Maria Munir came out to Barack Obama

The parents of a student who came out to Barack Obama as non-binary have reacted positively, the student has said.

Maria Munir, 20, a politics and international relations student from Watford, was given the microphone during a question and answer session with Obama attended by 500 young people on Saturday in London. In front of a packed hall, Munir said to the US president: “I’m about to do something terrifying, which is I’m coming out to you as a non-binary person … In the UK we don’t recognise non-binary people under the Equality Act, so we literally have no rights.” It was the first time Munir had publicly identified as being non-binary.

Non-binary is a term used to describe people who do not identify as male or female. “I had actually intended to ask Obama about his regrets with regards to intervening in Libya, but then it occurred to me that this is a brilliant time to put the spotlight on an issue which has often been ignored or superseded by others,” Munir told the Guardian.

“I realised that if anyone was going to accept me for who I am, it would have to be Obama, one of the most powerful men in the world. I thought if he can’t do that or if he says anything negative then that will galvanise a lot of people into contemplating what it is we really mean when we say we are a liberal society.” Munir had presumed there was a very slim chance of getting picked for a question. But the student was handed the microphone – at which point, Munir said, the “blood ran cold”.

“I come from a Pakistani-Muslim background, and within our community such gender identities are not easily accepted. I was acutely aware of the burden and the pressure that would be placed upon my parents if I came out to them before now. I was thinking: how can I have the audacity to say this? Will the words actually be able to leave my mouth? Will I retract everything and sit back down?

“All these thoughts were running through my mind like crazy. I just kept thinking about whether my family would accept me if I said this, whether people would abuse them, whether the community would still allow me to be a part of it. “But then I thought: it’s now or never – this is my one chance to really make a statement, and if I do then hopefully people from around the world will be able to unite on this issue, and maybe using the impetus we’d actually be able to exact some real change. So I went through with it somehow.”

After the statement, Munir received cheers and was approached by many people who wished to offer their congratulations, as well as a press mob seeking interviews. “That felt the opposite of what I thought I should be receiving,” Munir said. “All I could think was my parents are probably so confused right now. It wasn’t for a few hours that I got to talk to them, which was really difficult for me because they are one of my biggest beacons of support. Their response has been positive. I’m really grateful that they opened their minds to this issue and are understanding it better.”

Of course, that is partly to do with the way Munir came out. “I think if I had this conversation on an ordinary day with nothing to precede it, it would have been met with a bit more ambivalence, but the fact that I said it to Barack Obama … that probably helped me.”

Munir said Obama should do more for LGBTQ people in North Carolina, where legislation requires transgender people to use public bathrooms according to the gender on their birth certificates: “What could you do to go beyond what is accepted as the LGBTQ rights movement?” she asked on Saturday.

Obama replied: “You should feel encouraged just by virtue of the fact social attitudes on this issue have changed faster than I’ve seen on any other issue … It doesn’t feel fast enough for you, or for those who are impacted, and that’s good, you shouldn’t feel satisfied, you should keep pushing. “But I think the trend lines are good on this, we’re moving in the right direction – in part because of courageous and active young people like yourself.”

Obama added that David Cameron was “ahead of the curve” on LGBTQ issues compared with many other world leaders. This response, Munir said, showed that the president was “quite thrown” by the question. “He could have said more, but then people can always do more.

From what I believe, that was the first time in the Q&A that he actually sat down on his stool. It seemed almost as though he was completely unprepared for even talking about non-binary gender or lack of. He didn’t even say the words ‘non-binary’, he essentially said someone in your situation, which to me implies that he didn’t truly understand what I meant.

“I think this is because of a lack of education around the issue. It’s almost perfect in a way that even the president of the United States isn’t fully informed on non-binary issues, because it really puts it home that so many people around the world need to be informed on this.”