--- title: Gender and Sexuality: Beyond 'He' or 'She' description: How a new generation is changing the meaning of gender and sexuality canonical: https://time.com/4703058/time-cover-story-beyond-he-or-she/ author: Katy Steinmetz article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-03-16T10:32:08.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:49:10.544Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Behind the TIME Cover Story: Beyond 'He' or 'She' og:description: How a new generation is changing the meaning of gender and sexuality og:url: https://time.com/4703058/time-cover-story-beyond-he-or-she/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7e8f68c00670b462/6988be8a4dd2155a6eefe235/gender-cover-final.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2363 og:image:height: 1329 og:image:alt: Beyond He or She Gender Time Magazine cover 170327 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Behind the TIME Cover Story: Beyond 'He' or 'She' twitter:description: How a new generation is changing the meaning of gender and sexuality twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7e8f68c00670b462/6988be8a4dd2155a6eefe235/gender-cover-final.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Behind the TIME Cover Story: Beyond 'He' or 'She' > Sponsored content. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=12935edc-9624-4232-b934-ad4d34af3b3a&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Madaew: Thai a la mode [Watch (HLS stream): Madaew: Thai a la mode](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/iPUUpwTz.m3u8) (2:11)  _Published 2016-10-04. Apichet “Madaew” Atirattana, 17, is a fashion designer from Thailand's impoverished Isaan region._ by [Katy Steinmetz](https://time.com/author/katy-steinmetz/) ## Katy Steinmetz Mar 16, 2017 10:32 AM UTC  Photograph by Jody Rogac for TIME by [Katy Steinmetz](https://time.com/author/katy-steinmetz/) ## Katy Steinmetz Mar 16, 2017 10:32 AM UTC This week’s [TIME cover story](http://time.com/4703309/infinite-identities-gender-sexuality-young-people/), with exclusive data from GLAAD, explores a change taking hold in American culture. The piece explores how you-do-you young people are questioning the conventions that when it comes to gender and sexuality, there are only two options for each: male or female, gay or straight. Those aspects of [identity](http://time.com/3614567/transgender-students-gender-identity-deserves-respect-feds-say/) — how one sees themselves as a man or woman, for instance, and who they are drawn to physically and romantically — are distinct but undergoing similar sea changes, as teenagers and 20-somethings reject notions of what society has told them about who they are supposed to be. In a new survey from LGBTQ advocacy organization [GLAAD](http://time.com/4556362/lgbtq-characters-television-glaad/), conducted by Harris Poll, those open minds are reflected in the numbers: 20% of millennials say they are something other that strictly straight and [cisgender](http://time.com/3636430/cisgender-definition/), compared to 7% of boomers. The people in that group may be be a little sexually curious about people of their own gender or may reject the notion that they have a gender in the first place. “There have been the generations that have lived by the rules and those generations that break the rules,” says GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis. Young people today, she says, are “redefining everything.” TIME interviewed dozens of people around the U.S. about their attitudes toward sexuality and gender, from San Francisco to small-town Missouri. Many said they believe that both sexuality and gender are less like a toggle between this-or-that and more like a spectrum that allows for many — even endless — permutations of identity. Some of those young people identified as straight, others as gay, still others as genderqueer, gender fluid, asexual, gender nonconforming and queer. Several said they use the pronoun _they_ rather than _he_ or _she_ to refer to themselves. This variety of identities is something that people are seeing reflected in the culture at large. Facebook, with its 1 billion users, has about 60 options for users’ gender. Dating app Tinder has about 40\. Influential celebrities, such as Miley Cyrus (who spoke to TIME for this article), have come out as everything from flexible in their gender to sexually fluid to “mostly straight.” Even young people who don’t understand the nuances of gender or sexuality that their peers describe tend to be more accepting of whatever identities they encounter. When market research firm Culture Co-op, which specializes in young Americans’ attitudes, asked about 1,000 young people whether they think that Facebook’s 60 options for gender are excessive, nearly a third of them responded that they believe this amount is just about right or too few. Not everyone is on board. LGBTQ people continue to be at risk for harassment and assault at school, as well as for attempting suicide. Many experience family rejection, as well as both peers and adults who question whether their feelings about gender or sexuality are “real.” In state legislatures, lawmakers are meanwhile debating the very meaning of the words _sex_ and _gender_ in debates over so-called “bathroom bills.” Lawsuits alleging that sexual orientation and gender identity are covered under bans on sex discrimination are fleshing out the meaning of that word too. But it is clear that for many people these binaries are bedrocks they will fight to defend. “It’s not easy when we talk about these issues. Cisgender. Transgender. How many genders are there? Are we created man and woman? Or do we internalize something different?” a Texas lawmaker recently asked [while defending a bill](http://time.com/4701658/texas-senate-bathroom-bill-sb6-transgender/) that would require people to use bathrooms that match the sex on their birth certificate. “I think the god I believe in, the cross I wear today,” she added at another hearing on the bill, “said there was man and woman.” But many experts say that language is more limited than the sum of human experience and that words are important for people in the throes of self-discovery, whether they feel they belong in these binaries or beyond them. Young people “are not just saying ‘Screw you,’” says Ritch Savin-Williams, a professor emeritus of psychology at Cornell University who studies sexual behavior. Their embrace of a vast array of identities “says, ‘Your terms, what you’re trying to do, does not reflect my reality or the reality of my friends.” ## Transcript [ BLANK_AUDIO ] ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4703058/time-cover-story-beyond-he-or-she/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4703058/time-cover-story-beyond-he-or-she/"},"headline":"Behind the TIME Cover Story: Beyond 'He' or 'She'","datePublished":"2017-03-16T10:32:08.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:49:10.544Z","description":"How a new generation is changing the meaning of gender and sexuality","url":"https://time.com/4703058/time-cover-story-beyond-he-or-she/","keywords":["Cover Story","gender"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7e8f68c00670b462/6988be8a4dd2155a6eefe235/gender-cover-final.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Katy Steinmetz","jobTitle":"","url":"https://time.com/author/katy-steinmetz/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7e8f68c00670b462/6988be8a4dd2155a6eefe235/gender-cover-final.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Beyond He or She Gender Time Magazine cover 170327","caption":"Beyond He or She Gender Time Magazine cover","creditText":"Photograph by Jody Rogac for TIME","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/cover-story/","name":"Cover Story"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4703058/time-cover-story-beyond-he-or-she/","name":"Behind the TIME Cover Story: Beyond 'He' or 'She'"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Madaew: Thai a la mode","description":"Apichet “Madaew” Atirattana, 17, is a fashion designer from Thailand's impoverished Isaan region.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/iPUUpwTz/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2016-10-04T19:42:20.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/iPUUpwTz.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/4703058/time-cover-story-beyond-he-or-she/","duration":"PT2M11S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/4703058/time-cover-story-beyond-he-or-she/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```