(CNN) — Grammy-nominated performer, actress and author Janelle Monáe confirmed that she identifies as non-binary in interviews related to her new book.
“I’m non-binary,” Monáe said in an appearance this week on “Red Table Talk,” the Facebook series co-hosted by Jada Pinkett Smith. “So I don’t see myself as a woman, just. I feel like all my energy… I feel like God is so much bigger than ‘he’ or ‘she,’ and if I’m God, I’m everything.”
The “Tightrope” singer said she uses the pronouns they/them and she/her in a conversation with the Los Angeles Times this week to promote her book, “The Memory Librarian: And Other Stories of Dirty Computers”.
Monáe has previously spoken about identifying as pansexual, meaning that she is attracted to people regardless of their gender or sex.
Willow Smith, the daughter of Pinkett Smith, asked Monáe on “Red Table Talk” about what motivated her to speak about her identity publicly.
“If you don’t solve the things you have to solve first about the world, you’ll have to solve them with the world,” Monáe said. “I know who I am. I’ve been playing a version of some parts of me, but now I recognize my whole person.”
Monáe, whose musical and visual work often references Afrofuturism, has for years eschewed binary thinking. In a 2020 interview with Variety, Monáe said that “I’ve always tried to shed … any labels and … show love to everyone who continues to live outside the binary.”
“The Memory Librarian,” which premiered earlier this week, includes many of the same themes of homosexuality, dystopian science fiction, and the celebration of black women and non-binary people found in Monáe’s previous efforts. On screen, Monáe will next participate in “Knives Out 2”.