Non-binary actors are officially part of mainstream culture. 

Among their number: former Disney child pop star Demi Lovato, the high-profile performer who played Princess Diana in Netflix’s The Crown, Emma Corrin, pop star sensation Sam Smith, performance artist Alok Vaid-Menon, and singer and actor Janelle Monae, who appeared in the Oscar-nominated Hidden Figures.  

The public emergence into mainstream culture of these performers poses exciting challenges and questions. 

Across the Tasman, Queensland’s Matilda Awards recently ditched gendered categories for its performer awards, following a trend first established by Melbourne’s Green Room Awards and later followed by the Sydney Theatre Awards (a decision which led to one of the Sydney Theatre Awards’ co-founders quitting after claiming the decision to remove gender from awards categories was ‘woke, PC and otherwise downright offensive‘).

In performing arts schools, students who are comfortable publicly identifying as non-binary have risen significantly in recent years, provoking questions about a historical Western canon that celebrates heteronormativity.

The challenges for non-binary artists are significant. Recent surveys have found that the majority of women and non-binary people feel unsafe in Melbourne music venues. For non-binary performers such as Jessi Ryan, their identity meant leaving institutions to embark on their work independently. 

Ryan (a frequent contributor to ArtsHub and member of the Amplify Collective) started working in Brisbane with Metro Arts and Zen Zen Zo. When they were 18, they made a break for Melbourne. They felt Brisbane wasn’t a safe space for them and wanted to explore other opportunities. Since then, Ryan’s expansive work in contemporary dance and physical theatre has taken them beyond Australian shores to Indonesia and Malaysia. 

"People are surprised at that," Ryan tells ArtsHub, "as some of the countries I’ve been to are very conservative in terms of gender. But often, in conservative Islamic countries, there’s a deep respect for culture, dance and history. Australia doesn’t have that. Audiences in Brisbane haven’t matured."

Gender diversity is more readily accepted in traditions worldwide, however, including in some First Nations communities.

In an opinion piece penned for ArtsHub last year, the Communications and Advocacy Manager at the National Association for the Visual Arts (NAVA), Leya Reid, said:

There is much to be done to ensure the sector is accessible to artists and arts workers who are not cisgender and may identify as trans/transgender, genderqueer, non-binary, Brotherboys, Sistergirls and other experiences of gender identification. Reinstating kinship and truth in representation fundamentally supports First Nations’ agency and challenges colonial reductions of gender.

While many institutions recognise the need for reform, artists’ lived experiences on the ground expose a dynamic conversation around identity and gender-transforming artistic practices.

‘Playing fem’: non-binary actors and casting gender

Billy Fogarty graduated from the University of Southern Queensland’s (UniSQ) Acting program in 2020. In their first year, they were part of the former La Boite Theatre’s Artist Company and moved on to roles with Shake & Stir Theatre Co and Playlab Theatre. Across that time, they’ve been primarily cast in female-presenting roles. 

"I know that’s where I’m more likely to end up," Fogarty tells ArtsHub. "I have been able to audition for male roles for film and television, but theatre has not been as open." Not all female roles are the same, however, and as Fogarty reflects on their career so far, they are particularly fond of a role in Lewis Treston’s An Ideal Husband, staged by La Boite Theatre Company in 2022. 

"That’s the most I’ve ever felt like I was doing a kind of drag of a woman," says Fogarty. "The whole show was camp, and I had a wig, and I was in a 90s costume, so it felt like I was 'playing fem.'” 

Such questions of identity trigger conversations around differing acting techniques and performance styles. Fogarty has felt able to embody female characters for other roles that require more grounded performance. 

"That’s acting," they laugh. "It’s been a learning process, and every role is different. But I’ve been lucky to be part of very supportive rehearsal rooms. And I don’t speak for all non-binary people, obviously."

Unpacking societal norms and expectations has long been the work of the performing arts. Performers like Jessi Ryan see it as essential to the sector’s work. "It’s the work of our performing arts companies to deconstruct colonialism," they tell ArtsHub, "and they need to deconstruct gender in the same way."

Travis Dowling is currently lecturing in acting at UniSQ. As a cisgender male, he’s spent a lot of time considering how to support non-binary students. But he’s most excited by the challenges to the canon. 

"Our art form is about interpretation," Dowling tells ArtsHub. "When I’m directing a student, I want to empower them to have their own experience of the character. And, most of the time, in classical works like Shakespeare, gender politics are at the centre of the experience anyway. 

"So, I prioritise strong messaging of asking the actor to choose how they want to play the character. That puts them in a position of power. And if they want to play the part as non-binary, or whatever gender, then we work with them to do that."

Safe training and working spaces for non-binary actors

In their first years of study, most students are at a vulnerable time of their lives and are playing with concepts of identity. It isn’t easy to separate that experience from a classroom. Dowling sees the experience of all students under a framework of workplace health and safety foremost. 

"We always want to ensure we’re providing a safe and inclusive space where a student can feel empowered to express their identity if they want to," he says. "Once they do, I work hard to lock in their pronouns of choice and model a style of inclusion and conversation for other students who need those skills."

Dowling sees the work in a student cohort’s first year as invaluable. "We’re typically asking these young people to get comfortable in their bodies in their first year of training," he says. 

"Allowing students to feel safe in that, and empowering them to make choices and draw boundaries, is integral to setting up a good culture."

Fogarty also reflects on their university training. "It’s just about being genuinely interested in the student," they tell ArtsHub, "and respecting them. And, if you make a mistake with a pronoun, just take responsibility and move on. Don’t put the non-binary person in the position where they then have to comfort you about making a mistake."

Ryan agrees. "Pronouns aren’t hard," they say, "but everyone makes mistakes. Including me. But just own it."

Fogarty notes pronoun slippage is common in conversations where the actor and character become interchangeable. A certain amount is par for the course, Fogarty figures, but they note that most directors are well-intentioned and do their best to use the correct language. Some of Fogarty’s best allies have been stage managers. "They are all about etiquette," they say, "so I’ve seen them quietly approach another actor or director and discreetly remind them of my pronouns."

For Ryan, body comfort and safety are vital in the dance and physical theatre sector. They ask choreographers and casting directors not to assume all queer bodies are the same and to simply not "gender the talent in front of you without asking."

For many queer and non-binary artists, their creative workspace is a refuge. "Queer people are victims of hate crimes every day," concludes Ryan. 

"For me and so many others, artistic spaces are a comfort. They’re home." 

This article was originally published by our friends at ArtsHub Australia.

Written by David Burton.