Opinion: We've turned nonbinary into a third gender. It isn't.

Demi Lovato wasn’t tired of being nonbinary.

In May of 2021, the pop star announced online that they identified as nonbinary and would be using they/them pronouns. On their Instagram, they wrote “This has come after a lot of healing and self-reflective work. I’m still learning and coming into myself.”

Since then, there has been a spew of online backlash — so much that they responded with their song “Freak,” released in August of last year.

Lovato experienced a second round of backlash in April of 2022, when the pop star began publicly using they/she pronouns.

Those who saw being nonbinary as a trend, something young people would get tired of — or who held transphobic beliefs — seemed to see Lovato's change from they/them to both they/them and she/her as confirmation of what they already believed was true. What they didn't do was listen to what Lovato said about their identity.

What does this say about how our society accepts gender fluidity?

Probably not great things.

The United States legally recognized a non-binary person for the first time in 2016, but non-binary people have always existed. For instance, there are Fa’afafines and Fa’afatamas in Samoa, or Two-spirits in native North American cultures.

While there has been a growing movement of acceptance of nonbinary people in modern western culture, it seems as though many people still misunderstand the concept, categorizing non-binary as a "third gender" rather than what it is: the space between.

Being nonbinary means having an identity that does not conform to traditional gender binaries of male or female, not the complete absence of association to these assigned roles. Some nonbinary people feel feminine, some feel masculine, some feel both, or neither. Many feel a combination of these at various points.

Not understanding what it means to be nonbinary may have driven some of the response to Lovato's announcements.

But others misconstrued Lovato's explanation for their move to they/she pronouns to belittle their gender-queerness. This spur of articles mainly capitalized off something Lovato had said: that using they/them pronouns was “absolutely exhausting.” Tomi Lahren, on Fox News radio during August of last year, led off her discussion on Lovato's announcement this way: "A year after changing her pronouns to they/them, singer Demi Lovato is a she/her again." Speaking with such authority on a topic of queer identities when you don't seem to identify the difference between a gender identity and a set of pronouns, is questionable at best.

The journalistic malpractice of taking Lovato's quotes out of context, and the dangerous rhetoric that enables, is harmful to the queer community. To appropriately understand these quotes, as always, one has to look at context.

Lovato didn't find being nonbinary exhausting. “I constantly had to educate people and explain why I identified with those pronouns. It was absolutely exhausting,” Lovato said. The burden on queer people to constantly defend and educate others on their own identities is often overwhelming. Minorities are often put on the forefront of defense through their daily lives. This creates an unfair amount of emotional and cognitive labor. Frankly, who wouldn’t become exhausted from that?

It should be noted that Demi Lovato didn't stop identifying as nonbinary. Like Lovato said, they're "a very fluid person," and her "gender identity is sometimes fluid, too." This can lead to a wide range of gender expression. "I identify more feminine on certain days, and other days, I identify more non-binary." said Lovato. Short hair, flannels, and they/them aren't the only way people can be nonbinary, because, to put it plainly, people are people, and it's unfair to hold anyone to the standard of being completely androgynous.

Using both they/them and she/her pronouns doesn’t eradicate their experience with gender nonconformity. While it is perfectly reasonable for people to explore their own identity, make mistakes and redirect, pretending Lovato just “got tired” of being nonbinary reinforces the idea that gender-queerness is “just a phase.”

While nonbinary people have always, and will continue to, exist everywhere, it has not been something many people had had high exposure to. It is understandable that many of us still have, and might always have, plenty to learn. However, it is key that rather than becoming complacent in our knowledge of gender, we continue to grow and adapt our understanding of what it is to be human.

That's all any of us are, anyway.

Hannah Fathman, a student at Albion College, is Free Press editorial board intern.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Opinion: Demi Lovato still identifies as nonbinary