There’s been some confusion after Lorde came out, so here’s her gender identity simply explained

After talking with the icon that is Chappell Roan, Lorde gave an interview to Rolling Stone where she detailed her gender identity and pronouns. Certain publications, you know the ones, have since run stories about how “Woke Lorde” is being slammed for gender baiting, and while there has been some backlash, it’s very much a mountain out of a mole hill situation.

The interview as a whole was to promote her upcoming album, Virgin, but the conversation on Twitter is largely focused on Lorde’s updated gender identity, so here’s a rundown of what we know, what it means, and what she’s said.

Is Lorde non-binary?

Speaking to the publication, Lorde revealed how people around her had noticed “more masculine touches” to her wardrobe over the last year, noting, “My gender got way more expansive when I gave my body more room.” In fact, on Virgin’s opening track, Lorde sings how “Some days I’m a woman/Some days I’m a man.”

When the interviewer asked her how she identifies now, Lorde recalled how Chappell Roan had also asked her the exact same question.

“She was like, ‘So, are you nonbinary now?’ And I was like, ‘I’m a woman except for the days when I’m a man.’ I know that’s not a very satisfying answer, but there’s a part of me that is really resistant to boxing it up,” she said, with the artic

While not necessarily direct confirmation that she subscribes to the nonbinary label, Rolling Stone wrote that she’s a person “more comfortable with the fluidity of her expression.”

In her own words, she is “in the middle gender-­wise.”

she gets the job done. https://t.co/RMGBp3D5g1 pic.twitter.com/6k9N20v3SE

— leo (@leocanseeyou) May 15, 2025

What are Lorde’s pronouns?

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Currently, Lorde still identifies as a cisgender woman, meaning she identifies with the sex she was assigned at birth. On the pronoun front, she still uses she/her and doesn’t think her position is “radical” because “comparatively, I’m in a very safe place as a wealthy, cis, white woman.”

“‘Making the expression privately is one thing, but I want to make very clear that I’m not trying to take any space from anyone who has more on the line than me,” she added.

As mentioned before, the reception to Lorde’s gender identity has been mixed. To be honest, the negative pushback has been from people you’d expect, you know, those with “anti-woke” in their Twitter bios or an unbridled rage against anyone who doesn’t seek assimilation with what is considered normal. There are also some really lovely comments that don’t make you lose hope in humanity.

Though certain groups of people like to pretend that nonbinary people are an invention of the modern age, people not identifying as either male or female, or identifying as both, is nothing new. Diverse gender presentations have been seen throughout history, from the Hijra people of South Asia to the Two-spirit communities of Indigenous North American communities.

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Featured image credit: The Late Late Show