In 2021, the Williams Institute estimated that about 1.2 million LGBTQ adults in the US identify as nonbinary, about 11% of LGBTQ adults. Most are under 30.
Nonbinary recognition in law has moved back and forth. Oregon became the first state to offer an X gender marker on driver's licenses in 2017, and the US State Department began offering X on passports in April 2022. In January 2025, an executive order directed federal agencies to recognize only two sexes, and the State Department stopped issuing new X passports. The Supreme Court allowed that policy to take effect in November 2025.
The gender binary itself is not universal. Many Indigenous cultures recognized more than two genders before European colonization, and some Native people today use the term Two-Spirit. Nonbinary people of color often face erasure from both racial justice and LGBTQ spaces.