven’t read books with nonbinary or trans characters before, I hope my suggestions give you a good place to begin your exploration!