Metagender: Difference between revisions

619 bytes added ,  3 years ago
→‎Metagender's relationship with Transgender: added some bullet points to summarize the relationship, broke up the final paragraph to emphasize that some people see themselves as falling under the transgender umbrella and some do not
imported>GutenMorganism
m (→‎Uses through history: & →‎Academic and technical usage: changes uses to usage because it's what I see more on wikipedia)
imported>GutenMorganism
(→‎Metagender's relationship with Transgender: added some bullet points to summarize the relationship, broke up the final paragraph to emphasize that some people see themselves as falling under the transgender umbrella and some do not)
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{{Quote|Metagender opens up uninhibited freedom to be myself; a one-size-fits-me label that is no particular gender but neither is it agender. It is a slippery, slithery gender that evades every attempt to define it; a trickster gender. (Every person in this conformist culture who does not identify with their assigned gender is forced in some way to become a trickster, even if they would not be otherwise. Metagender is trickster to the core.) Ask nine metagender people what metagender means and you'll get twelve answers.<ref name=":19" />|Jaina Bee|March 15, 2015}}
{{Quote|Metagender opens up uninhibited freedom to be myself; a one-size-fits-me label that is no particular gender but neither is it agender. It is a slippery, slithery gender that evades every attempt to define it; a trickster gender. (Every person in this conformist culture who does not identify with their assigned gender is forced in some way to become a trickster, even if they would not be otherwise. Metagender is trickster to the core.) Ask nine metagender people what metagender means and you'll get twelve answers.<ref name=":19" />|Jaina Bee|March 15, 2015}}


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>
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=":20">{{Cite web|url=https://transtistic.wordpress.com/2017/07/11/what-is-metagender/|title=What is Metagender?|last=Sparrow|first=Maxfield. [unstrangemind]|date=2017-07-11|website=Transtistic|language=en|archive-url=|archive-date=|dead-url=|access-date=2021-01-21|user=}}</ref> 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>


In interviews for a 2018 thesis, an anonymous interviewee described metagender as an identity "beyond gender."<ref>Jacobson, Ariele (2018). ''[https://ruor.uottawa.ca/bitstream/10393/38056/1/Jacobson_Ariele_2018_thesis.pdf To Lessen Repression and Depression: The Relationship Between Sexual Repression and Mental Health Among Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Individuals]'' (M.A. thesis, PDF). Saint Paul University. p. 21, 93.</ref>  
In interviews for a 2018 thesis, an anonymous interviewee described metagender as an identity "beyond gender."<ref>Jacobson, Ariele (2018). ''[https://ruor.uottawa.ca/bitstream/10393/38056/1/Jacobson_Ariele_2018_thesis.pdf To Lessen Repression and Depression: The Relationship Between Sexual Repression and Mental Health Among Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Individuals]'' (M.A. thesis, PDF). Saint Paul University. p. 21, 93.</ref>  
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Metagender's relationship with [[transgender]] has taken multiple forms over the decades. Both terms have gained less expansive definitions and more specific connotations, with some definitions overlapping and some contrasting to the point of mutual exclusion.
Metagender's relationship with [[transgender]] has taken multiple forms over the decades. Both terms have gained less expansive definitions and more specific connotations, with some definitions overlapping and some contrasting to the point of mutual exclusion.


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 has:


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" />
* Contained transgender
* Been contained by transgender
* Overlapped with transgender
* Been mutually exclusive with transgender
* Been tangentially related to transgender
* Been unrelated to transgender


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>
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 description for 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 genderqueer or nonbinary gender, some people of metagender gender identity described themselves as technically transgender without identifying as transgender themselves or vice versa.<ref name=":20" /> 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" />  
 
Some metagender people consider themselves to fall under the transgender umbrella and some do not. 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(s) 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>  
==References==
==References==
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