Metagender: Difference between revisions

Author Maxfield Sparrow, who has spoken about coming out as metagender in 1992,<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.reddit.com/r/FTMOver30/comments/d98wwv/tell_me_about_your_nonbinary_transition/f1nlfli|title=r/FTMOver30 - Comment by u/MaxfieldSparrow on ”Tell me about your "non-binary transition"?”|last=Sparrow|first=Maxfield|date=2019-09-27|website=reddit|language=en-US|archive-url=|archive-date=|dead-url=|access-date=2020-12-24}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|title=Maxfield Sparrow on Twitter|url=https://twitter.com/UnstrangeMind/status/1337887769511612417|website=twitter|access-date=2020-12-24|language=en-US|date=2020-12-12|last=Sparrow|first=Maxfield|archive-url=|archive-date=|dead-url=|quote=It's great that people decided there should be a word for those who aren't cis and aren't trans but I wish they had not chosen the word [metagender] I've been using since 1992 and defined me out of my own identity and then told me I don't matter because I'm old and my identity is only history}}</ref> wrote about being metagender on various channels across the 2010s.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.facebook.com/UnstrangeMind/posts/735759669859809|title=Unstrange Mind (comment)|last=Sparrow|first=Maxfield|date=2016-08-22|website=www.facebook.com|language=en|archive-url=|archive-date=|dead-url=|access-date=2020-12-28|quote=I am female but not a woman because I'm also male (and not a man). I'm an epicene. I'm metagender. I'm transmasculine.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.sashacagen.com/quirky-alone/quirkyalone-day-cards-from-readers/#comment-350978|title=Comment on 'Happy Quirkyalone Day 2019! Here are some hand-drawn cards from readers'|last=Sparrow|first=Maxfield|date=2019-02-14|website=Sasha Cagen, Quirkyalone + To-Do List Author + Coach|language=en-US|archive-url=|archive-date=|dead-url=|access-date=2020-12-28|quote=I’m performing the poem “Reclaiming Cunt” as an affirmation and validation of my gender and how I express it, as a metagender person with a masculine body presentation.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite tweet|number=973524929856573440|user=UnstrangeMind|title=Thank you. I think words are changing a lot these days. Non-binary didn’t exist when I first started identifying as metagender. And I went 26 years not realizing I was Trans until I felt the need to transition. I’m glad the Trans umbrella is opening up now & more inclusive.|author=Sparrow, Maxfield.|date=2018-03-13}}</ref><ref name=":15">{{Cite web|url=https://transtistic.wordpress.com/2017/06/17/what-is-gendervague/|title=What is Gendervague?|last=Sparrow|first=Maxfield. [unstrangemind]|date=2017-06-17|website=Transtistic|language=en|archive-url=|archive-date=|dead-url=|access-date=2020-12-28|quote=I referred to myself as metagender for many years}}</ref> In Sparrow's 2017 blog essay "What is Metagender," Sparrow described the difficulty of defining the identity, describing its similarity to [[gendervague]].<ref name=":15" /> Sparrow expanded on their metagender identity in a 2018 anthology, writing that metagender "expresses feeling outside the entire paradigm of gender."<ref>{{Cite book|title=Challenging genders: non-binary experiences of those assigned female at birth|last=Sparrow|first=Maxfield|date=2018|publisher=Boundless Endeavors, Inc|year=|isbn=978-0-9968309-6-6|editor-last=Brown|editor-first=Michael Eric|location=Miami, AZ|pages=|quote="I didn't begin identifying as metagender until my 30s. Metagender means that I don't feel like a woman and I don't feel like a man. I don't feel like a gender at all. But I don't feel 'genderless,' either. Metagender is a word that expresses feeling outside the entire paradigm of gender...I am metagender because I don't grasp gender at all."}}</ref>

Transgender once included gender non-conforming people who would now be considered [[cisgender]],<ref name=":12" /><ref name=":17">{{Cite web|url=https://www.lavenderhat.org/2019/03/17/gender-isnt-ternary-either/|title=Gender Isn’t Ternary Either|last=lavenderhat|date=2019-03-17|website=Lavender Hat|language=en-US|access-date=2020-12-30}}</ref> with metagender being alternatively a set containing gender behavior and sexes outside [[binarism]] and [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heteronormativity heteronormativity]<ref name=":12" /> or a super-set containing all means of conceptualizing gender or lack thereof, including transgender definitions.<ref name=":13" /> Complaints about transgender's inclusiveness that specifically contrasted with an expansive definition of metagender emerged as early as 1994.<ref name=":12" /> Metagender was described as a more expansive approach to gender outside strict cis binaries than transgender without being mutually exclusive, meant to show the limitations of a dichotomy to contain all gender experiences.<ref name=":13" />

Metagender developed several niche definitions that some metagender people put under an expansive ''transgressively-gendered'' transgender umbrella<ref name=":14" /> that included [[gender non-conforming]] people.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.them.us/story/inqueery-genderqueer|title=Do You Know What It Means to Be Genderqueer?|last=them|website=them.|language=en-us|access-date=2021-01-01}}</ref> Despite the work of [[Leslie Feinberg]] in the 1990s to coin transgender as a wide and inclusive umbrella term covering all forms of ''transgressive gender'', transgender became more associated with [[Transsexual|transsexualism]], [[gender dysphoria]], and [[Binary genders|binary gender]], while cisgender gender non-conforming people were no longer defined as transgender. [[Transmedicalism|Transmedicalists]] resisted the inclusion of nonbinary people as transgender or under a broader trans umbrella. Some terms were coined by people outside the gender binary out of frustration with the [[transgender]] umbrella. (See "[[Genderqueer#Is Genderqueer Transgender?|Is Genderqueer Transgender?]]") As with others of nonbinary gender, some people using metagender as a gender identity described themselves as technically transgender without identifying as transgender themselves.<ref name=":15" /> Others saw their gender identity as complementary to transgender definitions.<ref name=":3" />

Metagender's re-coining as a gender modality that by definition is for people who are neither cis nor trans (or are not cisgender but do not consider themselves trans) is a stricter contrast to other definitions of transgender and metagender, but as with early definitions of metagender highlights the weakness of a dichotomy to contain all experiences of (non)gender.<ref name=":16" /><ref name=":13" /> While the trans umbrella is broadly seen to include all non-cisgender individuals, the advice of public health, gender diverse advocates, and gender diverse people themselves is to always use the descriptive term preferred by the individual.<ref name=":17" /><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://genderminorities.com/database/glossary-transgender/|title=Trans 101: glossary of trans words and how to use them.|date=2016-06-24|website=Gender Minorities Aotearoa|language=en-US|access-date=2021-01-01}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.transgenderpartners.com/glossary-of-terms|title=Glossary of Terms for Transgender People|website=TransGenderPartners.com|language=en-US|access-date=2021-01-01}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.hrc.org/resources/reporting-about-transgender-people-read-this|title=HRC’s Brief Guide to Getting Transgender Coverage Right|website=HRC|language=en-US|access-date=2021-01-01}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/gender-identity/transgender/transgender-identity-terms-and-labels|title=What Are Appropriate Labels & Terms For Transgender People?|website=www.plannedparenthood.org|language=en|access-date=2021-01-08}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.healthline.com/health/transgender/nonbinary|title=Nonbinary: What Does It Mean?|date=2017-10-20|website=Healthline|language=en|access-date=2021-01-08}}</ref>