YOUTH 2020 - The position of young people in Slovenia

54 people who would want to explicitly emphasize their alternative gender identities. It must be said that our gender question was posed verbally and in a standard way, meaning that the questioner did not specifically emphasize the possibility of choosing “Other”. Moreover, transcending binary gender divisions is still socially stigmatized, which might ac- count for why at least a few of our respondents who probably would have chosen “Other” in ideal conditions did not do so presently. That non-binary gender identities definitely exist is clearly articulated by our interviewee Nika. “I am right in the process of thinking about my identities, and I have chosen to stick with the pronoun ‘she’ in Slovene, but have already asked a few peo- ple if they can use the pronoun ‘they’ when addressing me in English /…/ This is related to my non-heterosexual orientation, which is also a big part of me, or is something that is easier for me to identify with in the negative form. I have this problem that I cannot really explain what my gender iden- tity is, and because I do not accept a binary concept of gender I have trouble articulating what my gender identity is in the positive. (Nika, 27 years old, doctoral student, currently residing in London) When investing youth gender identities, we cannot skip over the the- matically related issue of sexual orientation. In our study, we measured sexual orientation using the standard Kinsey scale (Kinsey, 1948).