Dean Altman
In an interview released Friday, singer Sam Smith opened up about his gender identity and revealed that he is gender non-binary, meaning he is neither male nor female.
Speaking with actor Jameela Jamil (known best for The Good Place) on the debut episode of her new Instagram talk show, “I Weigh Interviews,” Smith said, “I’ve sometimes sat and questioned, do I want a sex change? It’s something I still think about: ‘Do I want to?’ I don’t think it is.”
Sam talked about recently learning the terms “gender queer” and “gender non-binary,” and said those words really resonated with him. He told Jameela, “I’ve never spoken about this. When I saw the words ‘non-binary’ and ‘gender-queer’ and I read into it and I heard these people speaking, I thought f*ck—that is me.”
https://www.instagram.com/tv/BvBXv4FF5sq/?utm_source=ig_embed
Jamil asked Smith, who still prefers male pronouns at present, what those words meant to him, and he explained: “[They] mean to me that you do not identify in a gender, you are just you. You are a mixture of all different things, you are your own special creation. That’s how I take it. I float somewhere in between, it’s all on the spectrum. I’ve always been very free in terms of thinking about sexuality, and I’ve just tried to change that into my thoughts on gender.”
Smith also spoke about body image, revealing to Jamil that he’s struggled with his “from since I can remember, like since I was a baby.” He said, “I used to get my mom to write a note to the school when I was like 8 so I wouldn’t have to go to swimming lessons. So it’s something that’s been in me forever.”
Hecontinued to be self-conscious about his body throughout childhood and had liposuction at 12 years old after a doctor told him his body made too much of the excess of the hormone estrogen, which was basically giving him breasts. “I had some horrible situations in school,” Smith said.
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“At the time I think I was very happy about it,” Smith told Jamil. “It didn’t really change anything. I think I put the weight back on in two weeks because I hadn’t figured out my relationship with food, so it didn’t really change anything. But being 12 years old and having liposuction on your chest is quite a big deal.”
The issues with body image persisted beyond childhood, too. “It’s the basis of all my sadness,” he said. “Literally everything I’ve ever been sad about is my weight. I struggle with it every day.”
In February, Smith posted an emotional Instagram where he talked about “body trauma.”
https://www.instagram.com/p/Btypu_iAaVt/?utm_source=ig_embed
After the interview, Smith tweeted that speaking with Jamil “completely changed my life.”
A few months ago, I sat down with @jameelajamil and spoke with her for her incredible @_iweigh movement. I know this sounds dramatic but this interview completely changed my life. Watch in full on my IGTV now (please be kind haha) xx pic.twitter.com/IMDLSUayso
— SAM SMITH (@samsmith) March 15, 2019
We are so happy and excited for Smith and his ongoing journey of self-discovery.
h/t: BuzzFeed News
