Sam Smith has opened up about their experience coming out as non-binary, and their expectation that they will be mis-gendered “to the day they die”.
In September 2019, the singer announced on Instagram that they would be changing their pronouns to they/them after “a lifetime of being at war with my gender”.
“I’ve decided to embrace myself for who I am, inside and out,” Smith wrote at the time.
On Friday, the How Do You Sleep? singer discussed what their life and experiences have been like since then during an interview with Zane Lowe on Apple Music’s New Music Daily.
“What’s hard is people changing their vocabulary,” the 27-year-old said. “That’s very, very difficult.
“It takes time. Everyone messes up. I’m going to be mis-gendered to the day I die.”
According to Smith, it is going to take a “long, long time” for people to stop using gender in their vocabulary, but explained that it “needs to happen”.
“This is all about feeling safe and it makes me feel happy and it makes me feel comfortable, and if I get to live a life where I’m a little bit more comfortable and happy, then I think it’s worth it,” the singer said.
During the interview, Smith also discussed the importance and impact of the younger generation's openness towards gender.
Explaining that they feel like “anything goes now,” in terms of both their gender and music, Smith said: “The way that I’ve opened myself up over the last two years is all because of the kids of today and how they are growing up and gender is just becoming nothing… they don’t understand it, sexuality is so fluid.”
According to Smith, they’d never known the term non-binary but as soon as they saw it they were like: “Wow, that is how I feel.”
“And that’s come from kids,” Smith said.
