Nonbinary Black Womxn Gender Identity: Blackness Between and Beyond the Binary

Using interpretive phenomenological analysis (Smith et al., 2022), this community-based participatory action research study examines how 11 nonbinary Black womxn (NBBW) experience and understand their gender identity in relation to Black womxnhood. A team of sexual and gender minority Black womxn (including an NBBW principal investigator) formed the Collective Infiltrating Research to Center Community, Liberation, and Embodiment to challenge colonized hegemonic approaches to empirical inquiry (Schensul et al., 2008). Researchers utilized purposive sampling and semistructured qualitative interviews to elicit participant responses to the following research question: What is an NBBW? Three superordinate themes emerged regarding NBBW: (a) identity-intersectional, collective, and individual; (b) experience-encountering, navigating, and resisting oppression, and (c) culture-language, literature, and appearance. Implications inform the future of research and clinical practice with NBBW.