Moving Beyond the Gender Binary: A Critical Analysis and Review of Contemporary Scholarship on Nonbinary Gender Identities

For decades gender scholars have recognized the importance of gender to subjectivity, lived experiences, and life chances. Nonbinary gender identities are becoming more recognized by social, legal, and government institutions. However, currently there is a lack of research and scholarship that focuses on nonbinary gender identities. I demonstrate that the sociology of gender must move beyond the constraints of the hegemonic gender binary system in order to have a full and holistic conceptualization of gender. This paper reviews and critically analyzes contemporary interdisciplinary scholarship on nonbinary gender identities, then sets out a research agenda for moving forward. Within this scholarship there are gaps, shortcomings and limitations that arise that include upholding the cis/trans binary, misrepresenting contemporary society as having reached an era of understanding gender complexities, problematic framings of cross-cultural and historical examples, and centering discrimination/violence. I propose a research agenda moving forward should center racialization due to (un)marked whiteness in scholarship, legibility/intelligibility, and the possibilities and knowledge that exist due to existing in a space of exclusion