The Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter Sam Smith now wants to be referred to by the pronouns “they/them.”
“After a lifetime of being at war with my gender, I’ve decided to embrace myself for who I am, inside and out,” Smith wrote Friday in an Instagram post. “I understand there will be many mistakes and mis gendering, but all I ask is you please please try. I hope you can see me like I see myself now.”
Smith’s pronoun announcement comes six month after Smith came out as gender nonbinary on actor Jameela Jamil’s Instagram show, “I Weigh Interviews.”
“I’m not male or female. I think I float somewhere in between,” Smith said in March.
While many nonbinary and gender-nonconforming people prefer gender-neutral pronouns, like “they” and “them,” Smith, at that time, continued to use male pronouns. However, that all changed on Friday.
“I am at no stage just yet to eloquently speak at length about what it means to be non binary but I can’t wait for the day that I am,” Smith wrote in the post, which as of Friday afternoon had more than 360,000 Instagram likes. “So for now I just want to be VISIBLE and open.”
While Smith explicitly started identifying as nonbinary earlier this year, the performer had previously talked about their gender identity lacking a label. In an October 2017 interview with The Sunday Times, Smith said, “I don’t know what the title would be, but I feel just as much woman as I am man.”
In their conversation with Jamil earlier this year, Smith said they came out as gay when they were 10 and stopped wearing male clothing when they were 16, adding that they would wear fur and makeup to school.
“I’ve always been very free in terms of thinking about my sexuality, so I’ve just tried to change that into my thoughts on gender as well,” Smith told Jamil.
While Smith is arguably the most famous celebrity to identify as nonbinary, they are not the only one. “Billions” star Asia Kate Dillon, “Transparent” creator Jill Soloway and “RuPaul’s Drag Race” contestant Valentina also identify as nonbinary.
