THEYFRIEND
Performances that uplift, center, & celebrate nonbinary identity!
PERFORMANCE FESTIVAL
NONBINARY
The world’s first performance festival uplifting, centering, and celebrating nonbinary identity! Happening annually during Transgender Awareness Week (observed the week before Trans Day of Remembrance on November 20)–
THEYFRIEND creates a simultaneously gender-free and gender-full container for gender expansive artists to imagine, play, dream, and connect.
THEYFRIEND began in 2020 as a virtual artist salon featuring five national nonbinary performing artists. In 2021 we established THEYFRIEND as a festival and, since then, have steadily grown to feature a breadth of Bay Area, CA-based, national, and international nonbinary performers.
As the festival continues to grow, we are driven by the same goals:
Present quality performances
Showcase disparate nonbinary artists
Offer an engaging environment for people of all gender expressions to explore life outside the binary
And we love
(and couldn’t do this without)
our community partners!
We are proud to offer THEYFRIEND in collaboration with a multitude of community partners. Some past partners have included: the Transgender District, the Leather & LGBTQ District, Harvey Milk Center for the Arts, Intersection for the Arts, Queer LifeSpace, San Francisco Public Library, OASIS, El Rio, Brava! For Women in the Arts, the San Francisco Transgender Film Festival, the 510 Firehouse, and KQED Live.
TALK TO US ABOUT BECOMING A PARTNER →
THEYFRIEND Archive
NONBINARY COMMUNITY EVENTS!
Diamond Wave has expanded THEYFRIEND to bring you nonbinary belonging all year long!
In partnership with local queer organizations and arts venues, we are offering year-round THEYFRIEND events to uplift nonbinary performers and to foster nonbinary community. Explore our recent year-round THEYFRIEND programs below, and keep an eye out for this year’s events!
THEYFRIEND Artists have included:
Billy Dean Thomas
Dorian Wood
KB Boyce
Cassils
Kanyon Sayers-Roods
Edgar Fabián Frías
Stuart Getty
Evan Spigelman / Mz Aza Metric
Sharmi Basu
Tyler Holmes
Vin Seaman
Hennessy Williams
Kanyon Coyote-Woman Sayers-Roods
LOTUS BOY
Papi Churro
Beatrice L. Thomas / Black Benatar
The Living Altar
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Rawiyah Tariq
Syd Franz
Castle Laws of Pleeay
Criibaby
Alder Duan Hurley
DeVery Bess
Goddexx
Gothess Jasmine
Harddeep Singh
Krudas Cubensi
Ling Ling Super Bloom
mirrored fatality
Mojo Carter
Riy Mutakabbir
SNJV
TAYLOR ALXNDR
Xtra.dae
JanpiStar
Piss E Sissy
Jota Mercury
WHY THEYFRIEND?
THEYFRIEND seeks to combat the erasure of nonbinary people, and to provide a welcome space for people of all genders to imagine and embody life outside the binary.
Although formal language surrounding the government recognition of nonbinary gender identity is a fairly recent phenomenon, nonbinary people have long and rich histories throughout the world (Akava’ine, Baklâ, Bissu, Fa’afafine, Hen, Hijra, Mahu, Muxe, Two-Spirit, etc.) and within contemporary queer community (agender, bigender, genderfluid, genderfuck, gender neutral, genderqueer, polygender, third gender, etc.). In the U.S., an estimated 1.2 million adults identify as nonbinary (Williams Institute, 2021), with an estimated 220,000 trans and nonbinary adults in CA, and the nearly 16,000 Californians who chose an “X” gender marker on their ID (as of 2019). Yet despite our pre-colonial histories and sustained growth as a distinct segment of the LGBTQIA2S+ community, we continue to face oppression and erasure.
Through performances, gatherings, and public conversations, THEYFRIEND uplifts the perspectives and artistry of diverse nonbinary performers and deepens understanding of nonbinary identity.
THEYFRIEND is supported by the California Arts Council, the Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation and the Hormel LGBTQIA Center at San Francisco Public Library, and is presented in partnership with Brava! for Women in the Arts, the LEATHER & LGBTQ Cultural District, Oasis, the San Francisco Transgender Film Festival and the Transgender District. Diamond Wave is a fiscally sponsored project of Intersection for the Arts that is supported by Grants for the Arts, the Horizons Foundation, the Walter & Elise Haas Fund, and the San Francisco Arts Commission.
