a question

[casualbird]

Please--if any of you know of any canonically non-binary characters in popular media, would you let me know? I'm thinking of writing a meta post about the sorry state of non-binary representation, and I'd like to see if I can't find some more evidence than I have right now.

Thank you!

Comments

[soc_puppet]

TPTB have stated that all the gems in Steven Universe (with the exception of Steven himself) are agender.

I think I also remember hearing about a running sketch series on SNL about a person named Pat who presented entirely androgynously and the gag was that no one could tell if they were a man or a woman, and the skits always ended before anyone could find out? Definitely problematic, but I'm pretty sure it was also decades ago, so.

CLAMP has had a few canonical nonbinary characters, with mixed results in translation and adaptation. All the angels in Wish are actually nonbinary, but were assigned gendered pronouns for the English translation; I'm pretty sure the main character of RG Veda was also nonbinary, but I could be misremembering the series? It's not one I actually read, but I do remember that the character in question showed up in the Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicles manga, and the translation team did an fantastic job of avoiding giving them any gendered pronouns at all.

I'm pretty sure the Wayfarer series by Becky Chambers has gotten a lot of traction in the speculative fiction community; I don't recall if there are actually any human characters that identify as nonbinary, but there are two alien species we know about so far that have non-static sexes and (generally?) switch genders to match.

I'll do a bit more digging through what I've got, but that's the most popular canon stuff I can think of.

[soc_puppet]

An actual good rec, to balance things out: Check out No Man of Woman Born by Ana Mardoll. It's a collection of short stories that focus on prophecy affirming various characters' genders. I think two are binary trans, but three are nonbinary, and one is questioning. (Plus a bonus binary trans one that doesn't have any prophecy in it.) Ana Mardoll is nonbinary/genderqueer xerself and has written a lot about writing trans characters. The whole collection is just so, so good and affirming, but it's not terribly well known yet, so I don't think it qualifies as "popular".

[0dense]

I don't know how popular it is these days, but The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K LeGuin is a classic sci-fi novel where a world is populated by a culture with distinctly nonbinary sexes, to the confusion of a terran visitor. It set a lot of the stage for fantasy since the 70s so it might be kinda dated now, but it's also cool to see the genre develop?
I've been hearing some rad things about Anciliary Justice these days too; I think it's that the main setting is culturally agender? I haven't read it myself, but fingers crossed it's fun like it sounds!

[obstinatecondolement]

Most of what I'm thinking of has already been suggested, but Syd from One Day at a Time is non-binary

[kalloway]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fictional_non-binary_characters

The citations should help out, too.

[flirtoptionthree]

Ooo, neat, here's my contributions:

Loki from Agent of Asgard (comic) onward is genderfluid. IIRC Loki uses the pronoun Loki when self-identifying, and swaps sex in addition to gender because being a shapeshifter is the best.

Desire from The Sandman (comic) is both genders.

Inukashi from No.6 (anime/LN) is agender, probably, and uses masculine pronouns (not directly addressed.)

And, okay, I never read The Wicked and the Divine because I stopped reading comics right when it got big but I'm like 80% sure Luci/Lucifer is nonbinary.