Ilana Glazer Explains How Pregnancy Helped Them Identify As Nonbinary
Ilana Glazer says being pregnant with their daughter led them to a realization about their gender identity.
In a new interview with the U.K.’s Independent, the “Rough Night” star, who lists their pronouns as they/she on social media, told the news outlet, “Being pregnant on paper was the most female thing I could ever do, but it actually highlighted both the masculine and feminine inside of me.”
“For so long, my masculinity felt like something I had to hide or make a joke of, and my femininity was something that felt like drag,” Glazer said in the article published Saturday.
The “Babes” actor, 37, then shared that “there was always this element of comedy” surrounding their identity, which they say “was limiting my genuine personal experience.”
Glazer welcomed their daughter with husband David Rooklin in 2021. The pair tied the knot in 2017.
The comedian also said that the “gift of being pregnant made space for me to be real with myself.”
After being asked if taking on the nonbinary label has altered their life, they added, “It’s more a point in the process of a long journey of self-actualization. I’m moving through the world in a way that’s truer.”
In 2020, Glazer spoke about how starring in Comedy Central’s “Broad City” sitcom alongside Abbi Jacobson helped them ascertain their queerness.
“My queerness has been kind of shown to me through Broad City, and Abbi, too,” she told The Hollywood Reporter at the time. “We’ve both experienced this unique, privileged version of self-actualization, where we’ve gotten to work it out on the show and then reflect and be like, ‘Damn, I wasn’t joking. That was me.’”
“So, I’ve learned a lot from Broad City, including my own queerness and identity politics from reviews and reading people’s pieces,” she added.