Sam Smith reveals he identifies as non-binary and genderqueer: ‘It’s all on a spectrum’
‘I’ve always had a bit of a war within my body’
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Sam Smith has said he identifies as non-binary and genderqueer, revealing it’s the first time he’s spoken openly about the topic.
On Friday, an interview conducted between the singer and Jameela Jamil was posted on Instagram.
The video marked the first episode of Jamil’s new “I Weigh” interview series, which launched on IGTV a year following the conception of the activist’s body neutral “I Weigh” movement.
During the interview, Smith spoke about how he’s “always had a bit of a war within my body”, having previously resented the fact his body moves in a “feminine” way.
The “Like I Can” singer talked candidly about identifying with stories of people who have come out as genderqueer and non-binary, saying “it’s something that I’m not even sure of myself”.
“I do think like a woman sometimes, in my head, and I’ve sometimes sat down and questioned, ‘Do I want a sex change?’ And it’s something that I still think about. Do I want to. But I don’t think it is,” Smith said.
“When I saw the word ‘non-binary’, ‘genderqueer’, and I read into it, and I heard these people speaking I was like, ‘F***, that is me’.”
When asked by Jamil how he would define the terms non-binary and genderqueer, Smith explained it’s a case of not identifying with a particular gender.
“You are just you. You are a mixture of all different things. You’re your own special creation. That’s how I take it,” he said.
“I’m not male or female, I think I float somewhere in between. It’s all on a spectrum. I think the same with sexuality.”
Smith outlined how he’s always been “very free” when thinking about sexuality, and so has tried to follow a similar approach when considering matters of gender.
In 2017, when asked by The Sunday Times whether he feels like a cisgender man, the singer said he feels “just as much woman as I am man”, although he also stated he doesn’t know how he’d define himself.
During his interview with Jamil, the Grammy Award winner revealed he’d undergone liposuction at 12 years old.
The 26-year-old explained he was so self-conscious with regards to his body as a child that “it was affecting my mood and life everyday”.
In the UK, surgeons can only conduct cosmetic procedures on children and teenagers under the age of 16 with parental consent.
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