For those who have tuned in to anything our friends across the pond have done recently, you might recall the stunning events surrounding the aftermath of Eurovision-a huge, European-exclusive singing contest. This year, the program dragged in nearly 13 million viewers, the Eurovision’s biggest audience in over a decade. Despite these overwhelming numbers, I was initially ready to pass it off as a trivial, day-long competition that would come and go, like most pop culture current events. But when Austrian contestant Conchita Wurst won the contest, the event changed into an unforgettable moment.
Wurst identifies as nonbinary, preferring she/her pronouns though designated male at birth, making her one of the world’s most famous nonbinary individuals. While this is a breakthrough moment for the LGBTQ community, not all people know exactly how to handle it. Wurst’s beard has left her labelled transgender or male in the headlines, even though Wurst has said in an interview with escXtra.com, “I’m a drag artist, I’m not transgender… I created this bearded lady because I wanted to show everybody that it’s not depending on your looks if you are successful or not… you can achieve anything if you just believe in yourself.”
The nonbinary, or genderqueer, identity is an umbrella term for all gender identities other than male or female, the broadness of non-binary includes many different sexualities that people may identify with, including an overlap of gender identities, identifying as two or more genders (bigender, trigender, pangender, etc), no gender (non gendered, genderless, agender), moving between genders/with a fluctuating gender identity (gender fluid) or being other-gendered. This is just a small set of possible options that fall under the non-binary umbrella. This array of terms may seem overwhelming, but one way to grasp this concept is to think about gender not as a choice between a “female” box and a “male” box, but as a spectrum, with male on one end, female on the other and androgyne in the middle. Even that model, however, is not completely accurate, because there are numerous possibilities of combinations that are not just one spot on a scale.
Non-binary terms, and the spectrum of numerous other gender identities, is not something that many Tam students may know about, and the propulsion of a non-binary person into stardom may help educate our fellow peers. One cause for this ignorance among teenagers may be that Tam’s Social Issues class barely brushes on gender orientation besides the basics of Sex Ed. Another cause is the perceived social “taboo” that comes with talking about subjects like these.
Awareness about yourself and others around you is of massive importance to anyone and everyone, especially teenagers growing up in this world today. But just because you learn a word for one sexuality here or a phrase for another one there doesn’t mean that you have learned all there is to know. I didn’t know that people could be anything besides straight or gay up until only a year ago, and even though I have become more aware about sexuality, there are still things that I discover every day.
Learning about yourself is an important part of growing up, and without proper knowledge about self-awareness, that development may be pushed back. Awareness fuels understanding, which is why Wurst’s win is an important event; when someone like Wurst, who does not fall into the traditional categories of “straight” or “gay”, becomes popularized, those who may not have understood before can now grasp concepts that are monumentally important to growing up.
Students are continuously taught that knowledge is power, and while we may not prioritize equations for ellipses or the molecular makeup of fruit flies, becoming aware about ourselves–our beliefs, our ideas, what we stand for and what makes us truly us –is something that we must always keep in mind. With Wurst’s fame, people who usually would be in the dark about these issues now have someone that can teach them more about sexuality and their identity