In 2020, it looked like Janelle Monáe had come out as non-binary after tweeting “#IAmNonBinary.” They later clarified in an interview, though, “I tweeted the #IAmNonbinary hashtag in support of Nonbinary Day and to bring more awareness to the community. I retweeted the Steven Universe meme, ‘Are you a boy or a girl? I’m an experience,’ because it resonated with me, especially as someone who has pushed boundaries of gender since the beginning of my career. I feel my feminine energy, my masculine energy, and energy I can’t even explain.”
However, now, Monáe has gone ahead and declared as directly as possible that they are in fact non-binary: In a new Red Table Talk interview (as Billboard notes), Monáe told Jada Pinkett Smith, “I’m non-binary, so I just don’t see myself as a woman, solely. I feel like God is so much bigger than the ‘he’ or the ‘she,’ and if I am from God, I am everything.”
Monáe continued, “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.”
Monáe also discussed why they decided to come out now, saying, “Somebody said, ‘If you don’t work out the things that you need to work out first before sharing it with the world, then you’re going to be working it out with the world.’ That’s what I didn’t want to do.”
Watch the full Red Table Talk episode here.