Janelle Monáe recently sat down with Jada Pinkett Smith, Willow Smith and Adrienne Banfield Norris on their critically acclaimed Facebook Watch show ‘Red Table Talk’ and announced that they are non-binary.
The Grammy-nominated singer explained “I’m non-binary so I just don’t see myself as a woman, solely, I feel all of my energy. I feel like God is so much bigger than the ‘’he’ or the ‘she’.”
They further went on to say “And if I am from God, I am everything. But I will always, always stand with women. I will always stand with Black women. But I just see everything that I am. Beyond the binary.”
This interview is the first time that Janelle has officially confirmed that they are non-binary.
Janelle Monáe also discussed what it was like to come from a conservative Baptist background and has described the coming out process as very personal to them.
Monáe explained how they were advised to understand their identity internally before sharing it with the world “Somebody said, ‘If you don’t work out the things that you need to work out first before you share with the world, then you’ll be working it out with the world. That’s what I didn’t want to do.”
They also spoke about their family “My whole family is church … church, church, so I was just like ‘what does it mean to go against your whole family on this thing?’ But I was ready! I was like: if they don’t love me, don’t call me asking for no money. You will not get my LGBTQIA+ money. How about that?”
In January 2020, they tweeted the hashtag #IAmNonbinary which fans thought was a coming-out tweet but they later confirmed that they were tweeting their support for Non-Binary day “to bring more awareness to the community”.
Throughout Janelle Monáe’s interview which is available on Facebook, they explained that when they see people, they see their energy as opposed to their gender “I don’t see how you identify, and I feel like that opens you up to fall in love with whoever, with any beautiful spirit”
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They did not express their preferred pronouns during their Red Table Talk interview but a reporter with Variety informed Janelle that someone had changed their pronouns from “she” to “they” on Wikipedia.
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