History of nonbinary gender: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 23:23, 5 December 2020

Content warningThis article mentions some troubling events that could be traumatic for some readers. Some historical quotes use language that is now seen as offensive. If you are not comfortable with reading about this kind of topic, we suggest you take a step back.

This article on the history of nonbinary gender should focus on events directly or indirectly concerning people with nonbinary gender identities. It should not be about LGBT history in general. However, this history will likely need to give dates for a few events about things other than nonbinary gender, such as major events that increased visibility of transgender people in general, gender variant people from early history who may or may not have been what we think of as nonbinary, and laws that concern intersex people that can also have an effect on the legal rights of nonbinary people.

Tips

Here are some tips for writing respectfully about historical gender variant people whose actual preferred names, pronouns, and gender identities might not be known.

Dead names. It is disrespectful to call a transgender person by their former name ("dead name") rather than the name that they chose for themself. Some consider their dead name a secret that shouldn't be put in public at all. For living transgender people in particular, this history should show only their chosen names, not their dead names. In this history, some deceased historical transgender persons may have their birth names shown in addition to their chosen names, in cases where it is not known which name they preferred, or where it is otherwise impossible to find information about that person, if one wants to research their history. This should be written in the form of "Chosen Name (née Birth Name)." If history isn't sure which name that person earnestly preferred, write it in the form of "Name, or Other Name."

Pronouns. It is disrespectful to call a person by pronouns other than those that they ask for. Some historical persons whose preferred pronouns aren't known should be called here by no pronouns. If this isn't possible, they pronouns.

Words for a person's gender, assigned and otherwise. It is disrespectful to label a person's gender otherwise than they ask for, but it's not always possible to do so. In the case of some historical people, history has recorded how they lived, and what gender they were assigned at birth, but not how they preferred to label their gender identity. For example, it's not known whether certain historical people who were assigned female at birth (

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+*In August, a user on the Asexual Visibility and Education Network forums took the "demi-" from "demiromantic" and came up with the term "demiguy".<ref>https://www.asexuality.org/en/topic/52633-transwhatevers-of-aven/page/20/?tab=comments#comment-1615634</ref> This concept would eventually catch on and broaden into an array of [[demigender]] labels.
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 *In December, the US state of Arkansas enacted a policy allowing gender on drivers' licenses and state ID cards to be changed to M, F, or X with "no questions asked, no documentation required". However, this policy received very little attention until 2018.<ref name="Qong">{{Cite web |title=Arkansas Has Been Offering A Nonbinary Gender Option On State IDs For Years |last=Wong |first=Curtis M. |work=HuffPost |date=October 17, 2018 |access-date=June 1, 2020 |url= https://www.huffpost.com/entry/arkansas-gender-neutral-state-id-option_n_5bc79f75e4b0d38b5874a669}}</ref>