Storify is shutting down in May and has informed users that we have to migrate our content elsewhere if we wish to save it. This is one of my old threads.
I feel I should just do a thread on gender terms? Would that help people at all? Maybe? A lot of them are going to be copy-pasta from this excellent round-up, but with some added commentary. Understand that there is not One True Definition for a lot of these. The words mean what the users mean them to mean.
Agender, defined by one link as "the feeling of no gender/absence of gender or neutral gender".
Agenderflux, sometimes defined as "being mostly agender except having small shifts towards other genders".
Anogender, defined above as "a gender that fades in and out but always comes back to the same feeling".
Anxiegender, which lemme tell you gives me FEELS: "a gender that is affected by anxiety".
Apagender: "a feeling of apathy towards ones gender which leads to them not looking any further into it".
Bigender, sometimes defined as having "two genders", but not necessarily always or at the same time.
Blurgender (sometimes Genderfuzz), "more than one gender but they blur together and are difficult to individually distinguish."
Boyflux, above defined as "when one feels mostly or all male most of the time but experience fluctuating intensity of male identity."
Demifluid, is another multi-gender one for demigender people. Some are static and some are fluid.
Demiflux is similar to Demifluid. Fluctuating demigenders. But what's "demigender", I hear you ask? Demigender: "a gender that is partially one gender and partially another". I'm a demigirl, btw. Some of my best friends are demigirls and I know a couple of great demiboys. We're girls/boys but we're also something else, gender-wise.
Exgender, defined above as "the outright refusal to accept or identify in, on, or around the gender spectrum".
Femgender ("a nonbinary gender which is feminine in nature") and Femflux and Femfluid are also genders I'm familiar with. (I tend to lump feminine nonbinary folks into a term I coined which is "femby". I'm fond of it for myself and friends.)
Genderflux, which is when your gender fluctuates in intensity. In general, "fluid" is about an identity that shifts sideways and "flux" is about an identity that shifts in intensity. You can be both!
Girlflux, defined above "when one feels mostly or all female most of the time but experiences fluctuating intensities of female identity".
Greygender, here defined as "having a gender that is mostly outside of the binary but is weak and can barely be felt".
Mascgender ("a non-binary gender which is masculine in nature") and Mascfluid and Mascflux all exist. (We saw the Fem versions earlier.)
Maverique is a specific gender that is "separate from masculinity, femininity, and neutrality". Some people call Maverique a "third gender", but there are a million "third" genders so I shy away from the numbering attempts.
Multigender and Polygender exist in addition to Bigender: "having more than one simultaneous or fluctuating gender". Omnigender exists too.
Oneirogender is mentioned here as "being agender, but having recurring fantasies or daydreams of being a certain gender".
Pangender is complicated because it's being all the genders, but this is tricky because SOME of the genders are not available to everyone. There are some genders that are only available to people of a certain race, or intersex people, or people with specific mental conditions. So Pangender has been retained with the understanding that it's all the genders available to that person, not All Genders Ever.
Quoigender, which I like the definition of here: feeling as if the concept of gender is inapplicable or nonsensical to one’s self".
Trigender, which you could probably extrapolate from bigender: "having three simultaneous or fluctuating genders".
Note that the bi, tri, poly, and multi genders don't require you to hold all your genders at the same time. They can fluid and flux.
So okay that's a bunch of words, Ana, help. Deep breath. Let me back up.
(1) We were most all of us assigned a gender at birth. If that gender still feels like a fit for you, that's "cisgender".
(2) If that assigned birth gender is NOT a fit for you, you're probably "transgender" (but note that not everyone embraces that word). (For example, there are some agender people who do not like being called transgender. We respect this choice!)
(3) If you're transgender (i.e., don't fit the assigned gender from birth), you get to work out what ACTUAL gender you are.
(4) If it's one of the Big Two in our society (Man and Woman), then you're a binary transgender person. Yay! That's awesome!
(5) If your gender is NOT one of the Big Two in our society, then you're a nonbinary (NB or "enby") transgender person. That's awesome too!
(6) If you're a nonbinary transgender person, you get to find words that fit your gender and those words MAY be the words defined above.
(7) NONE of those words are mutually exclusive. It's up to you to decide which and how many fit you. Your choice.
For the record, I'm:
- Genderqueer (umbrella term)
- Genderfluid (gender changes at times)
- Demigirl (predominantly girl+)
I hope this has been helpful? The point is there are a LOT of words out there to describe gender and you're allowed to look into them! And it doesn't make you a special snowflake or whatever and even if it did: You're Allowed!! Goddamnit, why shouldn't you be special? I don't die my gray hairs any old brunette color they have on hand, I'm Dark Caramel Blonde # FA1245 or whatever matches my roots best. Just saying!
Very occasionally when I talk about gender terms like these, someone will be like "well in that case, EVERYONE is nonbinary!!" I consider that a silly statement; we very clearly have binary men and women in our midst. But I will say if these terms resonate with YOU as something you feel you obviously are? like... it's okay... to just be nonbinary? You totally can!
You don't need a permission slip to be nonbinary. You don't even have to decide you're trans first! That can come later. I knew I was a demigirl but it took awhile for "trans" to fit. And I think that's very normal, to be honest. Not because trans is a bad thing but because our popular idea of it is very binary, plus I didn't want to take a term I hadn't earned.
But the more I embraced my nonbinary gender the more I realized just how much I was NOT cis. The concept didn't fit me at all. I was trans. So if you're exploring through your identity, just remember you're allowed to be gentle with yourself and you can take it slow if you need.
Oh, shit, I nearly forgot to talk about pronouns. This is my favorite list of gender-neutral pronouns. But people get confused about pronouns. Sometimes people ask which pronouns go with which gender. They don't! You can be nonbinary and still use he or she because it's what you're used to and it might not bother you. That's okay!
You're not LESS nonbinary for using he or she if you like. Pronouns don't have a gender attached to them. If he and she don't fit you, there are a zillion other pronouns to look into that might--and you can use ANY of them. Neo-pronouns ("new" pronouns) don't specifically map to certain gender identities.
If you'd like to read a book with neo-pronouns in them, just see what they look like, my SURVIVAL ROUT uses xie/xer (my pronouns!), and POISON KISS uses nee/ner pronouns in it. There's also a pronoun "dressing room" you can use for yourself. Here is a piece by a friend, which uses xie/xir and zie/zir!
And hopefully all the above explains why there's a big difference between being attracted to 2+ genders vs. all the genders.
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