Demi Lovato explains why she reclaimed she/her pronouns: ‘It was absolutely exhausting’
Demi Lovato. (Getty)
LGBTQ+ pop star Demi Lovato has shared her candid reasons for re-adopting she/her pronouns just a year after coming out as non-binary in 2021.
Demi Lovato – who now uses both she/her and they/them pronouns – publicly came out as non-binary with a preference for they/them pronouns in a moving video in May 2021, just weeks after coming out as pansexual.
Since then, the “Cool for the Summer” singer has reflected on their gender fluidity as feeling “equally masculine and feminine” and their approach to keeping their identity “open and free” as their gender evolves over time.
In May 2022, they made headlines again after quietly updating their pronouns to include she/her again on their Instagram bio. At the time they clarified that they weren’t “paying attention” to the reaction of “ignorant people”, and later added that the pronoun change was due to “feeling more feminine” in an interview with Tamara Dhia on the Spout podcast.
A year later, in a new interview with GQ Hype Spain on Tuesday (13 June), they expanded on their decision.
“I constantly had to educate people and explain why I identified with those pronouns. It was absolutely exhausting,” the 30-year-old singer-songwriter told GQ.
“I just got tired. But for that very reason I know that it is important to continue spreading the word.”
Elsewhere in the interview, they shared their exhaustion at the lack of gender-neutral spaces and the difficulties navigating everyday life as a genderqueer person forced to conform to binary ideas of gender.
“I face this every day,” the Grammy-nominated artist continued. “For example, in public toilets. Having to access the women’s bathroom, even though I don’t completely identify with it.
“Or it also happens when filling out forms, such as government documents or any other where you have to specify your gender. You only have two options, male and female, and I feel like none of that makes sense to me.
“I see myself conditioned to choose a woman because there are no more. I think this has to change. Hopefully with time there will be more options.”
It’s a topic she explored further into on the Spout podcast in August 2022, around the same time they dropped their eighth studio album Holy Fvck featuring the song “Freak” inspired by their gender identity journey.
“For me, I’m such a fluid person that … I felt like, especially last year, my energy was balanced in my masculine and feminine energy,” she explained.
“When I was faced with the choice of walking into a bathroom and it said ‘women’ and ‘men,’ I didn’t feel like there was a bathroom for me because I didn’t feel necessarily like a woman. I didn’t feel like a man. I just felt like a human.”
“That’s what they/them is about for me. It’s just about, like, feeling human at your core. Recently, I’ve been feeling more feminine, and so I’ve adopted she/her again.
“But I think what’s important is, like, nobody’s perfect. Everyone messes up pronouns at some point, and especially when people are learning. It’s just all about respect.”
As for their music, Lovato is keeping fans on their toes when it comes to their next career move. Although they shared their plans to quit touring back in December due to ill health, that hasn’t stopped them releasing new music.
They solidified their status as a camp icon in their latest music video “Still Alive” for the Scream VI soundtrack where they fight off Ghostface and even teased their next album with a TikTok of them returning to the recording studio.
