Janelle Monáe comes out as non-binary: ‘I am everything’
"I feel like god is so much bigger than the 'he' or the 'she'," the 'Make Me Feel' singer says.
Words: Alastair James; pictures: Red Table Talk
Janelle Monáe has come out as non-binary.
Speaking on the Red Table Talk Facebook Watch series with Jaida Pinkett Smith, Willow Smith, and Adrienne Banfield Norris the ‘Tightrope’ singer said, “I am everything”.
Janelle, who hasn’t clarified their pronouns, previously came out as pansexual in 2018.
“I just don’t see myself as a woman, solely”
Invited onto the show by Willow, Janelle says: “I’m non-binary, so I just don’t see myself as a woman, solely.”
They continue: “I feel all of my energy. I feel like god is so much bigger than the ‘he’ or the ‘she.’ And if I am from God, I am everything. I am everything. But I will always, always stand with women. I will always stand with Black women. But I just see everything I am. Beyond the binary.”
On identifying as pansexual, Janelle says they “see energy first” and not how someone identifies. “I feel like that opens you up to fall in love with any beautiful spirit,” she adds.
Monáe also reveals they have discussed it with their family who they say are “super religious” but they only did this after being sure of who they were first.
“My whole family is church … church, church,” they explained. “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?”
She adds that she had to have those conversations with herself and then her family before being open with the rest of the world.
“I know who I am. I’ve been playing a version of some parts of me but now I’m owning all of me. I had to own all of me to really be able to talk about it publicly,” Janelle says.