X-gender

X-gender (Xジェンダー x-jendā, or エックスジェンダー ekkusu-jendā) is a common transgender identity that isn't female or male. The word X-gender is used in Japan in the same way that genderqueer and nonbinary are used in English. According to a 2019 online survey conducted by the Japan LGBT Research Institute, 8,700 out of of 348,000 respondents aged 20 to 69 identified themselves as X-gender.

Etymology
The "X" in X-gender has many possible origins. It is sometimes incorrectly interpreted as an abbreviation of "cross", as in "cross-gender".

In mathematics, an X represents an unknown variable.

In some countries, a similar term “X gender” is used in official paperwork to represent a gender other than man or woman.

History
The term "X-gender" began to be used in the queer communities of Kansai, in Osaka and Kyoto, during the latter half of the 1990s, when it appeared in writings published by queer organizations in those regions. Later Chinese queer community borrowed the terms "FtX" and "MtX".

There is a widespread practice of trans women and people on the trans-feminine spectrum abbreviating their transition direction, "male-to-female", as "MtF". Meanwhile, trans men and people on the trans-masculine spectrum abbreviating "female-to-male" as "FtM". Following this, trans people who don't identify as male or female substitute an X for their transition direction. X-gender and other nonbinary people have described their transition direction as "male-to-X" as "MtX", and "female-to-X". The term "XtX" is also used by people who were born with an intersex condition and have a gender identity that is neither male nor female.

Characteristics
There are several categories of gender in X-gender. Chiefly, there are thought to be four: neutral (中性), which is between male and female; bigender (両性), which is somewhat both; genderfluid (不定性), which changes between genders in different situations; and agender (無性), which have no gender of their own. There is no need to be bound by these four categories.

In addition to the above, it is thought that there are various gender identities. In addition, male gender identity is dominant in neutral or bigender X-gender as male X-gender, whereas when female gender identity is dominant, it is sometimes referred to as female X-gender. Furthermore, there can be differences in the proportion of the male and female they feel, and since there are also X-gender and others with neutral or bigender identities other than the concept of men and women, even among those belonging to either one, it is said that there are no two people with the same gender identity in X gender.

X-gender is a gender identity, not a romantic or sexual orientation. X-gender people may feel attraction to men, women, both, and/or other X-gender people, or they may be asexual (feeling no sexual attraction to anybody).

Sonja Dale, a researcher of gender issues at Tokyo's Hitotsubashi University, says that X-gender people often suffer from discrimination, abuse, and pressure to conform to gender norms. This makes them "almost twice as likely to suffer from depression or anxiety disorders as those who identify as male or female," according to a survey conducted by Tokyo's International Christian University.

Online communities

 * MtXとFtX・Xジェンダー・GDのための会員制サークル 「label X(ラベル・エックス)」 (Membership circle for MtX, FtX, and X-gender)

Notable X-gender people
See main article: Notable nonbinary people

There are many more notable people who have a gender identity outside of the binary. The following are only some of those notable people who specifically use the word "x-gender" for themselves.


 * M A Joy is a manga artist and illustrator working in Tokyo. They made this comic about how they realized they were x-gender.
 * Yuhki Kamatani (鎌谷 悠希) (b. 1983) is a Japanese manga artist and illustrator, best known for their first serialized series Nabari no Ou, published by Square Enix. Having come out in a 2012 tweet, Kamatani identifies as X-gender and asexual. In their Twitter profile, Kamatani notes their gender as "toX"—following the tradition of transgender individuals identifying as FTM or MTF—which conceals their assigned at birth gender.
 * Morita Shinichi is one of the founding members of an LGBT rights group in the 1990s called G-Front. Morita describes themself as jenda-furi (genderfree), x-gender, and "MTFTX gay." Morita said, "there exists no word for transsexual or transgendered individuals who do not clearly aim to be distinctly male or female. As such, I just use the term 'x-jendā' to talk about my way of being."
 * Yuu Watase (渡瀬 悠宇) (b. 1970) is a Japanese shōjo manga artist, known for creating comics such as Fushigi Yūgi. Watase received the Shogakukan Manga Award for shōjo for Ceres, Celestial Legend in 1997. In May 2019, Watase came out as x-gender.

X-gender characters in fiction
See main article: Nonbinary gender in fiction

There are many more nonbinary characters in fiction who have a gender identity outside of the binary. The following are only some of those characters who are specifically called by the words "x-gender," either in their canon, or by their creators.

Yuta "Yū" Asuka (飛鳥 悠, Asuka Yūta) from the Tokyo Broadcasting System TV anime series Stars Align had a short arc that touched on how they were questioning their gender identity. During this they tell Maki that they want to be referred to with gender neutral language and that they think they are X-gender but don't want to be categorized.

Testament (テスタメント) from the Guilty Gear fighting game series is canonically musei (無性), neither male nor female, which is a category of X-gender.

Kamen Rider Naki (仮面ライダーシリーズ亡) from Kamen Rider Zero-One, the first Kamen Rider series from the Reiwa era, is a X-gendered Kamen Rider and is even played by a trans actor who at the time was X-gender but now identifies as a Trans Man.

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