Enby
A non-binary person: from saying the letters N.B. out loud.
Enby is the spoken form of NB, which is short for nonbinary. Someone wrote the initials out the way they sound, it stuck, and now it is the word people actually use when talking rather than filling in a form.
It exists because nonbinary is a clinical-sounding word and people needed something warmer. Enby is what you call a friend. Nonbinary is what you write on a survey. Both mean the same thing, and the difference is entirely one of register.
The abbreviation NB was already taken. In anti-racist writing it had long meant non-Black, and using it for nonbinary caused enough collisions that enby largely replaced it. That history is why you see the spelled-out version far more often now.
Not everyone nonbinary likes it. Some find it cute in a way they do not want applied to them, some feel it infantilises, and some simply prefer the longer word. It is a term to accept when offered rather than to hand out.
It is not a third gender sitting between man and woman. Enby covers people who are both, neither, moving between the two, or somewhere the question does not apply. The only thing all enbies share is that the binary does not describe them.
Enbies can be binary trans people's partners, can be transmasc or transfem, can medically transition or not, and can use any pronouns at all. Assuming they/them is a reasonable default when you have nothing else to go on, and a bad assumption to hold onto once someone has told you otherwise.
Enby is not a halfway point between man and woman
The picture most people arrive with is a dial, with man at one end, woman at the other, and enby in the middle. It is the wrong shape. Plenty of nonbinary people are not partway between anything: they are outside the question, or both at once, or somewhere the axis does not reach.
The second misreading is that enby means androgynous. It does not describe an appearance. There are bearded enbies and enbies in dresses and enbies you would read as a man or a woman on the street without a second thought. How someone looks is not evidence for or against what they are.
Saying it well
Say this
- I am an enby.
- They are nonbinary, and they are fine with enby.
- Are you comfortable with enby, or do you prefer nonbinary?
- Enbies are welcome here.
Not this
- Calling someone an enby before they have used the word themselves
- You are basically half and half, right?
- But you do not look nonbinary
- Using enby as a noun for a stranger you are trying to flirt with
Questions people actually ask
What does enby mean?
It is the spoken version of NB, short for nonbinary. It means the same thing as nonbinary and is simply the casual, everyday form of the word.
Is enby offensive?
Not in itself, and most nonbinary people use it happily. Some dislike it, usually because it reads as cutesy to them. Take the cue from the person: if they use it about themselves, it is safe.
Why not just say NB?
Because NB already meant non-Black in anti-racist writing, and the two uses kept colliding. Enby avoids the clash and reads more naturally out loud.
What pronouns do enbies use?
Any of them. They/them is common enough to be a sensible default when you have no information, but plenty of nonbinary people use he, she, both, neopronouns, or a mix depending on context.
Is enby a gender?
It is a word for a very wide group rather than a single gender. Agender, genderfluid, bigender and many other people all fall under it, and they do not experience gender the same way as each other.