Out Magazine the famous gay magazine, marks non-binary awareness week by celebrating the lives of several key non-binary personalities.

The term “nonbinary” might feel like a recent addition to many people’s vocabularies, but throughout history individuals have challenged rigid ideas about gender. These pioneers pushed back against society’s expectations, paving the way for today’s nonbinary and gender-nonconforming communities.

The Public Universal Friend, who lived from 1752 to 1819, was an American preacher who announced they had died and been resurrected as a genderless evangelist. They abandoned their birth name, rejected all gendered pronouns, and adopted androgynous clothing. Their sermons attracted followers who formed the Society of Universal Friends, a group with beliefs similar to those of the Quakers.

French surrealist Claude Cahun, active between 1894 and 1954, was a photographer, sculptor and writer, most famous for their self-portraits. Though Cahun used “she/her” pronouns in writing, they considered themselves gender fluid. Beyond challenging gender norms with an androgynous appearance in the early 1900s, Cahun also worked in the French resistance during the Second World War and co-founded the left-wing group Contre Attaque. In their surreal autobiography Disavowals, Cahun wrote: “Masculine? Feminine? It depends on the situation. Neuter is the only gender that always suits me.”

Jennie June was the pseudonym of a pioneering LGBTQ+ American writer who campaigned for people who did not fit societal gender expectations. June used “he/him” pronouns in his work but described himself as a blend of male and female, and enjoyed shifting between genders. He wrote two autobiographies detailing his experience of gender nonconformity.

Thomas Baty, a celebrated legal scholar, also campaigned for radical feminism and against the gender binary. Writing under the name Irene Clyde, Baty published Beatrice the Sixteenth, a utopian novel set in a society without gender. Baty also launched the journal Urnania to fight binary gender classifications.

Kate Bornstein is an American author, playwright, performance artist and gender theorist, best known for their book Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women, and The Rest of Us. They began identifying as gender non-conforming in the 1980s and now identifies as nonbinary. In a personal essay for the New York Times, Bornstein wrote: “When it comes to gender and sexuality, I am nothing but possibilities.”

Judith Butler, an American philosopher and gender studies scholar, has shaped third-wave feminism, queer theory and literary theory. Their 1990 book Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity introduced the idea of performative gender and criticised the gender binary. In an interview with The New Yorker, Butler told David Remnick: “The young people gave me the ‘they’. This generation has come along with the idea of being nonbinary. It never occurred to me! Then I thought, Of course I am. What else would I be?”

Dana Zzyym is a nonbinary and intersex activist who became the first US citizen to obtain a passport with an “X” sex or gender marker in 2021, following a lengthy legal battle.

John Cameron Mitchell, star of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, is an American actor, playwright, singer, screenwriter and director. Mitchell came out as nonbinary in a 2022 interview with PRIDE.

Joey Soloway, the showrunner, director and writer behind the Amazon series Transparent, won two Emmys for the show. Soloway came out as nonbinary and gender nonconforming in 2020.

Musician Stephen Trask was a house band member at New York’s Squeezebox club, performing alongside Debbie Harry, Lene Lovich and Joey Ramone. However, it was his work composing the music and lyrics for the stage musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch that made him a queer icon. Trask came out as nonbinary in 2021 and uses he/him/she/her pronouns.

Mauree Turner is the first openly nonbinary person elected to a state legislature in the United States. Turner, who won a seat in Oklahoma in 2020, is also the first Muslim legislator in that state.