What do you call a non-binary partner?
Whatever they want to be called. Here is the menu, old words and new, and how to ask.
There is no single word, and the only one that is definitely right is the one your partner picks. What follows is the menu. Some of these words are centuries old. Others are much newer and have mostly travelled through online communities. Which one lands depends entirely on the person.
Words that were already there
Partner is the established one. The Online Etymology Dictionary dates its sense of "a husband or wife" to 1749, and Wiktionary now defines it as anyone "with whom one shares a domestic, romantic, or sexual bond". It works in every room, which is its strength. It can sound formal, or like you are being careful, which is its weakness.
Sweetheart has meant a loved one since the late fourteenth century, according to the same dictionary, and nothing in sweet or heart is gendered. It reads as affectionate and a little old-fashioned.
Significant other, lover, my person, the person I'm seeing: all neutral already, and all fine if they suit the two of you.
Newer words built on boyfriend and girlfriend
Theyfriend: they plus friend. Wiktionary lists it as a neologism for a non-binary partner. It suits someone who uses they. For a non-binary partner who uses she or he, it names the wrong pronoun.
Enbyfriend: from enby, the spoken form of NB. Wiktionary labels it slang. It is older than it looks: an anonymous message posted on Tumblr in February 2014 already explained datefriend as an alternative to "girlfriend/boyfriend/enbyfriend". The organiser of the Gender Census, a long-running community survey, writes that enby itself was first coined for this slot in words like boyfriend; we have not found an independent record of that. If your partner does not like enby, enbyfriend will not work either.
Datefriend: the plainest of the coinages, the person you are dating. Beyond that 2014 message, it appears in community lists of neutral partner words on Tumblr in 2016 and in a Seattle Gay News column in 2023. We could not find where it started, and Wiktionary has no entry for it.
Joyfriend: joy plus boyfriend, according to Wiktionary, which also records it for a partner in a queerplatonic relationship. A community wiki traces it to a tweet from August 2019; whether that was the very first use is hard to prove.
Others turn up in the same community lists: datemate, personfriend, genderfriend, and bothfriend for someone bigender or androgynous.
Established or playful?
Dictionary.com defines enby, but it had no entry for theyfriend or enbyfriend when we checked in September 2026. That does not make those words wrong. It means they are still settling, and they can read as playful. Some people love that. Others want a word that works at a family funeral as well as in a group chat.
How to ask
Ask directly, and ask about rooms as well as words: "What do you want me to call you when I introduce you to my friends? And at work, or with my family?" The answers can be different, and that is normal. The Gender Census notes the same pattern with pronouns: plenty of people prefer one set at work and another with close friends.
If they have never thought about it, offer the menu: partner, datefriend, sweetheart, or simply their name. "This is Sam" introduces anyone.
If they say they do not mind, believe them, and check again if it starts to matter.
And let it change. The word that fits in month two may not be the one that fits in year two, and asking again is not a failure.